Cart DB #324: Pro Action Replay

Notes for chip search:

Use "+" as delimeter for all fields (except "cart name", where space is used); if many values are entered, all of them must appear in the cartridge then; case is not sensitive
"Mapper" is the actual mapper used by this cartridge hardware (might not match the one at wiki.nesdev.com, as at the moment I was analyzing this cartridge, there was no mapper assigned to it, so I had to assign my own number for testing)
"Original mapper" is the mapper used by licensed version of this game (for multicarts, it refers to mapper of the inside games, so 0+2 means this cartridge can run NROM+UNROM games)
Order in which you put values doesn't matter (you can write 7400+74138+7400 or 7400+7400+74138 to search for a cartridge that contains at least two 7400 chips and one 74138
Some chips (like PAL16*8) appear in cartridges as 16V8 or 16L8, so be sure to check both posibilities
Same goes for memories - type 27F080 to search for 32 pin memories, 27512 for 28 pin with two chip enables or MASKROM_1M_DIP28 for 28 pin with one chip enable
Same goes for mappers - some examples: AX5904(MMC1), AX5202P(MMC3), PT8154BM (9112MMC3), AX5208C(VRC4), 23C3662(VRC2)
Good news is that you can use wildcards, so 74139+*MMC3* will search for any cartrige that has at least one 74139 and MMC3 chip in any version

Name	Value
IC1	27256
IC2	27256
IC3	6264
IC4	7432
IC5	7474
IC6	ICL7660CPA
IC7	20V8
C1	?
C2	?
C3	?
C4	100u/10V
C5	10u/16V
C6	?
CART	NES_CART
D1
D2
D3
D4
NES	NES_CART
R1	470k
R2	1k
R3	4.7k
S1	SW_SLIDING

Name

Value

IC1

IC2

IC3

IC4

IC5

IC6

IC7

100u/10V

10u/16V

CART

NES_CART

NES

NES_CART

470k

4.7k

SW_SLIDING

There exist a few cartridge-through cheat accessories for NES/Famicom: * Gallob's Game Genie (NES) [url=https://obrazki.elektroda.pl/9135865100_1583661388_org.jpg][img]https://obrazki.elektroda.pl/9135865100_1583661388_thumb.jpg[/img][/url] [url=https://obrazki.elektroda.pl/5697661600_1583661391_org.jpg][img]https://obrazki.elektroda.pl/5697661600_1583661391_thumb.jpg[/img][/url] * Datel's Pro Action Replay (NES) [url=https://obrazki.elektroda.pl/7490312400_1583660694_org.jpg][img]https://obrazki.elektroda.pl/7490312400_1583660694_thumb.jpg[/img][/url] * Prevo's Pro Action Rocky (Famicom) [url=https://obrazki.elektroda.pl/7406807400_1583660616_org.jpg][img]https://obrazki.elektroda.pl/7406807400_1583660616_thumb.jpg[/img][/url] [url=https://obrazki.elektroda.pl/9695226700_1583660620_org.jpg][img]https://obrazki.elektroda.pl/9695226700_1583660620_thumb.jpg[/img][/url] * QJ's Game Action Replay SV-801 (NES) [url=https://obrazki.elektroda.pl/8206271400_1583661426_org.jpg][img]https://obrazki.elektroda.pl/8206271400_1583661426_thumb.jpg[/img][/url] [url=https://obrazki.elektroda.pl/3469041500_1583661442_org.jpg][img]https://obrazki.elektroda.pl/3469041500_1583661442_thumb.jpg[/img][/url] [url=https://obrazki.elektroda.pl/7363427200_1583661444_org.jpg][img]https://obrazki.elektroda.pl/7363427200_1583661444_thumb.jpg[/img][/url] * My KrzysioGenie (Famicom) that I believe to be released soon :D [url=https://obrazki.elektroda.pl/5581424300_1504736580.jpg][img]https://obrazki.elektroda.pl/5581424300_1504736580_thumb.jpg[/img] The first three ones allow player to enter codes to alter game behaviour, fourth one allows saving/restoring game state in any moment. Game Genie is the most popular one, implemented in many emulators and appears in a few revisions (fully DIP chipped PCBs or one-big-blog). Even I've found it embeeded in one console: [url=https://obrazki.elektroda.pl/3067607200_1583661632.jpg][img]https://obrazki.elektroda.pl/3067607200_1583661632_thumb.jpg[/img][/url] [url=https://obrazki.elektroda.pl/8028836000_1583661637.jpg][img]https://obrazki.elektroda.pl/8028836000_1583661637_thumb.jpg[/img][/url] Unfortunately there is not much info about the last three ones. I got Pro Action Replay so now it's high time to reveal some mysteries. [b]If somebody of you readers are in possession or know someone that is in possession of [i]Prevo's Pro Action Rocky (Famicom)[/i] or [i]QJ's Game Action Replay SV-801 (NES)[/i], I would be more than happy if you could get the images of internals. There is almost no info on the internet, just a few low-quality photos of the GAR. -- I did not have any clue how `Datel's Pro Action Replay` works. My guesses after briefly examining [url=https://www.consoledatabase.com/accessories/nes/datelproactionreplay/]a few articles[/a] was that it is somewhat similar to Game Genie, but the codes are different plus there is something called [i]trainer[/i], so I expected inside some big ASIC chip + memories. Instead, there is just a PAL, PRG-ROM, PRG-RAM, CHR-ROM, a few logic and a switch: [url=https://obrazki.elektroda.pl/7582889600_1583670610_org.jpg][img]https://obrazki.elektroda.pl/7582889600_1583670610_thumb.jpg[/img][/url] [url=https://obrazki.elektroda.pl/4920063300_1583670615_org.jpg][img]https://obrazki.elektroda.pl/4920063300_1583670615_thumb.jpg[/img][/url] [url=https://obrazki.elektroda.pl/1612085200_1583670619_org.jpg][img]https://obrazki.elektroda.pl/1612085200_1583670619_thumb.jpg[/img][/url] The PCB is 1.6mm thick so will wear the connector. I started rev-ing the board but I noticed that it has 3 layers (the only PCB with more than 2 layers I've encountered so far was the [url=https://forums.nesdev.com/viewtopic.php?t=18530]Famicom Network System[/url]. I needed to update my KrzysioPCB software to support that. Fortunatelly the internal layer is close to the top one, so lighting the board while scanning revealed it. I still had to make continuity tests for many vias, but that way here is exact layout of the tracks for 3 layers: [url=https://obrazki.elektroda.pl/2639224000_1583671898_org.jpg][img]https://obrazki.elektroda.pl/2639224000_1583671898_thumb.jpg[/img][/url] [url=https://obrazki.elektroda.pl/3126971300_1583671900_org.jpg][img]https://obrazki.elektroda.pl/3126971300_1583671900_thumb.jpg[/img][/url] [url=https://obrazki.elektroda.pl/7075412100_1583671902_org.jpg][img]https://obrazki.elektroda.pl/7075412100_1583671902_thumb.jpg[/img][/url] For those of you that do not know - few years ago I wrote and published an application, that I use for all my PCB reverse engineering projects. You load top/bottom the images of board, enter locations for pins/smds, draw traces, assign components and finally it generates for you Eagle schematic. Manual: https://translate.google.pl/translate?hl=pl&sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.elektroda.pl%2Frtvforum%2Ftopic3247421.html Example of use (sorry, no english subtitles at the moment): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0baNbMdQho -- How it works: 1. There are rumours that the switch can be used to switch between PAL/NTSC. Truth is that there is H7660 negative voltage charge pump and the switch changes if the CIC-RST line is wired to the negative voltage (position towards NES connector) or if it is wired to the cartridge CIC-RST line, using its CIC (position toward cartridge connector) [img]https://obrazki.elektroda.pl/6588943700_1583672447.png[/img] 2. All lines, except CPU-A14, CPU-/ROMSEL, PPU-/RD are directly connected on both slots. 3. There is a reset detector (based on watching if CPU-A0 toggles or not). Quite weird - it filters out the DC component and then shorts the negative part to ground. [img]https://obrazki.elektroda.pl/5101905200_1583672707.png[/img] 4. There are two latches that switches between REPLAY/NORMAL mode (one for PRG and one for CHR) In DEFAULT mode, CPU-A14, CPU-/ROMSEL and PPU-/RD on the cart side follows the ones on NES side. In REPLAY mode (which is default after reset): * CPU-/ROMSEL and PPU-/RD on the cartridge side are asserted high. * REPLAY-PRG-ROM is enabled for read/writes $8000-$ffff (bus conflicts!) * REPLAY-CHR-ROM for $0000-$1fff. * CPU-A14 on the cart side is asserted low, so that every read/write is seen by cartridge to be in $0000-$3fff. That way, it prevents cartridge to drive data bus below $8000 (for example at $6000 if there is RAM, at $5c00 if it is MMC5-EXRAM or any other read/write register in that range). Ideally, CPU-A13 also should be asserted low because that way if some mapper (like MMC5) checks for PPU read/writes, it might alter its operation. Switching to REPLAY mode for PRG and CHR, as well as WRAM-/CE are asserted by the PAL (which sniffs all CPU address lines, but not R/W). [img]https://obrazki.elektroda.pl/4980161300_1583673648.png[/img]

Cart name		Notes for chip search: Use "+" as delimeter for all fields (except "cart name", where space is used); if many values are entered, all of them must appear in the cartridge then; case is not sensitive "Mapper" is the actual mapper used by this cartridge hardware (might not match the one at wiki.nesdev.com, as at the moment I was analyzing this cartridge, there was no mapper assigned to it, so I had to assign my own number for testing) "Original mapper" is the mapper used by licensed version of this game (for multicarts, it refers to mapper of the inside games, so 0+2 means this cartridge can run NROM+UNROM games) Order in which you put values doesn't matter (you can write 7400+74138+7400 or 7400+7400+74138 to search for a cartridge that contains at least two 7400 chips and one 74138 Some chips (like PAL168) appear in cartridges as 16V8 or 16L8, so be sure to check both posibilities Same goes for memories - type 27F080 to search for 32 pin memories, 27512 for 28 pin with two chip enables or MASKROM_1M_DIP28 for 28 pin with one chip enable Same goes for mappers - some examples: AX5904(MMC1), AX5202P(MMC3), PT8154BM (9112MMC3), AX5208C(VRC4), 23C3662(VRC2) Good news is that you can use wildcards, so 74139+MMC3* will search for any cartrige that has at least one 74139 and MMC3 chip in any version
Mapper#
Original mapper#
PCB marks
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Chips