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Thunder Cross, Space Odyssey and Keyboard Support on the Pocket
🕑 Added 2023-11-24 08:32:00 +0000 UTCThunder Cross
JTALIENS core gets support for one more game: Thunder Cross. This is a spectacular shooter with a good depth feeling thanks to the use of parallax scrolling and sprite scaling. As in Nemesis, you get options to fly along your ship. These options can either shoot with you or use a special shoot, depending on the powerups you get.
This game works on almost the same PCB as last week's Gang Busters, except for an additional chip: the 052591. This is a programmable coprocessor. It is only used in three games, as per MAME's documentation: Thunder Cross, S.P.Y. and Hexion. Nobody knows how it works. The main CPU writes a large number of bytes to it, and then the chip does its business. What it is know, is what the main CPU is expecting from it, which is different for each game.
For Thunder Cross, the CPU uses this coprocessor as a collision detector. For each frame the CPU writes two lists of hit boxes and reads back which ones from each list collide each other.
I do not consider FPGA conversions to be emulators, as in general, the cores are just a re-design using a different technology. But the 052591 is a good example of emulation because we do not know what the original design is, so we cannot redesign it. We are emulating some aspects of its behavior in an educated way. However, the rest of the system in this core is not emulated but redesigned.
Furrtek, who does schematic extraction from decapped custom chips, has expressed interest in researching the 052591. As with other projects in the past, part of your Patreon contributions will go to sponsor his work. Access to beta cores is what gets many people into Patreon, but what they are really paying for is all the research and maintenance we do.
This might be the last game this core sees, so it is approaching the publishable status after a long 6-month development period.
Space Odyssey
We have completed a small PCB that implements SEGA's custom chip 315-0042, used in Space Odyssey. The design follows SEGA's original schematics. This will help repair broken boards.
The KiCAD project files are in the jtcores repository. If you'd rather get an already built board, we needed to repair 3 PCBs but we ordered 20 units. Send a private message if you'd like to acquire one of them. PCBWay has kindly sponsored part of this development.
I do not have the FPGA core for this system in the short term road map. If you think this, and other games of the early 80's are interesting, please say so in the comments.
Core maintenance
- Shaolin's Road set 2 presented corrupted sprites. Reported by GoldZabu. Fixed. Requires new .rom files on Pocket
- Pocket: Added version property to JSON core files
- Pocket: All cores (except for jtbubl, jtdd and jtkunio) updated to support a keyboard when docked. The keys match MAME default controls. F2 is particularly useful to enter the service menu of some games (CPS2, Pang...). Note that you cannot control or invoke the Pocket's settings from the keyboard. That will require a firmware update that can only come from Analogue. I have requested some changes to the firmware already, but feel free to mail them yourselves too :-)
Comments
grupo.leon
Update - I've fixed my issue. replaced all the beta.bin files and made sure everything was where it needed to be. (https://github.com/espiox/pocket-betas) Same here, fired up my pocket and was surprised to have credits appear even though beta.bin is in the proper folder (was working previously.)
Mark Kilborn
Same. I hope we get a response at some point. But it's also the holidays, so maybe not until after the break.
Michael Di Filippo
stuck here too. out of the blue CPS1.5 started showing credits. I thought the beta.bin was static unless you update the core.
Mark Kilborn
Should the beta.bin files contained within the jtfriday_231124_pocket.zip file work? If so, they're not working as far as I can tell. I've cleaned the relevant assets, cores, platforms and presets folders off of my SD card, recopied them from this zip file, and the games I'm testing (jtbubl, jtsimson, jttmnt) are stuck rolling credits with the rom playing attract mode in the background. Feeling a bit stuck here. Thank you.
Mark Kilborn
I downloaded the Pocket zip, copied the cores and assets folders over to my Pocket, ensured the beta.bin was in the assets/common folders for each core (they were in the pocket zip from this post so all looked good), but I'm still stuck on credits and can't insert coins. Any idea what might be going on here? Thanks!
Louis Zezeran
I think beta.zip goes into games/mame not 100% tho
Gavin Turman
So I’ve downloaded the latest beta.zip folder and added it to the games folder on my microsd card and ran update all. But when I load up the Simpson I am not able to insert coins to play the game. Any ideas what I’m doing wrong?
Christopher Henry
I'm definitely interested in any pre-90s cores being implemented over time. Good work as always, Jotego and team!
John Fletcher
Not a problem mate, I will do, thankyou for your confirmation of Patreonage to Jotego and thank you for supporting the community. -JF ❤️💚💙😎👍
Scanline City
Hi John, Can you please prepare my new MiSTer build and setup up my access to Jotego's cores, as you can see I'm a Patreon of Jotegos and have access here to his 'Patreon ONLY cores zip key. Thank you! AND THANK YOU JOTEGO FOR ALL YOUR HARD WORK! SO EXCITED!
John Fletcher
Thanks so much for all your hard work, it is going to makey Christmas awesome just like the years before, thank you Jotego, you legend. ❤️💚💙😎👍
JOTEGO
The game should operate correctly in all versions and FPGA platforms. Which FPGA platform are you using? If leave the demo running, without touching anything, does it crash for you too?
JOTEGO
You have to add the game ROMs. Follow this guide: https://github.com/jotego/jtbin/wiki/Analogue-Pocket-Cores
Alejandro Lopez
Thunder Cross is mostly functional at first. Music sounds good, no credits rolling, which is good. Get past the title screen just fine. But upon "Start" the game freezes up
Alex Quiroz
Is anyone able to play TMNT? I always get the Missing Rom error. :(
Chopstick Samurai
Awesome, thanks for the update!
JOTEGO
I'm indirectly working on it as I am experimenting on a new approach to solve the NGP CPU problem on a smaller-sized core first. You will hear about it again soon.
ronalvel .
Algunos de los que me gustaría jugar en el Mister... Lock 'n' Chase , Zoo keeper, Tempest, Astro Blaster, Intrepid.
Alexander Vasquez
80s all the way! Great work JT! Articles are always a good read. Many Thanks!
Gillaxian
Glad I’m not the only one asking about this. Last time I asked he said maybe start up again in mid-November, well that’s come and gone, not a word. lol
Shannon Thomasson
Actually no
Terry Goodwin
I don't think Jotego's cores have ever had save states, sadly. It doesn't seem to be any sort of priority for most core developers for the system.
Kevin Bunch
I think it gets detected the same as a scroll wheel?
Anson Tsugawa
Amazing, tough game, but loving it so far. I'm new to this, so pardon my dumb question, is there any save state option?
Kevin Bunch
I'm extremely interested in early 80s arcade games, and even older ones from the 1970s. If you folks ever delve into TTL arcade games that would be a high point by me!
THE_MAQ
Yep I’ve mentioned this before I know because I own the original board so this problem is on mister and not the actual pcb👍
Christopher Soliz
Anything early from Sega would be appreciated. There are few gems in those old boards.
Chopstick Samurai
Any updates concerning the Neo Geo Pocket core?
Halla
Thanks for the update Jotego! Thunder Cross, what a game, the sounds and colors on this one is just phenomenal. Yes I'd like to see Space Odyssey and other games from that era.
Halla
Thats a great one!
Juan E. Gayon
Thunder Cross, que chuliii. Un grandísimo trabajo el que haceis, sí señor.
Steven Kirkham
I'm definitely interested in early 80's arcade games. So many seem lost to time.
Dale Bonneau
Yes thanks! For anybody wondering, I just did a backup of my SD card and installed the 2 newest update (since last week) and ran everything through the updater and everything is working fine so far! Thanks again!
JOTEGO
Sorry about the trouble last week. Big updates are always hard on users. I think everything should go smooth this time.
Kent Pendragon
Nice. Great update. Thank you Jotego and team!
Dale Bonneau
Any update on the setup for this and last week update? Are the updater up to date? (sorry, that's a lot of update!) Last week's new stuff broke every cores of my SD card on my Pocket (Good thing I had a very recent backup!) Do you still suggest to put this on a different SD card or can we put the new stuff on our main SD? Thx!
JOTEGO
If it looks like a mouse to the Analogue Dock, then it is supported already.
Mat Azel
if you managed to implement KB support, any chance you can implement the egret2mini spinner for arkanoid and such ? or does it need more support from Analogue ? thanks again !
Darren Newman
Nice one JT. Hopefully more shmups to follow.
Darren Newman
I think we already have Jackal.
Shannon Thomasson
Can these two konami classic come down the road? Jackal and Gi Joe? https://youtu.be/TyUAxDPxuZ4?si=U2Hc8PUhNJLYOPlA
Jeruro
Grande Jotego!
Salvador Perugorria Lorente
Muchas gracias como siempre :-). A la tarde probaré los juegos en MiST y Sidi.
Thorias
Great update!
SuperKeeks
Genial update como siempre! No solo por core si no por los comentarios técnicos. Una pregunta: me suena que Parodius está basado en una de las placas Konami en la que has trabajado recientemente. Habrá core de Parodius próximamente?
Andi
I noticed that the very first time I booted the core, and then spent a while comparing it to videos of real hardware. The real PCB does also have wobbly letters - but not quite as bad as the core, and the letters move differently. It's a bit hard to tell actually. After a while I drove myself crazy trying to compare frames and decided it's not worth caring about 😂
JOTEGO
Thank you. You are right, I'm not happy with the scaling yet.
ronalvel .
Excelente trabajo, thunder cross es un clásico de Konami y gracias por el Space Osyssey, dejas contentos a los más viejos como yo que le gustan los ochentosos
Marco Verhoeven
Thunder Cross looks really nice. And Gang Busters finally works on my Pocket with this update! Thank you!
Lance Bohy
Dude, Space Odyssey is so rad. And, like, I’d totally like to see more gnarly 80s games come to, like, FPGA, y’know.
Ivo
I think this Space Odyssey, and other Sega games of the early 80's are interesting, and I'm saying so in the comments.
Dr Tenma
Thanks! BTW (not sure if this has been commented somewhere) in The Simpsons core (at least on MiSTer the "The Simpsons" letters scale weird... I haven't played on original hardware so I don't know if the scaling was always off
Michael McCann
I love the early 80s games. I wish there were more cores for those. I didn't want to say anything and sound like I was complaining so I never brought it up. But since you asked about it YES the early 80s games are very Interesting!!!
Mat Azel
Thanks a lot! I hope they implement turbo functionality too^^
Hiddenbyleaves
Definitely interested in those early games
Adrien Duchemole
Thanks !!
Pixel Cherry Ninja
Thanks for an early one team. Have a great weekend.
Stephen Marshall
Oooh love Thunder Cross, such a hidden gem! Thanks Jotego!
Kirk
I pay to play the betas but I’m so glad the money goes towards research and development of future and existing cores. Good to see the community getting together on the 052591. Thanks Jotego and team!
Retroplayer
Awesome update! Thank you and have a great weekend.
Espiox
I would LOVE to see Space Odyssey and other early Sega games!
