Up n' Down board conversion to Flicky

[Funhouse1971]

Hi Guys!

Has anyone on here done this conversion. I played this on mame a lot and loved the game but when trying to get hold of an original boardset they are so difficult to come by and if you do they are super expensive!

I was searching for the Flicky romset recently on the net and came across Flicky on Up n' Down hardware. I had a Up 'N Down boardset but found the game too hard so would like to convert it to Flicky which I know I will play and enjoy hell of a lot more.

The board I have is the Sega System 1 boardset which has the 2 soldered M58725P (6116) rams at locations IC135 & 136 as opposed to the single socketed Toshiba ram TC5533P. Board number is 834-5191 and has a blue sticky label saying 'REV. B' written on it

I know that Flicky conversion is definitely possible as I have seen one on Ebay in the past which has been converted using a new set of roms with a standard Z80 in the place of the Sega encrypted Z80.

Is my board compatible with the FLICKYUP mame romset and if so what roms locations do I need to put the roms in as the rom file id's in the zip file do not match the Up n' down board IC locations?.

Any help would be appreciated

Cheers,

Funhouse

 

[stj]

i have done system1 swaps.

the thing to watch is there are actually 2 system1 boards!!
one board uses an 8255 i/o chip, the other uses a z80 pio chip instead.
i dont think the games can be run on the wrong board - i may be wrong and they may detect the chip - but i doubt it.
try experimenting with the mame sourcecode.

the best system1 game IMO is still StarJacker btw

 

[Funhouse1971]

Thanks for the info.

I did read there were slightly different System 1 boards and the different i/o chips used but wasn't quite sure of the actual part numbers of the i/o chips so at least you helped me there.

I'm waiting on some 2764 Eproms at the moment. My sticking point is the 6 tile roms and which order to place them in on the up n' down board.

 

[Funhouse1971]

I've just checked my board and IC21 is an D8255 i/o chip
IC1 is Z80
IC125 is the Sega protection chip.

@stj the conversion board I've seen with up n' down labels although a slightly different IC layout it did have an D8255 i/o chip and looked like it have the Sega protection chip swapped out for a normal Z80.

 

[stj]

some games have protection, some dont.
also some newer boards have less eprom sockets but can hold larger roms.

no big deal, just use unprotected sets and if you have to split or join some romfiles it's easy enough.

 

[Funhouse1971]

Yeah 've seen the unencrypted sets floating around on the net. The flickup rom set doesn't specify it's unencrypted but I'm assuming it is for it to be able to run on the up n' down boardset.

For Flicky I have located the tile rom load address values and noted which rom contains a particular address range and in turn cross-referenced them back to the same rom address ranges for the up n' down rom set so hopefully good to go.

 

[stj]

looking at mame, flickyup looks like the one most likely to run.
it's a nice game too.
i dont understand why so many boards get hacked into wonderboy!

 

[cleure]

I wouldn't be surprised if flickyup is encrypted, and requires one of the special Z80's.

According to MAME, it does require the 315-5051 CPU, which would indicate that it is protected.

FYI, the 315-5051 works by flipping certain data bits, depending on the address being read from and the type of read (instruction fetches, if I recall). I've seen a couple bootleg boards that use PALs with a regular Z80, to replicate the protection.

 

[cleure]

The details of the sega "encryption" scheme is described here: https://github.com/mamedev/mame/blo...b1ddd619/src/mame/machine/segacrpt_device.cpp

 

[Funhouse1971]

@cleure

Thanks for the info.

I burnt all the roms today I done a CRC check on the roms in the flickup rom set and they all matched however when I tried to boot the board all I got was a black screen. The Up n' Down board converted to Flicky that I saw on Ebay was a REV. A of my board with the D8255 i/o chip which mine also has.

My board doesn't have an Up n' Down official Sega Seal sticker it has the correct Sega protection chip and original Up n' Down Sega roms.

Here's the roms I replaced on the board

UP N DOWN ---- FLICKYUP
5516a.129 ------ 2764-ic29
5517a.130 ------ 2764-ic30
5518.131 --------2764-ic31
5519.132 ------- 2764-ic32


TILES
UP N DOWN ---- FLICKYUP
5523.80 -------- 5864.66
5525.81 -------- 5866.64
5527.82 -------- 5868.62
5522.63 -------- 5863.65
5524.64 -------- 5865.63
5526.65 -------- 5867.61

Up n' Down tile roms 5864.66 & 5863.65 removed from board

SPRITES
UP N DOWN ---- FLICKYUP
5514.86 --------- 5855.117
5515.93 --------- 5856.110

SOUND
UP N DOWN---- FLICKYUP
5535.3----------5869.120

Sega security chip replaced with Z80A

Board on left is REV.A Up N' Down Board converted to Flicky looks like a normal Z80 as the Sega protection chips have very distinctive gold pins with a black Sega sticker. My board is the REV. B board in the middle and pic on right is a close up of the REV. A Up n' down board, notice where the Sega encryption chip should be, can't see the chip writing but looks like a normal Z80 to me.

 

[cleure]

No markings on the chip (from the eBay photo).

Looks like the pins are gold to me (comparing to the chip to the left of it).

Here's what an original looks like.

My money is on it being an original, that's missing the label.

 

[Funhouse1971]

No markings on the chip (from the eBay photo).

Looks like the pins are gold to me (comparing to the chip to the left of it).

Here's what an original looks like.

My money is on it being an original, that's missing the label.

Looking again it does look like it is an original chip, the pins were so dirty on the chip in that pic it just looked like a normal Z80 with a faded chip id. My Sega chip is a lot cleaner so the gold pins are clearly visible to see.

I thought about trying to craft some roms from the unencrypted set instead do you think that would be possible?.

 

[stj]

all the z80's i'v seen in sega boards have been black resin.

i think you should try some other flicky program versions.

 

[Funhouse1971]

Are these the Sega protection chips you are referring to?

**EDIT** I think the black resin are for System 16 games/Space harrier and the green one was extra protection for System 16 boards. The 8751 MCU not shown was for Sega Space Harrier & Enduro Racer (character control lockout)

I thought the Z80 with the black Sega sticker were only for System 1 PCB's?

Going to look at the unencrypted set it may require some rom doubling/splitting to get it working.

 

[cleure]

flickys2 is the only version that's unencrypted, according to Mame. But it's for the board with the PIO chip, so not really sure if it would work without board modifications.

 

[Funhouse1971]

flickys2 is the only version that's unencrypted, according to Mame. But it's for the board with the PIO chip, so not really sure if it would work without board modifications.

Didn't realise it was for PIO board. I have a converted Wonderboy board here using the PIO chip so you think this would be possible to convert this board to Flicky and convert the Up n' Down board to Wonderboy?

Below is a pic of my Wonderboy board. It uses a patched version of the unencrypted wonderboy set `[the end of level interval tunes play as they should do]. I noticed unencrypted set from mame was missing this.

 

[Funhouse1971]

flickys2 is the only version that's unencrypted, according to Mame. But it's for the board with the PIO chip, so not really sure if it would work without board modifications.

Well made some progress you were correct about which type of board to use, it must be the PIO version of the board to run the non-encrypted set. In game graphics works fine but I have an issue with the title screen, the balloons carried by the birds which eventually spell the word 'FLICKY' appear corrupt for some reason. Pic on the right is what the title screen should look like.

Roms check out ok, however I think I have an issue with one of the sprite roms.

 

[stj]

about your post with the cpu's

the green board was used to pass clock/interrupt signals through on games with no mcu - it's not actually protection.
the ceramic chip with gold legs is an encrypted z80 and i'v seen them on buck-rogers and turbo too.

 

[Funhouse1971]

about your post with the cpu's

the green board was used to pass clock/interrupt signals through on games with no mcu - it's not actually protection.
the ceramic chip with gold legs is an encrypted z80 and i'v seen them on buck-rogers and turbo too.

Thanks for the info..I stand corrected on that one

 

[Funhouse1971]

about your post with the cpu's

the green board was used to pass clock/interrupt signals through on games with no mcu - it's not actually protection.
the ceramic chip with gold legs is an encrypted z80 and i'v seen them on buck-rogers and turbo too.

Thanks for the info..I stand corrected on that one