0.133u5 [Roberto Fresca, Team Europe]
< Germany >
SETUP:
- Wait until message "ACHTUNG FEHLER IM BLOCK..." pops up and then press key (Y) to start.
WIP:
- 0.145u5: Changed Jolli Witch (Export, 6T/12T ver 1.57D) from a clone of Witch Card (Video Klein CPU box, set 1) to parent.
- 12th March 2012: Roberto Fresca - I'm currently working on an extended hardware manufactured by Video Klein. It's the same hardware they used for Witch Card (with CPU BOX and a lot of nasty protections) but (ab)using of banking, to push the hardware to the limits. Also they added some sort of Dallas Timekeeper. The system can handle up to 16 banks of 3bpp graphics, thing that is completely insane for this kind of hardware. Fortunatelly not all the banks were used, so I was able to figure out the existent graphics. I should have figured out before, because for simpler games (as Wild Witch) they used roms sized 0x8000 bytes to store 2 or 3 banks of 0x800 bytes each, wasting a lot of ROM space. So, I also changed Wild Witch and Jolli Witch to run in this extended hardware. These games lack of the original biplolar PROM dump, but I figured out the palette differences. There are two bits (one by color) that are different to the generic color PROM, producing a lot of garbage in the screen if you're trying to run the program in a regular witchcard board. And Wild Witch wearing correct colors, and running in the extended hardware.
- 0.141u1: Roberto Fresca fixed Jolli Witch - Game now playable. Changed description of 'Witch Card (German, set 2)' to 'Jolli Witch (Export, 6T/12T ver 1.57D)'. Renamed (witchcde) to (witchjol).
- 20th January 2011: Roberto Fresca - After 2 years of attempts (in fact were 3 or 4 *deep* attempts) I got the Video Klein sets working. Addressing tricks, different kind of NVRAM (Dallas), and a lot of checks were involved. I did some cleanups (the set witchcde is in fact Jolli Witch). This one and a new set dumped by Team Europe (Wild Witch) are both based on the 6T/12T system from Video Klein (CPU box + Dallas DS1210 + battery backed RAM). Also each set has 2 games (Jolli Witch has a Witch Card selectable through a dipswitch, and Wild Witch has Witch Game in the same way).
- 27th September 2010: Roberto Fresca - Damn thing with my ghetto machine. A single line change, and the linker takes hours to finish. This is totally insane, so I'm currently developing on an old source tree (way outdated, previous to the C++ stuff) just to keep my mental health. But this isn't cheap... Once worked, I need to do several changes to bring each driver to the XXI century, and sometimes they don't work as expected. I know that this is not the best solution, but at least allow me to continue with my work in some way. There are several things that are being worked and I never posted a WIP about. Some of them have more than a whole year of work trying to figure out and get them working. I'll try to do a big push to the following stuff so I can get a bit of peace soon. THE DAY WITCH CARD GOT ENHANCED SOUND: This is the original Falcon version of Witch Card. It's running in a Falcon original PCB marked 831 1.1. This board has place for a second encrypted CPU, plus extra ROM and RAM. Fortunately this sector is unpopulated. The hardware is a heavily modified (and enhanced) Bonanza's Golden Poker. They replaced the discrete sound circuitry with an AY-3-8910, sending data and address commands in a multiplexed way through the normal discrete channel from a single 8bit PIA port out. Once hooked the device and demuxed the data/commands, the final sounds are very impressive. Also the cards have a nice 'punk' effect (green hair, crown, etc...) due to a possible bad dumped bipolar PROM. The game is now working properly, with enhanced sounds and button-lamps. Also another rare Witch Card set dumped by Team Europe. The graphics are different (chars are very noticeable). And finally the big monster from Video Klein was defeated! Video Klein produced one of the most evil twisted/obfuscated hardware mods (with an epoxy CPU box). The game now is working properly with sound and lamps. Only needs proper hopper emulation.
- 0.133u5: Roberto Fresca and Team Europe added 'Witch Card (german, set 2)' (
1994).
