MagicEngine

sideshow · Last edited by sideshow on Sat Apr 01, 2006 11:37 am; edited 1 time in total

http://www.ic2005.com/html/2005/show-40.htm

This flash cart looks amazing. I'm going to order it, pay the ridiculous price and see how amazing it is. Wink

Paranoia Dragon · Elder Joined: 09 Apr 2005 Posts: 366 Location: New Iacon

Hmmmmmm...very interesting!
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sideshow · Posted: Tue Mar 28, 2006 5:57 am Post subject:

Not only does the R-Type design look badass, the ability to flash 63 roms to one card is very convenient. Laughing

stevek666 · Posted: Tue Mar 28, 2006 8:52 am Post subject:

I have a question: one side of the card reads "PCE" and the other "GBA"... but I was under the impression that one side would be for PCE and the other would be for the North American TG-16 pin configuration. Am I mistaken?

I am not interested in purchasing this item, but I am intrigued by the fact that it exists. It's a part of PCE / tg-16 history that needs to be documented.
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ccovell · Regular Joined: 19 Dec 2005 Posts: 100 Location: Japan

The GBA side is most likely used when flashing the card. The programmer looks like a modified GBA programmer, since GBA edge connectors are probably much more common than PC-Engine-compatible ones nowadays. The difference between the PCE's and TG-16's byte ordering is simple enough that the programming software can swap the TG ROM's data bits when flashing; 2 edge connectors are not needed.

The Tototek PCE flash cart works the same way: PCE ROMs are bit-swapped if you have a US machine.
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stevek666 · Posted: Tue Mar 28, 2006 8:36 pm Post subject:

sideshow · Posted: Fri Mar 31, 2006 4:05 am Post subject:

I just ordered it yesterday. I'll make a little review once I get it.

AmyGrrl · Posted: Fri Mar 31, 2006 5:08 am Post subject:

Damn... I want one of those.... but I don't think it's worth the $160 price tag... if it was under $100 I might have considered buying it...

sideshow · Posted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 5:19 am Post subject:

I received the Flashcard today. Well, I must admit that the advertisement about it being easy to use it right on the money. You just plug in the provided USB card writer(with Flashcard attached), find the PCE program located on the provided CD, choose the roms from a directory and then add and write them. When your ready to write the roms that you have chosen, a window prompts up whether you want PCE or TG16 format. Depending on what region system you have, just choose the style. I have a PCE DUO RX and I tried to load the Flashcard with TG16 format but it didnt work. The only thing that I dont like about the flashcard is that it wont allow you to play TG16 roms on a PCE and vice versa. I guess the only way around this is if you have a US DUO or TG16 and have the region converter then you can play japanese roms. I tried even to mix some US games on the Flashcard writing in PCE mode but once you boot up the flashcard menu on the system and choose a US rom, the whole system just freezes. For japanese system owners like myself who want to play US roms on the system, we would have to mod the system to play US roms. Its a switch that is installed on the system that converts it to USA/JAP on the fly. I saw someone on the net that does this mod, and also can install a S-video option in the system for crispier picture. I'm considering to have this mod done in the future. Wink

Back to the flashcard. The flash card has a handy reset button right on the card itself that resets the whole system to the main menu. The R-Type decall on the card itself looks badass. Overall, this card is very cool if you want to have many many games on one card to play on your actual DUO hardware without having to swap at all. I havnt tried to fill the card up to the limit of roms but it says that it can hold 64M and upgradeable to 128M. I was able to put about 20 roms on the whole flashcard. It all depends the size of the roms as far as how many you can fit on the flashcard. I dont know if its worth the 160 bones that I paid but I am a DUO goober so I was willing to pay for it. There is no shipping fee, the price you see is the total price you pay. I received this package from Hong Kong in less than a week going to California where I'm from. In the end, its awesome to beable to transport my DUO RX over to friends places and have tons of roms preloaded ready to go on one card! Razz

Tomaitheous · Elder Joined: 27 Sep 2005 Posts: 306 Location: Tucson

Sideshow, you can play JP Hucard games on an US system by swapping the bits of each byte. Tototek has this utility/software so this other cards software should as well. If not, there are some tools to do this.

I've played japanese Hucards games on my US Duo without the converter, but the other way around is a bit more complicated - you'd to either patch the game by removing the US region check or install a mod/switch like you stated.
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sideshow · Posted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 7:43 am Post subject:

dmichel · Admin Joined: 04 Apr 2002 Posts: 1166 Location: France

This one is easy.

Open the US ROM in a hex editor and search this hex string :

$78 $54 $A9 $FF $53 $01 $AD $00 $10 $29 $40

Most of the time it's right at the beginning of the ROM, either offset $0 or offset $200 if the ROM has an header.

Right after this string there should be a $F0, change it to $80 and voila. Cool

About 98% of the US ROMs can be patched this way, I think there are only two that use a different code.
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sideshow · Posted: Wed Apr 05, 2006 3:43 am Post subject:

Thanks for the tip dmichel! If there is no know automatic patcher for PCE/TG16 roms then I will do the hex editor method. This sure helps with me not having to get my system modded! Twisted Evil

sideshow · Posted: Sat Apr 08, 2006 6:41 am Post subject:

I'm using WinHex but dont know how to edit this. I found the string your talking about but dont know how to change the FO to 80? Please give me some guidance. Shocked

dmichel · Admin Joined: 04 Apr 2002 Posts: 1166 Location: France

Select the F0 byte with the cursor, press CTRL+L, type 80 and press ENTER. Smile

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