Donkey Kong Junior - deep dive testing

[chad5200]

28 minutes ago, Lord Thag said:

Ben has reached out to me via PM. It's being worked on. Good teamwork everyone!

Excellent!

 

[NummThumz]

Glad to find this thread. I have been cleaning my cart over and over trying to get it to work. I only have a 2600+, so no way to test it, but I am seeing the load issues exactly as described for #3. Glad there will be a fix soon. 

[+LS650]

So is it possible with the 3rd version of the board, the same code was changed to use a different bankswitching scheme, one that isn't yet supported?

[Thomas Jentzsch]

27 minutes ago, ls650 said:

So is it possible with the 3rd version of the board, the same code was changed to use a different bankswitching scheme, one that isn't yet supported?

I suppose it is only detected wrong.

[+remowilliams]

My only non working Coleco cart on the 2600+ (Time Pilot) definitely matches that #3 picture.

[NummThumz]

2 hours ago, NummThumz said:

Glad to find this thread. I have been cleaning my cart over and over trying to get it to work. I only have a 2600+, so no way to test it, but I am seeing the load issues exactly as described for #3. Glad there will be a fix soon. 

Definitely #3.  

[SuperZapperRecharge]

On 12/6/2023 at 10:14 AM, chad5200 said:

Attached are two ROM dumps.

 

#2 (Coleco white shell, working everywhere) is named DKJr-Coleco-good-rom-c8fa5d69d9e555eb16068ef87b1c9c45.bin

#3 (Coleco white shell, not working in Retron 77 or 2600+) is named DKjr-Coleco-bad-rom-e3aac8df8e48959ffe2ac6f24f44d673.bin

 

First 4k bank of #2 matches the 4k file of #3:

$ ls -l
8192 Jan  1  1980 DKJr-Coleco-good-rom-c8fa5d69d9e555eb16068ef87b1c9c45.bin
4096 Jan  1  1980 DKjr-Coleco-bad-rom-e3aac8df8e48959ffe2ac6f24f44d673.bin
$ split -b4K DKJr-Coleco-good-rom-c8fa5d69d9e555eb16068ef87b1c9c45.bin
$ ls -l
8192 Jan  1  1980 DKJr-Coleco-good-rom-c8fa5d69d9e555eb16068ef87b1c9c45.bin
4096 Jan  1  1980 DKjr-Coleco-bad-rom-e3aac8df8e48959ffe2ac6f24f44d673.bin
4096 Dec  8 16:21 xaa <--- FIRST 4K BANK
4096 Dec  8 16:21 xab <--- Second 4K BANK
$ md5sum xaa
e3aac8df8e48959ffe2ac6f24f44d673  xaa
$ diff xaa DKjr-Coleco-bad-rom-e3aac8df8e48959ffe2ac6f24f44d673.bin <--- DOING A DIFF FOR GRINS, NO DIFFERENCE
$

 

I would suspect that the banking isn't different unless it's a pure hardware thing. If the banking is different somewhere in the first 4K would be different code??

I'm not familiar with bank switching. Just used to ripping files apart.

[Laladien]

Well, this explains Zaxxon at least. Works fine in my Vader - won’t boot in my 2600+. Goes from loading game to black screen.

[KainXavier]

I'm not sure if it's relevant, but I looked at my other Coleco carts, and I noticed my Donkey Kong cart has "Rev B" printed on the back of the board.  It has the same traces as my "Rev C" Donkey Kong Jr. and both work on the 2600+.  I think my Venture cart has something printed on it too, but the silicon wafer is much thicker, and the traces are too dull to really see without opening the case up.

[chad5200]

Ben released a beta update 1.1.0.9 that now fixes all these white shelled Coleco carts.  You can find it here: