New Homemade PCe to TurboGrafx-16 Converter

[db-electronics]

My guess is that the Arcade Pro Card checks the region bit in bit 6 of the I/O register - this is the fabled grounding of pin 29 mod (pin 29 being read in bit 6 of the I/O register).

If the Arcade Pro Card does in fact work on a system with the pin 29 mod it would confirm this hypothesis...

[thesteve]

I would suspect it doesn't check, it should be a system3 BIOS and acd card

[nodtveidt]

As far as I know, the region check only applies to US cards when run on Jp systems, not the other way around... and that's why we patch TG16 ROMs to run on the PC Engine and not the other way around.

[Bernie]

Sounds like it is just going to be a compatibility issue for now.  If it didn't work at all, then that would be a whole other issue...BUT...  Thing is, it's booting the Japanese 3.0 menu, but not allowing the ACD extra ram to work.    Either way, this converter is very well made, and I would suggest it to anyone looking for an affordable way to play PCE on a US system.  Some people don't like to have their system region modded, and this is just the trick.  Hopefully, in the future, we can figure out the issue with the ACD Pro. 

[dshadoff]

Bump for a question..  Has anyone used this converter, with an Arcade Card Pro?  I am trying to use it on my TG-16/CD setup, and it boots the PC Engine 3.0 screen, but will not load the Arcade games.  I get the screen letting me know I need an Arcade Card.  I am wondering if this is a compatibility issue....  The converter works great for booting HuCARD games, just for some reason, its being an a$$hole with my Arcade Card Pro.  Anyone else willing to test it out?  The Arcade Card Pro I have, does work.  I got it from Old Rover.

It sounds a lot like a "write enable" line (or possibly a different line) is not getting through properly.  Not sure if this would be a design defect (ie. affecting all units) or a flaw in the manufacture of just this unit.

Does every single pin on the cartridge bus get routed to the connector (ie. 1-for-1, even though 8 of them are in a different order) ?

I recall there were a few lines which had questionable value, but turned out to be necessary - one was a "shorted to ground if cartridge inserted", another was an IRQ of some sort (direction = from the cart to the system), etc.

[db-electronics]

Does every single pin on the cartridge bus get routed to the connector (ie. 1-for-1, even though 8 of them are in a different order) ?

I routed every single line to the HuCard on my design.