the guts of a hucard

[Duo_R]

Hey everyone, quick question on the hucards for PC Engine. I was wondering where the electronics were inside of hucards, in particular I am interested if the grooved area at the bottom of the hucard listed below (below Rick's fist) is safe to drill through? Don't ask why, but need to know.

 

I know on Street Fighter this area has chips inside but is that the same for standard hucards?

[TheOldMan]

IIRC, all of the circuitry for a stock HuCard is under he black area. Drill away..

[lkermel]

No need to destroy one of your Hucard, I did exactly that few years ago

Here's the article with the picture:
http://www.videogameden.com/article.htm?hu

Also, all the 'thick' Hucards I've opened up (including Street Fighter II, populous etc...) have.... nothing inside the thick area... I have no idea why, but I guess it was only a marketing ploy to maybe sell the cards for a higher price or something. Has anyone else here noticed that ?...

[Arkhan]

my guess is that since the board itself is longer, they put the extra humpcover to keep that side secure and prevent stressing the card from making that end pop up.

I think it's just a structural thing.

[Necromancer]

Doesn't the board (black part) extend under the hump?  I thought the hump was to make room for a printed label instead of a sticker like the Arcade Card Duo.

[Arkhan]

nah.

If you look here: http://www.videogameden.com/articles/hu/hu_size.jpg

You'll see the label for SF][ could have existed without the hump.

[Necromancer]

You're under the false assumption that the board is rectangular:



(pic from bazzy's vivisection thread)


As you can see, the artwork would've had to have been made even smaller to avoid printing on the black area.

[spenoza]

lkermel, your VGDen piece needs a little editing for spelling. You use the word "tinny" in several places where I think you are looking for "tiny," instead.

[Samurai Ghost]

Was that ハズレ printed on the back of the hump or did he edit that in there?
Because if it's actually printed on there it would be pretty funny because it means something like "Sorry you're not a winner" like they they print on soda caps and the like during promotional contests. And does that mean there WERE winners? Quick, everyone pop off the humps of your SFII' hucards!! I've got a few extras lying around...

[Arkhan]

You're under the false assumption that the board is rectangular:
As you can see, the artwork would've had to have been made even smaller to avoid printing on the black area.

No, I know it's not rectangular.  I've got a dissected SF2 card here.  I've had it dissected for like a year by now.  I was using it to experiment with HuCard ideas.

the label wouldn't have to be THAT much smaller without the hump, and could even overlap the black board part.    I think the only reason the cut the end so that it was like \_/  was for cosmetic purposes.  They went "oh hey we can snip the edges and hump it, and make it look shorter than it is.  They could've just as easily left the thing rectangular and slapped a giant label over the entire thing.  The black portion would have just been far more noticeably larger, and probably more prone to popping up from idiots being idiots with the cards.

I'm pretty sure the main goal of the hump was to provide more structural support for the "grabby/inserty" end of the card.  Some people push down hard on the cards when sliding them in, and when pulling them out, so the hump serves to make that part sturdy and not bend in when some hamfisted gimp pushes down too hard.  If they push hard with no hump, the board would eventually pop loose.


At least , that's my guess.


oh and that text isn't written on mine, so someone else did it.

[Mishran]

So what about Populous? Since it is supposed to be a ROMRAM card, shouldn't there be a battery and chip under that hump?

[Bonknuts]

So what about Populous? Since it is supposed to be a ROMRAM card, shouldn't there be a battery and chip under that hump?

 It has ram on the hucard, but it's used as work to build out the frame buffer and such for the game. Not 'save ram'.

 The SF2 hucard could have been done on a smaller black PCB. IIRC, they use 4 chips on the PCB (mapper, 512kbyte rom, 2 x 1024kbyte roms). They could have reduced the two large roms, to a single 2048k rom. Hell, they could have done was Sega did and consolidate the rom into the mapper for a single chip solution (or single glop top). I really do think they added the bump for effect (it worked) and indirectly a probably cheaper layout (the two large mask roms were probably cheaper in the long run than a single 2048kbyte mask rom).

[Necromancer]

the label wouldn't have to be THAT much smaller without the hump, and could even overlap the black board part.

I doubt they wanted a smaller label, and a directly printed label can't overlap the board (uneven texture and no white background).  They could've gone the sticker route, but they're less durable and they would've needed to enlarge the board so the sticker was only on one surface (like the Arcade Card Duo).