Our first release of 2025 is here! I hope you all enjoy the Technos16 cores. Before diving into the update, please make sure to read the instructions for Technos16.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been working on creating standardized templates from the initial ports of Armed Police Batrider and WWF WrestleFest for our new "game core" framework by Pramod.
In my last post, I briefly dis...
Happy New Year, everyone! We're ready to start 2025 off with a bang. Thank you once again for all your support in 2024! Here's a brief update on what we're currently working on as we kick off the new year:
First up are development documentation, in-house reverse-engineered schematics, and tutorials. Many supporters have expressed interest in the development process and how it works. To address this, we have decided to document both previous and future FPGA implementations in a GitHub r...
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all! We're nearing the completion of the Williams/Midway Z-Unit and Y-Unit cores, and as of today, both the CVSD and ADPCM cores support all titles.
Williams / Midway Y-Unit FPGA compatible Verilog core:
CVSD (Continuous Variable Slope Delta-Modulator) Titles:
• Smash TV
• High Impact Football
• Trog
• S...
I’d like to take a moment to share some updates on our plans and current progress as the Z/Y-Unit cores are coming to a close. While we have additional projects slated that aren’t listed here, the summary below should give everyone a good sense of where we’re headed and what to expect.
There’s a lot to digest, so please take the time to read through everything. Darren, Pramod, Brandon, and I will be sharing updates about each project as development continues to keep you informe...
Over the weekend, we released improvements to both the Z-Unit and Y-Unit cores. Below, you'll find information on the overall hardware overview, fixes, necessary optimizations, and our current release schedule for this phase. We have also implemented requests such as analog control support for Smash TV and Total Carnage, pause functionality, additional cheat options, and sound mix adjustments to CVSD and ADPCM. If you're interested in more details beyond what's provided here, check out P...
2024-11-08 18:21:58 +0000 UTC View Post
The final entry for the Technōs16 platform is here! The Combatribes is a hard-hitting arcade beat 'em up released by Technōs Japan in 1990. Known for its gritty urban theme, over-the-top action, and three-player simultaneous gameplay, it stands apart from other Technōs beat 'em up's of the era.
Players can choose between Berserker, Bullova, and Blitz, each with a distinct comb...
2024-09-27 20:12:56 +0000 UTC View Post
Yesterday, we successfully transitioned to distributing via the Pocket Updater (pupdater) for our first Midway Y-Unit beta release, with only a few users encountering issues related to the SmashTV RC1 build. Pramod and I spent today resolving these issues to improve the experience for all users.
Issue: Red screen on core boot or when manually loading ROM
Action: Removed Load ROM option; ...
This core is the first game in the Williams Y Unit Series: Smash TV. Generally it works pretty well, but we will continue to refine all the Y unit and Z unit as we go along in the beta series. It is all a shared codebase with many of the same chips shared on both. I hope you enjoy this excellent twin stick shooter on the pocket which was designed and created by the same person that created Robotron 2084 and NARC: Eugene Jarvis.
There are a couple of options in t...
2024-09-21 16:42:36 +0000 UTC View Post
Well folks, I never even thought this would see the light of day on ANY current platform, but here we are. It is my dream come true!
For the first time the Williams Z Unit comes to an FPGA Platform: The Analogue Pocket. It took almost 2 years to get to this point, 6 of those months actually being spent on trying to make this core work on the MiSTer unsuccessfully. I failed over 500 times, I redid the CPU and the core at least 10 times experimenting with new and different ways to optimiz...
2024-09-07 19:07:02 +0000 UTC View Post
The beta release of Kyūkyoku Tiger / Twin Cobra marks the 13th Toaplan entry in the Coin-Op Collection! Twin Cobra is one of Darren's favorite arcade games and is something he's looked forward to working on for some time. Released in late 1987, Twin Cobra was a highly popular vertical shooter and a huge success for Toaplan. Distributed by Taito, it ranked as the third-highest-grossing arcade machine in the United States in Decem...
2024-08-17 18:50:57 +0000 UTC View Post
The next entry in the Technōs16 platform has arrived! Double Dragon 3 The Rosetta Stone is the last entry to the side-scrolling arcade beat 'em up trilogy created by Technōs Japan. It's my favorite entry to the series and Pramod is also a fan of the game...
Double Dragon 3 is the only title in the series not developed by Technōs, this was contracted to East Technology, a new comer to the coin-op market and has been scrutinized for it's difficulty, hit detection, departure from ...
I spent the last few weeks refactoring the code for Truxton II, Snow Bros. 2, Whoopee!!, and implemented Teki Paki. I also added support for the HD647180 version of Whoopee! to the Teki Paki core. These boards all share similar components, but are designed differently. To get a better idea of what this entailed, you can take a look at the Toa...
2024-05-19 23:39:56 +0000 UTC View Post
Teki Paki 洗脳ゲーム, a 1991 arcade puzzle game by Toaplan, challenges players to manipulate falling groups of three colored blocks. Points are earned by aligning five or more blocks of the same color horizontally, vertically, or diagonally, causing them to vanish and potentially triggering chain reactions for even higher scores.
The game spices things up with special blocks: dynamite clears the entire screen for a massive bonus when five are matched, while smiley blocks act as ver...
2024-05-11 22:17:32 +0000 UTC View Post
Well, the time is upon us folks, here it is, WrestleFest for the Analogue Pocket. It is an absolute blast to play with your friends and Technos did a great job on the spritework for being a limited palette.
The core runs smooth and stable at 98Mhz on the SDRRAM and master system clock. The resolution is 320x240.
But first, some backstory. There's a story to every single board and game I own in my collection. I don't buy...
2024-04-12 19:21:18 +0000 UTC View Post
It's been a very busy few weeks, I'm sure everyone would like to know what we've been working on and what the future holds. This post will pretty much cover everything you'd like to know. First off, I'd like to introduce Brandon Arnold, the newest member of Coin-Op Collection...
Brandon has a solid background and is an EE (Electrical Engineer) / SE (Software Engineer) who reached out to me in late Nov...
Here's a great cute 'em up by JALECO known as Plus Alpha! The gameplay is extremely unique, and it’s a rare and expensive PCB. Attributes like this typically put a game on our radar for development and preservation.
We purchased a copy from BEEP in the middle of 2023 and sent it to Darren, as I currently have P-47 The Freedom Fighter and a loaned JALECO Mega System 1 Multi.
There's currently a Plus Alpha for sale on eBay going for $1288.00 USD!
2024-01-06 20:37:08 +0000 UTC
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Midway Y-Unit Alpha Version for MiSTer Release:
As promised in my previous post and video, I am releasing an alpha version of the Midway Y Unit core for MiSTer. I don’t normally like to release incomplete work, but I thought I would in this case since I spent about 6 months playing around with various memory models and could not get past the inherent limitations of the MiSTer no matter what I did. What is released today is the best I think it is going to get, and to c...
2024-01-05 21:14:57 +0000 UTC View Post
Happy New Year!!! Here's a few Mega System 1 titles (Hachoo!, Earth Defense Force (Prototype), and In Your Face (Prototype). We'll have more to follow on this week with additional game releases for MiSTerFPGA, PocketFPGA, Polls, and what 2024 has in store for us.
Hope everyone had a good holiday! Thanks again for supporting the organization. There's going to be a lot of additions and changes to the patreon that I'll cover soon. Now time to recover.