Big Bang Bar

[rjb]

Kim mentioned that one difficulty they would have if they decided to go ahead with remaking Kingpin would be the programmable ICs on the Capcom boards. I perused the manual and found the following programmable ICs:

Sound Card: 87C52 OTP Microcontroller (U24)
CPU Card: Actel 1020 FPGA

If there are more, let me know.

Both devices have security bits that when enabled disable the extraction of their programming. My guess is that Capcom has set these bits. I don't have the schematics for the cards so I can't say what functions they perform but my guess is that to re-engineer the programs from scratch would be a large undertaking. If the original programs were available then the situation would be much simpler. With the original code you could easily remake the cards and even retarget the code to newer FPGA families to ensure longer term supply. Many of the components are now less than readily available so it would make also sense to redesign those sections with up to date devices (this wouldn't be difficult).

I don't know if anyone is already working on this. If yes and you need help, let me know.

Does anyone know if the schematics, source or binaries code bases are available?

While were at it, the main CPU uses a 68306 microprocessor. This is a 68K based processor made by Motorola (now Freescale Semiconductors). I'm wondering if the source code was available? If it was, updates to the code base would be possible too.
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BBB#11