Adapter for MAPLE (Release)

[RazorX]

is there anyway i can simply wire up two tactile switches to the dev board to switch through the vmu's?
one tactile switch to go up through the vmu's and one to go down if i want to use this purely for vmu emulation/backup.

[slivercr]

Arcade Stick
-For Atomiswave games: could you use D as Coin input?
!

coin readed not from controller
coin reader connected to G2 bus (modem port)

Got it, thanks for clearing it up!
Great job on this adapter, too. I've been using it to add into my arcade sticks and its great.

[soniccd123]

is there anyway i can simply wire up two tactile switches to the dev board to switch through the vmu's?
one tactile switch to go up through the vmu's and one to go down if i want to use this purely for vmu emulation/backup.

I was lurking round here yesterday and thinking about this possibility, was thinking about maybe make a little board to put internally on the Dreamcast or a controller with the STM32 and the memory, with the only purpose of giving my Dreamcast a lot of internal memory simulated as internal VMUs, I would use controller port 4 if it was internal as I rarelly use it (only have 2 controllers). This would need someway to go through the emulated VMUs. I have myself some experience with STM32 architecture and programming and this shouldn't be so hard, but would need the firmware source code to do.

Now a question to megavolt85 if he don't mind, I know that you said the 25PEXX series are needed from a technical viewpoint, I would like to know it this has to do with the chip's Page Erase feature.

[slivercr]

is there anyway i can simply wire up two tactile switches to the dev board to switch through the vmu's?
one tactile switch to go up through the vmu's and one to go down if i want to use this purely for vmu emulation/backup.

No need to program anything. You can do this with the arcade stick implementation and a bunch of diodes.

[megavolt85]

Now a question to megavolt85 if he don't mind, I know that you said the 25PEXX series are needed from a technical viewpoint, I would like to know it this has to do with the chip's Page Erase feature.

25PEXX don't requery erase before write and possible write half page

[RazorX]

is there anyway i can simply wire up two tactile switches to the dev board to switch through the vmu's?
one tactile switch to go up through the vmu's and one to go down if i want to use this purely for vmu emulation/backup.

No need to program anything. You can do this with the arcade stick implementation and a bunch of diodes.

could you provide more info on this please so i can give it a go once the stuff arrives thanks

[slivercr]

is there anyway i can simply wire up two tactile switches to the dev board to switch through the vmu's?
one tactile switch to go up through the vmu's and one to go down if i want to use this purely for vmu emulation/backup.

No need to program anything. You can do this with the arcade stick implementation and a bunch of diodes.

could you provide more info on this please so i can give it a go once the stuff arrives thanks

Sure thing. I will explain in basic terms, not trying to be condescending, I just dont know your background.

Using the arcade stick implementation found HERE, the hotkeys are set to A + B + START + Left / Right for Prev/Next VMU bank.

If you're just interested in a "big VMU" and don't want any controller input, then you take a tactile switch, wire one side to ground, the other side to A, B, Start and Left. This will give you a button that presses ALL those signals at once, so it will cycle to the previous VMU bank. This works fine if you only intend on using one switch.

If you're interested in a fully functional arcade stick, then you will need to put diodes in every signal entering the Hotkey buttons you are wiring: 4 diodes in total. Why the diodes?

If you connect A, B, Start and Left into a single button, they ALL get triggered whenever you touch the button. But also if you were to trigger only A, or only B, or only Start, or only Left. Once they are connected, any press of any of the connected buttons will trigger all the buttons.

You can use cheap 1n4148 diodes. They have a band on one side, this band should be on the side of the button, not on the side of the board.

---
EDITED due to brainfart, information is now correct.

[RazorX]

No need to program anything. You can do this with the arcade stick implementation and a bunch of diodes.

could you provide more info on this please so i can give it a go once the stuff arrives thanks

Sure thing. I will explain in basic terms, not trying to be condescending, I just dont know your background.

Using the arcade stick implementation found HERE, the hotkeys are set to A + B + START + Left / Right for Prev/Next VMU bank.

If you're just interested in a "big VMU" and don't want any controller input, then you take a tactile switch, wire one side to ground, the other side to A, B, Start and Left. This will give you a button that presses ALL those signals at once, so it will cycle to the previous VMU bank. This works fine if you only intend on using one switch. If you want 2, then you will need 2 diodes as follows:

-You wire ground to one end of the first switch, you wire A, B, Start, and Left (with a diode) to the other end. This will give you the "Previous" hotkey
-Same thing for the other hotkey: wire ground to one end of the switch, wire A, B, Start, and Right (with a diode), to the other end of the switch. This will give you the "Next" hotkey.

Why the diodes?

If you connect A, B, Start and Left into a single button, they ALL get triggered whenever you touch the button. But also if you were to trigger only A, or only B, or only Start, or only Left. Once they are connected, any press of any of the connected buttons will trigger all the buttons. So, if you wire another button with A, B, Start and Right, and you touch the button, then the switch will activate A, B, Start, Right, AND ALSO Left, because Left is also connected to A, B, and Start.

When you set the diodes in Left and Right, you are preventing A, B, and Start presses from activating Left or Right. Left or Right will only activate when you press the appropriate switch.

You can use cheap 1n4148 diodes. They have a band on one side, this band should be on the side of the button, not on the side of the board.

---

If you're interested in a fully functional arcade stick, then you will need to put diodes in every signal entering the Hotkey buttons you are wiring: 4 diodes per button, 8 in total. Otherwise, as discussed before, when you press A you would also press B and Start. Not very useful for an arcade stick.

makes perfect sense thank you, one more question which will determine which approach i go for.
is the code setup in such a way where if i wire up one button will it cycle up from 1 to 16 and then back to 1 again or will it stop cycling once it hits 16 because then i'd need the second button.
and again thank you for the details.

[slivercr]

makes perfect sense thank you, one more question which will determine which approach i go for.
is the code setup in such a way where if i wire up one button will it cycle up from 1 to 16 and then back to 1 again or will it stop cycling once it hits 16 because then i'd need the second button.
and again thank you for the details.

This I don't know, I use the adapters without the memory.

[RazorX]

hopefully @megavolt85 will be able to answer this.
thank you