Recently I have been looking at lockout defeaters and found some interesting results. First I got a cpu 11 version nes system which I believe is the last toaster version. Then I tested tons of third party carts to see which worked. From the ones I have only a few from Wisdom Tree worked. AVE and Camerica games did not work. Opening them up showed they are Color Dreams version #3 ( see KH site http://www.tripoint.org/kevtris/mappers/lockout/cdreams2.html ) Next I added switches on the lines to the lockout, which showed only the attack on the reset line was doing anything. The protections added on the nes board prevent the data line attack from doing anything. Then I wondered why it would take ~7 reset cycles for the defeater to work. Instead of pulsing the defeater I connected the d2 input directly to ground. This made the defeater work immediately with no reset cycles. Any reason they didnt do this in the first place?
Now for some analog messyness... The defeater just puts -5v onto the reset line. However connecting the reset line directly to the -5v on the ICL 7660 chip does not work. The transistors must be doing some kind of amplification because both are needed. The 74ls377 is also needed. Connecting the defeater input directly to ground doesnt work but connecting it to ground through the 74ls377 does. Maybe it is acting like another transistor amplifier.
I like to pretend everything is digital so I dont really understand what is happening with all this analog stuff. Anyone else have suggestions?
Now for some analog messyness... The defeater just puts -5v onto the reset line. However connecting the reset line directly to the -5v on the ICL 7660 chip does not work. The transistors must be doing some kind of amplification because both are needed. The 74ls377 is also needed. Connecting the defeater input directly to ground doesnt work but connecting it to ground through the 74ls377 does. Maybe it is acting like another transistor amplifier.
I like to pretend everything is digital so I dont really understand what is happening with all this analog stuff. Anyone else have suggestions?