Konami Space School

[Great Hierophant]

Some of you might remember the Konami Space School series, a series of educational Famicom cartridges and a special adapter that was sold only via schools.  Very rare to find these days.  A video was released recently which describes the games and the hardware underlying them in great detail.  https://youtu.be/1rnf13b3dG4

The video is in Russian, but the English closed captions were generated by one of his dual-lingual supporters and are competently done.  I highly recommend taking a look.

[P]

Note that Famicom World appears in the video.

Anyway, the big news is that this Ｑ太 adapter contains the missing Konami VRC5 mapper (until now only VRC1, VRC2, VRC3, VRC4, VRC6 and VRC7 were known), and which is now reverse-engineered and emulated.

[Great Hierophant]

Note that Famicom World appears in the video.

Anyway, the big news is that this Ｑ太 adapter contains the missing Konami VRC5 mapper (until now only VRC1, VRC2, VRC3, VRC4, VRC6 and VRC7 were known), and which is now reverse-engineered and emulated.

. . . and documented and assigned a mapper number (547).

[UglyJoe]

Wow, great video.  VRC5 finally uncovered

[80sFREAK]

. . . and documented and assigned a mapper number (547).

Link(not youtube video, filled with ads)? PCB photos? Pinout?

[UglyJoe]

Link(not youtube video, filled with ads)? PCB photos? Pinout?

http://wiki.nesdev.com/w/index.php/NES_2.0_Mapper_547

OR

https://github.com/byuu/higan/blob/master/higan/fc/cartridge/board/konami-vrc5.cpp

OR

https://github.com/TASVideos/fceux/blob/master/src/boards/vrc5.cpp

And a couple screenshots with the PCBs: https://imgur.com/a/tOOzph8

[MWK]

and of course don't us forget about the Cah4e3 site itself >> https://cah4e3.shedevr.org.ru/dumping_2019.php

[L___E___T]

 



One, or some of these got dumped recently, right?

[krzy]

Just to be curious - is anyone interested in having physical copy (reproduction) of that game?

[P]

I don't know, maybe if the repro was made to look like the Ｑ太 adapter with separate cartridge or something. The games are not that interesting on their own, but it would be cool to have it in your collection. It's way too expensive for me though.

But I do hope for an open FPGA implementation of Ｑ太/VRC5 so that it can be used in flashcarts and things like MiSTer. And of course full dumps of all the games.

One, or some of these got dumped recently, right?

Yeah from the video I gathered that he got the game he bought dumped, which was Space School - Shougakkou no Sansuu 5-nensei (jou) (Space School - Elementary School Arithmetic grade 5 (upper)).
CaH4e3 (or possibly someone else) had previously dumped the two Space School games for 6-nensei (ge) and 6-nensei (jou) and the ultra rare Space College game 危険物のやさしい物理と科学 (Kikenbutsu no Yasashii Butsuri to Kagaku). So that means at least 4 of the 7 known games are dumped, in addition to the ROM in the Ｑ太 adapter itself which of course was also dumped recently. Edit: I misunderstood it. The CHR-ROM in the Ｑ太 adapter is currently not physically dumped from the chip. CaH4e3 dumped it via the PPU and it seems people are confident that the figured out content is accurate though.


By the way, Ｑ太 is possibly read as kyuuta or even "cuter". Possibly a portmanteau of the English words "cute" and "computer" rather than the comparative form of "cute".

[80sFREAK]

Thanks guys, strange thing - google ignored my searches and sent me to those "OH! WOW!" bloggers

No sound extension(or it was not used?), but tricky CHR part for Kanji-ROM.

UJ, i found that vrc5.cpp dated 2014, is that correct?

krzy, do you have 3D printer?  

[portnoyd]

Pretty amazing that stuff like this is still turned up and also amazing that not all of these carts have been found.

[Great Hierophant]

The work is not yet done.  Though we have 4 out of 7 ROMs, the experience is incomplete without scans of their accompanying study guides.  You have the answers but not the questions, so taking the in-game tests will be more difficult.

[P]

You mean study guides that wasn't included with the game that was dumped? Sounds like finding those could be complicated. If it was just manuals for the games, they could have been in the boxes, but if there are study guides for teachers filed away in some cabinet of the schools and possibly thrown away when not needed anymore, chances to find them might be slim I guess.

Anyway Krzyiobal got detailed photos and documented the PCBs in the Nesdev thread. Pin 45 and 46 on the Ｑ太 adapter bridged, so no expansion audio possible. Thanks Krzyiobal!

[krzy]

krzy, do you have 3D printer?

No sorry, but now when I know the pinout of the expansion cartridge I can make a fully compatible adapter and repro cartridges.

Anyway Krzyiobal got detailed photos and documented the PCBs in the Nesdev thread. Pin 45 and 46 on the Ｑ太 adapter bridged, so no expansion audio possible. Thanks Krzyiobal! Smiley

Well, this adapter does no allow any expansion audio, but there are a few not-connected pins of the VRC5 (that I assumed VCC/GND because the connections were hidden underneath the chip), but maybe some of them act like an expansion audio or some magical switches, without having the adaper in hand I cannot say any more about how it works.

Is it possible to buy second adapter or borrow it from the guy who made the video?