ROMs

Basically, ROMs are like expansion cards in a computer (video card, for example). They all have memory (read-only, obviously), some have extra RAM to supplement main system RAM, some have static RAM (battery back-up), and some have their own CPU''s (think FX chip for SNES) to supplement the main console CPU. Then they have a bus interface to connect to the system bus. That''s about all there is to it... I think of them as fancy expansion cards

As for how they work, each console system works differently... perhaps you could be more specific?

What do you want to try?

I just wanted to know a little about them. I was trying to figure out how to make my own. Like if I made a little game or something. I''v got tons of schematics around for stuff like that. But nothing that quite suits me, plus there pretty complex. I''v seen the same thang done ten times smaller then what I have in sertain schematics.

Basicly I want to get to know how the pros did it, so I can learn from them. I want to know how they putt all the info into that little chip. What hardware they used and so on. I''v came acroos some GameBoy programm stuff before. There was something about a little mechine you hooked to it and you computer, or what every, that let you write you games to a cartrige, I think.

I also would like to find out how I would get the ROMs out of my MORTAL KOMBAT game board. Just so I can say I did and know how to do it. I want to know more on how some of that stuff work. I just wanted a ponter or tip from some one here to get me on the right track. Seems Google isn''t being nice to me right now.

unless you are comfortable with electronics and the possibility of completly toasting your boards (and roms), i would not attempt to dump the roms from the arcade board at all.

anyhoo. most companies ran the code on an emulator which ran on a workstation (sometimes a pc with dediecated hardware to emulate the arcade hardware). after testing and such, the developers use a rom burner and burn the roms to the chips (kinda like use once flash cards). since all this is automated by machines at the factory, its of no concern to the developer. however many times developers would also have a special arcade hardware unit with eeproms (ie can be flashed more then once) for testing code. the developer merely plugged a cable into his workstation and ran the correct app.

to read the roms you need to first find out which roms are which by look at the schematics. then you carefully remove the roms and use an eeprom reader to grab the data. it dont matter that you seen the same thing done smaller in other schematics. that means nothing. with that attitude you learn nothing.

nothing that suits you? i hate to say it but i think you should be happy you have an arcade unit that works. you definatly dont sound like you have the knowledge nor skill required to get the rom data. they are complex because the hardware is complex.

you want to make your own arcade unit? well then you dont need to dump mk at all. you just need to create a pcb, get a cpu, spu, gpu, ram, roms, eeproms, and your set. you can create the system in anyway you like. you can have 2 buttons or 10 buttons. i would never undertake such an adventure unless you got money to burn. it will be expensive if you dont konw what your doing. it will aslo be frusturating, since you may solder something bad and it dont work because of a SINGLE drip (ie you use bad technique). you may even toast your mk board. so if you cant ifnd anything good on google, then you probably are ont up to the task. sorry to be so negative, but its the plain truth. creating complete systems from scratch is very time consuming and expensive. dumping roms requires knowledge of circuts and electronics. you dont want to fry your pc now do you?

why not just put your pc inside the acrcade unit? then you just need to deal with joystick wiring. sure it ownt be a "real" aracde system until you put a good game on it, create the OS, and setup the coin chutes. yep, basically an arcade unit is just a pc in a big fancy box. granted it has less features, ussually no harddrive (ki, as well as ataris fmv shooters, etc actually used harddrives), no cdroms 9again some used laserdisc or cdroms), no keyboard (you can remove it form the pc), no mouse (again you can remove it), windows/linux (can be removed), etc. i think you are thinking to low level and missing the big picture of things about arcade systems. like consoles, they were dedicated gaming "pcs" stripped of anything non gaming, and used more gamer friendly cpus, spus, gpus, os (ussually almost non extistent), etc.