Xplorer carts

[brill]

Dump of a rare version of Xplorer V2 (England) r2.004 1998-11-13 - for the firmware base.

main_screen.jpg

info_screen.jpg

It looks like the list of games has been edited, but better than nothing.

[Administrator]

Nice ROM dump. Good to have it added to the list and preserved on this server

[Squaresoft74]

Thanks for the dump.
Already had a copy of this one provided by another user last year.
It was also dumped from a used cartridge, so the codelist is altered aswell.

Side note, my latest Xplorer romset is included with Unirom thanks to Sickle.

[Mdv]

is there any way i can recover my xplorer fx? i was copying saves to the vmc and a black screen came up with a fatal exception occured and now the console won't recognise it

[danhans42]

Reflash using unirom ROM restoration menu should do the trick.

[Mdv]

thanks, that worked. is there any way to get the game saves back?

[danhans42]

I don't know of a way to do that I am afraid.

You may be able to get to the data using a serial cable etc and back it up, but it might be in a compressed format

[Mdv]

what is this caetla about? i thinking of installing it with unirom onto the xplorer but i don't know what it does

[danhans42]

Caetla is a ROM replacement for the cart that leans more towards software development rather than cheating/vmem type functions. The FX inbuilt ROM does support quite a bit itself, so I wouldnt personally recommend it unless you know how to use it. It doesnt always work so well with Xplorer FX carts because Caetla doesnt support the 512K EEPROMs fitted to some of them, so it cant save its own settings. Also later versions moved cheats to a memory card which can be a bit tricky to set up.

[ady05113]

Hi i just want to share my Japanese Terminator PRO ROM. Its on 4.54 updates.

[Squaresoft74]

Hey many thanks for this one !
Didn't know there was a 4.54 X-Terminator release, i thought the latest one for it was 4.53.
Did you get your cart with this version already installed or did you manually update it from an .fcd file ?

[sickle]

Sweet, thanks for sharing

[ady05113]

Hey many thanks for this one !
Didn't know there was a 4.54 X-Terminator release, i thought the latest one for it was 4.53.
Did you get your cart with this version already installed or did you manually update it from an .fcd file ?

Hi, i bought it from Japanese market. The update was already on 4.54 the first time i tested it. Also i found out the update is quite rare. So i share it here maybe it will be useful to someone.

Sweet, thanks for sharing

No problem bro!

[Squaresoft74]

Hi, i bought it from Japanese market. The update was already on 4.54 the first time i tested it. Also i found out the update is quite rare. So i share it here maybe it will be useful to someone.

The current Xplorer romset doesn't have much Japanese roms so this one is very welcome.
It will be added to Unirom's disc at some point, thanks again for it.

[SONIC3D]

The tail of last 128KB of X-Terminator Pro DX(JP) stores header data and should be dumped if possible.
I noticed almost all dumps here missed that. The good news is based on multiple X-T Pro DX I have checked. The last 8 bytes header data are always:

Code: Select all

56 4D 53 46 00 00 00 00 // (VMSF    in ASCII characters)

I'm not sure if Xploder FX/FX Pro(I mean the western version X-Terminator) has the save header in tail. And I'm not sure if this tailed not flashed into a new Flash ROM, will X-Terminator rebuild this section in its initialization routine, either.

To dump this section, just poke 28 to 1F060001 using NOPS serial console. Then dump from 0x1F040000 by 0x20000 bytes.
Or simply desolder the W29C040 or AT29C040 Flash ROM with a soldering heat gun, and read it using a ROM programmer.

And X-Terminator stores the user-added code in reverse order. So this field is filled in priority.

[SONIC3D]

Here is the schematic diagram of X-Terminator Pro DX (with a single 512KB ROM).

For the twin 256KB ROM version, I still need several pin connection info. If anyone has this model of Xploder, and eventually has a multi meter with short circuit test feature, please consider do the following tests:
* Pin 22,24,31(/CE,/OE,/WE) of each Flash ROM, where do these pins connected to(I suspect both of /OE connect to pin30 on PIO port, both os /WE connect to pin64 on PIO port, and /CE of each ROM connect to different pin of the 20V8 PLD, I guess the /CE on the right chip(near 78L05) connect to pin21 of PLCC PLD, and the /CE on the left chip connect to pin24 of PLCC PLD. I need to know the exact pin number)
* Pin 30(/A17) of each Flash ROM, are they connecting to each other.
* Pin 1(/A18) of each Flash ROM, are they connecting to any pin of PLD? Or are they connecting to pin27(A18) of PS1 PIO port?

X_Terminator_Pro_DX.jpg

[Squaresoft74]

The tail of last 128KB of X-Terminator Pro DX(JP) stores header data and should be dumped if possible.
I noticed almost all dumps here missed that.

Hi,

This header data isn't part of original .fcd files.
It's created at first boot and/or while accessing the VMS function for the very first time.

The current romset is made of either:
- Decrypted .fcd files when one could be retrieved at all (which is the cleanest rom form we can get nowadays).
- Users' used cart dumps.

For the FX/DX roms, user parameters are saved to offsets 1540-1556 at first boot.
For used cart dumps, this region has been reseted (0x00 filled) to reflect as close as possible what would have been found in an original .fcd from Blaze.
Obviously, since the codelist has possibly been altered in most case, you won't get whatever matching checksum the original decrypted .fcd would have had.
This was done to allow restoring carts from dumps to an as clean as possible factory state when no original .fcd could be found.

Would you happen to have some currently undumped XT rom among your devices ?

[SONIC3D]

Hi,

This header data isn't part of original .fcd files.
It's created at first boot and/or while accessing the VMS function for the very first time.

...

Would you happen to have some currently undumped XT rom among your devices ?

Thanks for confirming that the tail region can be initialized automatically. I have never spent time on confirming that.

I dug my photo on iCloud and found I have once dumped at least the following version. And I can confirm the v3.18 one is completely new and untouched in the package. As I just did its dumping 2 or 3 weeks ago. For the other two, I'm not sure if there is no user-added code in them. I dumped them just for backing up, as I borrowed those two carts from one of my friends for checking the cart design. Don't wanna make any risk of bricking his carts.

I'm not sure if they are already in known dump list. I'm not very clear about the current state of X-T ROM preservation. If any one of them are still undumped. I can upload them when I'm home.

IMG_1424.jpg

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IMG_1437.jpg

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[Squaresoft74]

And I can confirm the v3.18 one is completely new and untouched in the package. As I just did its dumping 2 or 3 weeks ago. For the other two, I'm not sure if there is no user-added code in them. I dumped them just for backing up, as I borrowed those two carts from one of my friends for checking the cart design. Don't wanna make any risk of bricking his carts.

Dumps from known brand new carts would replace ones from used ones.
As for used carts, any missing dump is welcome since it's better than having nothing at all.

The current romset have those XT roms:

X-Terminator PRO (Japan) r2.14 PRO 1999-02-17 [!] // Source : Original FCD.
X-Terminator PRO DX (Japan) r3.18 PRO 1999-06-24 // Source : Dumped from 1 used cartridge by myself
X-Terminator PRO DX (Japan) r4.53 PRO 1999-11-22 [!] // Source : Original FCD.
X-Terminator PRO DX (Japan) r4.54 PRO 2000-03-03 // Source : Dumped from 1 used cartridge by ady05113
X-Terminator V2 (Japan) r2.001 1998-10-28 // Source : Dumped from 1 used cartridge by myself

So yes dumps from your carts are likely very welcome if you want to contribute.
They'll be added to Unirom's disc at some point to complete the flashing options available to restore XP/XT devices.

[SONIC3D]

Dumps from known brand new carts would replace ones from used ones.
As for used carts, any missing dump is welcome since it's better than having nothing at all.

The current romset have those XT roms:

X-Terminator PRO (Japan) r2.14 PRO 1999-02-17 [!] // Source : Original FCD.
X-Terminator PRO DX (Japan) r3.18 PRO 1999-06-24 // Source : Dumped from 1 used cartridge by myself
X-Terminator PRO DX (Japan) r4.53 PRO 1999-11-22 [!] // Source : Original FCD.
X-Terminator PRO DX (Japan) r4.54 PRO 2000-03-03 // Source : Dumped from 1 used cartridge by ady05113
X-Terminator V2 (Japan) r2.001 1998-10-28 // Source : Dumped from 1 used cartridge by myself

So yes dumps from your carts are likely very welcome if you want to contribute.
They'll be added to Unirom's disc at some point to complete the flashing options available to restore XP/XT devices.

Good to see these detail. And here are the ROMs I have dumped:

1. X-Terminator 2 Plus (J)(v2.006)(64 Games, 865 Cheats)(2000.Feb.24 16:55 Compile 017A9)

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I have checked the cheats DB data. As X-T adds newly created game entry on top of the game list and no way to enter Japanese Kanji by user, and I found the first game in the list contains Kanji character. So I guess this maybe a ROM with no user cheat data added. But I'm not 100% sure on this. The package box is worned(check the attachment).

And based on the date code. It may be the latest non-Pro version ROM.

Box_F.jpg

Cart_F.jpg

2. X-Terminator Pro DX (J)(v3.18)(39 Games, 776 Cheats)(1999.Jun.24 13:09 Build 42E0)

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Dumped from one cart from an almost new package. But as I have run it on PS1, there may be user settings data modified and stored in ROM.

3. X-Terminator Pro DX (J)(v4.55)(92 Games, 1386 Cheats)(2000.Nov.02 18:18 Build 44D0 GAL 0001)

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1. It seems there's no program difference compare to 4.54 ROM dumped by @ady05113, the only difference part is found in the version string. So I think this is an cheat db upgrade release only.

2. There are user-added cheats found in the last 128KB section, too. But as the data encoding algorithm seems changed compare to v2 ROM, I cannot identify those data entry content in detail. So I leave the whole ROM as is. (It's dumped by using a ROM programmer Xeltek SuperPro 610P)