Arcade ROM hacks

This is a small collection of ROM hacks I’ve created for classic arcade video games.

• Blue Print: Freeplay with attract
• Tac/Scan: Switchable freeplay with attract

Hack Assembler

Hack Assembler (ha) is a tool for patching arcade ROMs programmatically, from source code. This allows patches to be written in assembler, and preseves the source, which allows for greater understanding and quick development.

To use all the features of ha, you will need MAME.

Features

• Maintain patches as assembler source, rather than binary patches.
• Assembles the patch and patches the ROM in one step.
• Discovers the ROM files to patch, based on filename - fully automatic.
• Dev mode assembles, patches, and runs the patched ROM in MAME, all in one command.

Supported CPUs

• 6502 or Z80 via crasm. This is the recommended assembler.
• 6502, via asm6.
• Z80, via z80asm.

Setup

You need to have MAME somewhere on your machine, and set the MAME_DIR environment variable to wherever it’s installed. This assumes that ROMs live in $MAME_DIR/roms, and that the MAME executable is named mame64. You can set the MAME binary with $MAME_BIN or the --mame-bin option. The ROM location can’t currently be changed. At some point it ought to parse MAME’s configuration.

Layout

Patches must have a specific layout. ha init <romname> will create it for you.

+ <root>
 \
  + game.xml   - This is the MAME XML info dump for the game.
  + ha.ini     - Optional configuration for ha.
  + roms
  |\
  | + original - Original ROMs for the game being patched.
  | + patched  - Patched ROMs. ha will create these.
  |
  + patch      - Patch source directory
   \
    + maincpu  - Patches for the CPU region.
    |\
    | + 0000-desc.s  - This patch applies at 0x0000
    | + 4000-other.s - This patch applies at 0x4000
    + soundcpu - You can patch ROMs in other regions, too.

Based on the region and prefix in the source file name, ha will determine the correct ROM to patch using game.xml.

Configuration

When assembling patches, ha will choose an appropriate assembler for the game’s CPU. If you want to use a specific assembler, it can be specified in ha.ini. One assembler per game cpu may be specified.

Example:

[assemblers]
maincpu = AssembleCRASM

Signature Patches

It’s very common for games to have a method of verifying that their ROMs are correct, either as part of the power-on test, or in selftest mode. ROMs patched with ha almost always cause these to report an error, so ha supports automatically correcting patched data to pass validation. New methods can be added easily.

It’s not possible for ha to detect the right method to use, so they have to be manually configured in ha.ini. Example:

[signature]
method = AtariXOR

AtariXOR

Used in Space Duel, and possibly other Atari titles. The offset to place the correcting byte must be specified per ROM. Offsets are specified relative to the bottom of the ROM, not the bottom of the address space. Example:

[signature]
method = AtariXOR
136006-103.m1 = 0x0700
136006-105.j1 = 0x0fef

Commands

ha init pacmanf

Creates a template for patches to the pacmanf MAME ROM. The game.xml file will be written, original ROMs extracted, and directories created for each region. Any valid MAME ROM name may be provided.

ha asm

Assemble the patch. See "Supported CPUs."

ha patch

Patch ROMs. This doesn’t assemble; you must have assembled already.

ha ap

Assemble & patch.

ha dev

Assemble, patch, and run the patched ROM in MAME.

ha orig

Run the original ROM in MAME.