NBA Jam for Analogue Pocket v0.2.1

NBA Jam for Analogue Pocket — 0.2.1

0.2.1 fixes the ROM recipes; the core itself is unchanged from 0.2.0
(same bitstream, md5 97a294176f0ab618921b9efbc99ebab4).

• The standard mra tool now builds correct images. The .mra files
  wrote their interleave map digits in the reverse of the MRA convention, so
  mra produced scrambled images (with only an md5 warning). Both
  mra -z <romdir> nbajam.mra and mra -z <romdir> nbajamte.mra now give
  exactly the images below, and so does mra_build.py.
• Merged romsets work. A merged nbajamte.zip also holds the clone
  nbajamte4's same-named ug12 in a subfolder; mra_build.py picked the
  wrong one. It now chooses by CRC.
• Romset notes: Tournament Edition is MAME's nbajamte (rev 4.0 3/23/94).
  Older sets that name NBA Jam's two speech ROMs nbau12.u12 / nbau13.u13
  (before MAME 0.253) work with both tools: mra and mra_build.py find a
  file by its CRC as well as its name.

---

0.2.0

Midway's T-unit arcade board as an openFPGA core, now running both NBA Jam
(1993, rev 3.01) and NBA Jam Tournament Edition (1994, rev 4.0 3/23/94).
Tested on a Pocket: picture, sound and smooth play in both.

New in 0.2.0

• Tournament Edition. Pick the game from the list when the core starts;
  the core recognises which one it was given from the ROM itself. Each game
  keeps its own settings and high scores.
• Smoother play. Busy scenes (a basket in view) no longer drop frames:
  the video memory now writes at full rate.
• Controls laid out like the arcade panel (from 0.1.1): Y turbo, X shoot,
  A pass; B is a second pass and R a second turbo.
• Settings and high scores kept: service-mode settings, audits and high
  scores are saved to the SD card per game
  (Saves/nbajam/plasticbugs.nbajam/nbajam.sav, nbajamte.sav) and loaded
  back when the core starts.
• The platform image, correct game details (Midway, 1993), and the
  diagnostic items gone from the menu.

Installing

1. Unzip onto the root of the SD card (Cores/, Platforms/, Assets/).
   Coming from 0.1.x, replace everything; the game list is new.

2. Build the ROM images from your own MAME romsets — no ROM data is
   included, and none ever will be:

   python3 mra_build.py nbajam.mra nbajam.zip        # md5 b6a0b85732103ba8ec4fa6a65ddd2c32
   python3 mra_build.py nbajamte.mra nbajamte.zip    # md5 1ae1931e7073e9131c9c9336bc6b0fdc
   

3. Put them in Assets/nbajam/common/ (nbajam.rom, nbajamte.rom).

On the very first start each game says "CMOS INVALID -- FACTORY SETTINGS
RESTORED": press any button. That is the arcade's own behaviour with a blank
settings memory.

Controls

Laid out like the arcade panel (Turbo, Shoot, Pass from left to right):
Y turbo, X shoot / block, A pass / steal; B is a second pass, R a second
turbo; Select coin, Start start.

Menu

Free Play, Cabinet (2 or 4 player), Attract Video Clips (NBA Jam only),
and Service Switch + Reset Core for the game's own test menu.

Known limits

• When the game clears a whole screen with its CPU (scene changes such as the
  tip-off) this core takes about three frames where the arcade takes one, so
  those moments hitch briefly.
• Players 3 and 4 are not wired.
• A game never replays exactly like MAME's: NBA Jam takes its random numbers
  from the video beam's position, as the arcade did.

How it was checked

Against MAME 0.288, for each game:

• the ROM image byte-identical to what MAME feeds each chip;
• the picture pixel-identical on frozen moments of the game (16 NBA Jam,
  14 Tournament Edition);
• the CPU identical, instruction by instruction, for ~69 million
  instructions from power-on;
• Tournament Edition's copy protection: all 768 accesses of its boot
  identical to MAME's;
• sound as loud as MAME's, second by second, across every sound command;
• timing met at 96 MHz.

On hardware: a fast memory mode that garbled colours (reads), a self-test that
overwrote the sound CPU's start address, and frame drops in Tournament
Edition's busiest scenes, each found on a Pocket and fixed. The full story is
in BUILD_LOG.md.

Credits

MAME's midtunit driver (Alex Pasadyn, Zsolt Vasvari, Ernesto Corvi, Aaron
Giles); jt51 and jt6295 by Jose Tejada; the MC6809 core by Greg Miller; the
Pocket platform and build image by Marcus Andrade (OpenGateware); the Smash TV,
S.T.U.N. Runner and Pleiads Pocket cores it grew from. See CREDITS.md.

NBA Jam for Analogue Pocket v0.2.0

NBA Jam for Analogue Pocket — 0.2.0

Midway's T-unit arcade board as an openFPGA core, now running both NBA Jam
(1993, rev 3.01) and NBA Jam Tournament Edition (1994, rev 4.0 3/23/94).
Tested on a Pocket: picture, sound and smooth play in both.

New in 0.2.0

• Tournament Edition. Pick the game from the list when the core starts;
  the core recognises which one it was given from the ROM itself. Each game
  keeps its own settings and high scores.
• Smoother play. Busy scenes (a basket in view) no longer drop frames:
  the video memory now writes at full rate.
• Controls laid out like the arcade panel (from 0.1.1): Y turbo, X shoot,
  A pass; B is a second pass and R a second turbo.
• Settings and high scores kept: service-mode settings, audits and high
  scores are saved to the SD card per game
  (Saves/nbajam/plasticbugs.nbajam/nbajam.sav, nbajamte.sav) and loaded
  back when the core starts.
• The platform image, correct game details (Midway, 1993), and the
  diagnostic items gone from the menu.

Installing

1. Unzip onto the root of the SD card (Cores/, Platforms/, Assets/).
   Coming from 0.1.x, replace everything; the game list is new.

2. Build the ROM images from your own MAME romsets — no ROM data is
   included, and none ever will be:

   python3 mra_build.py nbajam.mra nbajam.zip        # md5 b6a0b85732103ba8ec4fa6a65ddd2c32
   python3 mra_build.py nbajamte.mra nbajamte.zip    # md5 1ae1931e7073e9131c9c9336bc6b0fdc
   

3. Put them in Assets/nbajam/common/ (nbajam.rom, nbajamte.rom).

On the very first start each game says "CMOS INVALID -- FACTORY SETTINGS
RESTORED": press any button. That is the arcade's own behaviour with a blank
settings memory.

Controls

Laid out like the arcade panel (Turbo, Shoot, Pass from left to right):
Y turbo, X shoot / block, A pass / steal; B is a second pass, R a second
turbo; Select coin, Start start.

Menu

Free Play, Cabinet (2 or 4 player), Attract Video Clips (NBA Jam only),
and Service Switch + Reset Core for the game's own test menu.

Known limits

• When the game clears a whole screen with its CPU (scene changes such as the
  tip-off) this core takes about three frames where the arcade takes one, so
  those moments hitch briefly.
• Players 3 and 4 are not wired.
• A game never replays exactly like MAME's: NBA Jam takes its random numbers
  from the video beam's position, as the arcade did.

How it was checked

Against MAME 0.288, for each game:

• the ROM image byte-identical to what MAME feeds each chip;
• the picture pixel-identical on frozen moments of the game (16 NBA Jam,
  14 Tournament Edition);
• the CPU identical, instruction by instruction, for ~69 million
  instructions from power-on;
• Tournament Edition's copy protection: all 768 accesses of its boot
  identical to MAME's;
• sound as loud as MAME's, second by second, across every sound command;
• timing met at 96 MHz.

On hardware: a fast memory mode that garbled colours (reads), a self-test that
overwrote the sound CPU's start address, and frame drops in Tournament
Edition's busiest scenes, each found on a Pocket and fixed. The full story is
in BUILD_LOG.md.

Credits

MAME's midtunit driver (Alex Pasadyn, Zsolt Vasvari, Ernesto Corvi, Aaron
Giles); jt51 and jt6295 by Jose Tejada; the MC6809 core by Greg Miller; the
Pocket platform and build image by Marcus Andrade (OpenGateware); the Smash TV,
S.T.U.N. Runner and Pleiads Pocket cores it grew from. See CREDITS.md.

NBA Jam for Analogue Pocket v0.1.0

NBA Jam for Analogue Pocket — 0.1.0

The first release: Midway's 1993 NBA Jam arcade board (the "T-unit") as an
openFPGA core, tested on a Pocket with picture and sound correct.

Installing

1. Unzip onto the root of the SD card (Cores/, Platforms/, Assets/).

2. Build the ROM image from your own MAME nbajam romset — no ROM data is
   included, and none ever will be:

   python3 mra_build.py nbajam.mra nbajam.zip
   

   The result must have md5 b6a0b85732103ba8ec4fa6a65ddd2c32.

3. Put it at Assets/nbajam/common/nbajam.rom.

On the very first start the game says "CMOS INVALID -- FACTORY SETTINGS
RESTORED": press any button. That is the arcade's own behaviour with a blank
settings memory.

Controls

A shoot, B pass, X / Y / R turbo, Select coin, Start start.

Menu

• Free Play, Cabinet (2 or 4 player), Attract Video Clips.
• Service Switch + Reset Core: the game's own test menu.

Known limits

• Players 3 and 4 are not wired.
• A game can never replay exactly like MAME's: NBA Jam takes its random
  numbers from the video beam's position, as the arcade did.
• Saving of settings and high scores to the SD card is in, not yet confirmed
  on hardware.

How it was checked

Against MAME 0.288:

• picture pixel-identical on 16 frozen moments;
• the blitter's video memory identical after 2,080 drawing jobs;
• the CPU identical, instruction by instruction, for 69.6 million instructions;
• sound as loud as MAME's, second by second, across every sound command;
• timing met at 96 MHz.

The first hardware build found two faults simulation could not: a fast memory
mode unreliable on the board, and a power-on self-test that overwrote the
sound CPU's reset vector. Both are fixed here. The full story is in
BUILD_LOG.md.

Credits

MAME's midtunit driver (Alex Pasadyn, Zsolt Vasvari, Ernesto Corvi, Aaron
Giles); jt51 and jt6295 by Jose Tejada; the MC6809 core by Greg Miller; the
Pocket platform and build image by Marcus Andrade (OpenGateware); the Smash TV
and S.T.U.N. Runner Pocket cores it grew from. See CREDITS.md.

Package revision

The zip was replaced on 2026-09-24 to add the platform image and take the
diagnostic items off the menu. The bitstream is unchanged, the one tested on
hardware (md5 05629f94f775fc5f4a3e03e8254fe5d3); the definitions come from
commit f157e0d, later than the tag, which differs only outside the gateware.