INES Mapper 147

INES Mapper 147 is used to denote the Sachen 3018 board, used by one game: Chinese Kungfu: 少林武者 (TC-011) and its Western localization Challenge of the Dragon (not to be confused with the Color Dreams game of the same name). The original 60-pin Chinese version has 128 KiB of PRG-ROM and 128 KiB of CHR-ROM, while the 72-pin Western localization only has 64 KiB of PRG-ROM and 128 KiB of CHR-ROM.

Banks

• CPU $8000-$FFFF: 32 KiB switchable PRG ROM bank
• PPU $0000-$1FFF: 8 KiB switchable CHR ROM bank

Registers (60-pin release)

The original 60-pin release uses a custom IC (marked "JV001") serving as a latch, adder and inverter. There are five registers: Input (6 bits), Output (6 bits), Register (6 bits), Mode (1 bit) and Invert (1 bit).

Mask: $E103
Read $4100-$4103: [RRRR RR..]: Read Register (with its bits 0-5), connected to the CPU data bus bits 2-7. Register bits 4-5 (CPU bits 6-7) are inverted if Invert==1. CPU bits 0-1 are open bus.
Write $4100: When Mode==0: Bits 0-5 of Register := Input, bits 0-3 being inverted if Invert==1.
             When Mode==1: Bits 0-3 of Register incremented by one, bits 4-5 unaffected.
Write $4101: Invert := Written value bit 2.
Write $4102: Input := Written value bits 2-7.
Write $4103: Mode := Written value bit 2.
Write $8000-$FFFF: Output := Register; written value is ignored.

The six Output bits have the following functions:

Written CPU bit:       76543210
Internal Register bit: 543210..
                       --------
                       ||||||
                       +----+-- Select 32 KiB PRG-ROM bank at CPU $8000-$FFFF (PRG A15-A16)
                        ++++--- Select 8 KiB CHR-ROM bank at PPU $0000-$1FFF (CHR A13-A15)

The two PRG-ROM bits are split up in this way due to board topology: the lower bit goes directly to the A15 pin of the two 64 KiB PRG-ROM chips, while the higher bit selects which 64 KiB PRG-ROM chip is enabled.

Registers (72-pin release)

The 72-pin release of the game has only 64 KiB instead of 128 KiB of PRG-ROM, and uses a simple data latch instead of the JV001 ASIC, with the data bits having compatible functions as the original value written to $4102 on the JV001 IC:

 Mask: $4103
 Bus conflicts in the mirror at $C102-$FFFE
 $4102: [PCCC CP..] - Select 32 KiB PRG bank and 8 KiB CHR bank

Notes

• Despite the hardware differences between the 60- and 72-pin versions of the game, both a more complex emulation of the JV001 chip as well as a simple emulation of the data latch will work with both versions' ROM images, as the 60-pin version neither uses the adder or inverter functionalities of the JV001 chip nor checks the result available from reading $4100, and the 72-pin version retains the complete $4101/$4102/$4103 write sequence that would be necessary to operate the JV001 IC.
• The GoodNES 3.23b ROM image of Chinese Kungfu: 少林武者 is defective despite being tagged with [!]: the wrong CHR banks are selected during attract mode and in the second area of gameplay. A good redump is available.
• Chinese Kungfu: 少林武者 relies on uninitialized RAM and will not display the first self-running demo correctly if $0707 contains the value $FF at startup. Values $00-$09 will cause one of nine self-running demo sequences to play first, while values above that will cause the game to always begin with the first demo sequence. For the Western localization, the developers seemed to have noticed this problem and went out of their way to initialize this memory location with $00.

See also

• PCB images