Taito X1-017

iNES Mapper 082 represents boards using Taito's X1-017 mapper IC, which provides something a little more sophisticated than MMC6. It loses the indirect addressing, adds a 3rd 8 KiB ROM slice, and has 5 KiB of battery-backed RAM.

The cartridge connector's /IRQ line is connected to the mapper IC, but no commercial games used it. It's only recently been reverse-engineered.

Comparatively strong pull-downs inside the ASIC mean that there is no functional open bus in games that use this hardware: all reads from locations that would be open bus read back as 0, including disabled RAM and both ASIC and 2A03 registers.

Overview

• PRG ROM size: 128 KiB ¹
• PRG ROM bank size: 8 KiB
• PRG RAM: Yes, internal, battery backed.
• CHR capacity: 256 KiB ROM
• CHR bank size: 1 KiB and 2 KiB
• Nametable mirroring: Controlled by mapper
• Subject to bus conflicts: no

¹ Taito defined the PRG pins on this mapper in an odd way, making larger games difficult to accommodate.

Banks

• CPU $6000-$73FF: 5 KiB PRG RAM divided into 3 protection regions
• CPU $7EF0-$7EFF: Mapper registers
• CPU $8000-$9FFF: 8 KB switchable PRG ROM bank
• CPU $A000-$BFFF: 8 KB switchable PRG ROM bank
• CPU $C000-$DFFF: 8 KB switchable PRG ROM bank
• CPU $E000-$FFFF: 8 KB PRG ROM bank, fixed to the last bank
• PPU $0000-$07FF (or $1000-$17FF): 2 KB switchable CHR bank
• PPU $0800-$0FFF (or $1800-$1FFF): 2 KB switchable CHR bank
• PPU $1000-$13FF (or $0000-$03FF): 1 KB switchable CHR bank
• PPU $1400-$17FF (or $0400-$07FF): 1 KB switchable CHR bank
• PPU $1800-$1BFF (or $0800-$0BFF): 1 KB switchable CHR bank
• PPU $1C00-$1FFF (or $0C00-$0FFF): 1 KB switchable CHR bank

Registers

CHR Select 0 ($7EF0)

7  bit  0
CCCC CCC.
|||| |||
++++-+++-- Select 2 KiB CHR ROM at PPU $0000 or $1000

CHR Select 1 ($7EF1)

7  bit  0
CCCC CCC.
|||| |||
++++-+++-- Select 2 KiB CHR ROM at PPU $0800 or $1800

CHR Select 2 ($7EF2)

7  bit  0
CCCC CCCC
|||| ||||
++++-++++- Select 1 KiB CHR ROM at PPU $1000 or $0000

CHR Select 3 ($7EF3)

7  bit  0
CCCC CCCC
|||| ||||
++++-++++- Select 1 KiB CHR ROM at PPU $1400 or $0400

CHR Select 4 ($7EF4)

7  bit  0
CCCC CCCC
|||| ||||
++++-++++- Select 1 KiB CHR ROM at PPU $1800 or $0800

CHR Select 5 ($7EF5)

7  bit  0
CCCC CCCC
|||| ||||
++++-++++- Select 1 KiB CHR ROM at PPU $1C00 or $0C00

CHR Mode / Mirroring Control ($7EF6)

7  bit  0
.... ..CM
       ||
       |+- Mirroring (0:Horizontal, 1:Vertical)
       +-- CHR A12 inversion (0: two 2 KB banks at $0000-$0FFF,
                                 four 1 KB banks at $1000-$1FFF;
                              1: two 2 KB banks at $1000-$1FFF,
                                 four 1 KB banks at $0000-$0FFF)

PRG RAM enable 0 ($7EF7)

7  bit  0
XXXX XXXX
|||| ||||
++++-++++- Write $CA to enable RAM from $6000 to $67FF, write anything else to disable

PRG RAM enable 1 ($7EF8)

7  bit  0
XXXX XXXX
|||| ||||
++++-++++- Write $69 to enable RAM from $6800 to $6FFF, write anything else to disable

PRG RAM enable 2 ($7EF9)

7  bit  0
XXXX XXXX
|||| ||||
++++-++++- Write $84 to enable RAM from $7000 to $73FF, write anything else to disable

PRG Select 0 ($7EFA)

7  bit  0
..PP PP..
  || ||
  ++-++--- Select 8 KiB PRG ROM at $8000

Note: remember that the low 2 bits are not used (right-shift written values by 2)

PRG Select 1 ($7EFB)

7  bit  0
..PP PP..
  || ||
  ++-++--- Select 8 KiB PRG ROM at $A000

PRG Select 2 ($7EFC)

7  bit  0
..PP PP..
  || ||
  ++-++--- Select 8 KiB PRG ROM at $C000

IRQ

The X1-017's IRQ functionality was not used by the commercial games, and only reverse-engineered in January 2020. No emulators support the IRQ as of January 2020.

It effectively only provides the ability to schedule an IRQ up to 4100 cycles in the future, short enough that even a top status bar will require a "spacing" IRQ, and its 16x prescaler is too coarse for close raster effects. Furthermore, acknowledging the IRQ reloads the counter, so it subsequent IRQs will tend to creep forward due to the 6502's variable IRQ latency.

IRQ Latch ($7EFD)

An eight-bit wide register, specifying the reload value for the IRQ.

IRQ Control ($7EFE)

7  bit  0
.... .MIC
      |||
      ||+- 1: Enable counting
      ||   0: Disable counting and reload counter, ([$7EFD]+2)*16 if [$7EFD] is nonzero; 17 if it's zero.
      |+-- 1: Enable asserting /IRQ, 0: don't.
      +--- Unknown. Counting only works if this bit is 1.

The IRQ will count down while counting is enabled. It's possible to generate multiple IRQs in a row by toggling the "I" bit above before acknowledging the interrupt.

IRQ Acknowledge and reload ($7EFF)

Any write to this register will de-assert IRQ and reload the counter. If [$7EFD] is nonzero, the value reloaded is ([$7EFD]+1)*16. If [$7EFD] is zero, the value reloaded is 1.

Known Games

• SD Keiji: Blader (ＳＤ刑事ブレイダー)
• Kyuukyoku Harikiri Stadium 1989 Edition (究極ハリキリスタジアム平成元年版)
• Kyuukyoku Harikiri Stadium III (究極ハリキリスタジアムIII)
• Kyuukyoku Harikiri Koushien (究極ハリキリ甲子園)

See Also

• Taito X1-005
• Taito X1-005 with alternate mirroring control

References

• BootGod mentions the RAM protect registers: [1]
• Krzysiobal reverse-engineered the IRQ: [2]