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Cartridge port

50 pin connector with spacing of 2.54mm. For example this works: https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/te-connectivity-amp-connectors/5530841-5/5530841-5-ND/2259225

One pair of pins is missing, making a hole that prevents inserting cartridges in the wrong way.

V.Smile cartridges

Pinout traced from development cart picture: https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/750094909947772964/758513072087629884/vsmile-pinout.png?width=1011&height=684

Development cartridges from V.Tech used NOR flash memory: SST 39VF6401B (4Mx16 flash memory). The write pin is exposed on the cartridge port, so in theory it's possible to reflash it directly from the console?

Production cartridges use a “blob” and it's unknown what exactly is under it. Probably mask ROM.

Pin N1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 1415161718 1920 21 22 23 24 25
Front/WE/OE GND D3 D4D5D6D11D12D13D15A0 A1 A3x A5A7A18A9A11A13A15A20GNDCard detect
Back VDDRAM CSBSenseROM CSB2D2D1D0D7 D10D9 D8 D14A16A2x A4A6A17A8A10A12A14A19A21ROM CSB1

Note: the “back” side is the one with the label. Chips inside the cartridge are on the side with no label.

  • Sense is connected to VDD to indicate that a cart is inserted. It is connected to the RESET pin, so inserting a cartridge will power the console off.
  • Card detect is connected to VDD to indicate that a cart with ROM is inserted (?) maybe it allows booting from cartridge instead of internal ROM (tbc)
  • ROM CSB1, ROM CSB2 and RAM CSB allow to select which bank of the cartridge is accessed. Typically cartridges use only ROM CSB1, but larger cartridges (example: alphabet adventure) need two ROM banks. RAM CSB is used for the battery backed-up SRAM cartridges

To be confirmed:

  • What is the max capacity? Since we have 3 bits (RAM_CSB, ROM_CSB1 and ROM_CSB2), can we fully control them individually and address 7 different spaces of 22bit each?
  • What is RAM_CSB? It is not connected on the only cart known to use SRAM.

Battery backup cartridge

At least the “Studio de Dessin” cartridge (the one for the graphic tablet) has backup SRAM

The blob is flash (as usual) and the chip on the right is RAM: BSI - BS616LV2016ECG70 - S31688EB04308B1 - E05162 - Taiwan

FIXME The pin labelled RAM_CSB in the pinout above is in fact not used by this cartridge (but ROM_CSB2 is)

Nitro Vision / Genius TV progress cartridges

These contain no ROM, and only short some pins together.

Inserting these in the V.Smile results in nothing special (the boot animation loops as if there was no cartridge). However the SENSE pin is there, so they still power the console off if connected while it is on.

Cartridge name Number (marked on PCB) Shorted pins
Français et Anglais (orange) 1 - 35-68700-017-202-707426-1 SENSE is connected to VDD
Sciences et Nature (white) 2 - 35-68700-018-202-707427-1 SENSE and RAM_CSB are connected to VDD
Découvre le monde (blue) 3 - 35-68700-019-202-707428-1 SENSE and ROM_CSB2 are connected to VDD
Maths et Logique (green) 4 - 35-68700-020-202-707429-1 SENSE, RAM_CSB and ROM_CSB2 are connected to VDD

So, in this case:

  • Sense indicate that a cartridge is inserted
  • RAM_CSB and ROM_CSB2 allow to identify which cartridge it is

Controller port

6 pin mini DIN (like PS/2 keyboards and mouse). It is a serial port at 4800 baud, 8N1.

Pinout (using the standard numbering for mini-DIN connectors) :

  1. VCC
  2. CTS (from V.Smile)
  3. Tx (from V.Smile)
  4. GND
  5. Rx (from controller)
  6. RTS (from controller)

Flow control

When the console sends a byte, first CTS goes high, then the console sends the bits on the Tx line. When done, CTS goes low again.

When the controller sends a byte, RTS goes low first, then it waits for CTS to be up. Then RTS goes up and sends its byte. Finally CTS goes low again.

If there are multiple bytes to send, RTS remains down until the start of the last byte.

Messages from the controller

When idle (no buttons touched), the console sends a byte every 20ms, it seems to be partially random. I've seen E6, D6, or 96.

Every second the controller sends 55 if nothing else is happening.

Common to joystick, dance mat and keyboard
Button Press Release
OK A1 A0
Quit A2 A0
Help A3 A0
ABC A4 A0
Idle (nothing) 55

Joystick

The joystick has 5 levels of precision in each direction. For example, C3 is “slightly up”, C7 is “all the way up”.

The 4 color buttons are allocated one bit each in the 9x range so it's possible to manage multiple of them being pressed at once.

The other buttons are Ax with x just being the button number, so it's not possible to handle multiple of them being pressed at the same time.

Joystick
Button Press Release
Green 91 90
Blue 92 90
Yellow 94 90
Red 98 90
Up C0 83 to C0 87 C0 80
Down C0 8B to C0 8F C0 80
Left CB 80 to CF 80 C0 80
Right C3 80 to C7 80 C0 80

Dance mat

Every press sends at least a “joystick position” 2-byte pair, and possibly an extra byte for the button itself (some buttons report as joystick moves, other as separate buttons). The mapping is not at all compatible with the joystick and seems a bit random. Note that for example 8B and 8D are different buttons, where on the joystick it would be different positions in the same direction.

Dance mat
Button Press Release
1 / Red C0 8B C0 80
2 / Up 92 C0 80 90 C0 80
3 / Yellow CB 80 C0 80
4 / Left C0 8D C0 80
5 / Middle 91 C0 80 90 C0 80
6 / Right CD 80 C0 80
7 / Blue A4 C0 80 A0 C0 80
8 / Down 94 C0 80 90 C0 80
9 / Green 98 C0 80 90 C0 80

Smart Keyboard (Clavier Tip Tap)

(sorry, I have the French/azerty version so key labels may not match up. The table is in row/column order)

Row 1 (top) Row 2 Row 3 Row 4 Row 5
Key Code Key Code Key Code Key Code Key Code
Esc A2 Dactylo 22 Caps 1A Shift A9/AA Player 1 04
1 33 A 23 W 13 Help A3
2 34 Z 24 Q 1B X 14 Symbol 2C
3 35 E 25 S 1C C 15 Space 05
4 37 R 27 D 1D V 17 Player 2 0E
5 36 T 26 F 1F B 16 Left 06
6 30 Y 20 G 1E N 08 Down 0F
7 31 U 21 H 18 , 11 Right 0D
8 3E I 3A J 19 ; 0C
9 3F O 3B K 0A : 2F
0 38 P 3C L 0B Up 12
º 29 ¨ 2A M 01
Backspace 39 Erase 3D Enter A1
  • Escape is mapped to Quit and works the same
  • Help is mapped to Help and works the same
  • Enter is mapped to OK and works the same
  • Shift sends A9 on press and AA on release
  • Other keys send their code on press, and code | C0 on release (so no code will be in the 90-AF range for either press or release to not conflict with the special buttons)

The joystick at the bottom of the keyboard is similar to the normal Joystick but uses different values (to avoid clashing with the keyboard release keycode range). There does not seem to be different values possible, it's all on or all off.

  • Left: 7F 80
  • Right: 77 80
  • Down: 70 8F
  • Up: 70 87

Commands from the console

61, 62, 64 and 68 are sent in reply to color buttons presses. I suspect this controls the lights in the buttons. 60 is sent to turn the light off.

These are repeated every 20ms. After the controller sends 55 (idle), the V.Smile also returns to its idle reply (E6 for example) every 20ms.

pinouts.1615558790.txt.gz · Last modified: 2021/03/12 15:19 by pulkomandy
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