Sharp X68030 CZ-500C Repair Information

[BlueBMW]

The X68030 full size twin tower unit has the same sort of failure points as other x68000 systems.  Namely the power supply fails from leaked capacitors, floppy drive failure, sram battery failure.

The X68030 however has additional issues that most X68ks dont.  Like the Compact XVI units, the 68030 utilized SMT capacitors on its mainboards and these type of capacitors are prone to heavy leakage at this age.  The leaked fluid can eventually damage traces and destroy the mainboards of the system.

I suggest that you replace all the capacitors on both mainboards and the video board as well as the capacitors in the power supply in any X68030 system you service.

Below are some charts detailing the ratings and locations of the capacitors in an X68030 machine:







Eventually I will add more information to this thread or the wiki once I get more time to give more detailed information regarding repair of this system.

Note, the floppy drives in the 030, while very similar to the drives in other 68000s, seem to have some additional capacitors that should be replaced.  I'll try and put together a detailed guide on recapping these floppy drives.

[NFG]

Excellent start!  I've front-paged this on gamesx.com.

[AnnaWu]

BlueBMW,  could you do me a favour, please?
You are a owner of an X68030 computer.
I need a real dump of the ROM30.DAT

To make a dump.

readrom30

Copy the small tool on your Disk/HardDisk.
Run the readrom30.x under Human68k.
A file called "ROM30.DAT" will created with a size of 128k.

Please post the dump here or send me a private message.
Thanks in advance. : )

Anna

[BlueBMW]

BlueBMW,  could you do me a favour, please?
You are a owner of an X68030 computer.
I need a real dump of the ROM30.DAT

To make a dump.

readrom30

Copy the small tool on your Disk/HardDisk.
Run the readrom30.x under Human68k.
A file called "ROM30.DAT" will created with a size of 128k.

Please post the dump here or send me a private message.
Thanks in advance. : )

Anna

As soon as  I've got a good reliable way to transfer files too and from the 68k, I'll get this for you.  Does it matter if its from an X68030 full size or compact?  I have access to both.

[AnnaWu]

BlueBMW,  could you do me a favour, please?
You are a owner of an X68030 computer.
I need a real dump of the ROM30.DAT

To make a dump.

readrom30

Copy the small tool on your Disk/HardDisk.
Run the readrom30.x under Human68k.
A file called "ROM30.DAT" will created with a size of 128k.

Please post the dump here or send me a private message.
Thanks in advance. : )

Anna

As soon as  I've got a good reliable way to transfer files too and from the 68k, I'll get this for you.  Does it matter if its from an X68030 full size or compact?  I have access to both.

Thank you so much. Maybe both,  so I can compare it to see the different if exist.
You can rename the files like Fu_ROM30.dat/Co_ROM30.dat.

Thanks again!

Anna

[AnnaWu]

BlueBMW,  could you do me a favour, please?
You are a owner of an X68030 computer.
I need a real dump of the ROM30.DAT

To make a dump.

readrom30

Copy the small tool on your Disk/HardDisk.
Run the readrom30.x under Human68k.
A file called "ROM30.DAT" will created with a size of 128k.

Please post the dump here or send me a private message.
Thanks in advance. : )

Anna

As soon as  I've got a good reliable way to transfer files too and from the 68k, I'll get this for you.  Does it matter if its from an X68030 full size or compact?  I have access to both.

Thank you so much. Maybe both,  so I can compare it to see the different if exist.
You can rename the files like Fu_ROM30.dat/Co_ROM30.dat.

Thanks again!

Anna

Any news, BlueBMW?

[BlueBMW]

I think Ive got a way to transfer the files now.  Ill try it tonight on both machines!

[AnnaWu]

Thanks, readrom30 uploaded again because the old link is no more valid.

http://nfggames.com/X68000/Uploads/

Anna

[BlueBMW]

Here' are the two rom images as requested:

Full Size 68030: http://nfggames.com/X68000/Uploads/X68030_ROM.zip
68030 Compact: http://nfggames.com/X68000/Uploads/X68030C_ROM.zip

[AnnaWu]

Thank you so much, BlueBMW. : )
It seems the contents are identical on both dumps.
I have to check now why the last 1024 bytes are filled with E5E5.

Anyway, the last 1024 bytes can be removed to use for the XM6i emulator.

[lydux]

Cool stuff here ! Thanks BlueBMW !

But I've doubts about these dumps... Are these really good to you Anna ?

According to my data, the X68030 rom should be 256KB long, not 128KB and layout is as this :

- 0x00000 --> 0x001FF = SCSI ROM
- 0x00200 --> 0x0DFFF = Human68K v2
- 0x0E000 --> 0x137FF = FLOAT2.X
- 0x13800 --> 0x2FFFF = Hudson ROM debugger
- 0x30000 --> 0x3FFFF = IPL ROM (64KB)

The beginning of these dumps correctly follow this layout, but stop right inside the ROM debugger area. And add 1024 bytes of junk (which I can't understand yet why you get this).

Please BlueBMW, give a try to this dumper : http://nfggames.com/X68000/Uploads/ipldump.zip

[AnnaWu]

1.) I doesn´t have the original hardware to make a double check.
2.) The readrom30 tool read the $FC0000～$FDFFFF memory only.
3.) The dump tool is from the XM6i developer. Maybe only a part of the memory area will be saved which is necessary to work with XM6i.
4.) XM6i detect the dumped ROM (without the 1024 bytes of junk) as correct ROM.

READROM30.x
Copyright (c) 2009 isaki@NetBSD.org


readrom30.x はメモリの $FC0000～$FDFFFF までの 128KB をファイルに
保存するだけの簡単なプログラムです。
即席なので細かいことは気にしないでください。
というか誰か作ってください。

使い方は X68030 (Human68k) 上で readrom30.x を実行するだけです。
不親切設計なのでオプションやプロンプトなど一切ありません。
実行すると、カレントディレクトリに ROM30.DAT というファイルが
出来ます。ROM30.DAT には 128 KB 必要なので、特にフロッピー上で
実行する際はあらかじめ容量を確保しておいてください。
すでに同名のファイルがあるかとか何も気を配りません。
注意してください。

本ソフトウェアは無保証です。本ソフトウェアを使用したことによって
生じる問題について作者は一切責任を負いません。
出来上がった ROM30.DAT は用法、用量を守って正しくお使いください。

[AnnaWu]

Please BlueBMW, give a try to this dumper : http://nfggames.com/X68000/Uploads/ipldump.zip

A good idea, lydux. : )

PS: I think this tool will not dump the needed area but let us see.

[lydux]

Ok, I've tried XM6i.
It does concatenate both ROM30.DAT and the existing IPLROM30.DAT to get somewhat the full rom, which is totally wrong : the upper region of ROM30.DAT contains the beggining of the ROM debugger, and the lower region of IPLROM30.DAT have the end.
So, XM6i generate a ROM with probably a corrupted ROM debugger, which iss not a problem unless you use it. Personnally, I use it a lot via the gdb backend in my toolchain.

3.) The dump tool is from the XM6i developer. Maybe only a part of the memory area will be saved which is necessary to work with XM6i.

IMO, in machine emulation, you can't reach the near 100% of accuracy with just a "part" of a rom. Don't you think ?

4.) XM6i detect the dumped ROM (without the 1024 bytes of junk) as correct ROM.

Even a full 128KB of zero file will work... I've tried, it only check for the size.
(Well, I guess... Since I don't have the source code)


I've already said this some time ago : XM6 suffers a lot from bad ROM management. It seems this have not changed in XM6i. Maybe we should send to the author the next full 256KB ROM dump ?

PS: I think this tool will not dump the needed area but let us see.

It will dump the higher 256KB of the IPLROM, the part that should normally be used by XM6i. But I think that's not enough...
In futur, we should try to get the full 1MB of rom in each released X68K. So no more corrupted dump, or roms part merging/splitting/messing things. (Yeah, I have heard the X68030 and XVI could use a slighly different CGROM as well. So, ...)

[AnnaWu]

Even a full 128KB of zero file will work... I've tried, it only check for the size.
(Well, I guess... Since I don't have the source code)

Not really, XM6i works if you use a dummy BUT in this case you get explicit a message :
The content of ROM30.DAT is not correct.
Do you want continue?



By using the dump, XM6i show me this message not anymore.
So the emulator check the validity of the ROM.
Not know any limit in the functionality exist if you use the dummy or not.
Unfortunately, the source code for XM6i is not available.
Anyway, the more areas dumped, the better.

[caius]

Hi all,
why don't try also this  dumper from the winx68030 package?

[AnnaWu]

Hi all,
why don't try also this  dumper from the winx68030 package?

I guess no difference, you ´ll get a 128KB dump too.

[BlueBMW]

What is the consensus on which dumping routine I should perform?  Also, is there need to run similar programs on other hardware?  I have access to the following original hardware...

Original 68k
Ace
Expert
XVI
Compact XVI
68030
68030 compact

[AnnaWu]

What is the consensus on which dumping routine I should perform?  Also, is there need to run similar programs on other hardware?  I have access to the following original hardware...

Original 68k
Ace
Expert
XVI
Compact XVI
68030
68030 compact

It will be great if you can make dumps of all machines, BlueBMW. : )
I suggest to use Sharp's C-Compiler Pro-68K debugger to dump ROMs.

1.) Download the XC2101.LZH package.
http://retropc.net/x68000/software/sharp/xc21/index.htm
2.) Decompress and copy the files on a floppy disk which is readable* on your X68k machines.
3.) Start the file "db.x" which you can find in the BIN folder of the floppy disk.
4.) Type the following command(s) from the command line of the db.x (some addresses are dependent of the model):

W IPLROM.DAT, FE0000, FFFFFF [Enter] (for any system)
W CGROM.DAT, F00000, FBFFFF [Enter] (for any system)
W SCSIINROM.DAT, FC0000, FC1FFF [Enter] (for X68000 or XVI systems with internal SCSI)
W ROM30.DAT, FC0000, FDFFFF [Enter] (for X68030 systems)

5.) Q [Enter]
6.) Some files called "*.DAT" should be created now in the current directory.
7.) Transfer the files from the x68k to a PC. The PC tool "DiskExplorer" can be useful to read/write* x68k floppy disks.
8.) Post the dumps here or contact me if you don´t want post it in the public.

Thanks in advance!

Anna

PS: Maybe lydux have a idea for an  256KB ROM dump but it is not supported from existing emulators.

[stt1]

Ah, great BlueBMW, you made pictured charts! That's really helpful.

I fixed two full size X68030 winter 2011/2012 and you forgot few caps from your pics. There are some "hidden" near the expansion slots. I changed them as well. I think I sent the list of caps to this forum. If I did, you'll find the values from there.

And one thing more - I changed these all to tantalum SMD caps. It was a bit tricky to figure out the suitable sizes, but I think it was worth it. All the caps were found from Farnell catalog.

- Saku

[dunmcl]

Ah, great BlueBMW, you made pictured charts! That's really helpful.

I fixed two full size X68030 winter 2011/2012 and you forgot few caps from your pics. There are some "hidden" near the expansion slots. I changed them as well. I think I sent the list of caps to this forum. If I did, you'll find the values from there.

And one thing more - I changed these all to tantalum SMD caps. It was a bit tricky to figure out the suitable sizes, but I think it was worth it. All the caps were found from Farnell catalog.

- Saku

I just begin the repair (my x68030 is ok but i prefer make the change of caps)
If you can list the caps you make me happy

[chadti99]

Any chance this map still exists somewhere?