What is it?

This project contains the source material for the Arcade Classic 2, a hybrid hardware/software YM2151 video game music (VGM) player. This device is based off of the Mega Blaster 2 platform which was designed to play Sega Genesis/Megadrive VGM files. This project utilizes a hybrid approach for rendering audio. All FM portions of the VGM file are played through a genuine YM2151 sound chip, while any extra soundchips, namely PCM soundchips, are pre-rendered and fed into an audio mixer circuit. While it would be awesome to have genuine hardware support for every chip that was ever paired up with the YM2151, there are several factors that make that approach completely unfeasible. Namely, the vast amount of hardware configurations, memory requirements, sheer board space required, and rarity of components. Therefore, this player is essentially playing back a WAV file for the external chips while also driving the genuine FM sound generator and mixing them together. The result sounds pretty awesome!

Why did you make it?

Building Your Own Unit Here are some quick tips for building your own board.

You can find an interactive Bill of Materials (BOM) within the schematic->bom folder. Open the HTML file in any browser for an easy-to-use part position guide. I use KiCAD as my EDA suite. I buy most of my components from LCSC. I buy my PCBs from JLCPCB. If you buy your PCBs from JLCPCB, you can often get a shipping discount on your LCSC parts order. You will need an Atmel ICE or Jlink to flash the bootloader. Once you have flashed the bootloader, all subsequent programming can be done via the on-board USB port. A cheaper option would be to grab a Jlink EDU Mini as they feature the full functionality of a professional Jlink Unit with the stipulation that it is ONLY to be used for educational purposes. I personally use an Atmel ICE unit. You can find the bootloader bin file in the bootloader folder of the repository. You can find an example of me programming the bootloader using Microchip Studio here. This is the same bootloader that the Mega Blaster 2 uses, so the process is the same. You may notice that your Arcade Classic 2 is identified by your computer as a "Mega Blaster 2." This is fine. Once you've flashed the bootloader, you can drag the .uf2 firmware file found on the releases page on to the "drive" that pops up on your computer, or build from source. If you can't see any "drive," make sure the bootloader mentioned above is flashed correctly, then try double-tapping the RESET button. If your OS reports a USB fault, you may have a short somewhere on your USB IO lines, power lines, or your 32.768KHz crystal is not hooked up correctly. If you'd like to modify the firmware, I use Visual Studio Code with the PlatformIO extension.

What makes it special?

Special VGM File Requirements The Arcade Classic 2 will read standard VGM/VGZ files just fine, however, in order to enable pre-rendered PCM support, you will need to quickly run your VGM files through a tool I've created. This tool will render out any portions of the VGM file that aren't controlling the YM2151 into a WAV file. The tool will then append the WAV data to the original VGM file. Finally, the tool will change the VGM header information so that the Arcade Classic 2 will recognize it as a PCM-compatible VGM file.

This tool is only compatible with Windows systems