web-page rev 1.02 October 12, 2004

Welcome to the WPC Commented Disassembly home page! This page will provide updates on the current state of the WPC Commented Disassembly progress.

This project began in early 2004. Initially the commented disassembly of WPC code was only started for the small task of being able to extract the dot-matrix data from the ROM images. This project was completed in March of 2004 which resulted in the private release of the WPCEdit software. Once WPCEdit was finished it was decided to go ahead and dive into the ROM and see what other goodies can be extracted. It wasn't long before it was realized that the complete disassembly, trace and annotation of the WPC code would have the most beneficial effect for the pinball community.

With a completely commented disassembly of a single WPC Game (IJ-L7), it will be relatively simple for other WPC ROM images to be disassembled and commented also. This will ultimately result in the disassembly of any WPC ROM with the repair of any and all bugs as well as any customization of the rule-sets as the available code-space permits. Indiana Jones L-7 was chosen as the initial game to disassemble simply because it is the most known to the person(s) disassembling the code and it will be easier to identify what the code may be doing at certain points since we've played the game so much.

This project is expected to take quite a long time. It was initially predicted that it could take up to 4 years if this project is only done in our spare time. If we hit this project with greater attention we could reduce it down to 1 or 2 years. Of course it would only take a couple mouse-clicks by the original game designers to provide this to the public, however we don't want them or anybody getting into trouble so we'll do it the hard way.

The following items are some of the parts of the code that have been disassembled. Even up to this point there is quite a bit of good information that has been found and the potential for custom coding and rule-set modifications is unlimited.

• All full-screen dot-matrix graphic images have been identified and commented neatly. These images take up a LOT of ROM space.
• The code that decodes the DMD images has been fully commented, thus resulting in the private software WPCEdit.
• All font-data has been identified and neatly commented. There have been a few minor errors identified in the font table data structures but these should never get encountered during game play.
• All game animations have been identified and neatly commented. There appears to be a Warner Bros. dancing frog with top-hat and cane, it will be really neat to see if there is a hidden way of getting this animation to show during game play.
• All text strings have been identified and neatly commented. The format of English/German/French strings has been identified.
• Lots of power-up game initialization code has been traced and commented. It is really interesting to see the code that determines whether a power-up is a factory reset or a normal reset. Additionally the quick-boot development shortcut has been identified.
• The low-level scanning of the switch matrix has been commented. It appears that it is not that much trouble to convert a security CPU board to a non-pic board with a few modifications. The scanning of the switch matrix is 99% identical between the PIC and non-PIC games so the idea that they moved switch scanning to the PIC to relieve the main CPU appears to be untrue. (did some comparisons with IJ and other game ROMs).
• The low-level CPU-board to Sound-board data shifting has been commented.

In addition to the above, lots of other small sections of code have been commented such as high-score table validation and reset and text-string handling. There is too much to list on this web-page however this partial list of items completed is presented only to provide the reader a sense of what we're doing and the potential of game modifications in the future. In the future as more chunks of code are done, this web-page will be updated. If there are no updates for many many months, feel free to email me and ask what is going on.

This section of the web-page is where new information will be added.

• July 21, 2004. Initial write-up of work done so far. Stay tuned! At this time we're working in the text-string handling, switch-event code, and attract-mode loop.
• July 27, 2004. Traced the diagnostic routines that put up the credit-dot and that form the test report messages. Discovered what appears to be a minor bug where if the ONLY problem is the Mini Playfield left opto then there wouldn't be a credit-dot and probably not a test report either.
• October 12, 2004. Okay I just haven't had any flipping time to continue this project. Is there any interested person(s) who would like to continue the complete disassembly of the IJ L-7 ROM image??? If so, contact me. I have tons of TXT files, each represents a single bank of the switched ROM. Most of the static data has been commented neatly but there is tons of code that needs commented and figured out exactly what it is doing. I was hoping to see if some flipper combination could start up the WB dancing frog animation but just plain haven't had time to go through the switch-matrix handling code to look for how it saves up flipper button presses (in the event some combination triggers the animation).

(If I get asked the same questions several times, I will post them here)

At this time information obtained during the WPC Disassembly is not being distributed. Again, this web-page is provided to let pinball hobbyists know that someday there will be a fix for their bugs and someday we will be able to make customizations.

The information provided on this web-page is for educational and entertainment purposes only.

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