then, I must have misread the crc, sorry for the false report...

small update: next clrmame version will handle correctly reload & ignore flags, so that it will be possible to load either aes.xml or the output of -listsoftware with no difference

thanks Roman!

Nice to see some work on the AES side of the Neo-Geo.

There are many MVS only sets which are not documented (yet) in the current Mame source.
If my submission for 138u2 gets accepted I´ll do an update for u3, properly tagging sets which are MVS only.

I would be very interested to know about which PCB type each AES cart used, to add documentation in the xml list. could you create such a list from your notes?

I´ll have to check how many AES carts I´ve documented.

But is it worth the work? Some games use unique PROG boards (kof2003, mslug5, samsh5sp, mslugx, nam1975, ridhero etc.) but most games use 'generic' boards or 'leftovers' from other games.
Saying game X uses NEO-AEG PROGGS for first production run and for second run uses NEO-AEG PROGTOP2.

it was more an aesthetic thing than anything else: I hoped we could match the PCB type with the kind of protection required, so that we can check for

pcb_type = NEO_GEO_PCB_TYPEXXX

instead of

decryption_type = mslug_decrypt

with a NEOGEO_PCB_GENERIC type for the ones without a unique design. but I didn't know about boards "recycling" (my knowledge of the real neogeo carts is quite superficial), so probably it is only worth documenting the ones with unique PROG boards...

This way it sounds doable
Protection was part of what I meant for unique boards (one board has a extra link mode/audio out?).
For GFX protection (NEO-CMC) there only exist two boards:
SNK
NEO-AEG CHAFIO (1999.8.10) (kof99 tables)
SNKPLAYMORE
NEO-AEG CHAFIO (2003.7.24) (kof2000 + m1 tables)
PCM protection (NEO-PCM2 SNK + Playmore) should be max 2 boards, the rest is 'generic'.

If I remember correctly only 3 or 4 unique boards (AES) need to be checked out: Metal Slug X and KOF 98, maybe Mslug5.

Kof98 can be easily obtained but the rest is expensive and insanely expensive ...

I'll post the unique boards here later.

Huh, I have to correct myself. Given wrong info in above post.

Dug a bit in my archives and picked two dual use examples of boards:

NEO-AEG CHAFIO (1999.8.10)
- used with NEO-CMC 90G06C7042 or NEO-CMC 90G06C7050
(board is used for games with kof99 type encryption AND kof2000 encryption) checked on kof99+mslug4+matrim

NEO-AEG PROGBK2 (2002.4.1)
- used with NEO-PCM2 (1999 SNK) or NEO-PCM2 (2002 PLAYMORE)
(board is used from game ID NGH-2630 - NGH-2660)

If we want to be percise on this there is another problem:

NEO-AEG CHAFIO (2003.7.24)
- used only with NEO-CMC 90G06C7050
(only kof2000 encryption, board used from game ID NGH-2680 - NGH-2720)

Edit:

NEO-AEG PROGLBA (1999.7.6)
- used on all SMA protected games (kof99 + most likely for kof2000+garou+mslug3)
(checked only on kof99 as this selection is a bit pricy)

NEO-AEG PROGBK3R (2003.8.29) - NEO-HYCS (2003.9.29)
- used for svc

NEO-AEG PROGBK3S (2003.10.6)
- used for kof2003 (mslug5?)

NEO-AEG PROG42G-COM
- used for ridhero and trash rally (probably more ?)
(has an unemulated link / communication feature using HD6301V1P; also found on ridhero MVS)

Edit 2:

NEO-AEG PROGBK2S (2003.10.16)
- used for samsho5 (also samsh5sp?)


@eta: Still want to do this?

....

Here a extended list of all AES boards I am aware of:


AES CHA:
-- SNK --
. NEO-AEG CHA-32
. NEO-AEG CHA-8M
. NEO-AEG CHA42G
. NEO-AEG CHA42G-1
. NEO-AEG CHA42G-2B
. NEO-AEG CHA42G-3
. NEO-AEG CHA42G-4
. NEO-AEG CHA256
. NEO-AEG CHA256[B]
. NEO-AEG CHA256RY
. NEO-AEG CHA512Y
. NEO-AEG CHAFIO (1999.8.10) - used with NEO-CMC 90G06C7042 or NEO-CMC 90G06C7050
-- SNKPLAYMORE --
. NEO-AEG CHAFIO (2003.7.24) - used only with NEO-CMC 90G06C7050

AES PROG:
-- SNK --
. NEO-AEG PROG-NAM
. NEO-AEG PROG-HERO
. NEO-AEG PROG-4A
. NEO-AEG PROG-4B
. NEO-AEG PROG 8M42
. NEO-AEG PROG B
. NEO-AEG PROG16
. NEO-AEG PROG42G
. NEO-AEG PROG42G-COM
. NEO-AEG PROG42G-1
. NEO-AEG PROG-G2
. NEO-AEG PROG4096 B
. NEO-AEG PROGGS
. NEO-AEG PROGTOP2
. NEO-AEG PROGLBA (1999.7.6)
. NEO-AEG PROGRK
. NEO-AEG PROGRKB
. NEO-AEG PROGBK1Y
. NEO-AEG PROGBK1F
-- PLAYMORE --
. NEO-AEG PROGBK2 (2002.4.1) - used with NEO-PCM2 (1999 SNK) or NEO-PCM2 (2002 PLAYMORE)
-- SNKPLAYMORE --
. NEO-AEG PROGBK3R (2003.8.29) - NEO-HYCS (2003.9.29)
. NEO-AEG PROGBK3S (2003.10.6)
. NEO-AEG PROGBK2S (2003.10.16)

Just tried latest SVN build with Universe Bios.
Universe bios reports that it found a MVS 6-Slot hardware.

AES is 1-Slot only.

Found some related info here (Note 3922 from Reyn): http://mametesters.org/view.php?id=2992

Ok, setting said bit to 0 (it's marked as IPT_SPECIAL, so making it active high does the trick) makes unibios list it as MV-1x. Do you know if unibios will detect AES or not?
Edit: answered my own question. Setting bits 3 and 4 of IN3 (0x320000) low, allows unibios to detect an AES.