Aleck 64¶
Arcade hardware on a Nintendo 64 base (1998-2000) — built not by Nintendo but by Seta. It is the Japanese counterpart to Atari's Cojag: a home console put back into arcades. And its most interesting chip is still not understood.
Identification¶
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Built by | Seta, on a Nintendo 64 base |
| Publishers | Hudson Soft, Seta, Nintendo |
| Years | 1998-2000 |
| CPU | NEC VR4300 — marked “CPU-NUS A” on the board |
| Motherboard | Seta E90 Main PCB (revision B known) |
| Game media | cartridge |
| PCB format | proprietary |
An N64 in a cabinet, made by Seta
The hardware follows the Nintendo 64's architecture — same VR4300, same principles — but the board is manufactured by Seta, and the game lives in a cartridge plugged into the E90 board.
→ For the N64 side, see Nintendo 64. For Seta, see Seta.
⚠️ The E90 chip, never worked out¶
This is the platform's notable point.
Nobody knows how it draws
The MAME driver carries, on Magical Tetris Challenge, a task left open: “finish E90 hookup, understand how it actually draws gfxs”.
In other words, how Seta's E90 board produces its graphics is not understood, years after the platform was reverse-engineered. That is not an emulation detail: it is a part of the hardware that remains opaque, and therefore unpreserved in any functional sense.
Other declared limits
The driver also flags a failing EEPROM on two games (mtetrisc, srmvs), static noise during play on Mayjinsen 3, and scrolling garbage on Kurufev — which it is not sure is not an original defect.
→ Comparing a real board against emulation therefore settles very little here.
Notable games¶
Eleven Beat World Tournament (Hudson Soft, 1998) · Magical Tetris Challenge (1998) · Star Soldier: Vanishing Earth (1998) · Vivid Dolls (1998) · Super Real Mahjong VS (1999) · Mayjinsen 3 (2000).
Common faults¶
| Symptom | Probable cause | Next step |
|---|---|---|
| Will not boot | cartridge contacts or the E90 board | Clean the contacts with isopropyl alcohol |
| Settings lost | EEPROM | ⚠️ MAME reports EEPROM failures on some games |
| Abnormal graphics | the E90 board | Its operation is undocumented — comparison is mandatory |
| No picture | VR4300 or the video stage | N64 failure modes |
| Noise in the sound | known on Mayjinsen 3 | May be original |
Repair (technician)¶
- Two distinct assemblies: the N64 part (VR4300, video) and Seta's E90 board. The console's failure modes apply to the first, not the second.
- The cartridge separates from the board: trying it elsewhere, or trying another one, settles things quickly.
- The E90 has neither replacement nor documentation. Diagnosis by comparison only.
→ Methods: PCB diagnosis · Recap
Procedure — a dead board, step by step ✅¶
What this adds
The general method lives in PCB diagnosis. This is its application to this platform: the same order, but with the values actually expected here, so you do not have to go back and forth.
Tools: multimeter, oscilloscope (or frequency counter), current-limited bench supply, desoldering braid. → Tooling
If the board is still in a cabinet
A CRT holds its charge with the machine unplugged. → CRT safety
1. Inspection, power off. Corrosion, cut tracks, oxidised EPROM legs, leaking SMD capacitors, dubious earlier repairs.
2. The connector, before anything else. A large share of "dead boards" are a contact problem, not a fault. Clean the contacts with isopropyl alcohol and reseat — not with an abrasive eraser on a gold edge, which takes the plating off and brings the problem back worse. It costs two minutes and settles the question.
3. Power, measured on the board. Aim for +5.0 V measured as close as possible to where power reaches the board — not at the PSU output: the drop is in the loom, and that is exactly what makes a board boot on the bench and not in the cabinet. Where you probe depends on this board's connector — JAMMA edge, JVS loom or a proprietary harness — plenty of makers kept one long after JAMMA arrived — see Identification above. → Wiring Check −5 V and +12 V too if the sound stage uses them. Suspected short: bring it up current-limited and find the hot spot.
4. /RESET. It must release after power-up. Held low = the CPU never starts. A 1–2 Hz loop is not the reset circuit, it is the watchdog: the CPU is crashing at boot, so look at the bus, not at the reset.
5. Clocks. There is no measurement table for this platform — MAME's sources yield nothing usable for it. Any frequency quoted under Architecture on this page serves as a marker; otherwise compare against a working board rather than against a number: an invented value condemns healthy parts. → PCB diagnosis
6. Bus. Activity on the main CPU's address lines tells you whether it is running or frozen. Frozen with good clocks and good reset → work RAM, bus buffers, ROMs.
7. It boots but the picture or the sound is wrong — that is another job: see Common faults on this page, then signal tracing.
Modernisation & mods¶
- No suicide: no battery-backed protection documented.
- ⚠️ Do not host ROMs — method only.
- Neighbours: the same idea as Atari's Cojag, a home console turned into an arcade board.
Emulation & FPGA¶
MAME covers the platform (nintendo/aleck64.cpp, driver by Ville Linde), with the
reservations described above — including the unresolved E90.
Photos / assets¶
(To take: the Seta E90 Main PCB and its revision marking, the VR4300 marked “CPU-NUS A”, and an Aleck 64 cartridge.)
Archived original documents ✅¶
Manufacturer documents archived locally, found in Internet Archive's arcademanuals collection on 14 August 2026 and identified from their title page. ⚠️ The items declare no licence.
- PDF — hudson-eleven-beat-aleck64-manual.pdf — ELEVEN BEAT WORLD TOURNAMENT — ALECK 64 Manual, Hudson, 4 pp. ⚠️ The title says "ALECK 64 Manual": it is a platform document as much as a game one. It gives the mother PCB edge connector pinout, the E92 Mother PCB layout — DIP SW1 and SW2, sound pot, control lever connector — and the wiring of the stick in 3D mode (ball, blue mark, +X/+Y directions). Via Internet Archive
Sources & attribution¶
Text (synthesised here; sources listed for attribution):
- MAME —
src/mame/nintendo/aleck64.cpp(BSD-3-Clause / GPL, driver by Ville Linde): Nintendo 64-based hardware manufactured by Seta, the Seta E90 Main PCB (revision B), the VR4300 marked “CPU-NUS A” on the board, the game held in a cartridge; and the tasks left open — “finish E90 hookup, understand how it actually draws gfxs”, EEPROM failures on mtetrisc and srmvs, static noise on mayjin3, scrolling garbage on kurufev possibly original — https://github.com/mamedev/mame/blob/master/src/mame/nintendo/aleck64.cpp
Review & corrections
How this space is used
Spotted a wrong value, an outdated procedure, a chip reference that does not match your board? Say so here, with what you observed (model, board revision, serial number, measurement). Every report is cross-checked against a source before anything changes — an unverifiable correction is published as “reported by …, not cross-checked” rather than silently applied.
Reading is open to everyone; posting requires signing in with Discord. Reports from the wiki's declared reviewers are handled first; anyone else's are read too, but go through a human before anything is changed.