- Update [15/06/24] Added GRS Superjoystick support for rotative joystick control. See notes about configuration.
T.N.K. III, known as T.A.N.K in Japan, is a 1985 single player overhead shooting game developed by SNK. The Japanese title is meant to be pronounced letter by letter and not by the word "tank". It's also the first game appearance of Ralf Jones, the player character for this game. It's follow-up title is Iron Tank.
Follow any core updates and news on my Twitter acount @RndMnkIII. this project is a hobby but it requires investing in arcade game boards and specific tools, so any donation is welcome: https://ko-fi.com/rndmnkiii.
This core as beta release will be published as independet core. Finally will be unified with the SNK Triple Z80 Core. For a list of games intended to work with the SNK Triple Z80 Core see: https://github.com/mamedev/mame/blob/master/src/mame/drivers/snk.cpp.
- Daniel Wallner T80 core [email protected].
- JTOPL FPGA Clone of Yamaha OPL hardware by Jose Tejada, @topapate (https://github.com/jotego/jtopl).
- Based on Tim Rudy 7400 TTL library https://github.com/TimRudy/ice-chips-verilog.
In a game of two players who play in alternating turns. You use a 8-way joystick control with two buttons: Bullets and Shells. To rotate the tank turret, the left and right triggers of a gamepad are used, simulating SNK's LS-30 rotary joystick. You have additional buttons for Coin, Start, Pause and Service Mode. The controls of a second controller can be used for two players in alternate mode. Apart from the standard MiSTer game controller support there is also there is SNAC support for:
- DB15 arcade controls (tested with the Splitter for official MiSTer by Antonio Villena. See: https://www.antoniovillena.es/store/product/splitter-for-official-mister/).
- Native adapter for SNK LS-30 joystick. This is a D.I.Y development of the author of the core and is commented on in a separate project. See: https://github.com/RndMnkIII/SNK_LS-30_Rotary_Joystick_SNAC_adapter. You can build a alternative one if you already have some DB15 SNAC adapter as the Antonio Villena Splitter seen before. You can change the settings in the Core Menu:
- SNAC > DB15 Devices: Off,OnlyP1,OnlyP2,P1&P2 (fixed controls: button A: rotate left, button B: fire, button C: grenade, button D: rotate right).
- SNAC > Native LS-30 Adapter: Off,OnlyP1,OnlyP2,P1&P2 (maps over buttons F,E,D,C of a DB15 interface the LS-30 rotary four wire data, button A: fire, button B: grenade).
Alternatively, you can wire this adapter if you already are using a DB15 SNAC adapter as the Official Mister Splitter by Antonio Villena and you don't want to build my native adapter design MCU based:
https://thunderstickstudio.com/products/grs-super-joystick
Now you can use the GRS Superjoystick specifically designed for SNK games that uses LS-30 rotative joystick. Before to use it you need to plug the game controller into a PC Windows machine, install and execute the TS-RJConfigurator utility: https://cdn.shopifycdn.net/s/files/1/0606/7516/2341/files/TS-RJConfigurator-V1.04.9.rar
You need to adjust MODE pressing the button on the GRS Super Joystick until you get the button GREEN lit and set to 12 WAY mode pressing WAY button until the button is blinking (follow the tsticks user manual procedure for this). Now assign in the Keyboard section of TS-RJConfigurator Spinner Left to Left Key and Spinner Right to Right Key if you want to use the GRS Super Joystick as Player1 or Spinner Left to C Key and Spinner Right to V if you want to use the GRS Super Joystick as Player2 in MiSTer. Now press Save Configuration button and now you can deattach the controller from PC and attach it to MiSTer. You need to assign your GRS game controller as Player1 or Player2 based on the previous configuration done in TS-RJConfigurator.
you need to enable it in the core menu as: SNAC & GRS Super Joystick > Use GRS Super JoyStick: ON. Now the rotate left, rotate righ action will be assigned to the selected player.
Regardless of the settings made for the joystick buttons, you should ignore the assignments made for the left and right rotation keys made for generic controllers.
Rename the Arcade-TNKIII_XXXXXXXX.rbf file to TNKIII_XXXXXXXX.rbf and copy to the SD Card to the folder /media/fat/_Arcade/cores and the .MRA files to /media/fat/_Arcade.
The required ROM files follow the MAME naming conventions (check inside MRA for this). Is the user responsability to be installed in the following folder: /media/fat/_Arcade/mame/.zip
- To all Ko-fi contributors for supporting this project: @bdlou, Peter Bray, Nat, Funkycochise, David, Kevin Coleman, Denymetanol, Schermobianco, TontonKaloun, Wark91, Dan, Beaps, Todd Gill, John Stringer, Moi, Olivier Krumm, Raymond Bielun.
- Thanks to @antoniovillena and @NeuroRulez for their help and patience with SNAC support for DB15.
- @caiusarcade for their assistance in using files and converting PLD files.
- @topapate for general advice with the JTOPL core.
- @FCochise for helping with the rom settings of MRA files.
- @alanswx for helping me with some technical aspects related to the use of the MiSTer framework.
- And all those who with their comments and shows of support have encouraged me to continue with this project.