-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Carnivore2+ MultiFunctional Cartridge Copyright (c) 2025 RBSC Portions (c) Mitsutaka Okazaki Portions (c) Kazuhiro Tsujikawa Portions (c) Jose Tejada ROMs are copyright by their respective owners. See readme file in BIOSes folder Last updated: 09.05.2025 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Altera firmware was created by RBSC. Commercial usage is not allowed! IMPORTANT! ---------- Carnivore2+ currently supports 3 different firmares. The difference is in the music module. A user can select between MSX Music (FMPAC), SFG (OPM) and MSX Audio firmwares. The MSX Audio supports the 256kb sample RAM and the ADPCM playback. The Sega's SN chip support is present in all 3 firmwares. To be able to flash the selected firmware into the cartridge, the C2FWUPD utility should be used. When started, the utility offers either to backup the existing firmware and the music module BIOS onto the disk or to upload the one of the available firmwares and music module's BIOSes. When the backup option is selected, the utility will copy the firmware onto the disk as FIRMWARE.BIN, create a file with CRC named FIRMWARE.CRC and also copy the music module's BIOS as FIRMWARE.ROM. It will be later possible to write this backed up data back into the cartridge. When the firmware updating is selected, it's possible to either to upload the previously made backup into the cartridge or to upload one of the available firmwares and music module's BIOSes: - MSX Music (FMPAC) firmware and BIOS - SFG-05 FM firmware and BIOS - MSX Audio firmware and BIOS Later, more firmware versions may become available with additional features and sound card support.. Each firmware set consists of a BIN, CRC and ROM file. Please do not edit or delete any of those files! To start using the newly-uploaded firmware and BIOS please power off your computer and then power it on again. IMPORTANT! ---------- Each firmware with a Music Module (FMPAC, SFG, MSX Audio, etc.) requires the BIOS of that Music Module to be written into the cartridge. This is normally done by the C2FWUPD utility. But in case updating the music module's BIOS fails, this needs to be done manually with the help of C2MAN or C2MAN40 utility. The procedure is as follows: - Copy all BIN files from "BIOSes" folder to a new folder - Copy C2MAN or C2MAN40 utility into the same folder - Run the utility and enter the Service Menu by pressing 9 - Press 6 to update the Music Module's BIOS - Select the appropriate BIOS and confirm updating - Reboot your computer The FMPAC (MSX Music) music module requires the FMPCCMFC.BIN file to be flashed. The SFG-05 music module requires the SFGMCMFC.BIN file to be flashed into the cartridge. The MSX Audio music module requires the MSXACFMC.BIN file to be flashed. If you don't flash the appropriate music module's BIOS after changing the firmware, music players and games may fail to recognize the newly-installed music module and will not play the music properly. To identify which music module is currently available in the firmware, look for the name of this module under the firmware version in the startup screen of Carnivore2+ cartridge. IMPORTANT! ---------- In case the firmware update fails and the cartridge no longer works, it's still possible to restore it without USB Blaster. You can use Carnivore2 or another cartridge that boots to DOS to run the C2FWUPD utility and try to update the firmware once again. If the bricked Carnivore2+ cartridge doesn't allow other cartridges to boot, put a strong magnet near the upper right corner of the cartridge case until the SD LED lights up and reboot a system. The magnet will activate the special switch that disables the bricked cartridge and allows to boot from other devices. Remove the magnet once the other device boots to DOS. If it's not possible to update the firmware with the C2FWUPD utility from an MSX computer, it's still possible to use the USB Blaster programmer to directly upload the POF file into the EPCS4 chip on the cartridge's board. Please refer to the user manual on how to update the firmware with USB Blaster. The POF file can be found in the "Backup" folder.