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2600 Rom Comparisions and Dumps


Omegamatrix

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  • 7 months later...

I got a reply from Rob Fulop about three game titles that I had seen in a gaming catalogue back in 82. He kindly put the mystery to rest for me so I would just like to say many thanks Rob for your help. Here is the qoute he gave me :-

 

"Scuba" was my in-house working name for the game that would become Fathom.

 

if I'm not mistaken, which is totally possible, I believe"Zone" was a working name for the game that became Quick Step, authored by David Johnson.

 

Demon Attack II was on the marketing wish list, and I don't believe there was anybody ever assigned to work on it.

 

Rob

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No worries but the thanks should go to Rob who kindly answered my age old questions :) It was good to finally put closure to the three titles I saw advertised over 30 years ago and it was cool to finally put rest to the runour of Demon Attack II. Thanks again Rob for your generous input. ;)

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  • 1 year later...

Two new pieces of info today, I picked up Spider Fighter and Qbert from CCE. Aparently Spider Fighter has already been dumped, although it is marked as missing on the Atarimania Database. The Dump is unique. Qbert is the same as the 1987 Atari release. Perhaps Atari used the CCE version? Unfortunately nothing new, but at least the games can be marked as dumped.

 

Qbert CCE.bin

Spider Fighter CCE.bin

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  • 2 weeks later...

New ROM today, CCE Missile Command. It is unique, by 4 bytes. One is the high address of the break vector. The others I do not know. Would be interesting to know if the Easter Egg is in this version.

 

Also some info on other CCE titles marked as not dumped... Frogger, Space Invaders, and Duck Fighting are all equivalent to their USA releases.

 

Missile Command CCE.bin

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 months later...

@Rom Hunter:
Yesterday I reorganized my rom collection for use in Stella and Harmony cart (which is basically your collection integrated with a selection of homebrews, demos, hacks and NTSCtoPAL conversions and subdivided in folders by TV format and then alphabetically). I like the long filenames (the Harmony can display them just fine) and I also keep the variations and duplicate roms with alternate names.
A couple of suggestion for the next version:

- You should add back these "Superman" and "Seaquest" roms: they were removed as bad dumps, but later I found them again in a pirate console, which confirms that they were actually released. (see this post).
Seaquest (Megatronix Game Over 2600 Console) (PAL).bin

Superman (Megatronix Game Over 2600 Console) (PAL).bin

- You should remove the "joined" "Party Mix" roms (both PAL and NTSC), as it is not a multiload game. Those roms won't work in emulators nor in flashcarts, you only need the split ones for this game.

@Wickeycolumbus:
The "Missile Command CCE" rom you posted differs by 4 bytes if compared with the Atari release with the Rob Fulop's initals removed, but only by 1 byte (the high address break vector) compared with the original version.

Edited by alex_79
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@Rom Hunter:

Yesterday I reorganized my rom collection for use in Stella and Harmony cart (which is basically your collection integrated with a selection of homebrews, demos, hacks and NTSCtoPAL conversions and subdivided in folders by TV format and then alphabetically). I like the long filenames (the Harmony can display them just fine) and I also keep the variations and duplicate roms with alternate names.

A couple of suggestion for the next version:

 

- You should add back these "Superman" and "Seaquest" roms: they were removed as bad dumps, but later I found them again in a pirate console, which confirms that they were actually released. (see this post).

attachicon.gifSeaquest (Megatronix Game Over 2600 Console) (PAL).bin

attachicon.gifSuperman (Megatronix Game Over 2600 Console) (PAL).bin

- You should remove the "joined" "Party Mix" roms (both PAL and NTSC), as it is not a multiload game. Those roms won't work in emulators nor in flashcarts, you only need the split ones for this game.

 

@Wickeycolumbus:

The "Missile Command CCE" rom you posted differs by 4 bytes if compared with the Atari release with the Rob Fulop's initals removed, but only by 1 byte (the high address break vector) compared with the original version.

 

 

Will do.

 

Thanks, Alex!

 

8)

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  • 8 months later...

Here is the 5th (and last ?) SECAM Activision game:

River_Raid_SECAM.bin

 

 

post-10599-0-46195100-1496767412_thumb.jpegpost-10599-0-51760300-1496767432_thumb.jpeg



Besides the reduced color palette, there are a few differences with the PAL version:

- CARB text on the tanks instead of FUEL
- Tanks are 8 pixels wide, while on PAL and NTSC they're 7 pixels
- No trees
- No "E" and "F" on the fuel indicator

PAL version:

post-10599-0-85117600-1496767539_thumb.png

SECAM version on PAL console:

post-10599-0-11206400-1496767588_thumb.png

SECAM version on SECAM console:

post-10599-0-49954200-1496767613_thumb.png

As you can see from the screenshots, colors were chosen to look good on both PAL and SECAM consoles, which is not the case for the other 4 known Activision SECAM games (they look mostly grey on PAL hardware).


The label was starting to fall off, so I could peel it away without damaging it and have a look at the board. I also desoldered the rf shield to read the text on the IC.
post-10599-0-69112000-1496767650.jpg

A few more screenshots:
post-10599-0-65469200-1496767715_thumb.pngpost-10599-0-74874500-1496767759_thumb.pngpost-10599-0-71003900-1496768051_thumb.png

Edited by alex_79
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Seems like an unfinished job, like if the idea was to replace them (with "0" and "1", for example), but after removing the old graphics they forgot about it!

No surprise, the PAL conversions of Activision are pretty lousy too.

 

BTW: The explosion graphics have been changed too.

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Any idea why they remove the letters on the fuel indicator?

 

They should have replaced them with the letters P(lein) and V(ide). Perhaps that was not possible to fit in?

 

BTW: I don't think the Activision PAL conversions are lousy.

 

Which Activision PAL titles were badly converted in your opinion?

 

8)

Edited by Rom Hunter
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They should have replaced them with the letters P(lein) and V(ide). Perhaps that was not possible to fit in?

No problem (see below). icon_smile.gif

 

Which Activision PAL titles were badly converted in your opinion?

All I have seen so far. None of them are speed adjusted or use the extra screen space. And sometimes the colors are missing detail (e.g. the sunset effects).

 

Most prominently in Pitfall II. A PAL game lasts 24 instead of 20 minutes, there are large black borders at top and bottom of the screen, the jungle greens are reversed, the sunset effect is gone.

post-45-0-17246100-1496819572.png

post-45-0-11264900-1496819580.png

RR_Secam (Hacked).bin

post-45-0-15135300-1496819942.png

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I believe that, in case of Pitfall II, the cause of most of the graphic changes is SECAM compatibility.

After they had to produce a separate port of some of their games, Activision people became a bit smarter and decided they can just have a single version for both tv formats. If you play a bit the game with SECAM colors in Stella, you see that colors are quite decent. Too much do be a coincidence IMHO.
I'm sure this is also the case for some Atari games released in the early '80s. Battlezone, Mario Bros, Pole Position, Asteroids and others looks fine in SECAM, and lacks some color shades compared to the NTSC versions (battlezone being the most evident case).

Damn SECAM!

 

:D

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No problem (see below). icon_smile.gif

 

All I have seen so far. None of them are speed adjusted or use the extra screen space. And sometimes the colors are missing detail (e.g. the sunset effects).

 

Most prominently in Pitfall II. A PAL game lasts 24 instead of 20 minutes, there are large black borders at top and bottom of the screen, the jungle greens are reversed, the sunset effect is gone.

True.

 

8)

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I believe that, in case of Pitfall II, the cause of most of the graphic changes is SECAM compatibility.

After they had to produce a separate port of some of their games, Activision people became a bit smarter and decided they can just have a single version for both tv formats. If you play a bit the game with SECAM colors in Stella, you see that colors are quite decent. Too much do be a coincidence IMHO.

I'm sure this is also the case for some Atari games released in the early '80s. Battlezone, Mario Bros, Pole Position, Asteroids and others looks fine in SECAM, and lacks some color shades compared to the NTSC versions (battlezone being the most evident case).

 

Damn SECAM!

 

:D

 

 

That could be the case indeed.

 

8)

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