26gc Posted January 9, 2019 Share Posted January 9, 2019 Is there a date on the label? The label says it's 3/18 release, but the binary dump differs a lot from the final version. The melody is different (one more note in the beginning) and the game logic part is also different. similarity between released and proto dump 0.934, levenshtein distance: 538 (so 538 single changes to the Proto file would be needed to be identifcal to the release version). Andre Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rom Hunter Posted January 10, 2019 Share Posted January 10, 2019 (edited) One ROM less, seven to go.We still need the following third party PAL ROMs (the red ones are PAL originals, not hacks or conversions): - Coco Nuts (Telesys) - Plate Mania (Home Vision)- Stargunner (Telesys)- Stronghold (CommaVid)- Topy (Home Vision)- Treasure Discovery (Home Vision)- X’Mission (Home Vision) Edited January 10, 2019 by Rom Hunter 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
26gc Posted January 10, 2019 Share Posted January 10, 2019 (edited) Let me try to dump my Coco Nuts. Will get back to you shortly... Ok, all my Coco Nuts Cars are NTSC only. Sorry Edited January 10, 2019 by 26gc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omegamatrix Posted February 9, 2019 Author Share Posted February 9, 2019 I've long suspected the HES version of Robot Tank would be different, and sure enough it was. RobotTank(AllVerisions).zip I've included a disassembly that can compile all versions of Robot Tank. The dump is good, but if you fire this up in Stella it will incorrectly auto-detect the rom as FE. You need to manually configure the game properties so that the type is F8 (8K Atari). Now the only question is if there is an NTSC F8 version of Robot Tank out there, and undumped. I feel that there is a good chance there is. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rom Hunter Posted February 10, 2019 Share Posted February 10, 2019 Thanks, Omega!Any visual differences? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+stephena Posted February 10, 2019 Share Posted February 10, 2019 The dump is good, but if you fire this up in Stella it will incorrectly auto-detect the rom as FE. You need to manually configure the game properties so that the type is F8 (8K Atari). I'm fixing the autodetection in Stella right now for such a case. Just making sure it doesn't cause anything else to fail detection. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omegamatrix Posted February 10, 2019 Author Share Posted February 10, 2019 Thanks, Omega! Any visual differences? No changes in graphics or gameplay. I'm fixing the autodetection in Stella right now for such a case. Just making sure it doesn't cause anything else to fail detection. Great! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+stephena Posted February 10, 2019 Share Posted February 10, 2019 No changes in graphics or gameplay. Great! Already done and committed for 6.1 (or whatever the next point release will be named). 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ballblaɀer Posted February 16, 2019 Share Posted February 16, 2019 I've started dumping some of the unusual carts in my collection, and so far almost all of them are identical to known good ROMs according to CloneSpy. I've attached one that isn't an exact match with the ROM in the Atarimania V15.0 collection -- it's an early/review copy of Gangster Alley, as seen in my Twitter post here (it has a generic Spectravision end label, and weighs a slight bit more than a "regular" Gangster Alley cart). I disassembled both my dump and the standard Gangster Alley ROM, and in comparing them I can see that they aren't exactly the same, but I don't really know enough about assembly language to know whether the (very minor, I think?) differences are of any significance. I don't immediately notice any difference in the gameplay or graphics, but it's also possible that I'm missing something obvious. It could also just be a bad dump, of course. Would love if someone could let me know! Gangster Alley (review copy).bin 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted February 16, 2019 Share Posted February 16, 2019 (edited) Their released version has a few bug fixes (e.g. several missing # got fixed, a missing branch got added), but no other changes. So this is probably a very late beta version before the final release. Edited February 16, 2019 by Thomas Jentzsch 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rom Hunter Posted February 16, 2019 Share Posted February 16, 2019 (edited) Thanks for dumping this one!It's added to the collection.Reminds me of the two versions of Gas Hog. Edited February 16, 2019 by Rom Hunter 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rom Hunter Posted February 16, 2019 Share Posted February 16, 2019 The last original PAL games that are still not dumped: - Coco Nuts (Telesys) - Plate Mania (Home Vision)- Stargunner (Telesys)- Stronghold (CommaVid)- Topy (Home Vision)- Treasure Discovery (Home Vision)- X’Mission (Home Vision)Let me know if you can dump any of these. Would be awesome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ballblaɀer Posted February 16, 2019 Share Posted February 16, 2019 Thomas, thanks for confirming that my Gangster Alley dump is a pre-final ROM! Very cool. Rom, I don't have any of the undumped PAL titles, unfortunately. Attached are three more that may be unique. - From eyeballing the code of Sea Hawk (Home Video Computor Games) and comparing it, it seems to be identical to the PAL Sancho ROM except it has the on-screen "©Sancho 1982." graphics blacked out with $00. - I could only get Yars' Attack to dump by using an 8K setting in MaxFlash Studio. I would guess it's just the standard 4K PAL Yars' Revenge on an 8K ROM (i.e. Bank 0 looks like it might be empty?) - Mr. Gobler seems to be the same as the standard NTSC Pac-Man, with the on-screen Atari copyright blacked out in the same manner as the Sea Hawk ROM. Confirmation/refutation of my analysis is welcome. More to come. Sea Hawk (Home Video Computor Games).bin Yars' Attack.bin Mr. Gobler.bin 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omegamatrix Posted February 17, 2019 Author Share Posted February 17, 2019 If you split the Yar's rom in half and throw away bank 0, then you will find the exact PAL version there so this dump as 8K is bad. With Sea Hawk (PAL) the logo is erased. Also, the last byte of the rom is changed from $00 to $FB. That byte looks unused. Mr Gobler is NTSC Pac-Man with the logo erased. I did a comparative disassembly of the Gangster Alley review cart. GangsterAlley(NTSC).zip 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ballblaɀer Posted February 17, 2019 Share Posted February 17, 2019 If you split the Yar's rom in half and throw away bank 0, then you will find the exact PAL version there so this dump as 8K is bad. With Sea Hawk (PAL) the logo is erased. Also, the last byte of the rom is changed from $00 to $FB. That byte looks unused. Mr Gobler is NTSC Pac-Man with the logo erased. I did a comparative disassembly of the Gangster Alley review cart. GangsterAlley(NTSC).zip Thanks so much, Omegamatrix. How does one split ROMs? The smallest setting that Maxflash Studio offers for dumping is 4K, but there are a few 2K games that I was forced to dump with the 4K setting. Similarly, I have some 8K and larger ROMs that I'd like to use distella to look at more closely, but of course it only can handle 4K at a time, AFAIK. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omegamatrix Posted February 17, 2019 Author Share Posted February 17, 2019 Thanks so much, Omegamatrix. How does one split ROMs? The smallest setting that Maxflash Studio offers for dumping is 4K, but there are a few 2K games that I was forced to dump with the 4K setting. Similarly, I have some 8K and larger ROMs that I'd like to use distella to look at more closely, but of course it only can handle 4K at a time, AFAIK. There's various utilities, or you can even use the command line. I usually use HOM3. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ballblaɀer Posted February 17, 2019 Share Posted February 17, 2019 My dump of a sample/review copy of Warplock has a single byte difference from the known release ROM ($0A changed to $08). Bit-rot, probably? I can post the binary if it's needed, but I naturally want to limit posting bad/unnecessary dumps as much as possible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omegamatrix Posted February 17, 2019 Author Share Posted February 17, 2019 This is where it gets interesting. The PAL Gameworld rom also has $08 at $FF40. I didn't look what this byte is for, but it makes me wonder if $0A is actually the correct value. A 1 bit difference is suspectable. At this point I would really like it if a retail copy NTSC Warplock was dumped to see what we find. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted February 17, 2019 Share Posted February 17, 2019 (edited) . Edited February 17, 2019 by Nukey Shay Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted February 17, 2019 Share Posted February 17, 2019 I did a comparative disassembly of the Gangster Alley review cart. GangsterAlley(NTSC).zip Thanks for the comparison code. I found that they swapped the scoring between Mugsy ($20..) and Scar Face ($30..). Probably because Mugsy is an easier target. And they decreased the time before they draw the gun (UNKNOWN_01) by 33%. So the final release is harder than the review copy, 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ballblaɀer Posted February 17, 2019 Share Posted February 17, 2019 At this point I would really like it if a retail copy NTSC Warplock was dumped to see what we find. Done. My dump of the NTSC retail cart matched my sample Warplock cart dump 100%, so I'm attaching it here. And just so a one-useless(?)-byte correction of one of the worst games on the system isn't the sole content of this post , I'm also including my dump of a sample/review copy of Beany Bopper. The only difference (pretty sure) between it and the standard release: I dumped a Deadly Duck sample/review cart as well, but it matches the final release. Up next to dump and compare: review copies of Trick Shot and Star Voyager. Warplock (NTSC).bin Beany Bopper (review cart).bin 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omegamatrix Posted February 18, 2019 Author Share Posted February 18, 2019 Thanks for the confirmation with Warplock. Based on your both of your dumps being the same I am going to recommend that this NTSC dump of Warplock be marked as the good rom. The one that is currently in Rom Hunters collection should be marked as a bad dump because we can't source where it came from. While it could possibly be an alternate I would say that it is a very low probabilty. It is much more likely to be a bad dump and it should be replaced with yours. Thank you for your help in finding this. Well done! With Beany Bopper that new rom does not look good. The instructions make no sense because one byte is corrupted. DEC (%11000110) got changed to SEI (%01111000). The arguement of DEC is $81 which is the opcode for STA indirect X. Anyhow the next few instructions changed simply because of that one byte being different. ;old dec $81 ; $C6,$81 ldx #$00 ; $A2,$00 ;new (DEC changed to SEI) sei ; $79 sta ($A2,X) ; $81,$A2 brk ; $00 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ballblaɀer Posted February 18, 2019 Share Posted February 18, 2019 With Beany Bopper that new rom does not look good. Confirmed. Dumped the review cart again and the binary matches the known release ROM. I appreciate the correction, thanks. I plan on doing multiple dumps per cart going forward to ascertain that I'm getting accurate files. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rom Hunter Posted February 18, 2019 Share Posted February 18, 2019 Warplock will be replaced.Thanks! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted February 18, 2019 Share Posted February 18, 2019 Done. My dump of the NTSC retail cart matched my sample Warplock cart dump 100%, so I'm attaching it here. And just so a one-useless(?)-byte correction of one of the worst games on the system isn't the sole content of this post That different byte is not used by the code at all. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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