Supercharger prototypes

[Lord Thag]

Nice find man! I've always been a Supercharger fan ever since i was given one and a few games back 'in the day'. Dragonstomper was amazing.

 

I'll check out these files if I have the time tomorrow.

[shadow460]

Have you got a USB cable? That will allow you to transfer the files. Alternately, an MS card reader will also allow the transfer.

 

I got the files on there, but when I play them, it says "You must enable wma play back". I followed the instructions it gave on how to enable it, and it said I had to set up an internet connection

 

Lemme shoot you a PM on the subject.

 

BTW I can still post mp3 versions of the files. I chose wma since I use Windows Media Player almost exclusively and my PSP hates mp3 files for some reason. If enough people need an mp3 version, I'll do that conversion and post it.

[Godzilla]

Talk about a motherlode! I am so glad these were not hoarded and instead were shared. Are there any other supercharger protos that were released out there? (aside from I think sweat and that one that was sold on cd,)

[Wickeycolumbus]

Have you got a USB cable? That will allow you to transfer the files. Alternately, an MS card reader will also allow the transfer.

 

I got the files on there, but when I play them, it says "You must enable wma play back". I followed the instructions it gave on how to enable it, and it said I had to set up an internet connection

 

Lemme shoot you a PM on the subject.

 

BTW I can still post mp3 versions of the files. I chose wma since I use Windows Media Player almost exclusively and my PSP hates mp3 files for some reason. If enough people need an mp3 version, I'll do that conversion and post it.

 

Thanks for the PM!

 

Would the mp3 files be smaller? I would rather burn them onto a cd anyway.

[shadow460]

Yep. There are six more tapes to be dumped once we're sure we have everything we need from these. There is also a prototype of Going Up?? that's in the hands of the DP crew, plus there's the mystery of that two load Phaser Patrol to be solved.

 

@WickeyColumus: I don't know which files are smaller, really. They may be ripped at 160K if I convert them to .mp3, so they will be a little larger than expected, but not overly so.

[shadow460]

Just an update, I've been trying to convert these, but the version of makebin that's out there simply does not work with them. It is producing bad pages in 44,100 kHz 8 bit mono files that load to actual hardware. The wav files load, but once they are converted to bin files, the bin files it makes do nothing. They either don't convert at all, or they convert about three seconds of the actual audio file.

 

Sorry, folks, but for now, they are going to have to be used as wav files. I will keep trying, but put simply, I need a new version of makebin or I need a different program altogether.

 

If any of you have any success with the conversion, please post the bin files you make!

 

Hmm, spoke too soon...Killer Satellites just converted. Side A will be in the first post momentarily.

Edited April 17, 2009 by shadow460

[+Mitch]

So I was bored and decided to try converting one. Enjoy.

 

Mitch

Communist_Mutants_side_B.zip

[+Mitch]

Here's another.

 

Mitch

Suicide_Mission_side_A.zip

[+Mitch]

And another.

 

Mitch

Excalibur_36_side_A.zip

[+Mitch]

And again.

 

I really should do these all in one big zip, oh well.

 

Mitch

02_Excalibur_side_A.zip

[+Mitch]

And one more for tonight, now I'm going to bed.

 

Mitch

02_Phaser_Patrol_side_A.zip

[shadow460]

Eckhard beat us both to it, Mitch. I am so dumb. We communicated by PM and I didn't think to scroll down to the bottom of the last message. He posted that one big zip file with all the bins in it.

 

I will post it up in the first post.

 

Thanks for everyone's help thus far.

[Rom Hunter]

Thanks for the .bins.

 

Is it posssible to make detailed descriptions of every .bin, describing the differences (if any) with the released versions?

 

I mean: cm1a-bad22 is quite abstract to me.

 

[shadow460]

I can try. Chances are, though, I'll post a list. Here's a quick rundown, though, that may help:

 

- Commie Mutants was recorded to the tape in February 1982. The tape is bad, hence the name. Some of those files will load. My advice if you wanna put that one up is to either do screenshots and a write up or post an audio file several folks have tried to convert it and had no luck. Mitch is on a roll, though, so maybe he will try it.

- The files with 02 in front of them were recorded to different colored tapes than the rest, they have no date except Phaser Patrol's "Copyright 1982" on the title screen. They have two loads.

- The rest were made in July of 1982. Where you see an A or B in the titles, that is the side of the tape it came from. Fireball has two loads on side B.

 

I will continue to work on details of the gameplay in the individual prototypes. I've got a document that is 80% completed regarding Labyrinth, and I've been playing one of the Phaser Patrol prototypes. I've also got a document of my initial findings on all the tapes, but it's, well, kinda dry in the speech.

 

I also would like to get more screenshots up.

 

I think between several of us that there is just about any format you'd need, although if anyone would like wax cylinders or a dictabelt, I'm sure we can work something out. Oh, and I have a DCC recorder back there, so I might be persuaded to record some of those, too.

[Rom Hunter]

Ok, I understand most of the .bin filenames now, except for the ones of Communist Mutants from Space.

 

What does the l in bl mean? (side b - left?)

 

What does the r in br mean? (side b - right?)

 

What do the 22, the 3 and the 1 behind bad mean?

 

Also, is the side a version of each game 100% identical to the side b version of each game?

 

Edited April 17, 2009 by Rom Hunter

[shadow460]

Ok, I understand most of the .bin filenames now, except for the ones of Communist Mutants from Space.

 

What does the l in bl mean? (side b - left?)

 

What does the r in br mean? (side b - right?)

 

What do the 22, the 3 and the 1 behind bad mean?

Ask Eckhard. He applied that file name. I think the only name I applied had side a and b, and the files on my PC have the date the proto was manufactured (feb '82)

Also, is the side a version of each game 100% identical to the side b version of each game?

 

 

I don't know. I know Fireball is definitely different. In the load from Side A and the first load from Side B, the man will appear when you hit "game select" to change the game options. In the second load of Side B, he is invisible until you start the game.

[Rom Hunter]

Ok, I understand that the Fireball's second load on side b is different from Fireball's first loads on side a and side b, but I would like to know if the first load of a game on side a is 100% identical to the first load of a game on side b.

 

Eckhard, can you help us out here?

 

Edited April 17, 2009 by Rom Hunter

[Wickeycolumbus]

Thanks for posting the ROMs

[+Mitch]

- Commie Mutants was recorded to the tape in February 1982. The tape is bad, hence the name. Some of those files will load. My advice if you wanna put that one up is to either do screenshots and a write up or post an audio file several folks have tried to convert it and had no luck. Mitch is on a roll, though, so maybe he will try it.

 

The Commie Mutants side B that I posted should be good as it converted without errors, side A is very messed up though. Also note I did not bother to clean up the 2K or so of garbage area on my conversions which Eckhard seems to have done.

 

Mitch

[Eckhard Stolberg]

Ok, I understand that the Fireball's second load on side b is different from Fireball's first loads on side a and side b, but I would like to know if the first load of a game on side a is 100% identical to the first load of a game on side b.

You can easily find out if the files are identical yourself. On the DOS/Windows command line prompt type:

 

fc /b filename_side_a.bin filename_side_b.bin

 

and it should either list all the different bytes or tell you that there were no differences found.

 

As for the Communist Mutants filenames, you guessed right. 'l' means left channel and 'r' means right channel. Makebin currently only works with mono signals, and since the tape didn't convert without errors, I modified Makebin to try both channels. Unfortunately that didn't correct all errors. Supercharger tapes have the data stored in pages of 256 bytes, each with a leading checksum. Makebin calculates the checksums for all the pages and gives an error message when the calculated checksum doesn't match the read checksum. That's what the "bad" label means. It's the number of pages with a bad checksum in the file.

 

Mitch seems to have combined both channels into a mono signal before trying to convert the games with Makebin. This made Communist Mutants convert without errors. Now we can see that it is identical to the release version, so it's probably no big loss that the A side of this tape is in such a bad shape.

 

As Mitch already mentioned, Makebin doesn't initialize it's buffers before it converts the audio data. As a result there is lots of garbage in the unused parts of the resulting binary. You might want to clean up in your binaries, Mitch, or ROM Hunter might treat them like different version and keep them in his collection out of principle.

 

Also I've only converted the first load of all the tapes so far. We still need to do the second loads to which shadow460 just posted new WAV files.

[+Mitch]

Mitch seems to have combined both channels into a mono signal before trying to convert the games with Makebin. This made Communist Mutants convert without errors. Now we can see that it is identical to the release version, so it's probably no big loss that the A side of this tape is in such a bad shape.

 

That is correct, I used Soundforge to merge the stereo file to mono.

 

As Mitch already mentioned, Makebin doesn't initialize it's buffers before it converts the audio data. As a result there is lots of garbage in the unused parts of the resulting binary. You might want to clean up in your binaries, Mitch, or ROM Hunter might treat them like different version and keep them in his collection out of principle.

 

Heh, I actually forgot about it last night, I was a bit tired.

I guess I can clean them up and repost them. Of course I probably should check and see if they are any different than your dumps first.

 

Mitch

[shadow460]

Mitch seems to have combined both channels into a mono signal before trying to convert the games with Makebin. This made Communist Mutants convert without errors. Now we can see that it is identical to the release version, so it's probably no big loss that the A side of this tape is in such a bad shape.

 

That is correct, I used Soundforge to merge the stereo file to mono.

 

That's similar to what I did. I played back the wav files in Windows Media 9, then later I used MixMeister 3. I recorded the playback with Creative Recorder 2 set to 44,100 kHz, 8 bit mono.

 

If we've got all we need from these tapes, I need to get photos of them and get them sent back to Seymour. The only one I worry about is Communist Mutants. If there's a chance that you guys might be able to convert another recording of Side A, I will make a few more and we'll keep trying.

[+Mitch]

I used 16 bit mono for mine.

 

Eckhard, remind me again what area is just garbage. I believe 1800h-1FFFh should be zeros correct? I think part of the 2000h-20FFh should be zeros as well but I don't remember where exactly it goes.

 

Mitch

[shadow460]

I didn't think 16 bit mono would work. I've got more tapes to convert, though (namely my own collection) so I will definitely give it a try.

[Eckhard Stolberg]

I used 16 bit mono for mine.

 

Eckhard, remind me again what area is just garbage. I believe 1800h-1FFFh should be zeros correct? I think part of the 2000h-20FFh should be zeros as well but I don't remember where exactly it goes.

 

Mitch

16 bit mono at 44.1 kHz is the format that Makebin works with best. It's even recommended in the readme file.

 

In the binary the area from 200h-2007h contains the tape header. The byte at 2003h tells you how many data pages there are. The data pages get stored consecutively from the start of the binary no matter where in the SC RAM the pages would get loaded to. So for a game that has the possible maximum of 24 pages the area from 0000h-17FFh would be used. Also there is one byte per page at 2010h-2027h that tells you where the page will get loaded to. The format also is supposed to have a checksum byte for each page at 2040h-2057h, but Makebin doesn't write them, because Makewav will calculate the checksums itself anyway when converting the binary to audio. Everything else is unused and should be cleared to zero.