30 replies to this topic

[labrat]

I got a nice lot of A8 carts recently that had a few prototype carts.  Some worked others did not.  I wanted to share pics and ask advice on the nonworking ones...

I'm not entirely sure that all are prototype cartridges, since I know that there are pirate EPROMS, but here's some pics (The black tape was added by me to cover open EPROMS):

Donkey Kong Jr.



K-razy Antiks



Both of these were in cases and worked fine.  There were also two that were on bare boards that I could not get to work, labelled as Galaxian and Quest...  The latter of which is obviously the most interesting (since I don't know what game it is).




As I said, these did not work.  The first one I tried was Galaxian, and I accidentally plugged it in turned around.  Could this have fried it?  It only gives a black screen.

For Quest... I only ever inserted it in the correct orientation, but still only get a black screen.  Some of the pins on the back of the chip socket were bent, breaking the solder cones.  I plan to take it to work to tidy up the soldering, but it looks like there is still a connection at all points.  The soldering on Galaxian looks fine.

Its weird that all of the complete carts (there were a bunch in the lot) worked, but the bare ones did not.  Are these more susceptible to static or other damage?  I was hoping someone would have a suggestion as to what I should do with the ones that aren't working.

Edited by labrat, Wed Mar 14, 2012 9:42 PM.

[labrat]

There was also some TI-99/4A possible protos from Atarisoft that I have not yet gotten a chance to try...

[Bryan]

Yeah, you might have fried Galaxian. The best bet at this time is to try to dump the ROM contents directly. If you want, I can turn all the ROMs into files for you and we can figure out what's there.

[labrat]

Bryan, on Thu Mar 15, 2012 5:22 AM, said:

Yeah, you might have fried Galaxian. The best bet at this time is to try to dump the ROM contents directly. If you want, I can turn all the ROMs into files for you and we can figure out what's there.

Thanks for the offer.  I was planning on finding a way to get the files for the working ones out there...

[Bryan]

After taking a look at the carts for labrat, I've determined that only DK jr. and K-razy Antiks are for the A8. Galaxian and BC's Quest are Coleco. Here's the images for the A8 games if someone wants to compare them to release carts.

Attached Files

•  A8roms.zip   18.67K   104 downloads

[deathtrappomegranate]

Antiks is the same as the released version, but there are multiple differences in DK Jr.

[Bryan]

deathtrappomegranate, on Sat Apr 7, 2012 5:24 PM, said:

Antiks is the same as the released version, but there are multiple differences in DK Jr.

Interesting. I wonder what changed.

[labrat]

Bryan, on Sat Apr 7, 2012 4:19 PM, said:

After taking a look at the carts for labrat, I've determined that only DK jr. and K-razy Antiks are for the A8. Galaxian and BC's Quest are Coleco. Here's the images for the A8 games if someone wants to compare them to release carts.

Thanks for getting these dumped, Bryan.  I'm glad you figured out that those 2 were CV; its not a system I collect for so I would not have recognized them.

deathtrappomegranate, on Sat Apr 7, 2012 5:24 PM, said:

Antiks is the same as the released version, but there are multiple differences in DK Jr.

Nice.  Hopefully something interesting...

[Kr0tki]

Bryan, on Sat Apr 7, 2012 8:07 PM, said:

deathtrappomegranate, on Sat Apr 7, 2012 5:24 PM, said:

Antiks is the same as the released version, but there are multiple differences in DK Jr.

Interesting. I wonder what changed.

I've disassembled the images. There are only two differences:
1. Some values in lookup tables are changed. The result is, Junior is able to climb the ropes in the Chain scene a few pixels higher in the released version.
2. The prototype contains additional 10 bytes of code at $85d3. IMO it's a bit of test code that was later removed, as it affects size of Junior's hitbox in a somewhat detrimental way - for example, when Junior climbs all the way to the top on the Chain scene, incoming Birds are able to pass through his bottom without killing him - a feat not possible on the released version.

EDIT: I've also found that the well-known "BOOGA" cheat is somewhat broken (in both versions) - the routine is not initialised properly and the first time after startup it's actually enough to press Shift+A to enable the cheat mode. There are also another two cheat keys in addition to the known S (skip stage) and K (invinciblity) - there's also I - disable invinciblity, and O - disable cheat mode as a whole.

Edited by Kr0tki, Mon Apr 9, 2012 6:41 PM.

[Defender II]

labrat, on Sun Apr 8, 2012 5:06 PM, said:

Bryan, on Sat Apr 7, 2012 4:19 PM, said:

After taking a look at the carts for labrat, I've determined that only DK jr. and K-razy Antiks are for the A8. Galaxian and BC's Quest are Coleco. Here's the images for the A8 games if someone wants to compare them to release carts.

Thanks for getting these dumped, Bryan.  I'm glad you figured out that those 2 were CV; its not a system I collect for so I would not have recognized them.

deathtrappomegranate, on Sat Apr 7, 2012 5:24 PM, said:

Antiks is the same as the released version, but there are multiple differences in DK Jr.

Nice.  Hopefully something interesting...

So someone put the Quest Coleco chips in the Atari 8-bit PCB.
Did you dump the Quest chips?

[deathtrappomegranate]

Excellent work, Kr0tki.

[Tempest]

Kr0tki, on Mon Apr 9, 2012 5:54 PM, said:

Bryan, on Sat Apr 7, 2012 8:07 PM, said:

deathtrappomegranate, on Sat Apr 7, 2012 5:24 PM, said:

Antiks is the same as the released version, but there are multiple differences in DK Jr.

Interesting. I wonder what changed.

I've disassembled the images. There are only two differences:
1. Some values in lookup tables are changed. The result is, Junior is able to climb the ropes in the Chain scene a few pixels higher in the released version.
2. The prototype contains additional 10 bytes of code at $85d3. IMO it's a bit of test code that was later removed, as it affects size of Junior's hitbox in a somewhat detrimental way - for example, when Junior climbs all the way to the top on the Chain scene, incoming Birds are able to pass through his bottom without killing him - a feat not possible on the released version.

EDIT: I've also found that the well-known "BOOGA" cheat is somewhat broken (in both versions) - the routine is not initialised properly and the first time after startup it's actually enough to press Shift+A to enable the cheat mode. There are also another two cheat keys in addition to the known S (skip stage) and K (invinciblity) - there's also I - disable invinciblity, and O - disable cheat mode as a whole.

Awesome!  Thank you for doing this.  I'll have to add this one to my site (actually I need to get going on my site again for a whole bunch of protos).

If you're into disassembling 8-bit protos, I have a several Atari 5200 protos that tested differently but I couldn't see anything when I played them.  I could post them all if you're interested.

[Bryan]

Defender II, on Mon Apr 9, 2012 9:53 PM, said:

So someone put the Quest Coleco chips in the Atari 8-bit PCB.
Did you dump the Quest chips?

That's actually a CV PCB, it just looks like an A8 one. Labrat and I were discussing posting the other protos in a different forum (like, maybe the Protos forum?).

[Tempest]

Bryan, on Tue Apr 10, 2012 7:37 AM, said:

Defender II, on Mon Apr 9, 2012 9:53 PM, said:

So someone put the Quest Coleco chips in the Atari 8-bit PCB.
Did you dump the Quest chips?

That's actually a CV PCB, it just looks like an A8 one. Labrat and I were discussing posting the other protos in a different forum (like, maybe the Protos forum?).

Actually let me move this thread there.  It belongs in the protos forum anyway.

[labrat]

Tempest, on Tue Apr 10, 2012 8:36 AM, said:

Bryan, on Tue Apr 10, 2012 7:37 AM, said:

Defender II, on Mon Apr 9, 2012 9:53 PM, said:

So someone put the Quest Coleco chips in the Atari 8-bit PCB.
Did you dump the Quest chips?

That's actually a CV PCB, it just looks like an A8 one. Labrat and I were discussing posting the other protos in a different forum (like, maybe the Protos forum?).

Actually let me move this thread there.  It belongs in the protos forum anyway.

Yes, Bryan was kind enough to dump all of the chips.  I will post the CV and TI tonight...

Thanks for getting this to the right place, Tempest

[Kr0tki]

Tempest, on Tue Apr 10, 2012 7:15 AM, said:

I could post them all if you're interested.

Sure, post them, I'll look into them when I have more time.

[Tempest]

Kr0tki, on Tue Apr 10, 2012 9:30 AM, said:

Tempest, on Tue Apr 10, 2012 7:15 AM, said:

I could post them all if you're interested.

Sure, post them, I'll look into them when I have more time.

Ok I'll try to get them up by Friday.  I've been meaning to release them anyway like I did with my 2600 protos, but at the time there really didn't seem to be any interest.  Of course as with my 2600 protos there are one or two that I can't release due to promises I made to the original owner.

[labrat]

It looks like I can't update the first post, but here's a recap since the thread was moved...

Bryan dumped these ROMs and posted the A8 ones above.  There are also 2 CV and 3 TI carts.

Colecovision (I initially thought these were A8):
Galaxian
B.C.s Quest for tires

TI-99/4A:
Jungle Hunt
Ms Pac Man
Moon patrol

Attached Files

•  CV roms.zip   23.67K   92 downloads
•  TI roms.zip   26.55K   83 downloads

[Bryan]

Also, here's some text I found while poking around:

Galaxian contains this text:
GRAPHICS AND PROGRAM BY JAMES D. EISENSTEIN 08/11/83 DEDICATED TO THE ONE I LOVE
and this snippet (from the assembler?):
IN SECTOR 84/SYSTEM CRASH/20451

Quest contains:
SIERRA ON-LINE PRESENTS B.C.'S QUEST BY T SYDNEY DEVELOPMENT CORP 1983 SIERRA ON-LINE INDICATES TRADEMARK

R BANKS ML O'ROURKE

[Tempest]

Ok here are those protos I promised:

http://www.atariprot.../8bitprotos.zip

http://www.atariprot.../5200protos.zip

[Mitch]

Thank you.

Mitch

[Bryan]

Would it be possible to change the name of the topic to include TI and Colecovision just so everyone knows what's in here?

[Tempest]

Ok the 8-bit link is back minus the no-no game.  Sorry about that.

[www.atarimania.com]

Matt,

Are we allowed to make the 8-bit programs available on a site such as ours or are there restrictions? Maybe screenshots only?

BTW, what was the "no-no game"?

Thanks!

--
Atari Frog
http://www.atarimania.com

[Tempest]

www.atarimania.com, on Fri Apr 13, 2012 10:24 AM, said:

Matt,

Are we allowed to make the 8-bit programs available on a site such as ours or are there restrictions? Maybe screenshots only?

BTW, what was the "no-no game"?

Thanks!

--
Atari Frog
http://www.atarimania.com

I believe I took out the one game that wasn't allowed to be posted, so yes it's all good to use.

The 'no-no' game was Xenophobe.  I was given a copy of the rom to review for the site, but was told not to distribute it.  I forgot it was in my folder when I posted it.