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ranger_lennier

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Posts posted by ranger_lennier

  1. Posted

    The cart label has the basic instructions, which I had translated as follows:

     

    "Baseball (for two players)

    1. Press clear, then press the 0 key on controller A (left).

    2. Player A (left) goes to bat first. The 5 key is to swing.

    3. Player B (right) pitches. The 2 key is an inside corner curveball. The 5 key is a straight ball. The 8 key is an outside corner curveball. If you hold the key you can throw a slowball.

    4. When player B is catching a batted ball, use the 2 key to move up and the 8 key to move down.

    5. After 3 outs, players change sides.

     

    Sumo Wrestling (for two players)

    1. Press clear, then press the 5 key on controller A, and press the 0 key on both controllers to do the initial charge.

    2. The left wrestler (A) uses the 6 key to push, the 5 key to throw, and the 4 key to pull. The right wrestler (B) uses the 4 key to push, the 5 key to throw, and the 6 key to pull.

    3. When the match is complete, the winner will be indicated, both players will press the 0 key, and the game will continue for 15 matches.

     

    Note: For more information on how to play the game, please read the manual."

     

    Of course, I didn't completely figure it out playing around with it, either. But I didn't try very long since I didn't have a second player around.

    • Like 1

  4. Posted

    We've finally got a Toshiba Visicom game dumped correctly--the very Japanese CAS-130 Sports Fan (Baseball & Sumo Wrestling). Thanks to Charles and Marcel for figuring out how to do it. I'm not sure if they needed to consult anyone else. Check it out here. It runs in Emma 02.

     

    http://www.mediafire.com/download/papn69k23pvv2o1/cas130.zip

     

    The only instructions I have are what was printed on the cart label. Here's a translation courtesy of Octocontrabass on the MESS forums.

     

    Baseball (for two players)

    1. Press clear, then press the 0 key on controller A (left).

    2. Player A (left) goes to bat first. The 5 key is to swing.

    3. Player B (right) pitches. The 2 key is an inside corner curveball. The 5 key is a straight ball. The 8 key is an outside corner curveball. If you hold the key you can throw a slowball.

    4. When player B is catching a batted ball, use the 2 key to move up and the 8 key to move down.

    5. After 3 outs, players change sides.

     

    Sumo Wrestling (for two players)

    1. Press clear, then press the 5 key on controller A, and press the 0 key on both controllers to do the initial charge.

    2. The left wrestler (A) uses the 6 key to push, the 5 key to throw, and the 4 key to pull. The right wrestler (B) uses the 4 key to push, the 5 key to throw, and the 6 key to pull.

    3. When the match is complete, the winner will be indicated, both players will press the 0 key, and the game will continue for 15 matches.

     

    Note: For more information on how to play the game, please read the manual.

     

    Probably the only Studio II-family cart of mind that's still undumped is Fun With Numbers, which we'll need to get back from Guru first. I also have several carts from different territories, but I haven't yet found a difference between the Studio II and MPT-02 carts.

     

    Is anyone able to loan out other any other Visicom carts to get them dumped?

    • Like 1

  6. Posted

    Regarding the Grand Pack not working on the Studio II in Emma 02: I did some tracing and it looks like the DMA outs and interrupts for the screen handling don't come on the Studio II. I would need to dig into the details again but as far as I remember this is linked to the SW running some screen handling routine. As soon as I press Q on the Studio II with the grand pack both stop. But note that the Studio II has a slightly different resolution compared to the Victory so this might well be 'correct'.

     

    I did also change the Victory rom (as a test) to exclude the built in games. So basically removed 400h-fffh from the rom file. Then ran a Victory on Emma 02 and off course 'Q' didn't work anymore. Then re-ran with the grand pack st2 file (and the adapted ROM) and then it worked again. So this proves the grand pack st2 file is correct as well. Also the grand pack st2 file needed the additional number of block changed in the header which I did at the same time as the other 2.

     

    I was testing with the most recent update of the Grand Pack st2 file. That's a clever test for running it on the Victory. I'm glad that it worked. I can't guarantee that Grand Pack would run on a Studio II system. I'll have to try that out on the real hardware when I get the cart back from Charles.

  7. Posted

    If fauxscot's still reading this, I'd like to know why it's so damn hard these days to find an actual Toshiba datasheet for the TMM331 ROM chip. Must've checked every Toshiba MOS Memory databook: 1981, 1982, 1983, 1987, 1989, datasheet websites... pretty sure someone checked a 1980 book for me too. Not that it's needed these days thanks to Charles... :)

     

    I did find this old WIP update from Guru. He dumped the TMM331 ROM in the Visicom system. Scroll down to the January 11, 2009, entry.

     

    http://members.iinet.net.au/~lantra9jp1/gurudumps/oldnews2009.html

  8. Posted

    Star Wars and Pinball work for me as well now, in both Victory and Studio II. Glad to have that sorted out! I've updated the file set again:

     

    http://www.mediafire.com/?w8tydhnqn4xo5l7

     

    I still don't know about Grand Pack. If I load it into Victory in Emma, then press Keyboard A key 4 (Q in the default keyboard mapping), it starts up Blackjack. But it does the same thing with no cart, since Blackjack is build into the Victory. If I try the same thing in the Studio II, which doesn't have Blackjack built in, it doesn't do anything. All of the other MPT-02 games I've tried will work fine in the Studio II, though obviously in black and white.

  9. Posted

    I know the mustang and the sheen had the built-in games and I assume also the conic. But I thought the mpt's did not have the built-in games...have you verified the victory does/doesn't have them?

    The Hanimex MPT-02 Jeu TV programmable is the French version of the Victory MPT-02, it is identical except for the name badging.

    I think the Hanimex was only released in france and anywhere else that got a mpt-02 release got a victory version (Spain, Australia, ?)

    I think your right though that the Grand pack cart may only be a Hanimex game. It seems very scarce and the few only references I have ever seen to it in the past have been on French sites.

    I have friends in Germany who have new boxed victorys and it is not a pack-in game with the victory systems either. Maybe with the Hanimex line or maybe just an additional game to purchase?

    I have only seen it with the mpt-02 style label so it has to be either a Hanimex or victory game exclusively it seems.

     

    Bingo was released in the us and came in a large box similar to school house 1. It came with 20 bingo cards and 150 marker chips.

    Its numbers/title should be - 18V601 TV Casino II: Bingo

    It is incredibly rare, and was the last game made for the us rca studio II. Copies are known to exist but with how incredibly rare they are I wonder if they are unreleased copies or from only a handful that hit stores at the consoles end and almost no one bought them and even less saved them.

    I don't see a lot of people wanting to buy a bingo game anyway, what really are the benefits to adding a video system to the game if you still need marker chips and game sheets too?

    I have never heard or seen anything about the more common mpt-02 line having the accessories for the bingo game. The mpt-02 manual mentions using a bingo card but does not specify if they are included or not and does not mention markers at all-so that's a mystery....

     

    I've played the Victory on emulators and it has the built-in games. I don't actually know who dumped the BIOS, so I guess there's a small chance it's mislabeled.

     

    I did buy the Grand Pack cart from a seller in France.

     

    Bingo does seem like an odd game to make a cart out of. All it really does is call out numbers, which I suppose is a little easier than doing it by hand, but not that much. And I generally think of Bingo as being played by older people, who probably weren't that likely to have a video game system.

  10. Posted

    Yes, the headers were added later, and all the games I was able to check are identical between the Studio II carts and MPT-02 carts. I don't know if this will always be the case, though. I particularly wonder about School House I, which is named Math and Social Studies for the Studio II and MG-209 Computer Quiz for the MPT-02. I have the question booklet for the Studio II version, and the social studies section is pretty United States-centric, even though there are some world questions. I'd expect there to be different questions for the MPT-02, possibly several different sets of questions. Of course, since the cart just has the answers, and you have to look up the questions in the booklet, maybe they could get away with using the same ROM even if the question booklets are different. I've never seen any of the MPT-02 booklets, though.

     

    You know, now that I think about it, I don't even know if the present School House I dump is from Math and Social Studies or Computer Quiz. Once I get my Math and Social Studies cart back, I'll get it dumped.

  11. Posted

    Hi there,

     

    Excellent!

     

    I had a very quick look at the files and noticed some errors in the st2 versions of pinball and star wars. Unfortunately fixing that didn't make them run :(. The thing is that in st2 you need to indicate which blocks (256 bytes) should be loaded. So both pinball and star wars should load to 0400, 0500, 0600 and 0700h. This means that in the st2 file 40h should show 04, 05, 06, 07. In both cases 06/07 was missing. I will have another look tomorrow to see if I find anything else.

     

    I also made a st2 file of the grand pack and it does do something in Emma 02. The st2 file I made loads to 0400-07FF as well as to 0C00-0FFF. I'm not sure what it is suppose to do as the instructions I found so far are in French (sorry my French is not very good). Anyway when I press '1' it comes into this 'drawing' program that I believe is in one of the main ROMs as well.

     

    If you want to try my versions:

    https://dl.dropboxus...-grand-pack.st2

    https://dl.dropboxus...3-star-wars.st2

    https://dl.dropboxus...205-pinball.st2

     

    As said I didn't get the last two doing anything as yet.

     

    Cheers, Marcel.

     

    Thanks for looking at the files, Marcel. Is a description of the ST2 format available somewhere? I had just copied the header from baseball.st2 and updated the program names, but clearly there's more to it than this. I've updated my file on Mediafire:

     

    http://www.mediafire.com/download/w8tydhnqn4xo5l7/mpt02_dumps.zip

     

    People who downloaded this before will probably want to update it.

  12. Posted

    Well I quickly tried your .st2 of Grandpack and appears to work ok. :)

     

    Grandpack is just all the inbuilt games (clone system) on a cartridge.

     

    1 for Doodle

    2 for Patterns

    3 for Bowling

    4 for Blackjack (1 player)

    5 for Blackjack (2 player)

     

    they all loaded on Emma as expected.

     

    I'm not really sure how to test this. It did seem to work on the Victory in Emma, but you can also play the same games without inserting a cart at all. I thought it might be better to test on the Studio II, since this doesn't have Blackjack built in. I couldn't get it to do anything when I tried this.

     

    Why does this cart exist at all? Are there some versions of the MPT-02 that don't have these games built in?

  14. Posted

    WOW! Great!

     

    I will make some videos of the new roms soon.. maybe today even! :) Bingo and Concentration match are the only ones that work for me too.

     

     

    So just to confirm the Euro-games are identical to the US-games and it's just header information that's been added later? If so that just leaves TV Arcade II: Fun with Numbers to be dumped..

     

     

    :)

     

    Yes, the headers were added later, and all the games I was able to check are identical between the Studio II carts and MPT-02 carts. I don't know if this will always be the case, though. I particularly wonder about School House I, which is named Math and Social Studies for the Studio II and MG-209 Computer Quiz for the MPT-02. I have the question booklet for the Studio II version, and the social studies section is pretty United States-centric, even though there are some world questions. I'd expect there to be different questions for the MPT-02, possibly several different sets of questions. Of course, since the cart just has the answers, and you have to look up the questions in the booklet, maybe they could get away with using the same ROM even if the question booklets are different. I've never seen any of the MPT-02 booklets, though.

  15. Posted

    Hi All,

     

    Very interesting info in the thread!

     

    I see an 1802 emulator mentioned, not sure which one you guys are using. I designed the Emma 02 emulator which does include a Studio II, Visicom and Victory / MPT 02 emulator as well. If you haven't seen it yet you can download a copy from: http://www.emma02.hobby-site.com/. I also have a beta Mac OS X version linked from my facebookpage and here are the direct links:

     

    64 bit: http://dl.dropbox.co...x86_64-beta.pkg

    32 bit: http://dl.dropbox.co...-intel-beta.pkg

     

    Note that I have not done much with these for more than a year.....

     

    I do not expect to be able to do any updates on these for the next few months either but will eventually continue with them.

     

    I also have been wondering about the Visicom cartridges; I have not been able to run any of the Studio II cartridges on the Visicom in Emma 02 as yet. As far as I can see in this thread they did have similar titles so I guess it should be possible. To fix this I would probably need schematics of the Visicom. If anyone has these or knows where to find them please let me know.

     

    Cheers, Marcel.

     

    I like the emulator, Marcel.

     

    The best technical information about the Visicom that I know of is in the MESS source code:

     

    http://git.redump.net/mame/tree/src/mess/drivers/studio2.c

     

    My system is currently with Guru, and I'm planning to get it back here within the next few months. So it may be possible to answer some more questions about it.

  16. Posted

    It's pretty wild that everyone's suddenly working on this system, after a long time not hearing much about it at all. Charles MacDonald completed his Studio II dumper and was able to dump all of the MPT-02 games I sent him. I have been making arrangements to get the carts and systems I loaned out to Guru back in the USA and send them to Charles, but that may take a few months. The Visicom cart I send has some differences as Charles previously posted about, and hasn't been dumped yet. This should happen at some point, though.

     

    All the dumps which had already been dumped for some system were identical. There was previously some discussion about a unique serial number in MPT-02 dumps, but after I looked at the dumps in a hex editor, I realized that this was simply in the header added for the .st2 format, and is not actually present in the ROM on the cart. The identical dumps are the old Math Fun dump labeled as coming from the Victory, and my Math Fun which based on the instructions would seem to be the French release. Then there were MPT-02 versions of Speedway, Biorhythm, and Gunfighter/ Moonship Battle, which I believe were previously dumped from the USA Studio II. Charles had also previously matched the old Tennis dump with the dump of a US cart I sent him. Can anyone confirm that all of those old dumps were from USA Studio II carts? If we want to be extra thorough, I do have all the US carts either here or with Guru.

     

    I tried testing the new dumps in both MESS and Emma 02. The results were pretty much the same, except that I think Emma 02 matches the colors better. Neither emulator supports the plain binary dumps at the moment, so I had to add a header to put them in .st2 format, I don't think there's any way to load Grand Pack as two ROM files without changes to the emulators, so I haven't tested that one. I don't know of any other cart quite like it. Of the others, Bingo and Concentration Match appear to work fine. They'll play in color on the MPT-02, or in black and white on the Studio II. I couldn't get Pinball or Star Wars to work. It's probably an issue with the emulators, since previously no games released only for the MPT-02 family have been available.

     

    I've combined everything I got from Charles with my .st2 conversions of Bingo, Concentration Match, Pinball, and Star Wars. Feel free to check them out.

     

    http://www.mediafire.com/?w8tydhnqn4xo5l7

     

    I'd be particularly interested if anyone is able to get Grand Pack, Pinball, or Star Wars working. And since games for these systems aren't always very intuitive, here are the links to my scans I posted awhile back.

     

    Clone Cartridge Instructions: http://www.mediafire.com/?ybzl5fm12tblbpb

     

    Studio II Cartridge Instructions: http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?khuy39x2dzimy9r

     

    Clone cartridges: http://www.mediafire.com/?a6rvdkkd26zyyzc

     

    Studio II cartridges: http://www.mediafire.com/?wudbpn9erc98pw2

     

    Owners and Service Manuals: http://www.mediafire.com/?7jod7m8a63za1n9

     

    TV School House I Booklets: http://www.mediafire.com/?737ozbndlar93zw

     

    System Photos and System Boxes: http://www.mediafire.com/?5ebmvf28e73709c

     

    Cartridge Boxes: http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?95wih39jrj6ow49

     

    PeT Scans: http://www.mediafire.com/?ojxprk04sqwfihf

    • Like 1

  18. Posted

    Thanks for sharing all this! Prior to this thread I had recently scanned a bunch of my RCA Studio II manuals found here. I used the best manuals I had and scanned at 1200 dpi, then scaled down a bit, did some basic touch up and saved as jpg files. I am actually in the process of finishing up the School House I books (both versions), the owners manual and all the other US paperwork (order form, brochure, warranty, etc.)

     

    Nice scans. It's interesting that your English-language Star Wars manual is completely different from my French one. It's not just a simple translation.

    • Like 1

  20. Posted · Edited by ranger_lennier

    Instructions are particularly important for the Studio II, as it's not always intuitive even how to start a game. TV School House I makes no sense whatsoever without the question booklets that came with it.

     

    For the clone instructions, I have a mix of English and French, along with some boxes in German. I don't have the instructions for Baseball/Sumo, but there is some Japanese text on the back of the cart, which might be a summary of how to play it.

    • Like 1

  21. Posted

    OK, the scans are all organized and uploaded now. I've made them archive quality--300 dpi color PNG's. There are also some photos from my digital camera for the systems themselves, and the system box that's too large to scan easily. Feel free to distribute, reformat, etc. My U.S. collection is just about complete, though I don't have a box for TV School House I. For the clone carts, some I don't have boxes and/or instructions. Some of what I do have is kind of beat up. If anyone is able to scan missing items, or scan more pristine items, that would be great. I'm also including some miscellaneous scans I got from Peter Trauner (PeT). I'm not sure how widely these have been distributed.

     

    Clone cartridges: http://www.mediafire.com/?a6rvdkkd26zyyzc

     

    Studio II cartridges: http://www.mediafire.com/?wudbpn9erc98pw2

     

    Owners and Service Manuals: http://www.mediafire.com/?7jod7m8a63za1n9

     

    Studio II Cartridge Instructions: http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?khuy39x2dzimy9r

     

    Clone Cartridge Instructions: http://www.mediafire.com/?ybzl5fm12tblbpb

     

    TV School House I Booklets: http://www.mediafire.com/?737ozbndlar93zw

     

    System Photos and System Boxes: http://www.mediafire.com/?5ebmvf28e73709c

     

    Cartridge Boxes: http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?95wih39jrj6ow49

     

    PeT Scans: http://www.mediafire.com/?ojxprk04sqwfihf

    • Like 2

  23. Posted

    Odd, the only one is mine and it definitely works. Dumping RCAS2 carts is not difficult, you have an address bus to write to (8 bits) one to read from (8 bits) and some lines to tweak (TPA to set the upper address, MRD to read the cartridge). I suspect the problem was the PC interface :(

     

    The wierd thing about it is that S2 ROM carts have the address decoders built in, unlike almost everything else which has a chip select line which is decoded in the console/computer, if you send it the wrong address values it doesn't respond. If you want to try again put me in touch with Guru and we can almost certainly figure it out between us - dumping the BIOS ROMs is much harder than dumping the carts.

     

    I think I tried to get in touch with you a few years back. I guess I should have looked here.

     

    I'll probably try to get these shipped back to me, since that's something I've been meaning to do anyway, especially some other items that have already been dumped that I want to sell.

  24. Posted

    I found this post from 3 years ago in the group:

     

    http://dir.groups.ya...mac/message/208

     

    Don't know if it is still possible to contact this person... but he sounds a useful contact for the missing Eur/Aus games!

     

    I'm going to try e-mailing him.

     

    Thanks for contacting me about this discussion. I've been collecting various un-dumped games for obscure systems the past several years. While the Studio II games are a little simplistic, even for the era, it's definitely historically interesting as the second system with interchangeable ROM cartridges. I've had quite a bit of success in finding games for the Studio II and clones. I've had considerably less success in actually getting them dumped. This has appeared to me to be a lost art. A website even had schematics for a cartridge dumper, but when I sent the instructions and some carts to Guru – a prominent MAME dumper – he was unable to reproduce it. He was at least able to dump the Toshiba Visicom BIOS, so that is now supported in MESS. I'm glad to hear that fauxscot has had better luck. Hopefully the clone carts won't be any more difficult to dump, since those account for most of the missing ones.

     

    Here is a list of the clone cartridges I own. The Mustang ones (plus the system itself) are on loan to Guru and not quickly accessible, but hopefully I can get them back here without too much trouble.

     

    Mustang 9016 Telespiel-Computer (German clone of RCA Studio II) and 4 carts on loan to Guru: Mathematische Spiele, Konzentrationsspiele (Memory), Krieg der Sterne, Flipper

     

    9 carts for Soundic MPT-02 Victory (another Studio II clone): Bingo, Biorhythm, Concentration Match, Grand Pack, Gunfighter/Moonship Battle, Math Fun, Pinball, Speedway/Tag, and Star Wars

     

    1 cart for Toshiba Visicom (Japanese Studio II clone): Baseball/Sumo Wrestling (CAS-130)

     

    I've already made a number of scans of carts, boxes, and instructions. Give me a little time and I can upload them to MediaFire.

    • Like 2

  25. Posted

    [...] possible way to tell would be to play the released version and compare [...] if you have the ability to dump them easily, we could directly compare the ROM contents.

    Yeah, I'm interested; I'll put this investigation on my list of things to do, but realize my list is VERY long (and generally does not include loading and configuring emulation software. Too much tweaking...one reason I prefer carts)

     

    That's cool. Let me know if you have any questions about how to get it running.

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