Ballblaɀer Posted March 24, 2019 Share Posted March 24, 2019 I'm pleased to share my ROM dumps from the Bit Corp 8-in-1 Cartridge, one of the few remaining previously undumped original NTSC carts. ROMs for Bobby is Going Home, Mission 3,000 A.D., and Space Tunnel were byte-for-byte matches with existing Bit Corp NTSC ROMs, so they're not included here. Enjoy! Seamonster (1982) (Bit Corporation) (PG201).bin Phantom Tank (1982) (Bit Corporation) (PG203).bin Open, Sesame! (1982) (Bit Corporation) (PG204).bin Dancing Plate (1982) (Bit Corporation) (PG205).bin Mr. Postman (1983) (Bit Corporation) (PG209).bin 9 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omegamatrix Posted April 2, 2019 Author Share Posted April 2, 2019 Hello Ballblazer, This is great! Even though the other roms matched some previous dumps can you please post them? Thank you for helping with the Bit Corp dumps. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ballblaɀer Posted April 2, 2019 Share Posted April 2, 2019 Hello Ballblazer, This is great! Even though the other roms matched some previous dumps can you please post them? Thank you for helping with the Bit Corp dumps. I think I deleted the matching ROMs, but it'd be no issue to dump them again. Will follow up and post them when I can. I've got something even more interesting (IMO) coming in the next few days, too... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+save2600 Posted April 2, 2019 Share Posted April 2, 2019 I think I deleted the matching ROMs, but it'd be no issue to dump them again. Will follow up and post them when I can. I've got something even more interesting (IMO) coming in the next few days, too... ...a dump of The Incredible Hulk by chance? "Close this discussion of dick !! I broke !! Thanks" 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ballblaɀer Posted April 2, 2019 Share Posted April 2, 2019 ...a dump of The Incredible Hulk by chance? If I had that, I would surely have posted it on April 1! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rom Hunter Posted April 3, 2019 Share Posted April 3, 2019 I'm pleased to share my ROM dumps from the Bit Corp 8-in-1 Cartridge, one of the few remaining previously undumped original NTSC carts. ROMs for Bobby is Going Home, Mission 3,000 A.D., and Space Tunnel were byte-for-byte matches with existing Bit Corp NTSC ROMs, so they're not included here. Enjoy! Many thanks! Would love to have the dumps of the three missing ROMs as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ballblaɀer Posted April 4, 2019 Share Posted April 4, 2019 Would love to have the dumps of the three missing ROMs as well. Alrighty, here are the other three, dumped from my cart (but matching existing ROMs). I didn't delete them after all, so no re-dump was necessary. Space Tunnel (1982) (Bit Corporation) (PG202).bin Bobby is Going Home (1983) (Bit Corporation) (PG206).bin Mission 3,000 A.D. (1983) (Bit Corporation) (PG207).bin 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ballblaɀer Posted April 7, 2019 Share Posted April 7, 2019 Over last weekend I dumped the R320 multicart from Bit Corporation. It's an NTSC cart that features hacks of games from 11 publishers (Atari, Activision, Imagic, M-Network, 20th Century Fox, Sega, Parker Brothers / Froggo, Konami, U.S. Games, Tigervision, and Technovision). I recently found a (Chinese) article that shows that the R320 was not only a Bit Corp cart, but was the pack-in cartridge for Bit Corp's "Creator 30", a clone console of the Atari 2600. Though R320 carts are found in Mexico and South America these days, my guess is that the consoles/carts were originally sold within Taiwan (which also used the NTSC system at the time). The R320 has been discussed in the forums before but has not been dumped/shared... at least not to my knowledge. I haven't (yet?) disassembled anything to examine game code to see whether there's more to these hacks than just graphics changes. I have no idea if/when I'll have the time to do that... so anyone else should naturally feel free to beat me to it. TL;DR -- there's a load of unique graphics hacks (most of them minor) here, and IMO the evidence continues to mount that Bit Corp is the original source of ALL "pirate" games, including those found on the Screen Search console (see also) and the 208-in-1 cart. So, without further ado... These appear to be NTSC versions of existing PAL ROMs: 01 - Atlantis (Hack) (Bit Corporation R320) -- note: appears to be an NTSC version of the ROM "Atlantis (Hack) (208 in 1) (Unknown) (PAL)". 11 - Missile Command (Hack) (Bit Corporation R320) -- note: appears to be an NTSC version of the ROM "Missile Command (Hack) (208 in 1) (Unknown) (PAL)". 17 - Tennis (Hack) (Bit Corporation R320) -- note: appears to be an NTSC version of the ROM "Tennis (Hack) (208 in 1) (Unknown) (PAL)". 18 - Basketball (Hack) (Bit Corporation R320) -- note: appears to be an NTSC version of the ROM "Basketball (Hack) (208 in 1) (Unknown) (PAL)". 27 - Name this Game (Hack) (Bit Corporation R320) -- note: appears to be an NTSC version of the ROM "Name This Game (Hack) (208 in 1) (Unknown) (PAL)". These are identical to existing ROMs: 09 - Pooyan (Hack) (Bit Corporation R320) -- note: an exact match to the ROM "Pooyan (Hack) (2600 Screen Search Console) (Jone Yuan Telephonic Enterprise Co)". 22 - Super Challenge Baseball (Hack) (Bit Corporation R320) -- note: an exact match to the ROM "Super Challenge Baseball (2600 Screen Search Console) (Jone Yuan Telephonic Enterprise Co)". 29 - Save Our Ship (Hack) (Bit Corporation R320) -- note: an exact match to the ROM "Save Our Ship (Hack) (Unknown)", which itself appears to be an NTSC version of Quelle's "Robin Hood" release. These appear to be new graphics hacks not seen/shared before, NTSC or PAL: 02 - Flash Gordon (Hack) (Bit Corporation R320) 03 - Assault (Hack) (Bit Corporation R320) -- note: the "mothership" in the game is identical to the "mothership" from World End (Home Vision). 04 - Spider Fighter (Hack) (Bit Corporation R320) 05 - Space Invaders (Hack) (Bit Corporation R320) 06 - Demon Attack (Hack) (Bit Corporation R320) 07 - SpaceMaster X-7 (Hack) (Bit Corporation R320) 08 - Air Raiders (Hack) (Bit Corporation R320) 10 - Defender (Hack) (Bit Corporation R320) 12 - Tac-Scan (Hack) (Bit Corporation R320) 14 - Spiderdroid (Hack) (Bit Corporation R320) -- note: Atarimania lists this as Amidar, but the enemy numbers/movement mirrors Spiderdroid. 16 - Golf (Hack) (Bit Corporation R320) 19 - (Pele's) Championship Soccer (Hack) (Bit Corporation R320) 20 - Bowling (Hack) (Bit Corporation R320) 23 - Video Pinball (Hack) (Bit Corporation R320) -- note: Atarimania lists this as Midnight Magic in error. 24 - Donkey Kong (Hack) (Bit Corporation R320) 25 - Bank Heist (Hack) (Bit Corporation R320) 26 - Lock 'n' Chase (Hack) (Bit Corporation R320) 28 - Jawbreaker (Hack) (Bit Corporation R320) 30 - Fast Eddie (Hack) (Bit Corporation R320) 31 - Circus Atari (Hack) (Bit Corporation R320) 32 - Fishing Derby (Hack) (Bit Corporation R320) I'm unsure of the extent of any changes in these: 13 - Othello (Hack) (Bit Corporation R320) -- note: this wasn't an exact match with any known Othello ROMs, but I'm not able to see any obvious differences from the standard Atari Othello ROM, either. 15 - Surround (Hack) (Bit Corporation R320) -- note: this wasn't an exact match with any known Surround ROMs, but I'm not able to see any obvious differences from the standard Atari Surround ROM, either. 21 - Trick Shot (Hack) (Bit Corporation R320) -- note: this appears to be the standard Trick Shot ROM but with the on-screen Imagic copyright removed. There could be other unseen differences. Some questions: 1) Is there any way to know whether a game was first created as a PAL game and converted to NTSC? I'm wondering whether Bit Corp generally started with NTSC programs (which they converted to PAL), or vice versa... or if they did conversions both ways. 2) I'm curious about the Spiderdroid/Amidar hack. Given the partial Bit Corp logo that was found in Froggo's Karate (previously from Ultravision), I think it's possible that Froggo acquired Bit Corp's hack and modified it, rather than this Bit Corp hack being based on Spiderdroid. Anyone have thoughts/speculation? 3) Where did the NTSC ROM "Save Our Ship (Hack) (Unknown)" come from? Did CPUWIZ dump and share that one ROM from his R320 cart? This also connects with my first question: I wonder whether Quelle's Robin Hood was a PAL conversion from this Bit Corp NTSC hack, or if Quelle's version was first (considering the original PAL Technovision source). 4) Any thoughts on that Assault / World End (Home Vision) mothership connection? Sure, it could just be a hack of Assault, but... is it possible that the BOMB games are actually Bit Corp originals, too? They do have kind of a Bit Corp "feel" to me... Bit Corporation - R320 cartridge.zip 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ballblaɀer Posted April 7, 2019 Share Posted April 7, 2019 A few more R320 screenshots. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted April 7, 2019 Share Posted April 7, 2019 I ran the dumps through CloneSpy (see attachment). There are some vague pattern (e.g. to the 208 in 1 ROMs and to the original ROMs), but nothing very obvious. IMO the groupings in Atlantis and Missile Command are the most interesting data. CloneSpy_BitCorp_R320.zip 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omegamatrix Posted April 7, 2019 Author Share Posted April 7, 2019 Alright! Some good work here. Ballblaɀer I took a look at the roms and found some of the 2K games were dumped as 4K. Please use these roms instead for those: 2K roms.zip In terms of whether sometimes PAL games were hacked into NTSC, that has happened before. Sometimes you will even find that a game gets hacked into a PAL format, and then hacked back into NTSC by a different company. Colors are ususally something that can be looked at to see if a game started as NTSC or PAL. Sometimes they don't get changed. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ballblaɀer Posted April 7, 2019 Share Posted April 7, 2019 Thanks for catching the 2K vs 4K thing. The Maxflash software's minimum ROM dump size is 4K, and I forgot that a handful of those games were 2K. Looks like Surround from the R320 cart also matches the original Atari ROM. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rom Hunter Posted April 11, 2019 Share Posted April 11, 2019 (edited) Thanks for catching the 2K vs 4K thing. The Maxflash software's minimum ROM dump size is 4K, and I forgot that a handful of those games were 2K. Looks like Surround from the R320 cart also matches the original Atari ROM. Thanks for dumping these ROMS. They're added to the V16 Collection. Midnight Magic in our list corrected. What I would like to know is if Othello, Surround and Trick Shot are truly hacks. What exactly is the difference between these three and the original versions? Edited April 11, 2019 by Rom Hunter 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ballblaɀer Posted April 11, 2019 Share Posted April 11, 2019 Thanks for dumping these ROMS. They're added to the V16 Collection. Midnight Magic in our list corrected. What I would like to know is if Othello, Surround and Trick Shot are truly hacks. What exactly is the difference between these three and the original versions? Surround -- no difference. The correctly-sized ROM supplied by Omegamatrix matches the regular NTSC Atari ROM. Be sure you're including those 2K ROMs instead of the 4K ones that I dumped. The others need to be looked at. Imagic's copyright is gone from Trick Shot but beyond that I can't see any obvious difference. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rom Hunter Posted April 12, 2019 Share Posted April 12, 2019 Surround -- no difference. The correctly-sized ROM supplied by Omegamatrix matches the regular NTSC Atari ROM. Be sure you're including those 2K ROMs instead of the 4K ones that I dumped. The others need to be looked at. Imagic's copyright is gone from Trick Shot but beyond that I can't see any obvious difference. Yes, I replaced the 4K ones with the 2K ones. Trick Shot is a hack in my book if the logo was removed. So only Othello to be checked then. Omega / Thomas, any idea what exactly the differences are? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted April 12, 2019 Share Posted April 12, 2019 Othello is 100% identical to the Atari NTSC version (with grid markers). 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rom Hunter Posted April 12, 2019 Share Posted April 12, 2019 (edited) Othello is 100% identical to the Atari NTSC version (with grid markers). Thanks, Thomas. No more 100% identicals, right? Edited April 12, 2019 by Rom Hunter Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rom Hunter Posted April 12, 2019 Share Posted April 12, 2019 (edited) Some questions: 1) Is there any way to know whether a game was first created as a PAL game and converted to NTSC? I'm wondering whether Bit Corp generally started with NTSC programs (which they converted to PAL), or vice versa... or if they did conversions both ways. 2) I'm curious about the Spiderdroid/Amidar hack. Given the partial Bit Corp logo that was found in Froggo's Karate (previously from Ultravision), I think it's possible that Froggo acquired Bit Corp's hack and modified it, rather than this Bit Corp hack being based on Spiderdroid. Anyone have thoughts/speculation? 3) Where did the NTSC ROM "Save Our Ship (Hack) (Unknown)" come from? Did CPUWIZ dump and share that one ROM from his R320 cart? This also connects with my first question: I wonder whether Quelle's Robin Hood was a PAL conversion from this Bit Corp NTSC hack, or if Quelle's version was first (considering the original PAL Technovision source). 4) Any thoughts on that Assault / World End (Home Vision) mothership connection? Sure, it could just be a hack of Assault, but... is it possible that the BOMB games are actually Bit Corp originals, too? They do have kind of a Bit Corp "feel" to me... 1) I think they released their games in both formats: http://www.atarimania.com/2600/boxes/hi_res/mission_3000_ad_bit_corp_ntsc_cart.jpg http://www.atarimania.com/2600/boxes/hi_res/bobby_is_going_home_bit_corp_cart_4.jpg 2) Interesting theory. Froggo games were released in 1987, while Bit Corporation released theirs in 1982/1983. You could be right. 3) That ROM was dumped in the late nineties. No idea were it came from. Quelle could very well have copied this game from Bit Corporation. There was a connection between these two. Quelle didn´t make or hack any games, just distributed them. 4) Sky Alien and World End from Home Vision are the original versions, but the similarity between the motherships is very interesting indeed. Edited April 12, 2019 by Rom Hunter 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted April 12, 2019 Share Posted April 12, 2019 (edited) 2) According to CloneSpy, Bit Corp's version is slightly closer related to the Parker NTSC version than Froggo's version (99% vs 98% identical). And Bit Corp's version is also closer related to the original than to Froggo's version (99% vs 98% again). So that would imply that BitCorp came first and Froggo's version might be created independently. But the statistical differences are way too small to draw any reliable conclusions. Edit: After having a closer look, I am 99% sure that Froggo created their own version from scratch. Their hack does have no hacked bytes in common with the BitCorp version. It is also more elaborated since they changed e.g. colors and the chicken graphics. The BitCorp version only changed the player and enemy graphics and nothing else. Edited April 12, 2019 by Thomas Jentzsch 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ballblaɀer Posted April 12, 2019 Share Posted April 12, 2019 Their hack does have no hacked bytes in common with the BitCorp version. It is also more elaborated since they changed e.g. colors and the chicken graphics. The BitCorp version only changed the player and enemy graphics and nothing else. I now realize where I went wrong with this: Stella's difficulty switch settings. For Amidar, I was defaulting to switches in the A position. For Spiderdroid and the Bit Corp hack, the switches were in the B position. This was what crossed me up. I agree, it's an Amidar hack, not a Spiderdroid hack. Yes, this also puts a dent in my "Froggo used Bit Corp's hack" theory. Thanks for looking deeper, Thomas. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ballblaɀer Posted April 13, 2019 Share Posted April 13, 2019 1) I think they released their games in both formats: http://www.atarimania.com/2600/boxes/hi_res/mission_3000_ad_bit_corp_ntsc_cart.jpg http://www.atarimania.com/2600/boxes/hi_res/bobby_is_going_home_bit_corp_cart_4.jpg 4) Sky Alien and World End from Home Vision are the original versions, but the similarity between the motherships is very interesting indeed. I suppose my first question is more related to the 8-in-1 cart. I guess what I'm ultimately trying to ask is if it's possible to tell from game code whether the 9 original Bit Corp titles were first programmed to be NTSC-compliant. Considering that Taiwan used the NTSC format at the time, and considering that there's evidence of 1) Bit Corp / Puzzy selling a console with the (NTSC) R320 cart as a pack-in, 2) Bit Corp / Puzzy potentially having sold some games directly in North America, and 3) Bit Corp apparently officially having licensed their 9 games to CCE in Brazil (who used/uses NTSC carts for their PAL-M systems)... I'm wondering if all of this perhaps hints toward these games being NTSC originals, and the global PAL releases came afterward. One can debate the usefulness of the NTSC vs PAL distinction to begin with, but I think it can be historically instructive to have a definitive answer to the question, if one exists. Regarding the fourth question... is there any code shared between the BOMB games and Bit Corp games, do we know? Does the code for the radar in Great Escape bear any similarity to the one in Mission 3,000 A.D., for example? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted April 13, 2019 Share Posted April 13, 2019 BTW: Given all these companies back then, why are there (almost?) no fans from Far East at AtariAge? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omegamatrix Posted April 13, 2019 Author Share Posted April 13, 2019 I suppose my first question is more related to the 8-in-1 cart. I guess what I'm ultimately trying to ask is if it's possible to tell from game code whether the 9 original Bit Corp titles were first programmed to be NTSC-compliant. Considering that Taiwan used the NTSC format at the time, and considering that there's evidence of 1) Bit Corp / Puzzy selling a console with the (NTSC) R320 cart as a pack-in, 2) Bit Corp / Puzzy potentially having sold some games directly in North America, and 3) Bit Corp apparently officially having licensed their 9 games to CCE in Brazil (who used/uses NTSC carts for their PAL-M systems)... I'm wondering if all of this perhaps hints toward these games being NTSC originals, and the global PAL releases came afterward. One can debate the usefulness of the NTSC vs PAL distinction to begin with, but I think it can be historically instructive to have a definitive answer to the question, if one exists. It can be chipped away a little by looking at certain features. In general you want to compare all known versions of game including all of the hacks. Here are some things that can be looked at: Size of Display: PAL games can have more visible lines available then NTSC. If you see a game that fills the screen in PAL format but has areas that are off the screen in NTSC than it hints the game was a programmed as PAL. Colors: PAL and NTSC have different color palletes. For example value $1E is yellow in NTSC, but $1E is white for PAL. If the color values are the same between a PAL and NTSC version than look at each game to see what makes sense. Is the sky color blue and the grass green in one version? Does the character have a flesh color for skin in one version and not the other? Music: If there is a known melody in a game, and the music data is unchanged between versions, than which one sounds like it is playing correctly? A good example of this is Challenge. Play the PAL HES version and compare it to the NTSC Zellers version. The music plays way too fast in the NTSC version but sounds correct in the PAL version. Changed Code: This is comparing all known versions of a game to group roms that share identical code changes. Corrupted instructions (from bit rot), bug fixes, and garbage data are very useful for tracking differences. Grouping the roms together by those differences will form a nice pattern of relationships. Scanline Count: Looking at the scanline count alone is not conclusive as a lot of Atari games were off spec. However if you find the PAL version is on spec and stable, but the NTSC version is rolling because too much time is being spent in Overscan or Vblank than the game might have been programmed as PAL. Hope that helps. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ballblaɀer Posted April 13, 2019 Share Posted April 13, 2019 Not looking at any game code, here's what I notice (long story short, NTSC as the original programming now seems unlikely to me): Bobby is Going Home - PAL version blue sky in first screen a more sensible color choice than NTSC purple-ish color - Level number not fully displayed on bottom of screen in 8-in-1 NTSC ROM Dancing Plate - Music feels too fast in NTSC version (even though it probably is supposed to convey frantic action!) - PAL version colors, especially the background, feel more sensible color choices than NTSC Mission 3000, A.D. - Melody sound effects that play when blowing up an enemy seem slightly too fast in NTSC version - Gameplay is a touch too frantic in NTSC version, while PAL feels more reasonable Mr. Postman - Gameplay is a touch too frantic in NTSC version, while PAL feels more reasonable - Bit Corp logo not fully displayed on bottom of screen in 8-in-1 NTSC ROM Open, Sesame! - Walking sound effect feels too fast in NTSC version - Bit Corp logo not fully displayed on bottom of screen in 8-in-1 NTSC ROM Phantom Tank - PAL version colors feel more sensible than NTSC, though not by much - Sound and gameplay feel to me a bit more natural in the PAL version Seamonster - NTSC version has unstable scanline count (267-270 lines) - same as the Puzzy and CCE NTSC ROMs, whereas PAL is stable at 312 lines - Bit Corp logo not fully displayed on bottom of screen in 8-in-1 NTSC ROM Space Tunnel - Start of game melody seems too fast in NTSC version - Some sound effects seem not to play quite properly in NTSC version? Thanks for the guidance on PAL vs NTSC. Perhaps the book isn't completely closed on this, but the fact that all of the PAL versions seem more "right" to me definitely tells a story, in my opinion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted April 14, 2019 Share Posted April 14, 2019 (edited) Changed Code: This is comparing all known versions of a game to group roms that share identical code changes. Corrupted instructions (from bit rot), bug fixes, and garbage data are very useful for tracking differences. Grouping the roms together by those differences will form a nice pattern of relationships. That's exactly what CloneSpy does. Edited April 14, 2019 by Thomas Jentzsch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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