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ColecoVision Donkey Kong - 16K and 24K Versions


ColecoFan1981

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In regards to the ColecoVision version of Donkey Kong, which was the pack-in cartridge for said system, there were versions of it produced with both 16K and 24K ROM chips. The 24K ROM version was known to be the earliest, and then Coleco programmers decided to cut 8K of this to 16K sometime during 1983.

 

There are notable differences between the 16K and 24K ROM versions of DK:

 

The broken ladder glitch on the girder board does the following:

*24K ROM version - Mario disappears after execution of the glitch and then re-appears after about 15 seconds on the top girder next to DK. However, Mario may lose a life when this is done because sometimes DK may throw a barrel the very instant Mario lands on DK's girder.

*16K ROM version - Executing this glitch causes Mario to fall down the girder and instantly go on to the rivets board.

 

Other notable differences:

*24K ROM version has a maximum time limit of 8000 bonus points.

*16K ROM version pushes this maximum to 99900 bonus points. But if this counter turns over at 00000 points, Mario will die instantly.

*24K ROM version - when Mario dies, the background music continues playing for a few timer ticks.

*16K ROM version - when Mario dies, the background music cuts out instantly when the death fanfare plays (timer's still ticking, though).

*24K ROM version - place Mario next to Pauline's hat, seen on the right side of the rivets board, and jump up from below and the hat magically disappears.

 

MODERATOR NOTE: Move this topic if necessary.

 

~Ben

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I have a .dsk image of the ADAM in-house 5 screen Donkey Kong Jr., but I've never seen one for Donkey Kong.

 

Well, I think I confirm a SuperDK Disk version does exist, as I had all three (DKJ, DK, and Zaxxon) on floppy converted from DDP by NIAD back in the day. They were like $10 each to convert and you had to send the tapecase cover as proof of ownership of the original game. These days, I don't have any Adam floppies or a Adam Floppy drive left even. I'm surprised no one has this out there, even the TOSEC set of Adam stuff is missing it. I'll let ya know if I can find it-- I think I still have the original DDP. :)

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I have a .dsk image of the ADAM in-house 5 screen Donkey Kong Jr., but I've never seen one for Donkey Kong.

 

Well, I think I confirm a SuperDK Disk version does exist, as I had all three (DKJ, DK, and Zaxxon) on floppy converted from DDP by NIAD back in the day. They were like $10 each to convert and you had to send the tapecase cover as proof of ownership of the original game. These days, I don't have any Adam floppies or a Adam Floppy drive left even. I'm surprised no one has this out there, even the TOSEC set of Adam stuff is missing it. I'll let ya know if I can find it-- I think I still have the original DDP. :)

 

Sent a quick email to a fellow Adamite, and came up with this... enjoy!

Super_Donkey_Kong.zip

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Seeing as the CV used a Z-80A processor, as did the original arcade Donkey Kong machine, here's all my thoughts about the game timer on the 24K ROM version:

 

The instructions would be thus, that on the 24K ROM version, the timer never goes past 8000 bonus points. The game timer on both the 24K and 16K versions starts at 4000 bonus points (although the game timer does go past 8000 points on the 16K ROM version if you manage to get to level 6), which is achieved by taking the level number and multiplying that by 10 ($0A hex), and then adding 30 ($1E hex) to the result.

 

Level 1 = (1 * 10) + 30 = 4000 bonus points

Level 2 = (2 * 10) + 30 = 5000 bonus points

Level 3 = (3 * 10) + 30 = 6000 bonus points

Level 4 = (4 * 10) + 30 = 7000 bonus points

Level 5 = (5 * 10) + 30 = 8000 bonus points

 

For the 24K ROM version, the Z-80 logic would then check to make sure if the value stored in register A is 80 (#50 hex) in the ROM, and if it exceeds said value, to force it back down to 80.

 

Level 6 = (6 * 10) + 30 = 9000 bonus points (truncated to 8000 on 24K version)

Level 23 = (23 * 10) + 30 = 400 bonus points (the 8-bit byte exceeds 255)

 

On the arcade version, the infamous kill screen is arrived at because after you reach level 22, the ROM recognizes that as a large-enough number to lose the Carry flag, making said result mod 256 of it. The Carry flag deliberately clears each time before a number is doubled, and the calculation is (22 * 10) + 40 = 260, which is greater than 256 by 4 (no 8-bit hex code number goes past 255, or #FF hex), to give level 22 a very short starting bonus of 400 points.

 

I believe the kill screen for the 16K ROM version of the CV Donkey Kong occurs at level 97 (for all those who managed to get there) because it having a five-digit game timer, it can never go past 99,000 points, for which I believe is instant death. As I said before, the 24K ROM version never has the game timer going past 8000 points.

 

~Ben

Edited by ColecoFan1981
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  • 10 months later...

OK, so I've used dZ80 to disassemble both cartridge version ROMs, but I would like to consult whether or not I can have these ASM files distributed to all of you here who are interested, as I do not want to be seen as a copyright infringer?

 

What I would like for you to figure out in both ASMs are what each and every instruction/argument listed does so that I can change the part of the code that's causing Mario to fall through the up elevator from his starting position after jumping (24K ROM only) on the elevator board (on the 24K version, he also falls through the up elevator if you run to the up elevator from the second girder).

 

I'd also like to know if there is a possible instruction/argument that may trigger a kill screen like that of the arcade version (both 16K and 24K).

 

Thank you,

 

 

 

Ben

Edited by ColecoFan1981
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I don't believe the kill screen is level 97. Has anyone gotten to either level 6 or so OR around 133,00 points? I got both today, and something weird occurred...

 

A few levels earlier, a green barrel sprite appeared at the bottom of the screen. I reached 134,000 points. I think I was on level 5 or 6, playing on the rivets screen. All of a sudden, the game returned to a glitched title screen, and then progressed to a glitched select screen. I started a game, and it was chaos. DK's barrels were clumped around him, and Mario was walking near the top of the screen and climbing invisible ladders. However, when I completed the screen, everything was normal again, as if I had started the game over again.

 

This was done on emulation, but I think it'd happen on hardware as well.

Edited by arcade124
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  • 3 months later...

I have been playing both versions of this game for about a week now, I have 5 copies of each and have test this on all 5. One thing I noticed on the 24k version, is once you get the 4th fireball on the rivet stage Mario gets slower but only for this stage. He moves up and down the ladders like a turtle. But once you clear the stage and continue to the next level he is back to normal.

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On 6/22/2021 at 4:50 AM, Tempest said:

Necro bump on this.  Did anyone ever figure out what if anything was cut out of the 16K version?  Was it just code optimization and bug fixes?

The 16K version was programmed in France at Nice Ideas, and it was this version that had the five-digit timer going up all the way to 99,000 bonus points. When you die, the background music ends before the death fanfare plays (just as in the arcade version). A bug was fixed in the elevator level, where you tried to get Mario on the up elevator from his starting position and he fell through it.

 

~Ben

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On 6/22/2021 at 6:50 AM, Tempest said:

Necro bump on this.  Did anyone ever figure out what if anything was cut out of the 16K version?  Was it just code optimization and bug fixes?

The primary reason for the change from the 24K 3-Prom original version to the 16K 2-Prom version was code optimization for cost savings due to the high cost of PROM chips at the time. As ColecoFan1981 and others in this thread have pointed out, bug fixes and other changes were also made to the 16K version.

 

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 2/11/2009 at 10:10 AM, ColecoFan1981 said:

In regards to the ColecoVision version of Donkey Kong, which was the pack-in cartridge for said system, there were versions of it produced with both 16K and 24K ROM chips. The 24K ROM version was known to be the earliest, and then Coleco programmers decided to cut 8K of this to 16K sometime during 1983.

 

There are notable differences between the 16K and 24K ROM versions of DK:

 

The broken ladder glitch on the girder board does the following:

*24K ROM version - Mario disappears after execution of the glitch and then re-appears after about 15 seconds on the top girder next to DK. However, Mario may lose a life when this is done because sometimes DK may throw a barrel the very instant Mario lands on DK's girder.

*16K ROM version - Executing this glitch causes Mario to fall down the girder and instantly go on to the rivets board.

 

Other notable differences:

*24K ROM version has a maximum time limit of 8000 bonus points.

*16K ROM version pushes this maximum to 99900 bonus points. But if this counter turns over at 00000 points, Mario will die instantly.

*24K ROM version - when Mario dies, the background music continues playing for a few timer ticks.

*16K ROM version - when Mario dies, the background music cuts out instantly when the death fanfare plays (timer's still ticking, though).

*24K ROM version - place Mario next to Pauline's hat, seen on the right side of the rivets board, and jump up from below and the hat magically disappears.

 

MODERATOR NOTE: Move this topic if necessary.

 

~Ben

What if the 24K version contained the pie factory but not the 16K version,in such case that 8K drop would,ve be a bummer,but for what i do know is that the adam version does contain the pie factory,now while nintendo was impressed with the colecovision version of donkeykong and the colecovision system is also based on the Z80 cpu just like the arcade version of donkeykong, i wonder why on earth nintendo opted for a 6502 chip in their nes? I heard a strange story that nintendo did this to save on space on it’s motherboard and that game developers were more familiar with the 6502 chip,wich is strange because why did nintendo otherwise opted for a z80 chip for their gameboy later on?

you might would,ve expect it the other way around,mmm

but my biggest concern is,was the 6502 chip not cheaper then the z80 chip????

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