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My Air Raid Auction Update


Tanman

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I knew your Clonespy was producing these percentages, but I was unsure if it'd pick up small packets of code bring moved around. [/Quote]

Yes and no. CloneSpy works like a pseudo-compressor. It searches for identical code sequences and "stores" them with some overhead. Short sequences create a lot of overhead (too short sequences are skipped). So with e.g. 2 bytes (not sure, have to check the code) overhead/sequence, a 4 byte table would be stored with 50% space gain. Longer sequences have less overhead and create more space gain.

 

HOM3 does a simply binary diff, so unlike CloneSpy it won't find moved around code.

Edited by Thomas Jentzsch
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I knew your Clonespy was producing these percentages, but I was unsure if it'd pick up small packets of code bring moved around. [/Quote]

Yes and no. CloneSpy works like a pseudo-compressor. It searches for identical code sequences and "stores" them with some overhead. Short sequences create a lot of overhead (too short sequences are skipped). So with e.g. 2 bytes (not sure, have to check the code) overhead/sequence, a 4 byte table would be stored with 50% space gain. Longer sequences have less overhead and create more space gain.

 

BTW: How does HOM3 work here?

HOM3 does a direct line by line comparision. Picking up a byte from towards the end and shifting it to the top will give you thousands of line differences. In truth I would only count that as just 1 difference as I don't consider shifted addresses as differences, as long as they go to the same place in the routine.

 

 

I would like to know the limit before a sequence is ignored, if you can dig that up Thomas. It'd be good to know. :)

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I would like to know the limit before a sequence is ignored, if you can dig that up Thomas. It'd be good to know. :)

The basic overhead is two. There are some additional tweaks in CloneSpy e.g. identical offsets inside a sequence don't break the sequence, just increase overhead. The used compression algorithm is LZSS, which is pretty good. But there are better ones.

 

BTW: xdelta is a tool to create patch files whichs convert file A into file B. The smaller the resulting patch file, the more identical the two files are. From the documentation it seems like it uses a very similar approach like Clonespy.

 

To patch Air Raid into:

Space Jockey (U.S. Games Corporation) (NTSC): 1275 bytes

Space Jockey (Carrere Video) (PAL): 1392 bytes

Space Jockey (Unknown) (PAL): 1540 bytes

UFO (32 in 1) (Atari) (PAL): 1576 bytes

Space Jockey (208 in 1) (Unknown) (PAL): 1551 bytes

 

(Note: You have to remove the overhead from the patch files 7 bytes + length of both filenames. E.g. 1275 -> 1141 bytes)

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EPROMS NOT GLUED DATED 1975 SHOW THAT 10 OUT OF 9 PEOPLE DESPITE VIOLENCE AGREE THAT AIR RAID CARTRIDGE IS PROVEN BEYOND DOUBT TO NOT HAVE BEEN REPRODUCED LATER THAN THAT DATE

 

10 out of 9 people seems a little hard to do. :D

 

He was counting one of the voices in his head.

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EPROMS NOT GLUED

Gluing of EPROMS is not a standard practice. What are you talking about?

 

10 OUT OF 9 PEOPLE DESPITE VIOLENCE AGREE

10 out of 9 people agree? Did you conduct and compile this survey yourself?

 

EPROMS [...] DATED 1975 SHOW [...] THAT AIR RAID CARTRIDGE IS PROVEN BEYOND DOUBT TO NOT HAVE BEEN REPRODUCED LATER THAN THAT DATE

Firstly, proving that something like that never happened is a logical impossibility. Secondly, assuming that the IC markings are legitimate, this would only prove that the cartridge was made in or later than 1975 (not how much later... it could have been many years after). Thirdly, I doubt that the Air Raid cartridge has ever been "reproduced". Based on what we know about the making of custom plastic items, and the rarity of the game, it seems that what it cost to originally produce it (did you mean "produced" instead of "reproduced"?) probably far exceeded the profit generated from selling it. It's possible that the company and/or person responsible for the game was bankrupted by it. Finally, what drugs are you on? That's gotta be some good $#!+.

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EPROMS NOT GLUED

Gluing of EPROMS is not a standard practice. What are you talking about?

 

10 OUT OF 9 PEOPLE DESPITE VIOLENCE AGREE

10 out of 9 people agree? Did you conduct and compile this survey yourself?

 

EPROMS [...] DATED 1975 SHOW [...] THAT AIR RAID CARTRIDGE IS PROVEN BEYOND DOUBT TO NOT HAVE BEEN REPRODUCED LATER THAN THAT DATE

Firstly, proving that something like that never happened is a logical impossibility. Secondly, assuming that the IC markings are legitimate, this would only prove that the cartridge was made in or later than 1975 (not how much later... it could have been many years after). Thirdly, I doubt that the Air Raid cartridge has ever been "reproduced". Based on what we know about the making of custom plastic items, and the rarity of the game, it seems that what it cost to originally produce it (did you mean "produced" instead of "reproduced"?) probably far exceeded the profit generated from selling it. It's possible that the company and/or person responsible for the game was bankrupted by it. Finally, what drugs are you on? That's gotta be some good $#!+.

:rolling:

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The basic overhead is two. There are some additional tweaks in CloneSpy e.g. identical offsets inside a sequence don't break the sequence, just increase overhead. The used compression algorithm is LZSS, which is pretty good. But there are better ones.

That is actually a lot finer than I thought it'd be. The Clonespy percentage should be very close then indeed.

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I would like to know the limit before a sequence is ignored, if you can dig that up Thomas. It'd be good to know. :)

The basic overhead is two. There are some additional tweaks in CloneSpy e.g. identical offsets inside a sequence don't break the sequence, just increase overhead. The used compression algorithm is LZSS, which is pretty good. But there are better ones.

 

BTW: xdelta is a tool to create patch files whichs convert file A into file B. The smaller the resulting patch file, the more identical the two files are. From the documentation it seems like it uses a very similar approach like Clonespy.

 

To patch Air Raid into:

Space Jockey (U.S. Games Corporation) (NTSC): 1275 bytes

Space Jockey (Carrere Video) (PAL): 1392 bytes

Space Jockey (Unknown) (PAL): 1540 bytes

UFO (32 in 1) (Atari) (PAL): 1576 bytes

Space Jockey (208 in 1) (Unknown) (PAL): 1551 bytes

 

(Note: You have to remove the overhead from the patch files 7 bytes + length of both filenames. E.g. 1275 -> 1141 bytes)

 

I'm curious what kind of result you get when comparing to a completely different game (or is that the UFO game that is mentioned)?

 

Thanks,

5-11under

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The CloneSpy values are percentages, so 56% of code is shared (including repeated code e.g. in the "new" 2k bank).

So does that mean my boxed Space Jockey is worth 56% of what Air Raid is? :D

 

5.6%? :)

 

.56%? :|

 

.056%? :(

 

.0056%? :sad:

.56% is still $70 ;)

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I'm out. I was interested, but not $10K+ interested.... or in other words, I'm crazy, but not that crazy.

 

I'll just keep my reproduction cart and hope for a Repro box at some point.

 

Even better, if someone makes a reproduction cart (t-handle) with Repro box. With all this hype, I bet this would make a good limited production run. Heck, they might even sell more than Men-a-vision did with the original :)

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I'm out. I was interested, but not $10K+ interested.... or in other words, I'm crazy, but not that crazy.

 

I'll just keep my reproduction cart and hope for a Repro box at some point.

 

Even better, if someone makes a reproduction cart (t-handle) with Repro box. With all this hype, I bet this would make a good limited production run. Heck, they might even sell more than Men-a-vision did with the original :)

 

 

I have some Brazil TRON t-handle carts in my watch list right now contimplating doing just that, a few CIB baby blue t-handle Air Raid repros. I'm just worried if I sell them outside of the well known collecting circles they would be abused\misrepresented for resale.

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