*FOUND & DUMPED* NTSC Lilly Adventure

[Mr. Postman]

! Update: Dumped 11/03/2020 !

Please enjoy and happy holidays

 

----------

 

Howdy guys. Ive been searching for what seems like decades for an NTSC Lilly cart and finally found one from Argentina. The character looks really cool with the blue outfit and red belt, plus the blue water for the gators & turtles seems more in place than the purple of the PAL. I figure because it was developed in Taiwan that it was originally created in NTSC, you never know with some of these odd titles. 
 

As for gameplay the speed feels amazingly better and the jumps feel less floaty. The music also seems to flow better and is easier on the ears. 

 

Only issue I’m having is that when I play it on my Retron that the Home Vision 83’ copyright is half cut off and the countdown timer at the top of the display is significantly cut off (but you can still tell what it is at any given point in time). 
 

To my knowledge this is undumped and only a conversion PAL to NTSC ROM exists that retains the PAL colors.

 

Happy with my score, I didn’t know which format the game would be since Argentina used a mix of PAL & NTSC cartridges depending on the consoles which in turn converted the signal to PAL-N, so I was thrilled when I powered it up and it wasn’t the normal PAL version. For most of us I’d assume that this is a world premiere! ?

 

The version I got is the Artkaris Software release.

Lili, Artkaris (Argentina) (NTSC).bin

Edited November 3, 2020 by Mr. Postman
ROM Dump added

[CaptainBreakout]

Wow... this is interesting.  I was looking for one of these for awhile myself.

 

Nice find!!!!

 

I found Bobby is Going Home from Brazil and CCE, which works ok on my old NTSC CRT and an original 6-switch.  But this I didn't even know existed. Would be nice to have this on a cart (I love the Bit Corp stuff).  If this ever leads to a cart run, please count me in. 

 

[CPUWIZ]

Nice find, i think I have that on one of my multi-game 2600's.

 

I have a NTSC Bobby with a Bit Corp label.

 

http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-2600-vcs-bobby-is-going-home_18790.html

 

I think the one on atarimania is the only other one I've seen.

 

EDIT: LOL, the actual labeled cart on atarimania is mine.

[Mr. Postman]

16 minutes ago, CaptainBreakout said:

Wow... this is interesting.  I was looking for one of these for awhile myself.

 

Nice find!!!!

 

I found Bobby is Going Home from Brazil and CCE, which works ok on my old NTSC CRT and an original 6-switch.  But this I didn't even know existed. Would be nice to have this on a cart (I love the Bit Corp stuff).  If this ever leads to a cart run, please count me in. 

 

Yes, I’m very excited. I bought this in April and it shipped then, but disappeared from tracking and arrived just yesterday! I was counting it as a loss but figured it was just the PAL version anyway. The best thing is that the game now plays well and sounds correct. I always believed that an NTSC Lilly Adventure would have a lot of potential and it doesn’t disappoint! ?

 

Of course it’s a lot like NTSC Bobby is going Home, but with the extra obstacles of riding on turtles and timing landings on closed mouth gators as well as a large open source soundtrack variety.

 

 I very much look forward to getting this ROM out to everyone to enjoy.

[Mr. Postman]

For the time being, Thomas Jentzsch did create a PAL to NTSC conversion of Lilly Adventure long ago in 2001 (with PAL colors) which was a wonderful inspiration for me to continue searching for this old cartridge.
 

His ROM is available now. I thank him for giving us a taste of what this game was meant to be. It finally made it playable IMO. It will be nice to compare the real thing to the conversion.
 

It will be fun to have this actual old NTSC dump available soon an entire 37 years since the release & 19 years later after the conversion, but for the time being please play Thomas’ conversion release. ?

 

https://atariage.com/software_page.php?SoftwareID=2991

 

 

I’ve definitely been searching a long time! ?

Edited October 16, 2020 by Mr. Postman

[Mr. Postman]

I would like to note that this old original cart is obviously not as slow playing or sounding as the original PAL release, but nor is it as crazy fast sounding as the artificial Jentzsch PAL converted ROM which simply sounds very fast. 

Edited October 16, 2020 by Mr. Postman

[Mr. Postman]

Here’s a youtube video with PAL colors that I found, can anyone explain to me why the score is cut off like my cart? My cart runs at a much better speed and color but still has the same problem with the numbers being cropped off.

 

Edited October 16, 2020 by Mr. Postman

[Thomas Jentzsch]

5 hours ago, Mr. Postman said:

Thomas Jentzsch did create a PAL to NTSC conversion of Lilly Adventure long ago in 2001 (with PAL colors)...

Time flies...

But I am pretty sure I adapted the colors to NTSC back then.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

4 hours ago, Mr. Postman said:

Here’s a youtube video with PAL colors that I found, can anyone explain to me why the score is cut off like my cart?

Looks like the cart is still displaying too many lines. I vaguely remember that I had similar problems back then. Are you going to dump and share the ROM?

 

BTW: Not only the score is cut off, but also the bottom line which displays lives and level is completely missing.

[Shawn]

Well this is totally awesome. Congrats on finding the game, it's as rare as it gets. Nice of you to mention a plan to shar the dump with the masses.

[Mr. Postman]

3 hours ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

Looks like the cart is still displaying too many lines. I vaguely remember that I had similar problems back then. Are you going to dump and share the ROM?

 

BTW: Not only the score is cut off, but also the bottom line which displays lives and level is completely missing.

In mine the bottom is fine, just the top is clipped. Also yes, I’d love for everyone to play this.

[Mr. Postman]

I would like to ask simple advice from people that are familiar with dumping carts and the file naming system.

 

I’m planning on using a Maxflash. So I assume that Lilly Adventure is a standard 4kb cart and not one of the bankswitching options.

 

More importantly, what would be the proper name to give this .bin file? 
 

Lilly Adventure, Artkaris (Argentina).bin

 

LILI (Artkaris).bin

 

Lilly Adventure (NTSC).bin

 

???

 

also some people have mentioned
” a ~ “ filenames for NTSC and I don’t particularly understand what you guys want it to be named. My original post links to the exact cartridge on AtariMania. (maybe RomHunter can chime in).

 

Thanks guys, hopefully by the end of October I’ll have this out there for everyone to enjoy. I’ve been playing it a lot and it’s really fun.

Edited October 18, 2020 by Mr. Postman

[CPUWIZ]

7 minutes ago, Mr. Postman said:

 LILI, Artkaris (Argentina) (NTSC).bin

 

My $0.02.

[Mr. Postman]

9 minutes ago, CPUWIZ said:

 

My $0.02.

Looks good to me.

 

As soon as I get a dumper ill get it out there. Should I post the file in the middle of this thread, create a new thread so it isn’t buried, or can a mod edit this thread and change the thread title from Undumped to “Dumped” and add the file to the OP?

 

This is a pretty significant addition to the available playable *once considered* PAL-exclusive list of titles IMO. I’m so happy to have finally found this. The game is so much more fun to play than the PAL version. ?

 

 

Edited October 18, 2020 by Mr. Postman

[CPUWIZ]

12 minutes ago, Mr. Postman said:

Should I post the file in the middle of this thread, create a new thread so it isn’t buried, or can a mod edit this thread and change the thread title from Undumped to “Dumped” and add the file to the OP?

 

 

I've granted you edit rights.

[Mr. Postman]

1 hour ago, CPUWIZ said:

 

I've granted you edit rights.

Well I appreciate that, thank you. I’ve got the Maxflash on order already and I’ll get this dumped and made public ASAP as soon as it arrives.
 

I hope that people will be happy with it, as far as playability goes I don’t think that anyone could ever go back to the PAL version ever again.

[Mr. Postman]

Kind of off topic, but I’ve learned a new trick where in certain stages you can ride on a turtle and rapid jump to pass under floating platforms. It’s very helpful on some difficult stages! ^^’

 

new high score:

[ubersaurus]

Very exciting to see this turned up! I'm looking forward to trying out the "true" NTSC version of it myself.

[Ballblaɀer]

On 10/18/2020 at 12:52 AM, Mr. Postman said:

I would like to ask simple advice from people that are familiar with dumping carts and the file naming system.

 

I’m planning on using a Maxflash. So I assume that Lilly Adventure is a standard 4kb cart and not one of the bankswitching options.

Yes, it’ll be a regular 4K dump with the MaxFlash. Big thanks for hunting this down and sharing with us all!

[vintagegamecrazy]

Were NTSC games sold in South America? How and why does this NTSC game exist?

[Supergun]

Yes. This certainly isn’t the first NTSC cart to turn up in South America.

[Mr. Postman]

3 hours ago, vintagegamecrazy said:

Were NTSC games sold in South America? How and why does this NTSC game exist?

Yes, games released in South America were often NTSC or PAL-M, both play together very well.

 

In the case of Argentina the TVs were “PAL-N” (which is not to be confused with PAL-M).
 

Some of the early consoles would simply take regular NTSC cartridges like this one in which the console itself would convert it to Argentina standard of PAL-N for the video output. Argentina consoles can be quite strange & the cartridge standards there changed throughout the lifetime of the 2600. Atari fans in Argentina quite often don’t understand why some of their carts play and others don’t. I’m guessing that they ditched NTSC carts so that consumers couldn’t buy Brazilian PAL-M carts.

I believe at the introduction in Argentina it was the NTSC to PAL-N consoles and later they were PAL to PAL-N.

 

Later consoles in Argentina accepted PAL carts instead and eliminated the need for the NTSC conversion to my understanding. Maybe someone else can chime in. I believe this was intentionally for one of the earliest forms of region lock.

—

For Clarification if you took an early Artkaris console, it would require regular NTSC carts like we all play in NTSC territories yet would convert them and output the signal in PAL-N. 

 

Atari collectors need to beware, you really don’t know if you’re going to receive an NTSC or PAL cartridge from Argentina. Argentina Atari discussions tend to indicate that most of the games are going to be in PAL format. As a community we’ll have to learn the cart label differences to figure out which it most likely is. I got very very lucky & I’m happy. ?✌

Edited October 20, 2020 by Mr. Postman

[Mr. Postman]

My dumper should arrive today, so hopefully some of you will get to play the game today. I hope it’s something that you guys enjoy. 
 

For the settings, just the same as PAL Lilly version you must remember to set the difficulty to A/A or else you’ll have infinite lives (which IMO is no fun unless for practice or if your kids want to play).

Edited October 24, 2020 by Mr. Postman

[atariUCLA24]

On 10/19/2020 at 11:30 PM, Mr. Postman said:

Yes, games released in South America were often NTSC or PAL-M, both play together very well.

 

In the case of Argentina the TVs were “PAL-N” (which is not to be confused with PAL-M).
 

Some of the early consoles would simply take regular NTSC cartridges like this one in which the console itself would convert it to Argentina standard of PAL-N for the video output. Argentina consoles can be quite strange & the cartridge standards there changed throughout the lifetime of the 2600. Atari fans in Argentina quite often don’t understand why some of their carts play and others don’t. I’m guessing that they ditched NTSC carts so that consumers couldn’t buy Brazilian PAL-M carts.

I believe at the introduction in Argentina it was the NTSC to PAL-N consoles and later they were PAL to PAL-N.

 

Later consoles in Argentina accepted PAL carts instead and eliminated the need for the NTSC conversion to my understanding. Maybe someone else can chime in. I believe this was intentionally for one of the earliest forms of region lock.

—

For Clarification if you took an early Artkaris console, it would require regular NTSC carts like we all play in NTSC territories yet would convert them and output the signal in PAL-N. 

 

Atari collectors need to beware, you really don’t know if you’re going to receive an NTSC or PAL cartridge from Argentina. Argentina Atari discussions tend to indicate that most of the games are going to be in PAL format. As a community we’ll have to learn the cart label differences to figure out which it most likely is. I got very very lucky & I’m happy. ?✌

There are no PAL-M carts. Brazilian carts were all NTSC and consoles output PAL-M. 

[Ballblaɀer]

When it comes to Atari 2600 and international compatibility there are three puzzle pieces that work together: the cartridges/ROMs, the consoles (specifically their TIA chips), and the televisions. Hopefully I get all of the following right; I welcome corrections or additions.

 

2600 cartridges can contain NTSC, PAL, or (very rarely, only in France) SECAM format ROMs. ROMs themselves are not PAL-M, PAL-N, etc. Those suffixes (e.g. -M, -N, etc.) differentiate between frequencies of the PAL broadcast standards' audio carriers and color subcarriers [link goes to a table on Wikipedia explaining the differences]. The ROM programming specifies only the field refresh frequencies (i.e. 50Hz, 60Hz, etc) of the video signal to be generated. The programming is what defines whether a ROM is NTSC or PAL. (SECAM is a discussion for another day. )

 

Any cartridge manufactured in Brazil should contain an NTSC ROM. NTSC ROMs work nicely with Brazil's PAL-M analog broadcast standard because the number of scanlines that they use are identical (525), and the frequencies of the color subcarriers for the chrominance information of the video signal are close (3.579545 MHz for NTSC, compared with 3.575611 MHz for PAL-M). A number of Brazilian consoles contain hardware that transcode an NTSC TIA's video signal so that the color output is exactly to the PAL-M standard. But even without that transcoding hardware, cartridges containing NTSC ROMs should display on a Brazilian TV without the picture rolling. Bottom line: it would be surprising to find a cartridge from Brazil that *didn't* contain an NTSC ROM.

 

Brazil's PAL-M broadcast format is an outlier, however -- ALL other PAL variants use 625 scanlines, including the PAL-N broadcast format used in Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay. Because of the difference in scanline numbers, cartridges containing NTSC ROMs would not be guaranteed to display entirely correctly on all analog Argentinian television sets. It would stand to reason that Argentina would therefore prefer both PAL consoles and cartridges that contained PAL ROMs, but... clearly, cartridges containing NTSC ROMs were also being manufactured and sold there.

 

The only in-depth discussion that I've ever seen about this subject (i.e. the 2600 in Argentina) is on the Retrogaming.com.ar forums, like in this thread, and this one. It is mentioned that most consoles in Argentina have NTSC TIA chips, and that many contain additional hardware that transcodes the signal to the proper PAL-N format for their televisions. One user states that only a few clones contain PAL TIA chips. It's also stated that some consoles have hardware to manually adjust the console's color output.

 

The reason provided for the existence of cartridges containing ROMs of both formats is that older TV sets in Argentina were 50Hz only, with no vertical/horizontal holds. For consumers with these older sets, cartridges containing PAL ROMs would have been necessary to play with a stable picture.

 

Really looking forward to the NTSC Lilly Adventure ROM dump!