Carlos Baldo Posted April 12, 2021 Share Posted April 12, 2021 Hi everyone. I've just got the Spitfire (Looping) and Jaxxon (Zaxxon) carts in my collection few days ago and noticed that no one ever dumped any cart made by Splice. So, I sent them to Alexandre Casella, a repro expert, and now, almost 40 years after Splice released those carts, we dumped them successfully. In this post I'm releasing the Spitfire ROM. Jaxxon will follow shortly. Enjoy! spitfire (splice vision).col 3 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carlos Baldo Posted April 13, 2021 Author Share Posted April 13, 2021 (edited) A few screenshots (using the Onyx BIOS) Edited April 13, 2021 by Carlos Baldo 4 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
retroillucid Posted April 13, 2021 Share Posted April 13, 2021 4 hours ago, Carlos Baldo said: Hi everyone. I've just got the Spitfire (Looping) and Jaxxon (Zaxxon) carts in my collection few days ago and noticed that no one ever dumped any cart made by Splice. So, I sent them to Alexandre Casella, a repro expert, and now, almost 40 years after Splice released those carts, we dumped them successfully. In this post I'm releasing the Spitfire ROM. Jaxxon will follow shortly. Enjoy! spitfire (splice vision).col 16 kB · 19 downloads Thank you for taking the time to dump the rom file 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ikrananka Posted April 13, 2021 Share Posted April 13, 2021 Thanks for dumping this. Very interesting. A binary comparison of Spitfire and Looping shows that the only changes made for Spitfire are the various pieces of translated text shown in the screenshots. Otherwise the binaries are identical. It would seem that changing the blue game selection screen was too difficult for Splice to hack as this is still shown in English. Is the game select screen part of the BIOS? 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carlos Baldo Posted April 13, 2021 Author Share Posted April 13, 2021 2 hours ago, Ikrananka said: Thanks for dumping this. Very interesting. A binary comparison of Spitfire and Looping shows that the only changes made for Spitfire are the various pieces of translated text shown in the screenshots. Otherwise the binaries are identical. It would seem that changing the blue game selection screen was too difficult for Splice to hack as this is still shown in English. Is the game select screen part of the BIOS? The game select screen is generated by the BIOS itself. Using the Microdigital Onyx BIOS everything appears in Portuguese. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carlos Baldo Posted April 13, 2021 Author Share Posted April 13, 2021 Now releasing the Jaxxon ROM. Unfortunately only the initial screen is translated. jaxxon (splice vision).col 1 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ikrananka Posted April 13, 2021 Share Posted April 13, 2021 1 hour ago, Carlos Baldo said: The game select screen is generated by the BIOS itself. Using the Microdigital Onyx BIOS everything appears in Portuguese. Thanks for the info. Do you know if the SpliceVision used a custom/hacked BIOS with Portuguese text? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ikrananka Posted April 13, 2021 Share Posted April 13, 2021 1 hour ago, Carlos Baldo said: Now releasing the Jaxxon ROM. Unfortunately only the initial screen is translated. I'm fairly certain that Splice must have simply hacked the binaries of the original Coleco games to change certain text from English to Portuguese. Jaxxon seems to confirm this as the only recognisable text in the binary is that on the title/initial screen. The text shown after selecting a game that includes "PLAYER" is not found in a readable form in the binary - so my guess is that Splice just couldn't hack it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carlos Baldo Posted April 13, 2021 Author Share Posted April 13, 2021 42 minutes ago, Ikrananka said: Thanks for the info. Do you know if the SpliceVision used a custom/hacked BIOS with Portuguese text? Yes, just like Microdigital Onyx the Splicevision used a translated version of the Colecovision BIOS. Side-by-side, the Splice one is much more closer to the original than Microdigital's version. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ikrananka Posted April 13, 2021 Share Posted April 13, 2021 1 minute ago, Carlos Baldo said: Yes, just like Microdigital Onyx the Splicevision used a translated version of the Colecovision BIOS. Side-by-side, the Splice one is much more closer to the original than Microdigital's version. Cool - thanks for letting me know. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carlos Baldo Posted April 13, 2021 Author Share Posted April 13, 2021 Inside the Spitfire cart. Very proto-ish, handmade solder points in the ROMs. 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SiLic0ne t0aD Posted April 14, 2021 Share Posted April 14, 2021 That's really cool! Thanks for sharing. [emoji41] 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carlos Baldo Posted April 15, 2021 Author Share Posted April 15, 2021 Folks at Datassette.org just released a ROM of Spy Hunter dumped from a Coleco Mania cart. It's another case of a game that couldn't be translated, just like Zaxxon. Spy Hunter (1985) (Atari Mania).col 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ikrananka Posted April 15, 2021 Share Posted April 15, 2021 13 hours ago, Carlos Baldo said: Folks at Datassette.org just released a ROM of Spy Hunter dumped from a Coleco Mania cart. It's another case of a game that couldn't be translated, just like Zaxxon. Very cool - thanks for sharing. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carlos Baldo Posted May 6, 2021 Author Share Posted May 6, 2021 New dump surfaced: the Splicevision BIOS. Made by Victor Trucco in 2007, was since then forgotten somehow. placa1_bios.7z 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carlos Baldo Posted August 7, 2021 Author Share Posted August 7, 2021 After a while, finally we got more three Splice carts dumped by Alexandre Casella. They are Dong Junior (Donkey Kong Jr.), Duende (Smurf) and Ratoeira (Mouse Trap). Because of technical limitations, only Ratoeira was translated to Portuguese, while the other two remained in English with only the initial screen translated. ratoeira-splicevision.7z duende-splicevision.7z dong_jr-splicevision.7z 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
AtariAge on Instagram
Watch us on YouTube
Chat on Discord
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.