More dumb mapper assignment questions

More dumb mapper assignment questions
by 85cocoa on 2006-09-26 (#18025)

I already explained the reason last time why this kind of topic doesn't quite qualify for NESemdev when I'm writing it, so here I go.

My first question has to do with Pongbashi's mapper info page. It says that Squeedo is assigned to iNES mapper 124. Um...don't some of the head honchos of NES emulation have complaints about the mere existence of such an assignment? What about the "Monty on the Run" thing assigned to mapper 125 - why haven't I heard about that game before? Also, I see some abbreviations I don't understand, like "b00d." What does that mean?

(I'll be back later with some correction requests for that page. Maybe I should ask: Can Pongbashi read and reply to e-mails in English?)

by kyuusaku on 2006-09-26 (#18027)

Monty on the Run is a Famicom disk game. The mapper corresponds to a specific unauthorized port of the FDS game to ROM.

by Memblers on 2006-09-27 (#18036)

Haha, there's a pic of VGWiz's Mega/Maxi cart proto there for Squeedo. It's not Squeedo, but it is a really good-looking pic, heh.

The Squeedo mapper # was my request, actually I wanted 125 at first but 124 is just fine with me. I don't know if there are any head honchos of NES emulation, but a while back I had asked kevtris to reserve a mapper # for me if it's unused.

b00d is b00daw, another NES person who has a CopyNES and I guess some interesting carts.

by 85cocoa on 2006-09-27 (#18042)

kyuusaku wrote:
Monty on the Run is a Famicom disk game. The mapper corresponds to a specific unauthorized port of the FDS game to ROM.

I had no problem understanding that - my question is, is the hack a real pirate, or is it something that kevtris hacked up himself? (Sorry, the answer is probably the former - I know I'm getting a lot of twisted ideas in my head... The brain freeze I had was that I hadn't heard of that perticular FDS game before, thus triggering the distorted logic.)

"Head honchos" was a poor choice of words - I meant "gods of NES reverse engineering" (as in blargg, Quietust, tepples, kevtris, etc.) Marty is probably the "head honcho" here.

by kyuusaku on 2006-09-28 (#18049)

85cocoa wrote:
I had no problem understanding that - my question is, is the hack a real pirate, or is it something that kevtris hacked up himself?

What does it matter? (serious question) One thing's for certain, it can't be found easily in the wild. That's not a problem though because it can be built. IMO there should at least be equality between unauthorized "pirate"/aftermarket homebrew mappers, I find it pretentious to look down on the later (not that you are.)

by tepples on 2006-09-28 (#18050)

kyuusaku wrote:
IMO there should at least be equality between unauthorized "pirate"/aftermarket homebrew mappers, I find it pretentious to look down on the later (not that you are.)

Not only that, but looking up on multicart mappers while looking down on homebrew mappers may be deemed as inducing use of emulators developed to the spec for piracy over homebrew.

Re: More dumb mapper assignment questions
by kevtris on 2006-09-28 (#18063)

85cocoa wrote:
I already explained the reason last time why this kind of topic doesn't quite qualify for NESemdev when I'm writing it, so here I go.

My first question has to do with Pongbashi's mapper info page. It says that Squeedo is assigned to iNES mapper 124. Um...don't some of the head honchos of NES emulation have complaints about the mere existence of such an assignment? What about the "Monty on the Run" thing assigned to mapper 125 - why haven't I heard about that game before? Also, I see some abbreviations I don't understand, like "b00d." What does that mean?

(I'll be back later with some correction requests for that page. Maybe I should ask: Can Pongbashi read and reply to e-mails in English?)

For starters, that is MY list of mappers. It appeared in the nesemdev forum on this site a while back.

Now that that's out of the way, I assigned a bunch of mapper numbers in a very logical fashion: I use up the numbers in sequential order.

by kevtris on 2006-09-28 (#18064)

tepples wrote:
kyuusaku wrote:
IMO there should at least be equality between unauthorized "pirate"/aftermarket homebrew mappers, I find it pretentious to look down on the later (not that you are.)

Not only that, but looking up on multicart mappers while looking down on homebrew mappers may be deemed as inducing use of emulators developed to the spec for piracy over homebrew.

Question: how did I in any way "look down" on legit homebrew mappers when there's only one to begin with? (Squeedo mapper). I assign them in logical order as well as I can. As for "inducing" piracy, give me a break. I didn't make the carts, they already existed. I merely reverse engineered them and dumped 'em. Don't complain to me that there's so many- complain to the game makers for not filling a still sizable market that only these fly-by-night companies are filling right now.

by tepples on 2006-09-28 (#18065)

kevtris wrote:
tepples wrote:
kyuusaku wrote:
IMO there should at least be equality between unauthorized "pirate"/aftermarket homebrew mappers, I find it pretentious to look down on the later (not that you are.)

Not only that, but looking up on multicart mappers while looking down on homebrew mappers may be deemed as inducing use of emulators developed to the spec for piracy over homebrew.

Question: how did I in any way "look down" on legit homebrew mappers when there's only one to begin with? (Squeedo mapper).

Answer: You didn't, and thank you for it. I was talking about other developers of emulators and hardware clones.

by Marty on 2006-09-28 (#18068)

Hmm, that mapper list has been an ongoing project between Pongbashi and me for the past several months and was initially based on my own mapper compilation (see readme.html for my emu). While I maintain my own list and Pongbashi's his (through his site), he lists more stuff along with memos and commentaries from various sources including the recent cartz.txt. For people who want to get ahold of him, his address can be found at the bottom of the page (in case anyone happened to miss it).

by 85cocoa on 2006-09-29 (#18111)

My original point about Squeedo was: The iNES mapper assignment shouldn't be publicized, because if it is, less scrupulous emulator authors will try to emulate the mapper (and do so improperly).

by tepples on 2006-09-29 (#18112)

85cocoa wrote:
My original point about Squeedo was: The iNES mapper assignment shouldn't be publicized, because if it is, less scrupulous emulator authors will try to emulate the mapper (and do so improperly).

Which is why someone needs to write some tech demos that run on Squeedo.

by Memblers on 2006-09-29 (#18114)

85cocoa wrote:
emulator authors will try to emulate the mapper (and do so improperly).

At this point for me, improperly is better than not at all.

The basic part of it could be simulated pretty easily - the bankswitching and extra RAM. That would be just enough for anyone to write a normal NES program with Squeedo's extra memory, without using the NES or PIC BIOS.

If anyone supports the mapper in their emu, let me know.

by 85cocoa on 2006-09-30 (#18140)

We need to consolidate all the recent Squeedo-related threads in one forum. Any suggestions?

by Memblers on 2006-10-01 (#18155)

A while back I changed the "Strangulation Games / Records" forum into the Membler Industries forum for just that purpose. It just hasn't been used yet.

by 85cocoa on 2006-10-05 (#18199)

Memblers wrote:
The basic part of it could be simulated pretty easily - the bankswitching and extra RAM. That would be just enough for anyone to write a normal NES program with Squeedo's extra memory, without using the NES or PIC BIOS.

If anyone supports the mapper in their emu, let me know.

...and what is considered the basic standard for HLE of the default IRQ functionality? Surely no emu author would consider not implementing any IRQs in their Squeedo emulation?

by Memblers on 2006-10-05 (#18215)

85cocoa wrote:
...and what is considered the basic standard for HLE of the default IRQ functionality? Surely no emu author would consider not implementing any IRQs in their Squeedo emulation?

Well, the easy one would be the "IRQ every X CPU cycles". But there's a minute delay before it starts counting. The scanline IRQ might be kind of weird, probably best to wait for a test program.