This game seems like Zelda, smells like Zelda, and looks like Zelda.
Is this the japanese Zelda?
I saw this cartridge at the flea market today, it had no sticker, and had philips screws on the back instead of a game-bit..
But, to my surprise, was this non-saving Zelda.. I mean, it has you create a character, but when switched off, it doesn't actually save, and I have to start over again...
Here's a pic of it running...
http://blackevilweredragon.spymac.com/zelda.jpg
Oh, and to play this game, I did have to disable my 10NES...
yes that is zelda
its a famicom cart correct?
if its an NES cart its probubley a forgoten repro
to correct the save problem open it up check for a battery if it has one replace it
peppers wrote:
its a famicom cart correct?
if its an NES cart its probubley a forgoten repro
to correct the save problem open it up check for a bettery if it has one replace it
it's an NES cart, it just has no sticker (and looks like one was ripped off too)..
There is no battery on the circuit... The 10NES on the cartridge was de-soldered it seems, it's just not there, but can be...
the chips are EPROMs, with electrical tape over the window..
Seems like a poor mans flash cart..
Strange why someone would go through extra effort to make there homemade cart extra shitty probubley a case of "derr famicom games dont have a lockout chip better lose it,"
, I would be mildly interested in seeing a photo
Any wram?
peppers wrote:
Strange why someone would go through extra effort to make there homemade cart extra shitty, I would be mildly interested in seeing a photo
Any wram?
I'm wondering if perhaps the person got the PCB empty or something, and just built it from scratch.
WRAM? I don't think so. It just has two EPROMs, and that's it..
Instead of taking another pic (camera is charging at the moment), this is EXACTLY what the PCB looks like, it just lacks the smaller 10NES chip on the right:
http://games.multimedia.cx/wp-content/u ... s-nrom.jpg
(well, not exactly like that, but close enough...)
In the two ROMs spots are 2 EPROMs...
That's not right, Zelda no Densetsu 1 is a MMC1 game with CHR RAM. It can be converted to UOROM but definitely not NROM. There must be one ROM and one RAM.
kyuusaku wrote:
That's not right, Zelda no Densetsu 1 is a MMC1 game with CHR RAM. It can be converted to UOROM but definitely not NROM. There must be one ROM and one RAM.
Like I said, it's not exactly like that in the picture.
I just ripped the electrical tape off both chips (it was 1 long piece of tape), 1 is an EEPROM, the other is a chip labled W2464, and does not appear to be an EEPROM, or if it is, it's gotta be an EEPROM, because it doesn't have a window like the other one...
btw, entering the first dungeon locks up the NES.. it does show the dungeon, but when the music should play, it just locks up...
I was unaware they made cart binaries of this game. (or is it a hack?)
EDIT: If I recall correctly, on the FDS version there's a loading screen when entering dungeons. Maybe an unfinished hack?)
evildragon wrote:
I just ripped the electrical tape off both chips (it was 1 long piece of tape), 1 is an EEPROM, the other is a chip labled W2464, and does not appear to be an EEPROM, or if it is, it's gotta be an EEPROM, because it doesn't have a window like the other one...
Huh? EEPROM don't have windows, EPROM do. BTW, there are OTP (one time programmable) EPROMs which are windowless.
evildragon wrote:
btw, entering the first dungeon locks up the NES.. it does show the dungeon, but when the music should play, it just locks up...
If the game is broken salvage the EEPROM (if it is a EEPROM), they aren't cheap.
atari2600a wrote:
I was unaware they made cart binaries of this game. (or is it a hack?)
EDIT: If I recall correctly, on the FDS version there's a loading screen when entering dungeons. Maybe an unfinished hack?)
This is a genuine cartridge release to coincide with the launch of the AV Famicom in 1993. It's more or less a translation of Zelda back to Japanese.
kyuusaku wrote:
evildragon wrote:
I just ripped the electrical tape off both chips (it was 1 long piece of tape), 1 is an EEPROM, the other is a chip labled W2464, and does not appear to be an EEPROM, or if it is, it's gotta be an EEPROM, because it doesn't have a window like the other one...
Huh? EEPROM don't have windows, EPROM do. BTW, there are OTP (one time programmable) EPROMs which are windowless.
evildragon wrote:
btw, entering the first dungeon locks up the NES.. it does show the dungeon, but when the music should play, it just locks up...
If the game is broken salvage the EEPROM (if it is a EEPROM), they aren't cheap.
I accidentally had 1 too many E's
I had my new PC motherboard on my mind, as I was today messing with it's bad BIOS... So I had flash in my mind, which I call EEPROM..
It's an EPROM, the window one that needs UV light to erase, of which I have no UV light...
Where did you get that cartridge ?
Is the PCM made by Nintendo (is there a (C) xxxx Nintendo on it) ? If so what is it's name (starting by NES-xxxx) ? The cartridge should be dirty pirate anyway (if the cartridge exists at all).
kyuusaku wrote:
This is a genuine cartridge release to coincide with the launch of the AV Famicom in 1993. It's more or less a translation of Zelda back to Japanese.
Ah yes, now I remember watching the AV Famicom commercial on gameads.gamepressure.com, Zelda was one of the characters that jumped into the unit!
Anywho, though one possibility that comes to mind is that this was an early prototype from NOA when porting the game over, the fact that the 10NES was DEsoldered(?) leaves me to believe that this is a failed fan repro.
Evildragon, is there any possibility you can dump the PRG, assuming that CHR is RAM?
Also, remember to put tape back over the EPROM window when you take a picture
it is possiple ithe freezing is caused because the board dose not have any S-RAM I know its just used for gamesaves
No s-ram makes it crash sooner I believe. (looks at kevtris fpga console progress page)
I don't know how to dump the ROM on it... I know how to dump a Genesis cartridge, but not an NES cartridge.. I just found that there is a binary cartridge NES rom floating around of this game..
The PCB btw says "NES-SGROM-04"
evildragon wrote:
I don't know how to dump the ROM on it... I know how to dump a Genesis cartridge, but not an NES cartridge
The NES Game Pak cart bus has two mostly independent sides that you need to consider. One connects to the CPU, the other to the graphics chip (PPU). Some games have a ROM on both sides ("PRG ROM" for the CPU and "CHR ROM" for the PPU); others have ROM on the CPU side and "CHR RAM" on the PPU side, which the program in PRG ROM fills with data through the PPU's I/O ports.
Dumping NES games that use CHR RAM is a lot like dumping games for Game Boy or Sega Master System. You start by giving commands to the "mapper", a bank switching controller with a few
memory-mapped write-only registers on the CPU side of the cart. For each 16 KiB bank in the game, you tell the mapper to turn it on, then you dump $8000 through $BFFF. Dumping NES games that use CHR ROM is more difficult: you also have to step the mapper through all the banks using commands on the CPU side and then dump 1 to 8 KiB chunks on the PPU side.
Quote:
The PCB btw says "NES-SGROM-04"
Luckily, the
SGROM board uses VRAM, so you can just dump the program from the CPU side.
I actually just did the hard route, desoldered the EPROM, and put it in an EPROM programmer, and just read it..
Here's the BIN file.. But, it doesn't seem to load in an emulator...
http://blackevilweredragon.spymac.com/Zelda.bin
SGROM is SNROM without SRAM and battery, and the title screen is obviously identical to the one on the japan cartridge re-release of Zelda (which was originally a FDS game) wich explain the japanese title screen, the number 1 and the date 1992 appearing.
I don't know if that's just a cart made by someone with the japanese ROM but if a game intended to run on SNROM is running on SGROM, it will probably crash pretty soon, as it will rely on it (and not ONLY to save, in 99% of the cases). It is so probably a hacked version (possibly from a dirty chinese pirate) made from another game using a NES-SGROM-04 board.
EDIT : Your file have similarities with the japanese cartridge Zelda, however it still have a ton of differencies, and your file is a strange size (I had to remove some 300 bytes at the begining to have it being actually 1 megabit to fit a NES ROM). I'd like to have some pictures of the thing so we can take this thing seriously (as I know you !).
What is the SRAM used for, other than saving a game?
I noticed I can now go in the dungeon, but the game does infact seem to lockup randomly.. (maybe not randomly, it may be how im playing, or something im doing that is causing the lockup, like, certain Gems?)
Btw, how do I make the .bin I dumped work in an emulator? It doesn't work, the emulators just say it's a format they don't understand..
Is it just me, or is it odd for there to be over 3KB of space in the beginning of the file? Suppose it might just be for filling the rom, but wouldn't they usually pad the end or repeat?
gannon wrote:
Is it just me, or is it odd for there to be over 3KB of space in the beginning of the file? Suppose it might just be for filling the rom, but wouldn't they usually pad the end or repeat?
In fact that is the case on the real Zelda (japanese cartridge) ROM data, however, the dump of Evildragon seems to be bad for it's strange size.
Aside of that, once the dump is correct, you have to add 10 bytes : NES, $1a, $08, $00, $10 to make it run (assuming a SGROM board) and rename the file to *.nes
EDIT : By the way I forgot to mention SRAM on the cartridge can also be used for general purpose memory usage by the game (as the internal 2K will not always be enough) and that most (if not all) battery backed sram games also use the SRAM for general purpose. For that reason, if the SRAM is lacking (as it's the case with SGROM) the game will glitch and frezee pretty fast.
gannon wrote:
Is it just me, or is it odd for there to be over 3KB of space in the beginning of the file? Suppose it might just be for filling the rom, but wouldn't they usually pad the end or repeat?
I was noticing this myself, that it wasn't 128KB like I expected it to me (because it's not even a multiple of 8KB)..
It might have been my EPROM programmer, or the software it uses... I think it's a fluke..
EDIT: I just tried dumping it again, and same thing, even on a different computer..
I can't imagine the EPROM itself acting up like that, unless someone screwed up on burning it in the first place?
EDIT2: According to this site, 131735 bytes does translate into 128KB..
http://www.speedguide.net/conversion.php
Yes, of course, anything divided by 1024 = next highest on the byte scale & vice versa.
Anyways, if someone took the time to desolder the 10NES & the ROM seems to have garbage data then maybe someone gave a retard a programmer & soldering iron for christmas...
Ehh, I just realized when I gave the specs of the PCB, I told you the wrong PCB (I had a couple NES carts apart comparing them)..
The real one for this is still SGROM, but it's a SG-ROM-02 with some other RAM on it..
Here's a picture..
EDIT: Just realized the camera made the EPROM window look quite big.. It's not really that high.. The flash gave it an extreme beveled appearance..
Interesting, I never trought it was written "IC4 CIC" below the chip itself !!
Aside of that, unless you get a decent dump it's hard to tell anything, I just noted a few strings that definitely are like the japanese Zelda, but that one won't run without SRAM.
I think you should read your EPROM programmer's manual or something to see if the dump is correct. Are some tracks on the board cut and rewired ? This step is necesary to place a regular EPROM on a SGROM board, so this will telll if this is a regular EPROM or not.
Not extra ram, just the MMC1 mapper IC. No luck getting the rom given working when I inserted the correct header. From what I see, it's 663 bytes longer than the working copy of US Zelda.
Well, capacitor 5 (C5), is totally missing. Actually, that area of the PCB looks damaged, as if the person screwed it up trying to get their cartridge open... (a wire from the other cap is going to where the missing one is.. i sure hope this won't damage my NES)
As for circuit cuts and traces, they look mostly the same as this guys:
http://www.raphnet.net/electronique/nes ... art_en.php
(only for the program side of course.. in my case, the SG-RAM side is totally untouched)
I would take a picture right now of the wiring on my PCB, but the damned camera is acting up (took me quite a few tries to get a picture of the top).. it says the battery is full, then as soon as I press the shutter button, it says Battery Low and just shuts off... I'll try and use my webcam later if I have too..
EDIT: Just to test that my EPROM programmer/reader is working, I put the ROM from Bionic Commando (the only other game I have that has the SAME exact SG-RAM PCB as this one), and dumped it..
http://blackevilweredragon.spymac.com/Bionic.bin
I'm begining to think, as since Bionic, and this home-burned Jap-Zelda have the same PCB, perhaps the person used the Bionic PCB?
Sounds like your battery is dying. If they're rechargable AA's consider buying new ones.
atari2600a wrote:
Sounds like your battery is dying. If they're rechargable AA's consider buying new ones.
they are NiMh.. they shouldn't have a memory effect, and when plugged into something else like a gameboy, they work fine..
the camera has a faulty system, the company (Concord), was supposed to replace it, but they never sent out the box..
The person who did the mod certainly did it from an existing game using the SGROM board (such as Bionic Commando, but it could by antyhing else : Rad Racer, Mega Man 2, Faxanadu, etc...) and if both the label and the ROM are gone it's impossible to tell.
Don't worry for the cap missing, it's only here to polish the power supply voltage. Now that I think about it I think your dump are wrong because the EPROM programmers doesn't take into account the MMC1 present on the board, possibly conflicting the adresses with the programmer itself for the upper adresses. So exept for NROM games, it's impossible to dump the cartridge just with an EPROM programmer and a flat cable with a tool that grip over the chip. Instead, you should have a copyNES or soemthing to sucessfully dump the chip, because the MMC1 controls the higher adress. Else you'll have to actually cut the traces on the board (and re-solder them after the dumping process ?) for the highest adress lines. The /CE line may be conflicting too, as the MMC1 has floating inputs so you never know what will be on it's output.
How I dumped the cartridge, was actually desoldering the EPROM off the Nintendo PCB, and put it into my EPROM programmers socket, and read it from there..
wouldn't that then not need the mapper?
Wow, if you were able to do that that's great (I'm unable to disolder anything without breaking it myself, espeically a large IC). Then the data should be correct, as the EPROM is connected to nothing else. Just double-check the doccumentation of your programmer, because it may add a header or something to have the data larger than usual. Or, I know some EEPROMs have some secret accesable extra data (for manufacturing issues) that are acessible by raising some pin to 12 V in a particular read opperation, maybe your programmer also try to read that data from your normal EPROM and that causes FFs to be added on the begining of the file ? At least I can confirm that the japanese Zelda begins with loads of FFs.
my trick for desoldering an IC, is to solder pin 1, then do the complete opposite (pin 32 in this case), that way you won't overheat one side of the chip.. i also use a solder sucker.. done this to replace the CPU in my Genesis..
I'll re-read the documentation for the programmer, and see if I can try another programmer..
im trying to find a utility that will automate .bin to .nes conversion, just to see if it somehow works..
to convert a game with no CHR ROM its as simple as adding a 16byte's the the begining with a hex editer and in this case adding the following into it
Code:
4e 45 53 1a 08 00 12 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
then renameing it .nes but first you need a good dump
Aren't you the same guy who started this thread?
http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2662
NC
No Carrier wrote:
Aren't you the same guy who started this thread?
http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2662NC
Yes, that's why the other guy wanted me to take a picture
He knows I had a history of hoaxing. Since I gave that up, that's why without hesitation I took the picture, dumped the ROM, and gave the proof...
evildragon wrote:
No Carrier wrote:
Aren't you the same guy who started this thread?
http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2662NC
Yes, that's why the other guy wanted me to take a picture
He knows I had a history of hoaxing. Since I gave that up, that's why without hesitation I took the picture, dumped the ROM, and gave the proof...
But you already swore it was just 2 chips, and then changed the story when you had to post a picture. Good luck with this thread. Hey, if you never get this Zelda game to work, you can always be happy that you were the first person to connect a DVD-ROM to an NES, right?!
NC
No Carrier wrote:
evildragon wrote:
No Carrier wrote:
Aren't you the same guy who started this thread?
http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2662NC
Yes, that's why the other guy wanted me to take a picture
He knows I had a history of hoaxing. Since I gave that up, that's why without hesitation I took the picture, dumped the ROM, and gave the proof...
But you already swore it was just 2 chips, and then changed the story when you had to post a picture. Good luck with this thread. Hey, if you never get this Zelda game to work, you can always be happy that you were the first person to connect a DVD-ROM to an NES, right?!
NC
I was saying EPROMs, not all the IC's in total. I didn't even know the other one wasn't an EPROM (or EEPROM), I didn't realize it was character RAM...
I never changed the story.. only time was when I corrected myself for listing the rom specs from the wrong cartridge...
peppers wrote:
to convert a game with no CHR ROM its as simple as adding a 16byte's the the begining with a hex editer and in this case adding the following into it
Code:
4e 45 53 1a 08 00 12 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
then renameing it .nes but first you need a good dump
When I add that to the dump with xvi32, I can get FCE Ultra to display a gray screen, but that's about it...
EDIT: I just realized I need to use a certain switch when dumping RAW.
Here's a good dump:
http://blackevilweredragon.spymac.com/Zelda-J.bin
that is identical the the JAP rom just go ahead and blank out the eprom and put something in it that will work with the hardware
peppers wrote:
that is identical the the JAP rom just go ahead and blank out the eprom and put something in it that will work with the hardware
ok, thanks for letting me know...
I'll keep the dump in an achieve.
Sorry, but the dump of the japanese Zelda will not work with SGROM as you said : According to Nintendulator (using the UNIF format, because iNES cannot completely disable SRAM) you'll see the title screen and the intro just fine, but the game will crash as soon as you press the start button.
So was the point of this hoax to test us ? Did we pass that test ?
Bregalad wrote:
So was the point of this hoax to test us ? Did we pass that test ?
yep, just wanted to see if you guys were on your toes about what PCB is being used...
the truth: This thread did start out authentic. I did find a blank NES cart at the flea market with JAP Zelda on it.. What wasn't true however, was the PCB it used.. the PCB in the real item I bought, was the same PCB as Zelda, but with the Japanese Zelda on it...
don't worry, im not taking this too far at all..
but, how hard would it be to reprogram Zelda to work on an SG-ROM board? when a lot of enemies come on the screen, the game does slow down pretty bad, so the CPU is maxed out as it is, but how much of the RAM gets maxed out?
For games with battery backed SRAM, usually only a very tiny amount is actually used as a save, the rest is used as scratch ram. Specifically, Dragon Warrior 2, 3, and 4 store the town maps there after decompressing them. (for some reason, Dragon Quest 2 managed to get away with no 8k WRAM)
Zelda 1 appears to store CODE in the SRAM area.
Yeah, I guess the card has a SNROM board, and with the CIC (else why would the guy bother to sell it ?). It's fun to see that people sell their repros... If it's worth doing the effort of making a repro, why sell it ?
Well then, anyway, if you want Zelda to run on a SGROM board, you'll have to understand most of the working of the game engine, and then rewrite it so that it does not use SRAM. I guess this means major code optimisations and improvements/changes in the game engine. In the end it wouldn't be worth the effort, as anyone can play the normal Zelda, with only advantages. Exept for the techincal challenge of it, there is no point in doing that. And if you want a good technical challenge, I'd rather recommand try to port FDS only games to the standard NES format.
There's the thing, the real PCB it came on, really doesn't have the 10NES...
the guy who sold it told me he got it from someone, and that it was broken, it only "blinks"...
It does sound like someone made a cart and didn't know what the hell they were doing...
I'll put on a 10NES so it works on other systems...
I was thinking it was nonsence but played along anyway
If you just want to know if I'm pulling your leg, just PM me, I'd be honest in a PM.
Anyways, on a serious note, I have cleared the EPROM (I put it under sunlight and that worked, after a long wait).. So im ready to put something else on it..
That's great, you just made a SNROM devcard !! You can now create your own strategy or RPG game and run it with that cart. Or just make your own Final Fantasy 2 / Dragon Warrior 2/3/4 card or whathever.
Oh, by the way you could have told us that a SRAM chip was added on the bottom of the board (with pins splitten and soldered to the EPROM) and it's CE pin soldered to the MMC1, and this could have been true (effectivly transforming the SGROM board to a SNROM one) but then you couldn't have said to have disoldered the EPROM.
I didn't even know you could transform the cart like that..
Btw, I noticed that the game Cool Spot, has a PCB for SRAM and a battery, but non is attached (atleast I didn't see SRAM)
Exactly, that's because it uses the SRAM as extra general purpose RAM (because the internal 2KB wasn't enough for the programmers) but the game does not feature saves. I guess an extra 8KB SRAM is about $4 per game and a battery another $4 per game, so game developpers did things to keep costs as low as possible. If the programmers were more effective and/or the game less complex, it could have used SGROM instead.
A complete list of game having SRAM but no battery can be found
here.
oh ok, i see.. yes, after looking at the PCB again, it does infact have SRAM.
Perhaps I could add a CR2032, and the associated hardware, and add Save capabilities to it so the PCB is another save-capable PCB.. (as long as it doesn't mess up the game that's currently on it)
Of course you can do this, I already explained on the
Wiki how to do that. You basically just have to add resistory and dides where there is slot for, and remove the solder shorting D2 (the pas seems named 'SL' on SNROM-04 and higher, but have no name in SNROM-03 and lower).
If you add a battery to Cool Spot, this will have absolutely no effect : The SRAM data will be preserved but the game didn't except it to be preserved so nothing special will hapen. However, you can put another game on place of the mask rom and do this. If your weird japanese Zelda has no battery, you can do this too.