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Messages - codeman38

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1
Famicom/NES / Re: miscellaNEouS files
« on: November 03, 2025, 12:03:33 AM »
Quote from: forgotusername on October 18, 2025, 03:50:03 PM
Note that the Smart Millionaire game has a tendency to crash on certain questions; the MAME team states that this is just how the game plays (great quality control), and is not an emulation/dumping issue.

I did a bit of digging into how the questions are stored, and wrote up a script that prints them and their answers (attached, along with its output).

Some of these have incorrect answers, likely due to off-by-one errors on the developers' part:

Quote
Question 36:
What is the lower voting
age in U.S.A ?
  A. 18 years
> B. 24 years
  C. 27 years
  D. 21 years

Question 641:
Which is the largest bone
in the human body?
  A. Stirrup
> B. Hammer
  C. Femur
  D. Humerus

But the best case of a nonsensical answer is question 645:

Quote
Question 645:
Which gas is used in
 Electric Bulb?
  A. Nitrogen
  B. Hydrogen
  C. Oxygen
  D. Inert gas

This is one of the questions that crashes the game, and that is because the correct answer is not A, B, C, or D, but N (hex value 0D).

Edit: Oh no, I just realized why that last one probably happened, and it's very similar to the off-by-one errors. "Inert gas" is the most reasonable answer to that question, but instead of putting the correct index for "D" (3) in the answer byte, they put hex value D.

2
Famicom/NES dumps / MiWi2 (VT168) Dumping Attempt
« on: March 13, 2018, 01:22:19 PM »
On a whim, I tried importing the MiWi Arcade Games ROM into Audacity as unsigned 8-bit audio to see if I could find any recognizable tunes, since that's worked for other Famiclone consoles with sampled audio. It looks like the audio clips are encoded at ~4200 Hz, and I can clearly recognize one of the menu themes (the one from the 16-in-1 menu screen with the electric piano arpeggios) at 0x56000, but it's very fuzzy and garbled.

Is there some kind of bitwise manipulation going on with the music as well? Several of the audio clips are surrounded by long strings of 0xEA bytes, which seems suspicious in that respect, but if so, I'm not sure what the correct transformation is. (Or am I possibly using the wrong codec entirely, despite unsigned 8-bit PCM producing an identifiable melody?)

Edit: Probably some kind of DPCM codec, most likely. Interpreting the audio as a Famicom DMC sample at ~34KHz, the melody is at the right pitch and even more clearly identifiable, but it's still scratchy.

3
Famicom/NES / Project PLUG 'N PLAY (Bleb, Kuck, Goof)
« on: March 12, 2018, 12:15:50 AM »
Unfortunately, I don't think the boxing one is the one I was looking for after all; the one picture I found of the back of the box on Google Image Search (https://farm2.static.flickr.com/1306/767867475_4a43a04dc0.jpg) shows the same games as on the tennis console. I suppose they could be among the five games that aren't listed, but I doubt it.

4
Famicom/NES / Project PLUG 'N PLAY (Bleb, Kuck, Goof)
« on: March 11, 2018, 10:28:27 PM »
This is the NTSC version of Awesome Panda's tennis plug-and-play, incidentally, if anyone with the necessary dumping expertise is either in the US or willing to deal with international shipping: https://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-Wireless-Tennis-Game-System-With-39-Games-Plug-N-Play-Just-Connect-to-TV-/371440331789
I know I've seen another of these consoles which has the Super Mario Bros. hack "Bobby Go" on it, but I can't remember which one it is. It's not the tennis or ping pong one, as far as I can see—possibly the boxing one?

5
Famicom/NES / Project PLUG 'N PLAY (Bleb, Kuck, Goof)
« on: March 11, 2018, 03:22:37 PM »
forgotusername
Mar 7 2018, 01:44:15 PM
just found this weird website by complete accident. http://www35.tok2.com/home/ymktvgame/picen.htm

Downloads no longer work, even with the Wayback machine, but maybe these ROMs are still out there somewhere? (I know the downloads are for "videos" but I'm blaming that on bad translation since it also lists the ROM size)[/quote]I found this site a while back by accident as well, when I was trying to find what had happened to Cube Technology's web site after it had disappeared, and to be honest, I'm still not fully sure what's up with it.

It appears to be a promotional site for Cube back when they were still known as YMK—a name which still appears in several of their releases, such as various games from the MiWi Xtra—but I have no clue as to the history of the site (or even the age of it, for that matter). Viewing the HTML source on http://www35.tok2.com/home/ymktvgame/ reveals that it was mirrored from another domain at http://520d.com/wz/ymktvgame/ (which explains the broken links for some of the images/videos), but the Internet Archive turns up nothing under that URL.

(And because this was a commercial site of some sort for Cube Tech, it's almost certain that the videos are indeed video clips and not the actual ROMs.)

Edited to add: Oh yeah, forgot to mention. The hacks shown on that page are definitely things that exist (though not necessarily as ROM dumps)—they appeared in a series of 8-bit sports-themed plug-and-plays manufactured by Macro Winners. JP Ronny (a.k.a. Awesome Panda on this forum) has the tennis version of this and has posted a playthrough of it on YouTube: part 1, part 2, part 3.

6
Other Pirates / Question about TV Kickboxing plug n play game
« on: March 04, 2018, 01:07:11 AM »
I can barely make out a Hyperkin logo in the lower left of the packaging. That actually explains the "DDR" thing, believe it or not - one of Hyperkin's online storefronts is DDRgame.com.

Still doesn't answer the question of who the original manufacturer is (since Hyperkin typically rebrands stuff from Chinese OEMs), or what the interface looks like, though. My guess would be Qi Sheng Long (a.k.a. Hamy), who manufactured several of Hyperkin's clone consoles such as the Retron 3, but I'm nowhere near certain.
More findings!

Apparently there's a Coleco-branded version of this same console out there as well - see, for instance: https://www.onlinecharm.top/rare-coleco-plug-and-play-virtual-kickboxing-p-19204.html

From the screenshots, I can confirm that this is not a variation of any of the following boxing-related plug-and-plays:
* Conny's "TV Virtual Fighter" (also distributed by SDW as "Virtual Kickboxing")
* DreamGear's "Boxing Champ" (16-bit from Macro Winners)
* Macro Winners' "TV Boxing" (8-bit, also includes VT03 Famicom ROM hacks) - also sold through Hyperkin's DDR Game brand

7
Other Pirates / Game King Stuff
« on: January 20, 2018, 12:42:41 AM »
Ninjinister
Jan 14 2018, 08:09:32 PM
Well why in the deuce would they shutter their website though?[/quote]Because they've done something all too typical for Chinese manufacturers: letting the old site expire and then getting a new one entirely.

http://www.timetop.tv seems to be their current site, and now they're apparently focusing on games for cable boxes (!).

8
Game Boy / "Star Wars 3"?
« on: November 06, 2017, 01:14:22 AM »
Yeah, this was found and dumped by Taizou a while back: http://fuji.drillspirits.net/?post=99

The public-domain ROM that they stuck on the cart is named Star Shooter, incidentally.

Edited to add: At least I assume this is the same Star Wars 3, anyway. I doubt there'd be two GBA bootlegs using the same title (but one can never be truly sure!).

9
2000-present / Colosoftware games (prototypes?)
« on: April 23, 2017, 06:35:56 PM »
One interesting thing about the older, now-deleted video is that it included the original game audio, rather than overdubbing everything with Galaxy Force. This revealed that, for whatever reason, the title screen music in these games was ripped from Linus Spacehead (the 6th track in the NSF rip for that game, specifically).

I have no idea whether this was used legitimately, or whether it was just thrown in by bootleggers. Allister Brimble (the composer for Linus) did audio for various Jakks plug-and-play consoles, but as far as I know, none of those used Famiclone hardware.

10
2000-present / Shenzhen Nanjiing Technology game music
« on: February 28, 2017, 11:09:47 PM »
One thing that is somewhat curious is that, although the Nanjing/DDR sound driver seems to be an original implementation, the games that use it still share a 368-byte chunk in common with a whole bunch of games developed by Tose (and, thus, with Kou Dai Bao Shi). Looks very instrument-data-like.

Here's the hex string, for any curious people who want to run bgrep on their NSF collections and/or look at where it might get called:

Spoiler: click to toggle

11
Mega Drive/Genesis / Who Made A Bug's Life?
« on: November 27, 2016, 01:14:03 AM »
Unfortunately, I have a fairly strong suspicion that the letter codes in this series of cartridges were all based on the game's title (in Chinese), and not anything relating to the developer or publisher. (Links given below are to SegaRetro wiki pages with box scans.)

The Chinese title for A Bug's Life is 蟲蟲特工隊, Chong Chong Te Gong Dui.

The two Mortal Kombat-titled pirates - Top Fighter 2000 MK VIII and Mortal Kombat 5 Sub-Zero - have codes starting in ZR, for 真人快打 (Zhen Ren Kuai Da), Mortal Kombat's Chinese title.

Pocket Monster is BK001. The Chinese title given on it is 比卡超 (Bi Ka Chao) = "Pikachu".

This series of games definitely has connections to Gamtec and/or its related companies (Chuanpu, NeverEnding), but I'm not sure which of this tangled web of companies was specifically responsible.


Edited to add: A couple more examples demonstrating the pattern, via SegagagaDomain:

The Lion King 2 = SZ006 = 獅子王 (Shi Zi Wang)
Super Donkey Kong 4 = DJ004 = 大金刚 (Da Jin Gang). This one's a bit odd, because it doesn't use the same yellow oval for the product code as the other games do, but the numbering scheme is still very much the same.

As for the Gamtec connections:

* The "MD compatible" logo seen on some of these games is exactly the same one found on several games that are known to have been developed by Gamtec-affiliated companies (e.g., the GM-95 series, as documented here by taizou). It doesn't seem to have ever appeared on any other unlicensed developer's work.

* A Bug's Life uses the High Seas Havoc sound engine, also used in numerous games developed by the Gamtec-affiliated Chuanpu and NeverEnding Soft teams.

12
Super Famicom/SNES / Squirrel
« on: October 18, 2016, 07:40:25 PM »
There's a YouTube video of it here, from someone in Brazil who managed to find a copy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfwRbPyldt8

Yep, it's a SNES port of Squirrel King. With music stolen from Bonkers, because of course it is. Also, Comic Sans on the title screen (which suggests it was made after the devs got their hands on Windows 95 or later).

13
Other Pirates / Space Wars (50 Games Plug'N Play, by Manley Toys LTD)
« on: September 24, 2016, 10:22:18 PM »
It's a hack of Compile's Gun-Nac. The 'geniuses' at Inventor, the Chinese company that's responsible for most of the hacks on this thing, couldn't even be bothered to edit the real name out of the intro.

14
Game Boy / "Legend" by Waixing
« on: July 23, 2016, 10:05:10 PM »
...Huh, I don't think I've ever seen this before now.

This is definitely an interesting find. Although it's credited to Waixing, this game feels like something by Hitek, with two particularly strong pieces of evidence in favor of that theory:
  • The internal ROM ID is "BOKUJOU GB2A37J", which is the same ID used for Hitek's "Heroic Sword".
  • The music sounds very similar in style to Hitek's known RPGs (and, for that matter, their one known platformer), in part because it seems to use the same sound driver (which, incidentally, appears to be from Link's Awakening).
Did Hitek do contract development for Waixing, I wonder? Or was there some other relationship between the two companies?

Edited to add: Just editing this to add that Taizou had discovered some definite connections between the two companies, but I'm not sure how much specific detail he wants to share in a public post so I'll leave any further disclosure to him.

15
Game Boy dumps / Zook Man ZX4 + more GBA Vast Fame stuff
« on: July 11, 2016, 01:20:42 AM »
As another random aside, the credits in the game itself don't entirely match up with those in the manual (a scan of which can be found at The Mechanical Maniacs). Most notably, in the manual:
  • The Case Leader is "Jackie" (instead of "Manager")
  • The Music credit is "Man" (instead of "Hanman")
  • "Shin" and "Ruman" also worked as artists
  • "Black" was an additional tester

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