Bravesoft Windows 2000 (English Translation) NES / Famicom

Hacked by:

TygerbugGarrett - Graphics and general romhacking
Vinheim3 - Decompression hacking

THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS WITH SOME KNOWN ISSUES.
HELP IN CORRECTING THESE ISSUES WOULD BE APPRECIATED.

This ROM attempts to duplicate something of the Windows 95-2000 experience on your NES. It was originally issued in Chinese and Russian, with compressed graphics. Vinheim3 decompressed the graphics routines and I redesigned the graphics and nametables in English, adding some extra graphical fun here and there.

While much of this experience is non-functional, many Applications absolutely work, under Accessories and Games. This includes Gast Word and Excel, Calculator, FBasic, GBasic, Music, Text processing, Background design, Music Board, Typing Test, CD Player, and more.

This ROM requires a Subor Keyboard. The more common Family Basic Keyboard will not suffice in most cases. You can view most of the ROM with your standard gamepad but Applications may not work. It also uses an unusual Mapper (178) so only some emulators will be able to handle it. I suggest FCEUX for full functionality, but the FCEUX hotkeys will cause issues when typing and must be disabled beforehand. Subor Mouse mode doesn't seem to work well with this ROM, which surprised me. I would have expected Subor Mouse functionality, and perhaps this could be fixed somehow, along with the slow cursor speed.

Many graphics are new to this version, including:
- Windows logo
- Flying Toaster screensaver
- Shutdown screens (graphics and text)
- Folder Options
- Private / Media Player (Jennifer Aniston and Matthew Perry)
- Games and Accessories icons

Some of the Russian applications have been translated, like the Music Player and Text Editor.

Apart from the presentation this is a somewhat typical "educational" multicart of the Subor/Dendy variety. There were many such educational carts, which came with a keyboard and attempted to turn the clone Famicom/NES hardware into something like a full 8-bit computer (that could also play Famicom games). Bootlegged versions of Hudson's programmable Family Basic V2 almost always appear, along with music and word processing. The Subor OS was mimicking Windows by the 2000s, although not in the same way as this cart. The Windows experience here is somewhat believable and somewhat functional.

Known Issues:

1) CD Player app is loading wrong graphics (or not loading new graphics). It  may be loading data from 471B0 / 471C0. I've added the original graphics at 47640.

2) Highlighting is broken in the Calculator App, loading the wrong sprite graphics -- appears to be loading some nametable data instead.

3) MS-DOS Prompt is not working (has also loaded the wrong graphics)

4) Cursor behavior is odd in Gast Word and Excel, with the cursor splitting in two and leaving bits behind, or just floating upward to the left at all times.

5) Ideally Windows Logo screen (startup) should load a more complete CHR. This is difficult since the graphics are immediately followed by data, but there's blank space not much later in the ROM.

6) Highlighting of "Paint" row of start menu should be two tiles to the left instead. Other highlighting should match the text better generally, especially with the new translation, and especially on the Desktop.

7) Ideally more apps could be added to the empty space, and linked to somewhere (Crosspaint Demo? Some NROM games?)

8 ) Cursor speed is slow. Subor Mouse mode doesn't work properly; this was probably not designed for Subor Mouse.

Otherwise this is pretty close.

 objcopy.exe was used to fix the BIN.

  I suppose it is slower than the Arcade Pac-Man.

This version of ACTION 93: Kakefu-kun no Jump Tengoku: Speed Jigoku works for me fine in NintendulatorNRS.

It's also not a rare game if you need to seek out other NES or Famicom dumps of it.

https://crappygames.miraheze.org/wiki/Kid_Kool_and_the_Quest_for_the_Seven_Wonder_Herbs?TheOrder=1

I note that some of these games have had minor hacks done to them -- the Bugs Bunny games both become "Tiny Toons" here on the title screen -- but most are untouched.

Howling Killer features an infamous suicide ending upon Game Over.

https://tcrf.net/Pikachu5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-h91KNaaXxw

 Very nice, it works fine.

  What are the rarer/undumped titles here?

   It was an easy process, although it was hours of work before I/we figured out what to do.

   As I said, I used Farid's EPROM Pin Swap Tool, linked above, running in Windows XP 3 compatibility mode, and swapped the D pins.

   It requires the CHR section of the ROM to be saved as its own file first, then corrected, which only took a few seconds.

   I worked on this with Bavi_H. Sean Riddle dumped the ROMs in full and explained which pins had been swapped, probably based on my notes. Lidnariq suggested the program by Farid which switches the pins.

   If you have suggestions for other rare/undumped ROMs, post them. That one with an amorous wolf maybe??

Partial byte correction table attached for fixing some of the CHRs .... and a complete (?) version by Bavi_H.


According to Sean, bits 0 and 4, 1 and 2, 3 and 7, and 5 and 6 are swapped.

The PRG and CHR are on the same chip and were dumped with the same connections.

I spent ages doing a find and replace and only got partway, but there's an older EPROM Pin Swap Tool here which corrected it.

https://forums.nesdev.org/viewtopic.php?t=20122&start=15


via Sean Riddle, Bavi_H, lidnariq, Farid