miscellaNEouS files

[NewRisingSun]

You may be surprised to find out that the limiting factor is time, not encouragement, such as it were, or whatever it is you are trying to do.

[forgotusername]

Here is an attempt of extracting the games from the Pokemon 4-in-1. This also includes the "Pet 4-in-1" variant's games, alongside a few further modified versions.

Unconventionally for a multicart, the Pokemon 4-in-1 is a 256k MMC3 file; as such, the games cannot be extracted in the traditional way. The games' PRG data is still in separate areas of the ROM, though also requires some shared data at the bottom to run (from approx. 1C010 onward). By analyzing some code from the available Pet 4-in-1 ROMs, I was able to get three of the games fully working as standalone files (Pacman, Picaslot, and Picadance). Additionally, I was able to trim the games to much smaller sizes; Picaslot could probably be trimmed further with enough hacking, though I've left its PRG overdumped for now.

For whatever reason, I could not get Picaclick working; despite that it should logically be a simple, one-byte alteration. As a stopgap solution, I've included a partial conversion I made a while back based on the standalone "Funclick" hack of the game. While most animations are ported over properly, a couple aspects are missing (including the running Pikachu on the high score table), as I was unable to locate their code areas; so if anyone knows a better solution, help would be appreciated.

[Y2K05]

Great job! Thank you!

[forgotusername]

You're welcome, I'm glad to finally have them extracted to some level (I've had many failed attempts over the years...).

[lancuster]

You're welcome, I'm glad to finally have them extracted to some level (I've had many failed attempts over the years...).

Pet Slot works great both as a standard NROM (32 KB PRG) and as an MMC3, the only difference is that it will work correctly in MMC3, it simply doesn't have enough free space in CHR for NROM.
Here are my attempts to make NROM and MC3 (the registers remain the same):

[forgotusername]

I see, so Pet Slot works trimmed but Picaslot does not... I must have only checked Picaslot and assumed it to be the case for both. I could probably analyze both games' values to see what the difference is, and potentially trim Picaslot further from there.

Edit: The MMC3 ROM you provided is headered as NROM, and does not seem to actually run if set as mapper 4. Not sure what would cause an issue like that, given the multicart is MMC3-based to begin with.

[lancuster]

I see, so Pet Slot works trimmed but Picaslot does not... I must have only checked Picaslot and assumed it to be the case for both. I could probably analyze both games' values to see what the difference is, and potentially trim Picaslot further from there.

Edit: The MMC3 ROM you provided is headered as NROM, and does not seem to actually run if set as mapper 4. Not sure what would cause an issue like that, given the multicart is MMC3-based to begin with.

I remembered that the Fun Click game came across to me in a separate form on the CNROM (003) mapper.
Try to rewrite the registers for CNROM.

UPD: It's strange, but the Picadance doesn't work correctly at 32 kb PRG. The game starts, the animation plays, but the buttons don't work and there's no sound. This means that more PRGs are involved in the game than 32 kb, although there is a lot of emptiness and unused content in the PRG ROM, it can be reassembled under 32 kb PRG ROM.
And one more thing. It would be great if the controls in the Pet Slot were fixed by replacing the Up/Down button (adding|subtraction credits) with something else. I'm tired of pressing the button every time to gain 999 credits for a quick victory.

[forgotusername]

Since we're on the subject, here are some trimmed plug & play ROMs I haven't released previously. It should be noted that these are not the intended file sizes for the games, but rather, the games themselves were weirdly compiled with junk data, such as source code and compiler output. The contents are as follows:

*Across River (Rabbit): Can be shrunk to 64k PRG/64k CHR. Bytes C010-1C00F are junk data, includes some compiler output (~17B3F).
*Space Shuttle Exploration: Over half of the ROM is comprised of source code and junk data, beginning from address 3DFA until the end of the PRG. Cannot be shrunk in file size without hacking, as it still reads from bytes 4000 and 8000; so the included files are only cleaned to demonstrate the unused data areas.
*Underground Mission: Can be shrunk to 64k CHR. The bottom half of the CHR data is a duplicate of the top half, albeit with different "Start" text on the title screen. This is likely a leftover from the (undocumented) Shanghai Paradise version, and connects to some unused Chinese characters in the same code area. I've included ROMs displaying both the used and unused Start font, as well as a corrected version of the unused font (as the color palette causes it to not display correctly).

I also included a trimmed ROM of the Rainbow Brite Coleco (or rather faux-Coleco) tabletop I made a while back, though I don't 100% remember the code structure of the source file. Rainbow Brite is only working on FCEUX currently.

[lancuster]

I find out that the "Bean" or "Pacman" game from 4-in-1 multicart is a standart NROM of the Namco Pacman game, with some changes.
All I did here was just remove the last 8 KB in CHR-ROM and reassemble the title screen. The registers remained intact.

[forgotusername]

I can't recall if this was uploaded here already, so here is an NES2.0-headered copy of the Lexibook Junior Noddy plug & play. I believe I didn't upload it here before as it has no sound; I question if it runs audio off of an external, non-NES device. This console is actually a reskin of a "Big Driving" plug & play (which I have only just discovered), which is seemingly among the first consoles ever released by JungleTac (see https://web.archive.org/web/20030427140033/http://www.jungletac.com:8080/product.jsp?Id=9).

[forgotusername]

Here is an extracted/trimmed copy of Pac-Man in a Tin; a handheld Famiclone featuring a VT369 hack of Pac-Man. Also attached is a ripped "Press Keys Test" program, which I'm quite certain is completely inaccessible on the actual console.

There are many peculiarities in the coding of this one... Of particular note, there are CHR remnants of Cube Technology's VT03 "Eat Bean" hack of Pac-Man; suggesting a link between the two hacks. More information can be seen at The Cutting Room Floor: https://tcrf.net/Pac-Man_in_a_Tin

[forgotusername]

On a semi-related note, here is the Shiru Famiclone port of Tetris, as seen on several recent My Arcade consoles. This specific copy was ripped from the Tetris Pixel Pocket; it extracted with its title screen zeroed-out for whatever reason, so I restored the screen using data from the Tetris "Go Gamer" (DGUNL-7029) console. There is also a separate, earlier version of this game designed for the Retro-Bit "Go Retro Portable" systems, which AFAIK is currently undumped.

I haven't written TCRF pages on these two systems yet, though they also have many oddities. Both of them have many unused games, among other plug & play leftovers. The Go Gamer notably includes the original NES version of Tetris and Nice Code's "Bubbles" (VT03 Tetris clone) unused, as well as the Data East games and Inventor hacks from the 2017 Pixel Player.

I should also add that the Go Gamer contains many previously-undumped games, though they feature PRG protection that I can't 100% figure out (seems to involve 2-to-3 bytes being zeroed-out, with added bytes at the end of the ROMs); so the other games remain unripped for now.

[forgotusername]

Here is an attempt at fixing/restoring the flashing ghost behavior of Pac-Man in a Tin. This was done by swapping the CHR coloring between the normal and vulnerable ghost sprites, then adjusting the palette data to match. I don't have access to a proper VT369 palette editor, so the vulnerable ghosts are a lighter shade of blue that flashes brown (best color scheme I could get with HEX-only guesswork). I was also able to trim the ROM down further in size (288k to 160k).

I have also found that the remaining visual glitches were merely the result of a bunch of scribbled tiles being present in the main CHR bank (which are blank in the original Pac-Man ROM). Several graphics were also miscolored via CHR (despite having matching color values), so those sprites have been fixed too. It's absolutely baffling that a licensed retail product would release in this state, but here we are...

[APM]

I can't recall if this was uploaded here already, so here is an NES2.0-headered copy of the Lexibook Junior Noddy plug & play. I believe I didn't upload it here before as it has no sound; I question if it runs audio off of an external, non-NES device.

Assuming that I have the correct system (the small wheel-having console), then yes I can confirm 100% that this console at the very least does not seem to use the VT03 APUs and instead plays some sequenced sample-based music. Unfortunately, the only documentation I could find of this thing was from an old YouTube video, presumably casually uploaded by a parent, that prominently features their child using the console (which I ironically found while searching for videos of another bootleg system), so I don't think it would be smart of me to just drop the link in a public space and have the uploader potentially receive unwanted attention. If you want me to PM you the video here, then feel free to reply.

[NewRisingSun]

Here are the two trimmed but otherwise unmodified "in a Tin" game ROMs with a NES 2.0 header that allows them to run in NintendulatorNRS. "Tetris in a Tin" will currently play sound at the wrong pitch unless you disable "VT369 Sound HLE".