BS-X technical discussion

FitzRoy · Post by **FitzRoy** » Thu Sep 04, 2008 4:27 pm

There's definitely a difference between these two. Last time one of the latter was on ebay, it was last year and went for $300, so it's no wonder it hasn't been dumped yet.

http://www.1gamemasters.com/Mountain%20 ... 20snes.JPG

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v177/ ... VEGAME.jpg

tetsuo55 · Post by **tetsuo55** » Thu Sep 04, 2008 4:39 pm

Both games have already been dumped from their individual carts.

This is is just a 2-in-1 cart.

So although it has not been dumped yet the games are already playable, i would consider this more of a revision than a completely undumped game

FitzRoy · Post by **FitzRoy** » Thu Sep 04, 2008 5:29 pm

That's goofy logic, you may as well say that "Super Mario All-Stars + Super Mario World" is dumped so long as All Stars and World are individually dumped. The data is different between them all, they all have unique checksums, unique catalog numbers. Additionally, the Speed Racer game in this version is probably modified to work with the bike, so it isn't exactly the the same as the other one anyway.

tetsuo55 · Post by **tetsuo55** » Thu Sep 04, 2008 7:29 pm

I'm not saying it shouldn't be dumped. Just saying that its a revision

FitzRoy · Post by **FitzRoy** » Thu Sep 04, 2008 9:05 pm

It's a different catalog title, and when it's dumped its revision will be 0. But thanks for blowing up my quiz with no-intro's imaginary games.

tetsuo55 · Post by **tetsuo55** » Thu Sep 04, 2008 9:11 pm

FitzRoy wrote:It's a different catalog title, and when it's dumped its revision will be 0. But thanks for blowing up my quiz with no-intro's imaginary games.

We can delete these posts

Anyway i was hoping someone would name a game that isn't in the no-intro undumped list. Also no-body has referenced that auction to the undumped/dumped list so that guy could have a bunch of new to us games.

--------

ofcourse when dumped its going to be a revA(inital version, 0, whatever) because as a cart its unique.
But if you look at it very simply. The games are already playable in their seperate forms.

I watched a speed-races ingame video and i think you're right, the game is actually a paltformer and a racer. I guess they ripped out the platforming part.

d4s · Post by **d4s** » Thu Sep 04, 2008 9:34 pm

byuu wrote:Holy shit, wow. $600. I wouldn't even want it, even as a donation, at that price. I'd feel too obligated to pull off miracles that I may not be able to. It does look to be in amazing condition, though.

I do own a complete Satellaview set and a couple of 8m memory packs for it.
I wouldn't feel comfortable giving it away, but I can of course run test programs if somebody wants to test something.
I've done a couple of tests on my own(on the base unit), but haven't really found out anything particulary useful yet.
I discovered how to switch the base unit access light on and off, though...

Now, here are some things I wrote down when I had a look at the modem regs in a memory viewer. I think I passed them onto someone on the snes9x dev team, but he never responded and I forgot about it. The default values(def, hex value after (r/w)) and readable/writeable bits info should be correct. Please note that everything else is assumptions and probably not very good ones at that.
I don't have a clear idea of how this thing was supposed to work and communicate with the SNES, I just noted what I saw:

reg (r/w): def description

2188 (r/w): $00 (lower 8bit) 14 bits wide, often used to check if modem is present by writing and reading back $aa,$55.(effectively testing if all bits return correctly)
2189 (r/w): $00 (upper 6bit)
218a (r) : $00 8bit, probably read counter for 218b,c,d port regs. may also be satellite uplink related. bit2 maybe is status of satellite link.
218b (r/w): $9f bit0 writeable(might be related to read/write toggle from/to data port).
218c (r/w): $10 bit0 writeable(might be related to read/write toggle from/to data port). writeable, but returns different data when read.
218d (r) : $9f 8bit, probably status for 218b,c regs

218E (r/w): $00 (lower 8bit) 14 bits wide
218F (r/w): $00 (upper 6bit)
2190 (r) : $00 probably satellite uplink related. bit2 may be satellite link flag
2191 (r/w): $9f bit0 writeable(might be related to read/write toggle from/to data port).
2192 (r/w): $01 bit0 writeable(might be related to read/write toggle from/to data port). writeable, but returns different data when read.
2193 (r) : $9f bits used:2,3 probably related to 91,92 data port regs

2194 (r/w): $00 (4bit) bit1 affects bit0 of 2196 bit2 switches satellaview access light on
2195 (r) : $00
2196 (r) : $02 bit0 alternates fast if bit 1 of 2194 is set
2197 (r/w): $ff bit7 probably is soundlink enable
2198 (r) : $80
2199 (r/w): $01 bit7 seems to be serial input, bit1 and bit6 are writeable

Dullaron · Post by **Dullaron** » Thu Sep 04, 2008 9:38 pm

Speed Racer on a bike.... WTF!

FitzRoy · Post by **FitzRoy** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 12:29 am

tetsuo55 wrote: ofcourse when dumped its going to be a revA(inital version, 0, whatever) because as a cart its unique. But if you look at it very simply. The games are already playable in their seperate forms.

"A" is the label imprint put on cartridges of rev1 (v1.1) games, "B" for rev2, and so on. Rev0 (v1.0) games have no letters. The only known exception is Stunt Race FX, where the game went straight to production as rev1 in a last minute change, but the cartridge was never marked for it. And of course, some cartridges have no paper back labels on which to imprint, they have molded ones. And the only way to tell if you have a revision on those is to look at the rom chip serial or the internal header.

Cartridge backs were also commonly switched with another game's, so it is not an always reliable source from which to derive this information. Why would someone do such a dastardly thing? If the game was rare, but the back was damaged or sharpied, they would find a cheap game whose back wasn't and switch them to increase the resale value of the rarer game.

This gets even more fun on the NES, where chips are more commonly covered with epoxy and the games have no internal header, so you pray the cartridge shell is the original.

tetsuo55 · Post by **tetsuo55** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 8:30 am

FitzRoy wrote:
tetsuo55 wrote: ofcourse when dumped its going to be a revA(inital version, 0, whatever) because as a cart its unique. But if you look at it very simply. The games are already playable in their seperate forms.
"A" is the label imprint put on cartridges of rev1 (v1.1) games, "B" for rev2, and so on. Rev0 (v1.0) games have no letters. The only known exception is Stunt Race FX, where the game went straight to production as rev1 in a last minute change, but the cartridge was never marked for it. And of course, some cartridges have no paper back labels on which to imprint, they have molded ones. And the only way to tell if you have a revision on those is to look at the rom chip serial or the internal header.

Cartridge backs were also commonly switched with another game's, so it is not an always reliable source from which to derive this information. Why would someone do such a dastardly thing? If the game was rare, but the back was damaged or sharpied, they would find a cheap game whose back wasn't and switch them to increase the resale value of the rarer game.

This gets even more fun on the NES, where chips are more commonly covered with epoxy and the games have no internal header, so you pray the cartridge shell is the original.

Yeah you're right, i was confusing some no-intro convention things

FitzRoy · Post by **FitzRoy** » Fri Sep 19, 2008 7:11 pm

Here we go baby. Don't anybody here try and bidwar me, it'll drive the price up. I'm going to win it, I'm going to scan its guts, and then I'm going to give it to byuu, he's going to figure out what he can, and then I'm going to resell it. Sound good?

byuu · Post by **byuu** » Fri Sep 19, 2008 7:40 pm

The price will probably soar before it ends. It even has the BS-X cart + flash cart. That will help me support the BS-X slotted carts in RPG Tsukuru 2, Derby Stallion '96, etc; as I can finally figure out how the write commands to those things work.

Problem is that I don't know how long it'll take me to emulate this thing. It may take years. I could perhaps promise to send it back to you if and when I discontinue bsnes. Perhaps it'd be better if I pay you for it or something.

I may also have another source for one, but I need to inquire more about the details first.

tetsuo55 · Post by **tetsuo55** » Fri Sep 19, 2008 7:51 pm

Great news.

However to protect the buy i suggest removing these 3 post till after you win the bid, as to prevent emu-unfriendlies from rising the price too much.

Change it to "I'm about to get a Sattelaview, please stop any buying attempts untill further order" or something like that...

FitzRoy · Post by **FitzRoy** » Fri Sep 19, 2008 11:56 pm

I don't think anyone's conspiring to overpay by beating my secret limit, I just wanted to let people here know so we're not bidding it up. Besides, there's another one ending five days later.

Verdauga Greeneyes · Post by **Verdauga Greeneyes** » Tue Sep 23, 2008 11:03 am

So, did you get it?

FitzRoy · Post by **FitzRoy** » Tue Sep 23, 2008 1:47 pm

Yeah, I got it for about $250. Byuu says he's going to be busy with some non-bsnes related projects, but something should eventually come of this and I'm sure he'll post here again when it does.

I.S.T. · Post by **I.S.T.** » Tue Sep 23, 2008 1:52 pm

FitzRoy wrote:Yeah, I got it for about $250. Byuu says he's going to be busy with some non-bsnes related projects, but something should eventually come of this and I'm sure he'll post here again when it does.

I wonder what that could be...

FitzRoy · Post by **FitzRoy** » Tue Sep 23, 2008 2:04 pm

He does translation stuff on the side. He's already announced wanting to do a FEoEZ translation in 2009.

I.S.T. · Post by **I.S.T.** » Tue Sep 23, 2008 2:55 pm

FitzRoy wrote:He does translation stuff on the side. He's already announced wanting to do a FEoEZ translation in 2009.

I was going to link to that from his web site, actually, but I couldn't link directly to that entry.

It was a joke anyway. One that failed.

FitzRoy · Post by **FitzRoy** » Tue Sep 23, 2008 3:50 pm

Oops, I didn't see that the text was a link on this monitor. Damn link color is way too close.

I.S.T. · Post by **I.S.T.** » Tue Sep 23, 2008 3:58 pm

FitzRoy wrote:Oops, I didn't see that the text was a link on this monitor. Damn link color is way too close.

I've had that problem on three different monitors. The damn color is too similar to the background color...

henke37 · Post by **henke37** » Tue Sep 23, 2008 6:45 pm

Let's just agree on calling the skinner bad and move on.

tetsuo55 · Post by **tetsuo55** » Tue Sep 23, 2008 7:12 pm

FitzRoy wrote:Yeah, I got it for about $250. Byuu says he's going to be busy with some non-bsnes related projects, but something should eventually come of this and I'm sure he'll post here again when it does.

YESSSSSSSSSSSS

You rock FitzRoy!!!

(And i don't even really play BS-X games, but there is one reallllly cool one(i know this because it already works perfectly in bsnes))

creaothceann · Post by **creaothceann** » Tue Sep 23, 2008 7:14 pm

I.S.T. wrote:
FitzRoy wrote:Oops, I didn't see that the text was a link on this monitor. Damn link color is way too close.
I've had that problem on three different monitors. The damn color is too similar to the background color...

Just use the subSilver theme.

I.S.T. · Post by **I.S.T.** » Tue Sep 23, 2008 7:19 pm

creaothceann wrote:
I.S.T. wrote:
FitzRoy wrote:Oops, I didn't see that the text was a link on this monitor. Damn link color is way too close.
I've had that problem on three different monitors. The damn color is too similar to the background color...
Just use the subSilver theme.

BBTech is better, IMO. easier on the eyes.

Thanks for the tip, I forgot you could change the theme here.