2600 Rom Comparisions and Dumps

[Rom Hunter]

Calm down, Omegamatrix.

 

AFAIK all the ROMS on the Atarimania site work with the Krok.

 

 

Thanks for the screenshot, Spirantho!

 

I'm really curious about the NTSC ROM of Z-Tack now.

 

Edited March 16, 2007 by Rom Hunter

[A.J. Franzman]

I guess the Krok can't support both at the same time??

As I understand it, the KC only supports one bankswitch method (plus non-bankswitched carts) at a time in multicart mode, even with ROMs the same size.

[+Omegamatrix]

Calm down, Omegamatrix.

 

AFAIK all the ROMS on the Atarimania site work with the Krok.

 

 

Thanks for the screenshot, Spirantho!

 

I'm really curious about the NTSC ROM of Z-Tack now.

 

The Congo Bongo and Sir Lancelot dumps on Atarimania don't work with the Krok guaranteed. Even when you try to load them into the Krok it's telling you that it's a bad dump. Armin blackflagged these long ago as they are known bad dumps. They come out as a jumbled mess (I tried, I know). Both bad dumps do work well in an emulator however.

 

I'm curious too about the NTSC rom of Z-Tack. I really want a few people to dump theirs. Right now it looks like the graphics were hacked in the conversion. I'm still more curious about Wall Defender. I'd bet dollars to donuts that if a few more people would dump there's we'd have another game in the 260's range.

 

I guess the Krok can't support both at the same time??

As I understand it, the KC only supports one bankswitch method (plus non-bankswitched carts) at a time in multicart mode, even with ROMs the same size.

I think you're right A.J. I just loaded up the cart with 8K roms and didn't even think of the bankswitching.

Edited March 17, 2007 by Omegamatrix

[Ze_ro]

Omegamatrix,

 

According to Stella.pro:

 

Your Assault (PAL) (Bomb) ROM is actually: Monster aus dem All (PAL) (Taiwan SP-2xx Series)

Your Great Escape (PAL) (Bomb) ROM is actually: Time Machine (PAL) (Hot Shot)

Your Wall-Defender (PAL) (Bomb) ROM is actually: Break-Down (PAL) (Dynamics)

Your Z-Tack (PAL) (Bomb) ROM is actually: Base Attack (PAL) (Home Vision) - which has different graphics!

 

And the 288 Great Escape (PAL) (Bomb) ROM is just called: Great Escape (Bomb)

 

I've never used Stella.pro and don't know if it's part of the Stella emulator that compares roms like Clonespy, or is just a list of roms that are the same to each other.

I wouldn't trust Stella in these situations. I'm pretty sure all the ROM naming is just taken from Good2600 (which itself is somewhat questionable), and files are matched by checksums. The Good tools aren't very comprehensive when it comes to foreign stuff.

 

I wish I could be of some actual help here, as I actually find this stuff very interesting, but I lack the software and experience. I'm eager to see how this turns out though!

 

--Zero

[+Omegamatrix]

Alright, time to move on to Demon Attack. The original rom had an intentional bug in it where the game would suddenly end after the 84th level. The programmer (Ron Fulop) thought that it would be nice to have an "ending" for anyone that reached that high of a level, but a couple of days after the game was released Imagic heard from an angry kid complaining how the screen went black all of sudden after the 84th level. Ron decided he had better change the code for the next release and made a "fixed" version by simply changing one line of code so that the game would not end in a black screen, but reset to an earlier level (thereby looping forever).

 

I only have five Demon Attacks at the moment. At one time I think I had at least ten. I took a bit of masking tape and wrote one to five on the back of them. I then dumped the rom on each cart four times, and compared all of them in clonespy. The result was the two different roms which are in the public domain.

 

Here according to Batari is a bug fixed version of Demon Attack:

 

Demon_Attack__bug_fixed_.bin

 

Here is the other version of Imagic Demon Attack that appears under every dump on Atariage and Atarimania. This probably is the bugged version but I don't know. I neither have the skills or patients to play it that long.:

 

Demon_Attack__original_.bin

 

Now I took photos of the front of the carts after I dumped them. I wanted to see if a certain label had the different rom. Well the original rom appeared for me in the text label (not the Canadian/international text label), and every other cart had the fixed rom. So in the photos below the one seperate cart on the left has the bugged version, the rest are fixed.

 

 

 

I wonder if every text cart like this is bugged? Perhaps there was a small cross over to the picture labels? Anyhow many more dumps of Demon Attack are needed (c'mon people! Let's start something here) to see if this is consistent with all the Demon Attack labels. For now I will say that only the text label has the bugged rom.

 

Just for fun here is a version (hack) of Demon Attack by Nukey Shakey to fix the bug. According to Batari the difference between this and the fixed rom is substantile as "Also, as it turns out, I was wrong about Nukey's "fix." It resets the level to zero when it gets to 85, which is not the same as the real fixed version which does no such thing. It doesn't return to level 0 until the level wraps from 255." so Nukey's version is a little easier.

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=72676

 

Edit: so in short the bugged rom that goes black after the 84th level is the rom that is on every AA and Atarimania download. It so far only belongs to the seperate text label which I have shown above. The bugged fixed rom goes with every other cart AFAIK.

Edited March 18, 2007 by Omegamatrix

[Rom Hunter]

The Congo Bongo and Sir Lancelot dumps on Atarimania don't work with the Krok guaranteed. Even when you try to load them into the Krok it's telling you that it's a bad dump.

Thanks.

 

I will replace them asap with the ones you posted.

 

[+stephena]

Omegamatrix,

 

According to Stella.pro:

 

Your Assault (PAL) (Bomb) ROM is actually: Monster aus dem All (PAL) (Taiwan SP-2xx Series)

Your Great Escape (PAL) (Bomb) ROM is actually: Time Machine (PAL) (Hot Shot)

Your Wall-Defender (PAL) (Bomb) ROM is actually: Break-Down (PAL) (Dynamics)

Your Z-Tack (PAL) (Bomb) ROM is actually: Base Attack (PAL) (Home Vision) - which has different graphics!

 

And the 288 Great Escape (PAL) (Bomb) ROM is just called: Great Escape (Bomb)

 

I've never used Stella.pro and don't know if it's part of the Stella emulator that compares roms like Clonespy, or is just a list of roms that are the same to each other.

I wouldn't trust Stella in these situations. I'm pretty sure all the ROM naming is just taken from Good2600 (which itself is somewhat questionable), and files are matched by checksums. The Good tools aren't very comprehensive when it comes to foreign stuff.

Yes, the internal database in Stella comes from Good2600, so it can't really be trusted. When RomHunter gets his full listing complete and gets it to me, I'll be using those names instead. And the latest versions of Stella auto-detect most cartridge types and display formats, so for example, many ROMs could be labelled as PAL, but Stella detects them as NTSC (and vice versa). At this point, the names aren't consistent at all with what actually happens inside the emulator.

[Rom Hunter]

I still don't understand the whole NTSC Z-Tack thing.

 

Where the hell did this one come from?

http://www.atarimania.com/detail_soft.php?...ERSION_ID=13697

 

It doesn't make sense to me that the NTSC Z-Tack graphics are different from (Spirantho's) PAL version.

 

Does anyone here owns a verified NTSC Z-Tack (and a dumper)?

 

Edited March 17, 2007 by Rom Hunter

[+Omegamatrix]

I too would like to see another dump of Z-Tack as well as Wall Defender. If any Canucks here have some carts I can certainly help you dump them. Just let me know.

 

I've read that there are two very different Dodge 'em roms according to Clonespy from Thomas Jentzsch. I dumped the Dodge 'em carts I had and ran them through Clonespy and this is what I found:

 

- The text label runs at 261 lines when you turn it on, and 260 lines after you hit reset.

- The text label I dumped matches the Dodge 'em (1980) (Atari) [a1] dump from the good2600 1.00.

 

Dodge_em__text_.BIN

 

- The picture label runs at 262 lines when you turn it on, and 261 lines after you hit reset.

- The picture label I dumped matches the Dodge 'em (1980) (Atari) dump from the good2600 1.00.

 

Dodge_em__pic_label_.BIN

 

By memory the bare chip I have here was from a picture cart. It matched the other picture one perfectly. I wonder why these roms are so different? I can only guess that there was an error correction like Demon Attack. Both Atarimania and Atariage have the picture rom for all their Atari and Sears labels. I have no idea what's going on in the roms themselves. Only someone that can read code could say.

 

Edited March 18, 2007 by Omegamatrix

[+Omegamatrix]

Found a good thread that describes a glitch in Dodge 'em, and might be the reason for the rom change.

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=29948

[+Omegamatrix]

On to Asteroids. The original rom went straight into the action. Atari however soon decided to revise Asteroids by adding on a "© 1981 Atari, inc." title screen before you started. I could see no other visible differences besides the title screen playing both versions of the game. I looked for missiles going all the way to the edge of the screen in one version (but not the other) because I had read that there was this glitch, but I couldn't find it. It seems all the later releases of Asteroids have the rom with the 1981 copyright screen in them. This includes the grey release and the Sears pic Asteroids as well as the 64 games Sears text label. I didn't have a 66 games Sears text to dump and compare. One thing I noticed is the non-copyrighted cart had no date stamp on the end label. That doesn't automatically mean every Asteroids without a date stamp will have no copyright screen. I found seven other Asteroid carts without date stamp that also had no copyright screen. I would guess that every non-copyrighted Asteroids is not date stamped, but not every non date stamped Asteroids is the non copyrighted version (sorry about any confusion here, this may not be worded well, and it really is simplier than it sounds). The non-copyrighted version is rarer, but it's hard to say how much.

 

 

Original:

Asteroids__original__no_copyright_.BIN

 

Revision:

Asteroids__revision__with_copyright_.BIN

 

Brad Stewart (the Asteroids programmer) says he never did this title screen. Atari took it upon themselves to do. It appears that the title screen rom is rare in the PAL version as they mostly find Asteroid carts without it. Over here it is just the opposite as more of our carts have the copyright screen.

[Rom Hunter]

Thanks.

 

Do you also have a dump of the no-copyright PAL version?

 

[oldric]

I've just seen i've a PAL copyrighted one. Yeah ! lol

[+Omegamatrix]

Thanks.

 

Do you also have a dump of the no-copyright PAL version?

 

Working on it. Right now I'm very happy to say I've finally dumped a PAL Miner 2049er. That one was a bitch. Kudos to Eckhard Stolberg for giving me his more advanced 7800.exe. It starts with me contacting Spirantho to see if he can do it, but he has 2 NTSC carts and no PAL ones so I buy a PAL cart off Atari2600.com and waited a couple of weeks. Kudos to Spirantho for trying though. Finally I get it from Atari2600.com and find the usual problem for Tigervision carts in that they don't fit into a 7800 as the prongs are too long. So I tore it apart as it was only like $10 and I was on a mission. I have since become more educated and learned you can make cart extenders to fit these difficult carts in... wonderful things. I stuck it in and turned the power on. The picture was worse then a Picasso painting and looked like something my dog reguritated. My 7800 dumper is a newer model made by Atari Corportation and not compatible with some games, because Atari changed the guts so that it could be compatible with one of their new 2600 releases at the time, Dark Chambers. I was a little frustrated, frustrated. So Dr. Morbis traded me his '84 unit with is much more compatible with 2600 games, Kudos to him for that too. The situation then was that I was moving at the same time so I postponed ordering some more parts off Cpuwiz (Kudos to him for supplying all of us Atari Junkies with our fixes) as I didn't want it to go to my old place. I also didn't want to mess with the working dumper I had to make a new one and risk messing them both up. So I waited some more as I did all my other shinte in life (the point here is that I never thought this damn thing would ever get dumped). Finally today I decided to look inside my one modded Atari to see what I had to do as I had ordered the parts off Cpuwiz last week, and had picked up a desoldering kit today. It didn't look that bad and I decided to have a go at modding it myself with parts from my other dumper, because well I'm that kind of fool-hardy impatient person. I did it all and was quite proud of myself except it didn't work. Spent two more hours until I figured out I had to cut a trace. So that's my story and without further ado, enjoy:

 

Miner_2049er__PAL_.BIN

 

@Eckhard Yeah it didn't detect it, but worked just fine when I forced it.

[Rom Hunter]

Excellent work, Omega.

 

Now go for PAL Springer.

 

[+Omegamatrix]

Excellent work, Omega.

 

Now go for PAL Springer.

 

Could be possible, could be possible. Eckhard said his new software only worked for 3F bankswitching except for River Patrol and Espial so that could be a go. I'm starting work on a cart extender, but to get Springer dumped will probably take other hands too. I'm confident I can dump a PAL Springer if someone wants to send me one. Otherwise maybe Spirantho. I will send him Eckhard's advanced 7800.exe and a cart extender if need be. I don't know if his 7800 is uncompatible like my old one though. I'm going to go to work on a list of carts that need to be dumped, and I am looking for volunteers who can help! Most of the games left to be dumped are PAL.

 

 

~Omega

[Rom Hunter]

True.

 

Atarimania will soon offer the posibility to see in an instant which originals still need to be dumped.

 

[+Omegamatrix]

True.

 

Atarimania will soon offer the posibility to see in an instant which originals still need to be dumped.

 

That would be a great feature. I always wished that clicking on the smilie faces would let you download the rom like Atariage does with their Pac-Man rom symbol. I did go to work today and made a excel sheet of which games had the no dump sad face. It quickly tells you which roms need to be dumped, and I divided it by PAL, PAL-M, SECAM, NTSC.

 

Atari_2600_Non_dumped_Titles.zip

 

You can cross a couple of these off your list. Here are Kosher roms for Dragon Treasure and Time Warp (both for Funvision).

 

Dragon_Treasure__Funvision__NTSC.BIN

Time_Warp__Funvision__NTSC.BIN

 

Inca Gold has been dumped too.

[+Omegamatrix]

Now for Zellers. Atariage has a lot, a lot of wrong Zellers roms (12 of them wrong, plus 2 more missing). Atarimania is better, but still needs a few replacements to be 100% correct. I dumped all my Zellers carts, including duplicates making sure all the dumps were good and compared them with Clonespy. Most of the differences in the roms for the originals is the company name has been removed, but it is a difference! Others like Ocean City Defender had more of a graphical hack.

 

				   Atariage	  Atarimania
Busy Police		  Wrong		 Wrong
Challenge			Wrong		  Good
Circus			   Wrong		 Wrong
Dragon Treasure	   Good		  Good
Earth Attack		 Wrong		  Good
Farmer Dan		   Wrong		 Wrong
Freeway			  Wrong		 Wrong
Frontline			 Good		  Good
Inca Gold			Wrong		No Dump 
Laser Volley		 Wrong		  Good
Ocean City Defender  Wrong		  Good 
Pinball			   Good		  Good
Radar				 Good		  Good
Scuba Diver		 No Dump		 Good
Sea Hawk			No Dump		 Good
Space Adventure	  Wrong		  Good
Time Warp			Wrong		  Good
Turmoil			  Wrong		 Wrong

 

Here is the complete set:

 

Good_Zellers_Dumps.zip

 

Rom, here is a quick file for you with the roms you got to replace:

 

Roms_for_Rom.zip

 

Rom these are the differences I saw in the roms you needed replaced:

 

- Busy Police has the Activision logo removed, but the color bars and Copyright 1983 remain.

- Circus looks like your dump on Atarimania, but didn't match mine with Clonespy (I dumped 4 of them). Your dump and my dump both use joysticks instead of paddles. The difference came when I tested your rom in Z26. It bounced up an down a few scan lines as the guy moved across the screen. My dump remains stable.

- Farmer Dan has the US Games logo and the Copyright 1982 removed.

- Freeway has the Activision logo removed.

- Inca Gold has the Funvision logo removed.

- Turmoil has the title "Turmoil" removed.

 

These will make Atarimania 100% correct. Also you should know the rom for Laaser Voley matches the rom for Laser Volley 100% according to clonespy, and I checked you have the right rom for Laaser Voley already in place.

Edited June 13, 2007 by Omegamatrix

[Rom Hunter]

Excellent work, Omega.

 

All Zellers ROMS are correct now:

http://atarimania.com/lst_soft.php?MENU=2&...n_sauver=Search

 

It will be mentioned on our homepage tomorrow.

 

Thanks!

 

Edited June 13, 2007 by Rom Hunter

[+Omegamatrix]

Huge, huge, absolutely wonderful update. Here's the following PAL roms with a huge thanks to Spirantho who had to build cartridge extender just to make some of them fit into his 7800. Some of the PAL T-Handles have been dumped before, but Spiranto dumped them to help match which rom went with what cart.

 

Cakewalk (Commavid)

Space Jockey (Carrere)

Eggomania (Carrere)

M.A.D. (Carrere)

Gopher (Carrere)

Picnic (Carrere)

Infernal Tower (Carrere - note it's not called Towering Inferno)

Vulture Attack (K-Tel Vision T-Handle)

Spider Maze (K-Tel Vision T-Handle)

Space Monster (K-Tel Vision T-Handle but without "K-Tel Vision" text on label)

Skeet Shoot (Apollo)

Racquetball (Apollo)

Spider Kong (Goliath T-Handle)

Encounter At L-5 (Gameworld)

Bermuda Triangle (Gameworld)

Warplock (Gameworld)

Sssnake (Gameworld)

Frankenstein's Monster (Gameworld)

Congo Bongo (Sega)

Wall Break (Homevision)

Sky Alien (Homevision)

Raumbasen-Attacke (Quelle)

Galactic (Rainbowvision probably - anonymous but has SS-002 on it)

Open Sesame (Goliath)

Kampf in Asteroid-Gurtel (Quelle)

Sea Monster (Goliath)

Space Tunnel (Goliath)

Space Robot (Goliath)

Baseball (Telegames - box says "World Champsionship Baseball", cart just "Baseball")

Football (Telegames)

 

PALROMS.zip

[+Omegamatrix]

And last but not least PAL Springer:

 

Springer__PAL_.BIN

 

I had problems with Z26 with this rom until I manually overrided it to 3F (Tigervision) bankswitching. What's funny is it recoginized my new PAL dump of Miner 2049er as being 3F automatically. I thought the dump might be bad, but it works on my Krok perfectly. Spirantho you wrote this as being Telesys in your notes but you meant Tigervision, correct? Just want to be sure. I also tested all the other roms Spirantho dumped on my Krok and they all work fine.

[+Omegamatrix]

A quick check with Clonespy reveals Space Monster and Vulture Attack have 100% the same rom. No surprise there. Spider Maze and Spider Kong also have 100% the same rom. I don't know much about Goliath but it seem like have roms from at least Puzzy and Funvision. Quelle seem to be more after Homevision roms. As more and more good verified roms become available it might be possible to trace who came first, and who came second by looking at the amount of difference in the roms. Right now there are still a lot of holes.

[Rom Hunter]

Omegamatrix and Spirantho,

 

I want to thank you for this excellent update!

 

I will study and add them asap and keep you informed.

 

[Spirantho]

Two notes on those ROMs:

 

1) Springer is weird! It doesn't work on PAL 7800s. I should try on my NTSC one. I always thought it was only NTSC 7800s that had the problem. Of course as the cart doesn't actually fit into a 7800 without a cart extender, no-one probably noticed this before!

2) Did you notice Kampf In Asteroide-Gurtel still has "Homevision" copyright text?

 

I do have other carts from pirate manufacturers. Do you want me to dump them? Some of them are pretty obscure (like my Supervision "Missle 3000" [sic] cart). It could take a while.

 

If you've got a copy of Cart Commander I can send you a copy of my database if it helps, but it's not very specific on pirates.