Supercharger prototypes

[shadow460]

EDIT: There is another .zip file that has all of the bin files in it except the two I posted previously. There are three zip files you'll need to download. One is a separate zip of labyrinth, and one is a separate zip of Phaser Patrol.

 

Over in the 2600 forum, Seymour posted pictures of and some info about some Supercharger prototypes he has. He sent me the cassettes to be dumped. I had originally thought it best to keep quiet about digitizing and dumping these until they were all dumped, however, I may need help with them. By the way, all but one of the tapes I copied has loaded onto my modded Supercharger from the wav files I made of them, and the one that didn't load right is because the tape itself was damaged. Side A didn't load, but side B did. All of the tapes I dumped appear to be NTSC.

I can get the audio files made, and I can get some of them to bin files. That's where you programmer types are going to have to take over.

 

Here's what I have converted to .bin so far:

Excalibur: This does not have a number at all. I think it's a very early work in progress. When loaded into Stella 2.2, it repeated the Supercharger loading screen over and over. I cannot get side A to work with makebin. I still have the .wav file of it, though. There are two loads contained in this .bin file. I've no idea how to access the second load or what it may contain.

 

Labyrinth: This is side B of a very early Labyrinth. It appears to work in Stella 2.2, but it runs a tad slower than it does on hardware. Maze 3 is fully open. There are two loads in this .bin file, but, like above, I do not know how to access the second load. I have not tried side A with makebin just yet. There is also an item in Maze 1 that looks to me like a shield of some sort.

 

Phaser Patrol: The tape on this says "complete" but I think the scoring is a little different in this version. I have uploaded side A. Like the other two above, this tape has a second load on each side, and I don't know what's in it or just how to access it.

 

All three of these are in the first zip file. I cannot get side B of Labyrinth or Phaser Patrol to work with makebin, and I can't get side A of Excalibur to work with makebin, either.

 

In the protos discovered there versions of Killer Satellites and Labyrinth that I have never seen before, there are two new versions of Excalibur, two versions of Fireball that have minor differences from the release (get this, they are on opposite sides of the same tape), and more versions of Phaser Patrol, Labyrinth, Suicide Mission, and Commie Mutants with minor changes from the games/protos we have seen of them. Six of these tapes, I believe, were made on July 17th, 1982, Commie Mutants was made on Feb 13th, 1982, and I don't know when the earliest version of them were. There are indications that Phaser Patrol may have been scheduled for release later than it actually was.

 

@Albert, if you're reading this, may I have the ability to edit this post so I can post the rest of the bin files as I get them ready?

 

UPDATE: I have uploaded the wav files I made. What you hear in these files is exactly what came off the tapes, save for me cutting the silence at the beginning and end of the files. If you look at them in any audio editing software, you'll see that it goes from zero volume straight into the first tone. These are 44,100 kHz, 16 bit, stereo wav files. Some conversion on the sound files may still be needed if you want to convert them to .bin files.

One of the other members has converted every single one of these to .bin format except Commie Mutants. The program used for that has not been released yet.

 

Now a few notes:

- Communist Mutants is on a tape that is failing. It has many dropouts in the audio tones.

- Fireball has one load on side A, and two on Side B which are labeled first half and second half. I have been able to access both loads of side B. They are both playable versions of Fireball.

- the files labeled with an 02 at the beginning of their filenames are from the tapes with two loads where I could not access the second load. Labyrinth and Excalibur are different than anything I've seen of those games, whereas I've been playing the sense out of Phaser Patrol and I've found nothing significantly different about it.

- I launched the boat in Killer Satellites once, but I cannot figure out how to do it again. I had plugged in the paddles in the left port right around the time the boat launched. I could guide it all over the screen until it ran out of fuel.

- I cannot post the B sides that correspond to the files labeled with the 02. Those files came to around 13 MB. To my knowledge, these have been converted to .bin format, though. My email client will not let me send them out either, due to the size.

 

I've offered to send these out to a couple of folks by email. This post is your "email".

 

I hope these are able to be converted and we're able to work with them. Specifically, Communist Mutants is probably the highest priority, since it hasn't been converted to .bin yet.

 

The zip files labeled group 3 and group 4 contain mp3 files of all the wav files posted here, meant for use with portable devices and hardware. Be aware that PSP users will need to adjust the equalizer setting on the PSP to make it play into the SuperCharger, but it will work.

excalibur_labyrinth_phaserpatrol_early.zip

Communist_Mutants_mix_1_side_A.wav

Communist_Mutants_mix_1_side_B.wav

Excalibur_36_mix_1_side_A.wav

Excalibur_36_mix_1_side_B.wav

Killer_Satellites_mix_1_side_A.wav

Killer_Satellites_mix_1_side_B.wav

Labyrinth_mix_2_side_A.wav

Labyrinth_mix_2_side_B.wav

Phaser_Patrol_mix_1_side_A.wav

Phaser_Patrol_mix_1_side_B.wav

Suicide_Mission_mix_1_side_A.wav

Suicide_Mission_mix_1_side_B.wav

Fireball_mix_1_side_A.wav

Fireball_mix_1_side_B_first_half.wav

Fireball_mix_1_side_B_second_half.wav

02_Excalibur_mix_1_side_A.wav

02_Labyrinth_mix_1_side_A.wav

02_Phaser_Patrol_mix_1_side_A.wav

SuperchargerProtos.zip

Ecalibur_mix_1_side_A_load_1.wav

Excalibur_mix_1_side_A_load_2.wav

Excalibur_mono_1_side_B_load_1.wav

Excalibur_mono_1_side_B_load_2.wav

labyrinth_mix_1_side_A_load_1.wav

Labyrinth_mix_1_side_A_load_2.wav

labyrinth_mix_1_side_B_load_1.wav

labyrinth_mix_1_side_B_load_2.wav

phaser_patrol_mix_1_side_A_load_1.wav

phaser_patrol_mix_1_side_A_load_2.wav

phaser_patrol_mix_1_side_B_load_1.wav

phaser_patrol_mix_1_side_B_load_2.wav

group_3.zip

group_4.zip

supercharger_proto_images.zip

Edited May 8, 2009 by shadow460

[shadow460]

I'm needing help with makebin, BTW. It's very hit and miss with converting these files--sometimes I have to re make the audio file two or three times to get it to convert. The tapes I've got dumped above aren't monaural! Fortunately, the rest of them are.

[shadow460]

OK, here are two zip files that contain wma tracks of everything on the cassettes I ripped. They might not work for disassembly, but they should work well with a standard Supercharger. This will at least let everyone see how these games are different from the released versions.

 

I'll try to get some .wav files emailed out so they can be converted, and I'll keep trying to convert them myself fas well.

group1.zip

group2.zip

[+stephena]

Over in the 2600 forum, Seymour posted pictures of and some info about some Supercharger prototypes he has. He sent me the cassettes to be dumped. I had originally thought it best to keep quiet about digitizing and dumping these until they were all dumped, however, I may need help with them. By the way, all but one of the tapes I copied has loaded onto my modded Supercharger from the wav files I made of them, and the one that didn't load right is because the tape itself was damaged. Side A didn't load, but side B did. All of the tapes I dumped appear to be NTSC.

I can get the audio files made, and I can get some of them to bin files. That's where you programmer types are going to have to take over.

 

Here's what I have converted to .bin so far:

Excalibur: This does not have a number at all. I think it's a very early work in progress. When loaded into Stella 2.2, it repeated the Supercharger loading screen over and over. I cannot get side A to work with makebin. I still have the .wav file of it, though. There are two loads contained in this .bin file. I've no idea how to access the second load or what it may contain.

 

Labyrinth: This is side B of a very early Labyrinth. It appears to work in Stella 2.2, but it runs a tad slower than it does on hardware. Maze 3 is fully open. There are two loads in this .bin file, but, like above, I do not know how to access the second load. I have not tried side A with makebin just yet.

 

Phaser Patrol: The tape on this says "complete" but I think the scoring is a little different in this version. I have uploaded side A. Like the other two above, this tape has a second load on each side, and I don't know what's in it or just how to access it.

 

All three of these are in the first zip file. I cannot get side B of Labyrinth or Phaser Patrol to work with makebin, and I can't get side A of Excalibur to work with makebin, either.

 

In the protos discovered there versions of Killer Satellites and Labyrinth that I have never seen before, there are two new versions of Excalibur, two versions of Fireball that have minor differences from the release (get this, they are on opposite sides of the same tape), and more versions of Phaser Patrol, Labyrinth, Suicide Mission, and Commie Mutants with minor changes from the games/protos we have seen of them. Six of these tapes, I believe, were made on July 17th, 1982, Commie Mutants was made on Feb 13th, 1982, and I don't know when the earliest version of them were. There are indications that Phaser Patrol may have been scheduled for release later than it actually was.

 

@Albert, if you're reading this, may I have the ability to edit this post so I can post the rest of the bin files as I get them ready?

Excalibur is an empty (0 byte) file, so it's not going to work at all. It's only a fluke of the way autodetection works that it was detected as 'AR/Supercharger' at all.

 

Also, I suggest to download and use the latest version of Stella, which is now at 2.7.5 (soon to be 2.7.6 next week). Older versions were in some cases not as accurate.

[shadow460]

I didn't catch the 0 byte Excalibur until it was too late.

I ruled out inaccuracies in Stella, though, by using wplaybin to load the bin files that I made into my Supercharger. The ones that didn't work with Stella didn't work on hardware either, although the source audio files did work.

Edited April 11, 2009 by shadow460

[Wickeycolumbus]

Cool, thanks Seymour for allowing shadow to dump them Now all I need is a Supercharger

[jahfish]

I didn't catch the 0 byte Excalibur until it was too late.

I ruled out inaccuracies in Stella, though, by using wplaybin to load the bin files that I made into my Supercharger. The ones that didn't work with Stella didn't work on hardware either, although the source audio files did work.

 

did you make sure to save the files lossless (with no compression) ?

 

try saving as AIF format otherwise ...

[Mayhem]

There are indications that Phaser Patrol may have been scheduled for release later than it actually was.

 

Correct. Dennis Caswell (who programmed Phaser Patrol) told me that Fireball, Commie Mutants and Suicide Mission were already in development by the time he was hired at Starpath. The launch was held until all four games were ready; his words sounded like they were all released together on the same day along with the hardware.

[shadow460]

did you make sure to save the files lossless (with no compression) ?

Yes. The files I made from the tapes are all 44,100 kHz 16 bit stereo wave files. I played them back and recorded that playback into a 44,100 kHz 8 bit mono wave file which I tried to run through makebin. Some worked.

[Omegamatrix]

Shadow, did you rip these as WAV or WMA format? I see the ones you posted in the group zip files were all WMA. WMA is a lossy format. Also I don't think you should step down the sampling to 8bit when you are re-recording them.

[shadow460]

The files I got from those tapes are .wav . I converted copies of them to wma so that I could post them up for people to load on hardware without having to wait until I could make the bin files.

I noticed that the forum software allows 10 MB file uploads. All but 3 of the original wav files are < 10MB. I will upload them.

[Rom Hunter]

Would be great.

 

Thanks.

 

[shadow460]

Bump. wav files are in the first post now.

[Wickeycolumbus]

Bump. wav files are in the first post now.

 

Thanks for posting the wav files, I just got my SC yesterday

[shadow460]

Good. you can help shake down the files marked 02_whatever. What brand names are on your Supercharger?

[AdeptRapier]

Is there a way to play supercharger games under any emulation?

 

Thanks!!

 

AdeptRapier

 

[Mayhem]

Yeah, Stella for example will handle them fine.

[Wickeycolumbus]

Good. you can help shake down the files marked 02_whatever. What brand names are on your Supercharger?

 

Starpath. It's going to take forever to download them though.

[shadow460]

Is there a way to play supercharger games under any emulation?

 

Thanks!!

 

AdeptRapier

 

 

 

Yeah, Stella for example will handle them fine.

 

For the .bin files posted, Stella will work. Simply unzip the file and copy the two useable games to the roms folder in whatever directory you installed Stella. Also, PSP2600 works, as it is a port of Stella.

 

For the wav or wma files posted, you will need a SuperCharger. Most of what's there is very similar to .bin files that exist on the net. The files posted have minor differences such as bugs that aren't yet fixed, or titles screens not implemented. The most profound differences are in Killer Satellites, which I'd say is about 10% playable if that, and in Labyrinth which is very playable but lacks any objectives to complete.

 

.bin files are being worked on as we speak, though. Hang in there!

 

Good. you can help shake down the files marked 02_whatever. What brand names are on your Supercharger?

 

Starpath. It's going to take forever to download them though.

Did you try the two zip files? If you're wanting to play the prototypes, those will work with your Supercharger. I was hoping you might have gotten one of the "off brand" units.

 

BTW, screenshots of the very early Labyrinth proto are posted. Those are from Stella and the respective .bin file. My TV tuner card is busted at the moment, but when I get it fixed I'll post some screenies of the other games, too.

Edited April 13, 2009 by shadow460

[Wickeycolumbus]

Good. you can help shake down the files marked 02_whatever. What brand names are on your Supercharger?

 

Starpath. It's going to take forever to download them though.

Did you try the two zip files? If you're wanting to play the prototypes, those will work with your Supercharger. I was hoping you might have gotten one of the "off brand" units.

 

 

I assume you are talking about the .wma files? They will not work for me for some reason

[shadow460]

It's probably the format. If it's not playing on your computer, you'll need a player that runs .wma. A PSP can run them, too, but I find for the SuperCharger I have to set the equializer to a certain preset and crank the volume. A few of the players I know of offhand that can run them are Creative Playcenter, Video LAN client, and, of course, Windows Media Player. If you're on Linux, VLC is your best bet. Xine multimedia can also play them on a Linux platform.

 

If it's not loading to the SuperCharger, try setting the balance control on your computer all the way to the left. Your SuperCharger probably only has two sections on the plug instead of three. Radio Shack sells a mono to stereo adapter you can use to get around this. It's also possible that the plug isn't physically fitting into its socket on your audio device, once again that adapter solves this. You might have to crank the volume up (this was typical back in the day anyway) and set the tone to the highest "treble" setting.

Then, too, due to the way I make recordings, it's possible that some of the files are "clipping" on your audio gear. I find that when I play back music I've done any remastering to, I have to turn the volume down on the stereo.

 

If you have time, though, the those .wav files are the absolute best way to go since they are loss less.

[Wickeycolumbus]

It's probably the format. If it's not playing on your computer, you'll need a player that runs .wma. A PSP can run them, too, but I find for the SuperCharger I have to set the equializer to a certain preset and crank the volume. A few of the players I know of offhand that can run them are Creative Playcenter, Video LAN client, and, of course, Windows Media Player. If you're on Linux, VLC is your best bet. Xine multimedia can also play them on a Linux platform.

 

If it's not loading to the SuperCharger, try setting the balance control on your computer all the way to the left. Your SuperCharger probably only has two sections on the plug instead of three. Radio Shack sells a mono to stereo adapter you can use to get around this. It's also possible that the plug isn't physically fitting into its socket on your audio device, once again that adapter solves this. You might have to crank the volume up (this was typical back in the day anyway) and set the tone to the highest "treble" setting.

Then, too, due to the way I make recordings, it's possible that some of the files are "clipping" on your audio gear. I find that when I play back music I've done any remastering to, I have to turn the volume down on the stereo.

 

If you have time, though, the those .wav files are the absolute best way to go since they are loss less.

 

I will try them on my PSP. Thanks

[Wickeycolumbus]

It's probably the format. If it's not playing on your computer, you'll need a player that runs .wma. A PSP can run them, too, but I find for the SuperCharger I have to set the equializer to a certain preset and crank the volume. A few of the players I know of offhand that can run them are Creative Playcenter, Video LAN client, and, of course, Windows Media Player. If you're on Linux, VLC is your best bet. Xine multimedia can also play them on a Linux platform.

 

If it's not loading to the SuperCharger, try setting the balance control on your computer all the way to the left. Your SuperCharger probably only has two sections on the plug instead of three. Radio Shack sells a mono to stereo adapter you can use to get around this. It's also possible that the plug isn't physically fitting into its socket on your audio device, once again that adapter solves this. You might have to crank the volume up (this was typical back in the day anyway) and set the tone to the highest "treble" setting.

Then, too, due to the way I make recordings, it's possible that some of the files are "clipping" on your audio gear. I find that when I play back music I've done any remastering to, I have to turn the volume down on the stereo.

 

If you have time, though, the those .wav files are the absolute best way to go since they are loss less.

 

I will try them on my PSP. Thanks

 

Looks like I can't do it unless I have a way to get on the internet with my PSP

[shadow460]

Have you got a USB cable? That will allow you to transfer the files. Alternately, an MS card reader will also allow the transfer.

[Wickeycolumbus]

Have you got a USB cable? That will allow you to transfer the files. Alternately, an MS card reader will also allow the transfer.

 

I got the files on there, but when I play them, it says "You must enable wma play back". I followed the instructions it gave on how to enable it, and it said I had to set up an internet connection