Who are Wizen?

[Spirantho]

I've just received another weird pirate cart. It's what I call the Fake Atari Silver label style - like the Jungle Hunt cart Atari-dj kindly donated to the PAL database cause. It is however a dual-game cartridge, of "Fishing" and "Laser", both of which seem to be hacked NTSC versions (they are PAL, but they come up black and white - 60HZ PAL or just a very dodgy hack probably).

 

It's interesting because of two things:

1) It's got LEDs to say which game is chosen! The end label has a green LED that lights up next to 'Fishing' and a red LED next to Laser.

2) Both of the games have the legend "WIZEN" - I've attached a screen dump (it's black and white because it's an odd format). You can see the top half of the text, but my WinTV card chopped off the rest because NTSC signals shouldn't have that many lines and it wouldn't find it all unless it was tuned to NTSC.

 

Does anyone know anything about this "Wizen" company? Anyone seen it before?

 

If not, the "Pirate/Fake Atari Silver" label will henceforth be known as "Wizen/Fake Atari Silver".

[Spirantho]

You can see the top half of the text, but my WinTV card chopped off the rest because NTSC signals shouldn't have that many lines and it wouldn't find it all unless it was tuned to NTSC.

 

Oh, looks like I did get all the text on it after all.

Wot no Edit Button?

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Cool find. Can you dump it?

[Spirantho]

Not yet, I have no means to dump them... I'm thinking of modding a spare 7800 to do the trick (if it'll work in a PAL one) but I need an EPROM burner for the new ROM, and I'm skint at the moment!

[IBP]

I only know of Wizen from hand-held games,

 

http://users2.ev1.net/~rik1138/Misc/WizenSpaceWar.htm

 

It's possible that they did some breaking into the atari market, however they were French so the games would be Pal and they'd have no reason to hack an NTSC game since Pal would be readily available to them.

 

Sounds like a very interesting find though.

 

I have an eprom reader/burner kit which I've not built properly yet, but if I had a reason to do so I might hurry up. I was also going to make a cart converter for it so I could dump roms without splitting the cart.

[Spirantho]

I only know of Wizen from hand-held games,  

 

http://users2.ev1.net/~rik1138/Misc/WizenSpaceWar.htm

 

 

Ah, someone else who did a Google search for "Wizen".

 

It's possible that they did some breaking into the atari market, however they were French so the games would be Pal and they'd have no reason to hack an NTSC game since Pal would be readily available to them.

 

Actually, many of the PAL pirate hacks are hacks of NTSC versions, not PAL. I regularly see pirate games that use a different palette in their PAL form, so they've clearly been modified but not by the official modifiers, and this is no exception... the guy on the left is dark blue and the guy on the right is grey. Both have pink skin and black hats.

 

As you can tell I've now got it into colour... I was forgetting that since I was testing it on a Vader, and not a pirate or 7800 (neither of which would run the cart - they have trouble with other "Wizen" carts too), I was forgetting that real 2600s have a Colour/B&W switch.

 

Sounds like a very interesting find though.

 

I have an eprom reader/burner kit which I've not built properly yet, but if I had a reason to do so I might hurry up. I was also going to make a cart converter for it so I could dump roms without splitting the cart.

 

Great minds think alike... it's on my list of things to do possibly too.

Let me know if you get it done, I'll happily send you the cart to dump the games.

[IBP]

I only know of Wizen from hand-held games,  

 

http://users2.ev1.net/~rik1138/Misc/WizenSpaceWar.htm

 

Ah, someone else who did a Google search for "Wizen".

 

 

Ahh, the benefits of a university education.

 

Of course I phrased it in such a way as to make me appear to be an authority on hand-helds, which I am not, but you saw through my artifice. Obviously my engineering degree hasn't set me up for a career in politics.

 

Great minds think alike... it's on my list of things to do possibly too.

Let me know if you get it done, I'll happily send you the cart to dump the games.

 

I'll try and do it before christmas. Just as soon as I have finsihed converting my loft into an Atari Palace (or wife's office. Depends who wins the next game of chess)