Zig's SNES Repros

[Ziggy]

Opps, I linked a couple of wrong images in my last post. I fixed it to all make sense now.

Lovely work.

Those pics are actually NOT my work.

So, apart from StarFox 2; what other unreleased titles are there out there on ROMS that you can integrate into your SNES carts?

Star Fox 2 is probably the only unreleased SNES game that was completed enough to be able to play good and worthy of making a cart for. I know that there were a lot of SNES games that were canceled or unreleased, but I don't know if there's ROMs for them and if so how complete the game is. But if they're out there chances are good that they can be put on a cart. Like 99% good.

The SNES reproduction world is populated mostly with games not released outside of Japan that have now been translated into English. Games like Star Ocean and Secret of Mana 2. The NES has a lot of unreleased repros though.

[Troglodyte]

I know that there were a lot of SNES games that were canceled or unreleased, but I don't know if there's ROMs for them and if so how complete the game is.

I do know that Bobby's World is one of them, and at least one Repro site that will remain unmentioned, is asking ridiculous prices for copies of them. To my knowlege, the game was complete but release to manufacturing was cancelled; due the age of the once popular cartoon causing people to loose general interest in the intellectual property. I'm am not sure of any others that have been dumped / can be burned to a standard cart.

Someone needs to dump Sock's the cat, although that is another story.
I only know of one individual who will remain nameless that owns the only known proto of the game. As far as I know, the game was completed, but shelved due to the political content that went against Nintendo's rules at the time.

[Ziggy]

Well tell your nameless friend that if he wants the game dumped to a ROM image, I can do that.

There was another method I wanted to list but forgot. Actually, it doesn't exist (yet) but I have high hopes. Retro Zone makes very nice blank NES PCBs as found here and here. With these boards, you just have to drop in your chips and go. They're made to accept the pin out of a standard EPROM, so you don't have to mess around with rewiring as you would with a real NES board. They even sell a nice multi region lock out chip and different color cart cases.

Wouldn't it be great if Retro Zone would start making blank SNES boards? They recently came out with the SNES flash cart, so maybe one is already in the works. I plan to email Retro Zone to inquire about it.

[Troglodyte]

Well tell your nameless friend that if he wants the game dumped to a ROM image, I can do that.

Well, many have tried, but all have failed.
Agree with it or not, he is a well known proto-hoarder.
He will not dump proto's without an individual or combined donation.

Although, altogether another topic, I personally agree (at least in part) with this practice. First of all, proto's are usually very rare, and as a result, very expensive. In effect, dumping them, while aiding the community, it destroy's most of its resell value.

I for one would do two things if I ever acquired a proto:

1) If it has not been dumped yet, I would do so (pending #2).
(I know how to do this easily, at least with Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis and NES games). I would just need to acquire the hardware for the job and install it (I know where to get the best devices / system addon's for this task).

2) I would more than likely try and sell to the highest bidder. I would do this only after asking for a combined realistic donation to cover the unavoidable lose of income / possible income as a result of the sale of said proto(s). With that said. even after dumping, these proto's hold a decent amount of value vs a standard dumped ROM of an unreleased game or even an released game.

I plan to email Retro Zone to inquire about it.

Interestingly of note, I recently inquired about the possibility of him selling empty SNES cases. He replied (rather quickly mind you) with the following:

The red SNES cases will eventually be added to the site, but right now the supply is low so they are all needed for PowerPaks. I have to make sure they will fit all the standard SNES boards too.

He did not seem to address the availability of other colors in the future when prompted. I assume that the response to your question will be very similar. Though, I am very happy with the products I have purchased from him thus far, and plan to order more (I have not ordered any NES / SNES PowerPaks yet due to lack of available funds (unemployed atm), but will be ordering them at some point, pending a change in these circumstances and the resolution of current SNES PowerPak compatibility issues).

[bacteria]

I know you mentioned before that the pics were not from your work, but that doesn't matter, the fact is you have researched it and we know full well that you are more than capable of doing this mod yourself, and will do it no doubt, with improvements to the original design!

I think it would be very interesting to know the titles and any screenshots, if made, of unreleased games for the SNES, after all, if there is a ROM then a screenshot can be made. has details of the unreleased games but not much detail.

Regards that game, saw this on DigitalPress:





Looks like DreamTR on DigitalPress (as above) has a promo cart, and lives in Nashville by the looks of it.

This site has details on the game: [url=http://www.snescentral.com/article.php?id=0094]HERE

BTW - found this pic on the above site from an advert apparently - this looks like it was going to be the proper packaging:

[Ziggy]

I know you mentioned before that the pics were not from your work, but that doesn't matter, the fact is you have researched it and we know full well that you are more than capable of doing this mod yourself, and will do it no doubt, with improvements to the original design!

Yeah, I thought that's what you meant. I just wanted to be sure. Thanks!

BTW - found this pic on the above site from an advert apparently - this looks like it was going to be the proper packaging:

Yup, that's the photo I made my original label from. And that's the photo that Nintendo teased every one with in the Nintendo Power mag.

Interestingly of note, I recently inquired about the possibility of him selling empty SNES cases. He replied (rather quickly mind you) with the following:

Wow, I'll definitely email him then.

edit: typo

[Ziggy]

OK, so I was doing some more research and came up with a few things. The TSOP-DIP adapters are pretty easy to obtain. But some guy(s) got together and had a butt load made in China that are TSOP - Nintendo DIP so no rewiring is needed. Great, right?

But regular old TSOP-DIP adapters are apparently not very hard to find at all. In fact, I found a site (here) selling them for $7 each. Sure, they won't match up with the mask ROM pins, but remember those two methods I said that would be great for 1 or 2 chip games? That method would work great with this adapter board. And Allied Electronics stocks 29F032 chips (which would replace using four EPROMs) for about $18 each. So really, the price just about matches up.

And I read briefly in a few forums that my programmer might be able to write a 29F032 with an adapter that's not too expensive. I'm gonna contact the eBay seller that I bought my programmer from (they been VERY helpful with all of my questions) to inquire about buying the correct adapter. Hopefully, with any luck, I'll be able to make the repros much easier some time in the near future.

What's more, you really don't even need the adapter board. Although I probably wouldn't want to do it this way, you can just wire each pin of the 29F032 chip to the PCB (pretty much like what I've been doing). This would be good because the chip is very small and can easily fit inside the case. The bad part is that the pins are very small, and fragile. Breaking a pin is very easy to do. But, the adapter boards are cheap enough.

[MrPopo]

You know, you just reminded me of something (somewhat tangentally). You mentioned that in the list of games I was going to have you do some are HiROM and some are LoROM. What's the difference between the two, and can both be used with this new method you've discovered?

[Ziggy]

Short answer: Yes, it can be used with both.

HiROM and LoROM is just what we call the two main different PCB layouts (not including carts with special chips). It has to do with the way the game is mapped, and how the system reads the ROM image. It really only matters when you're using a donor cart. The games themselves were programmed to be mapped via a Hi or LoROM board, so if I try to put a LoROM game on a HiROM board it wont work. However both board layouts have the same mask ROM socket. You would wire a LoROM game just like a HiROM game (absolutely no difference). In your case, your putting a modified image of a game on it's original board, so you have nothing to worry about either way.

edit: Er, so I was jumping the gun a little with the "new" method. The 29F032 chip is 40 pins, the SNES mask ROM socket is 36 pins. Normal TSOP-DIP adapters are just 36-36 pin or 40-40 pins. These guys had a special 40-36 pin adapter made up.

I guess I'll have to send out some emails and figure out just how the 40 pin chip gets wired to the 36 pin socket. I'd be happy enough if I know how to wire the 29F032 chip in with OUT the adapter board, it would still make life easier.

second edit: OK, so you can just straight up wire the 29f032 pins to the corresponding locations on the SNES board and ignore the "extra" pins as they're either dups or only used during programming/erasure.

[Troglodyte]

I know that there were a lot of SNES games that were canceled or unreleased, but I don't know if there's ROMs for them and if so how complete the game is.

Sorry to shoot back a few threads. But I just found a wealth of information about verified prototype SNES games that have been dumped / un-dumped, and I thought I would share the info.

UNRELEASED SNES PROTOTYPES (that have been dumped):

- Apocalypse II
- Arcus Spirits / Odyssey
- Barbie Vacation Adventure
- Batman - Revenge of the Joker
- Batman (really shitty Batman)
- Bobby's World
- Congo - The Secret of Zinj
- Corn Buster
- Eurit
- Fireteam Rogue
- Iron Commando (European version)
- Jelly Boy 2
- Little Magic (European version)
- Mick & Mack - Global Gladiators
- Mickey's Playtown Adventure - A Day of Discovery!
- Mr Tuff
- Mr. Bloopy - Saves the World
- Muhammad Ali Boxing
- Nightmare Busters
- Power Slide
- Prime
- Rally: The Final Round of the World Rally Championship
- Rap Basketball
- RHI Roller Hockey '95
- Spellcraft
- Star Fox 2
- Steven Seagal is the Final Option
- Super Shadow of the Beast
- Sylvester and Tweety
- The Firemen (US version)
- The Shadow
- Tinhead
- Universal Soldier
- Untitled NFL Football game by Sculptured Software
- Wile E Coyote's Revenge

English Translations:

-Seiken Densetsu 3 (Secret of Mana 2)
-Dragon Quest 5
-Dragon Quest 6

This information was acquired via the SNES section of the Nintendo AGE forums:
http://www.nintendoage.com/forum/messag ... adid=25386

Also of possible interest for those who are not aware, is the great website that goes by the name http://www.SNESCentral.com.

I hope at least some of you find this information useful / interesting.
I certainly wasn't aware that many of these games even existed / were acquired and dumped prototypes found in the wild.