Famicombox Ice Hockey and Volleyball

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togemet2
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Re: Famicombox Ice Hockey and Volleyball

Post by togemet2 »

Fiskbit wrote: Mon May 16, 2022 8:34 am I was shown an image that has a few more FamicomBox games I haven't seen mentioned anywhere: Spartan X, Spelunker, Star Luster, and Xevious. I don't know if I'd take this as proof that they're authentic; notably, the image also has Famicom controllers, so the setup isn't 100% stock. If these are genuine, though, I don't expect them to differ from the consumer versions because all 4 are present in the menu database. That also means they'd be easier to fake, because they wouldn't require any change to the ROM.
I currently see no reason to believe that these are fake. Swapping out the controllers is probably quite a common thing due to heavy use and yellowing. I found this image of what appears to be the same unit, all games are in the same slots. Thanks to the nicer quality of the image, we can see that the 5th game inserted into the FamicomBox is Clu Clu Land.

If we look closely, we can see that each label has faded differently, which possibly suggests that they were pulled from multiple systems and put together. Clu Clu Land is quite faded, which could prove it's legitimacy, same with Star Luster. Spartan X, Spelunker, and Xevious look much nicer than the others, but it doesn't exactly rule them out as fakes just yet.
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Fiskbit
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Re: Famicombox Ice Hockey and Volleyball

Post by Fiskbit »

Punch-Out!! and 1943 have been released. 1943 has turned out to be pretty interesting. The game is essentially unchanged; there are just header differences, intended to make the title show up correctly. The cartridge that was dumped had no nametable setting at all; both the H and V pads were unconnected. On a normal system, that should result in CIRAM A10 floating. On the FamicomBox, though, CIRAM A10 is slot-multiplexed, and the muxer should pull the line high, resulting in a single screen B arrangement. In terms of on-screen effect, single screen B should have the same incorrect results as the horizontal arrangement seen on a PCB linked earlier in this thread.
kmg
Posts: 63
Joined: Tue Dec 07, 2021 10:12 pm

Re: Famicombox Ice Hockey and Volleyball

Post by kmg »

Wow, I can't remember ever seeing any board with neither H/V pad soldered. Surprising manufacturing errors/quality control issues for big N. I wonder if all the 1943 cartridges got misconfigured like our two examples and how they went from one error to a different error without noticing? Thanks Lina, togemet2, Fiskbit, et al.
Fiskbit
Posts: 891
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Re: Famicombox Ice Hockey and Volleyball

Post by Fiskbit »

Regarding the new releases:

- Punch-Out!! is based on Punch-Out!! (USA) (the Mr. Dream version), with the only differences being in the Nintendo header. The PRG and CHR checksums have been filled in with correct values, and the header validation byte has been updated to match.

- 1943 is based on 1943 - The Battle of Valhalla (Japan), with the only differences being in the Nintendo header. The title encoding byte has been changed from JIS X 0201 to ASCII (though this should have no effect on the characters used in this title, and the FamicomBox ignores this, anyway), the title length has been changed from $04 (5 bytes, but the title is 1943 (4 characters) and left-aligned) to $0F (16 bytes), and the header validation byte has been updated to match. Notably, this title is left-justified, but padded incorrectly. Spaces should be used for padding, but this uses $FF. $FF is the star tile for the background starfield, but with the palette used, it won't be visible on the menu except when the pink highlight is running across the title, which makes this use a visible color. [Edit: Also, the font used for the title has an opaque background to prevent the starfield from showing through, but tile $FF does not, so stars are visible in the 12 tiles following the 1943 title.]


I took a look at Donald Land and Kame no Ongaeshi, the last two games we're aware of that would be likely to have unique FamicomBox revisions. Both have a Nintendo header already, but both have some problems.

- Kame no Ongaeshi's header is almost correct, except that the title length is 1 shorter than the actual title length ($0C, or 13 bytes, but the title is KAMENOONGAESHI, which is 14 bytes), so I'd expect its header to be updated to fix the title length, and the header validation byte changed to match.

- Donald Land seems to have a bad PRG checksum; it claims it should be $1BA1, but I calculate $1BA5. Its title length is also wrong; it's using a left-justified title, so the length should be $0F for 16 bytes, but is instead $10, which is invalid. The title used is DONALD LANDZ. I'd expect an updated header to fix the PRG checksum, fix the length, possibly replace the Z in the title with a space, and fix up the header validation byte to match.

Since both of these already have space allocated for a header and mostly-correct header contents, I'd guess we wouldn't see any more significant changes than header corrections.
marioxb
Posts: 9
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Re: Famicombox Ice Hockey and Volleyball

Post by marioxb »

I've downloaded maybe 13 of the Famicombox roms from archive.org and none of them play on fceum. I get an error that I've deduced is normally received when the header is missing, or possibly incorrect. Do I need to add/change headers to get these FamBox games running in standard emulators?
Fiskbit
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Joined: Sat Nov 18, 2017 9:15 pm

Re: Famicombox Ice Hockey and Volleyball

Post by Fiskbit »

The ROMs should have standard iNES or NES 2.0 headers; they don't make use of any FamicomBox-specific hardware and will run normally on a standard console or emulator. ROM sets on archive.org may not have correct headers, though oftentimes users don't notice because some emulators silently ignore the header if they have a known-good one in a header database.

There is a database of correct NES 2.0 headers and a script that can use that database to correct ROM headers. I haven't used it, but it sounds like it may be useful to you. However, the latest update looks like it's too old to contain some of these dumps; I'm asking others if there is an updated version and will post again if there is.

That said, most of the FamicomBox ROMs are identical to a standard consumer version or differ only by adding metadata for the FamicomBox that is unused by the game itself. Volleyball and Pro Wrestling are probably the most compelling because they're cartridge variants of games that were disk-only in Japan. Gradius and TwinBee could have meaningful differences, but it's hard to say (and if I had to guess, I'd guess they don't).
marioxb
Posts: 9
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Re: Famicombox Ice Hockey and Volleyball

Post by marioxb »

Thanks! Yeah, mainly I was after Volleyball and Pro Wrestling, and just wanted to see if the others had any differences. To sum up, basically those two are FDS to NES conversions, and Ice Hockey and Punch-Out!! are US versions. Pretty much everything else is the same as the standard Famicom version. Some games have internal changes for the FamicomBox itself, that wouldn't be noticeable in gameplay.

I'll try that header repair tool, though I've never messed with Python, so I dont know how far I'll get there. But as far as Volleyball and Pro Wrestling, there are hacks that recreate the FDS versions as NES versions:
https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/6397/
https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/6404/

I guess those hacks would pretty much accomplish the same thing as having the FamicomBox version roms, though I'm not sure if there are other differences between the FDS and NES versions that aren't covered in the hacks.

Thanks again! I like to collect different variations, like these and PlayChoice-10 versions (Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!, NES Open, Rad Racer and Nintendo World Cup have differences off the top of my head) and things like that. I'd really like to have the NSO localized title screen version of Mystery Tower (aka Tower of Babel), though it uses a runtime patch to accomplish the title change, which I don't think anyone has been able to extract yet.
Fiskbit
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Re: Famicombox Ice Hockey and Volleyball

Post by Fiskbit »

NewRisingSun said that an update to the NES 2.0 header database is likely coming in a few weeks; I believe that one will contain headers for all of the dumped FamicomBox games. So, when that's out, you should be able to repair all these ROMs with the script. I haven't used this script before, but it looks pretty simple. I'm not sure what the best way to run Python is natively on Windows, but I normally just use Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL2), which makes installing and running python very easy.
RetroGE
Posts: 2
Joined: Sun Sep 17, 2023 2:18 pm

Re: Famicombox Ice Hockey and Volleyball

Post by RetroGE »

Fiskbit wrote: Thu Mar 10, 2022 4:19 am Yeah, FamicomStation carts are gray instead of black. They also use the standard (I think?) mold, which does not say SSS V-2 on the back.
I’m not convinced the gray carts are Famicom Station exclusives. I actually think they are earlier prints of games. I’ve seen a couple boxed Famicom Stations sell with black carts.
RetroGE
Posts: 2
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Re: Famicombox Ice Hockey and Volleyball

Post by RetroGE »

Fiskbit wrote: Thu Mar 10, 2022 12:31 am Thanks to RetroGE, we now have another set of dumps. While there is significant overlap with the previous set, there is still some new and exciting stuff here.

Code: Select all

Argos no Senshi (Japan) (FamicomBox)
Size (Bytes):       131072
CRC32:              FBA8113B
MD5:                30AF13C3232B1EDDA99E0F87DD2AB063
SHA1:               511A4AD60B87E3DEF630C45910B41EEE1F45B850
SHA256:             BE9C5F7F34313C0E6913E8AC271A6F660B7DC07D6A06C78022D286299090B379

Baseball (Japan) (FamicomBox) = Baseball (Japan) (En)
Size (Bytes):       24576
CRC32:              78A48B23
MD5:                E7AD2EEC634820B0CE3FD11BC76E64C4
SHA1:               88102904E085DFFD8B795A0F853F8CD063AA2FDC
SHA256:             A0FE077A6F0BABF27B691E42DB79CB4FC580A2F358F679B996FB17C2B0A68F59

Baseball (Japan) (FamicomBox) = Baseball (Japan) (En)
Size (Bytes):       24576
CRC32:              78A48B23
MD5:                E7AD2EEC634820B0CE3FD11BC76E64C4
SHA1:               88102904E085DFFD8B795A0F853F8CD063AA2FDC
SHA256:             A0FE077A6F0BABF27B691E42DB79CB4FC580A2F358F679B996FB17C2B0A68F59

Donkey Kong (Japan) (FamicomBox) = Donkey Kong (World) (Rev 1)
Size (Bytes):       24576
CRC32:              6F97C721
MD5:                6D4A94C344463E562344249E18E9B99F
SHA1:               D222DBBA5BD3716BBF62CA91167C6A9D15C60065
SHA256:             AA408F5A6B97C0D738E7E8B489A5617AD4A9ECDEE2B05C4EE504210CE31B2825

Duck Hunt (Japan) (FamicomBox) = Duck Hunt (World)
Size (Bytes):       24576
CRC32:              24598791
MD5:                FA382374EB4A93A719064CA6C5A4E78C
SHA1:               FB853A77E02F1CEAE933DFF762CD0C2F6E0B2E27
SHA256:             7026334A7E8742B61B450F4B3B182922C6A69FC723D7CD19C83DB365F15E45BA

F1 Race (Japan) (FamicomBox) = F1 Race (Japan)
Size (Bytes):       24576
CRC32:              E0604F76
MD5:                FE6E13D1382F94DC0A5391053C4096BC
SHA1:               D6D82CF48D97BD5702F17B3DDF6D06392A31A7E3
SHA256:             E9AAB85FD91822B9DC7A89997EDA3415E45A07FE21580C0DF4765CE392E63824

Fighting Golf (Japan) (FamicomBox)
NOTE: CHR CHIP WAS REPLACED WITH RELEASE CHR. PRG IS ORIGINAL.
Size (Bytes):       262144
CRC32:              9FF3089B
MD5:                EB3DB185CAC18067D308E81CE73997BA
SHA1:               C68E559D34E42750E0BF08C3D3BE4D9245581D02
SHA256:             AF692581ABB78BECD0A5353EABAF93FB12C25C24365E01D8AB56E07C19D699B4

Golf (Japan) (FamicomBox) = Golf (Japan) (En)
Size (Bytes):       24576
CRC32:              5C9063E0
MD5:                7915989354F8B96E10AA4A6D0E163C55
SHA1:               CE5CE75848FCE78807441386B1430BA0F8F22EEE
SHA256:             12C99EF93F7BF1EAACE749B38E5B63BCA1B9885FD7680C14DFCC20C3637D6AA5

Gomoku Narabe Renju (Japan) (FamicomBox) =  Gomoku Narabe (Japan)
Size (Bytes):       24576
CRC32:              4A99B47E
MD5:                B501844DD9CF3364FE376BE19BE979A1
SHA1:               F37AA34F80A6D87C121271A99E78B2416983FBBC
SHA256:             100FE2B085E3D57DC1A8F1CEA44A31766E8C81C50A6083BF16687DCD1B6219F4

Gradius (Japan) (FamicomBox)
Size (Bytes):       65536
CRC32:              0E48BA0A
MD5:                0FCB7A26B30F597F4A279E06242C6CCF
SHA1:               CC122D22EC85C43012D61C830F4D47082D7CDEC8
SHA256:             11B8E690A5D9BD735349F2842C96760D4EF62B07F09526179C0444FA25EB1834

Hogan's Alley (Japan) (FamicomBox) =  Hogan's Alley (World)
Size (Bytes):       24576
CRC32:              FF24D794
MD5:                DEE8757582E0575C5F729AAE60B1DCBB
SHA1:               C200D0BF8914B2116720BF8A29B5521C3CEFA36A
SHA256:             8E4A04076B6A728A7E65A09737776DCB9DEFED7922BF0437D9A89BBE8C724B55

Ice Hockey (Japan) (FamicomBox) = Ice Hockey (USA)
Size (Bytes):       40960
CRC32:              AE64CA77
MD5:                51BE3C0DB685F71F4A69C573345310A2
SHA1:               40262A15EE764F676E752C90626A2F61DA370A1A
SHA256:             B59B46AAAA6B382D61B3E108D0CB83FDA65932A1729800043C37F049AA0F43BF

Mahjong (Japan) (FamicomBox) =  Mahjong (Japan) (Rev 2)
Size (Bytes):       24576
CRC32:              23D91BC6
MD5:                38ABEEE1B7148A5FF13F8F2EF6AB22E9
SHA1:               1128ED677399F969E25D9453320B85EF3D3BA35A
SHA256:             0986E9E8057C476AFF3726AAC6B1B7698E8E6DE77530F394B8BE2E5B5CAF9BEA

Makaimura (Japan) (FamicomBox) = Makaimura (Japan)
Size (Bytes):       131072
CRC32:              BF3635CF
MD5:                9346EBEC7FB8C5C61F937CA46A096C69
SHA1:               F8B38262C2AC00CF4E3E653F2987BDADC86F839E
SHA256:             C75201CFACD2EBD3F6376CD84D6AF27BD2B9E42CDFDAAD2AECA6252F3214B53C

Mario Bros. (Japan) (FamicomBox) = Mario Bros. (World)
Size (Bytes):       24576
CRC32:              C4C3949A
MD5:                B51085D9AB4267746A9ED6FC609A98D0
SHA1:               BF43D93D36D7198E65B9B7C4E41DB108FE43FCBA
SHA256:             0CC334007D3EAE698CDCD034D12EC9BAB2B5266E85BC703CF24CCB4E2D63B654

Ninja Ryuukenden (Japan) (FamicomBox)
Size (Bytes):       262144
CRC32:              8528E509
MD5:                32D0FA1E344D70F343F0C7707A25637F
SHA1:               931DC1D8D517A71549EFBCAB9BFD62061BA85071
SHA256:             1517CF31146739F6D528598310AEAB0BBA8A0ADB7CB77038B4DAE2DDF2A0033A

Pro Wres (Japan) (FamicomBox)
Size (Bytes):       131072
CRC32:              01609F57
MD5:                BAE1775F41AE2BE500813773E3853591
SHA1:               6522D58F58E57EF293D1D9DF1E36B95E9266148B
SHA256:             32EE7A7F8B827018A9D7D4031430003EA716172D537B9B90E286E333A8BA7345

Rockman (Japan) (FamicomBox) = Rockman (Japan) (En)
Size (Bytes):       131072
CRC32:              D31DC910
MD5:                8D5A61F42D92EE61D05083263A11FCA1
SHA1:               EA93F3F2FD561C1CEE59AD51CFCB10F3DD83766F
SHA256:             05117C775581EB63F7686F58C24F1C9DA0FA0669EEDE1E7BAD12EED40E58935E

Soccer League - Winner's Cup (Japan) (FamicomBox) = Soccer League - Winner's Cup (Japan)
Size (Bytes):       262144
CRC32:              8D3C33B3
MD5:                D5EAC9D916F1A191D35A2E08FF9011C6
SHA1:               58D5706205299570666047B124D6F89786A238B0
SHA256:             B47462459841D2AAE3E2B10CA85ACA70A395E0BA7F1AD51A10F758BEDDA894FE

Super Chinese 2 (Japan) (FamicomBox) = Super Chinese 2 - Dragon Kid (Japan)
Size (Bytes):       262144
CRC32:              26BFED27
MD5:                F0F1D4CEC71B29C68B1F819E1C480258
SHA1:               950031A1A44DFE6929E5EFC128DAD72F3C65FF27
SHA256:             289A34391920C29D9903C75BC303031FA0558C7ED20EC6307712BF8811F1B28B

Super Mario Bros. (Japan) (FamicomBox) = Super Mario Bros. (World)
Size (Bytes):       40960
CRC32:              D445F698
MD5:                8E3630186E35D477231BF8FD50E54CDD
SHA1:               FACEE9C577A5262DBE33AC4930BB0B58C8C037F7
SHA256:             FCB6A0EF3A20C19B356005FBB21DC8009563B1CB5A9AAEBC8E9386B4A8C5912E

Takahashi Meijin no Bouken-jima (Japan) (FamicomBox) = Takahashi Meijin no Bouken-jima (Japan)
Size (Bytes):       65536
CRC32:              6A457A43
MD5:                40F6D92E060DE6E1BFB74183461ECE26
SHA1:               C29DB95E06FC258CA45C029AF10CAA0C48B416BE
SHA256:             1E6D5548A54A0DB31A13E05B604AFAFD8F9402B47079D708E7BF2CF8582E2AC5

Tennis (Japan) (FamicomBox) = Tennis (Japan, USA)
Size (Bytes):       24576
CRC32:              D4D9E21A
MD5:                32A5E44B320AE588F560196E49BA13C6
SHA1:               DC851C8DD5F7D6B402D1402C4239400A88382A1F
SHA256:             8DA7129BBA8C61A5BA1CD7CE02932EA4CEFBB12DB75C517C14D96819FC57F299

TwinBee (Japan) (FamicomBox)
Size (Bytes):       49152
CRC32:              53D32862
MD5:                5CC195B999B0A375A940309482645460
SHA1:               B3220111BE7A9AD00E82145314993EBF043E58EC
SHA256:             453AE3890B5C3D205D7ED84CA2333640D70D33EE48C1AA182DAA69AFFE9D07C7

Volleyball (Japan) (FamicomBox)
Size (Bytes):       40960
CRC32:              E9EE81E1
MD5:                5607158055B0E2C75C521FBEA812D642
SHA1:               2264262D4EE3F7389902AC3173EFC56247330D58
SHA256:             8163D472C9A8B4281930529146B9A54139E12DA391A5A6C3708F7749A8D2C918

Wild Gunman (Japan) (FamicomBox) = Wild Gunman (World) (Rev 1)
Size (Bytes):       24576
CRC32:              5112DC21
MD5:                4635D8D82A86E8B99390A0586C96D536
SHA1:               598958B8253CB1E6319D351B8FC50A169D863472
SHA256:             ADFF304553B64384F86F6C2B63571F43972B9D087F92359A1B9B93B54D523542

Wrecking Crew (Japan) (FamicomBox) = Wrecking Crew (World)
Size (Bytes):       40960
CRC32:              9B506A48
MD5:                E7D7225DAD044B624FBAD9C9CA96E835
SHA1:               DEE513DAD7223CFC81BCD859D0AAC6746349CB25
SHA256:             F1EB29DD1C7B2B29F4932DF853F32A7560BBFE64997281AA79F61BA9F131FB17



FamicomStation:
Baseball (Japan) (FamicomStation) = Baseball (Japan) (En)
Size (Bytes):       24576
CRC32:              78A48B23
MD5:                E7AD2EEC634820B0CE3FD11BC76E64C4
SHA1:               88102904E085DFFD8B795A0F853F8CD063AA2FDC
SHA256:             A0FE077A6F0BABF27B691E42DB79CB4FC580A2F358F679B996FB17C2B0A68F59

Donkey Kong (Japan) (FamicomStation) = Donkey Kong (World) (Rev 1)
Size (Bytes):       24576
CRC32:              6F97C721
MD5:                6D4A94C344463E562344249E18E9B99F
SHA1:               D222DBBA5BD3716BBF62CA91167C6A9D15C60065
SHA256:             AA408F5A6B97C0D738E7E8B489A5617AD4A9ECDEE2B05C4EE504210CE31B2825

Duck Hunt (Japan) (FamicomStation) = Duck Hunt (World)
Size (Bytes):       24576
CRC32:              24598791
MD5:                FA382374EB4A93A719064CA6C5A4E78C
SHA1:               FB853A77E02F1CEAE933DFF762CD0C2F6E0B2E27
SHA256:             7026334A7E8742B61B450F4B3B182922C6A69FC723D7CD19C83DB365F15E45BA

Golf (Japan) (FamicomStation) = Golf (Japan) (En)
Size (Bytes):       24576
CRC32:              5C9063E0
MD5:                7915989354F8B96E10AA4A6D0E163C55
SHA1:               CE5CE75848FCE78807441386B1430BA0F8F22EEE
SHA256:             12C99EF93F7BF1EAACE749B38E5B63BCA1B9885FD7680C14DFCC20C3637D6AA5

Mahjong (Japan) (FamicomStation) =  Mahjong (Japan) (Rev 2)
Size (Bytes):       24576
CRC32:              23D91BC6
MD5:                38ABEEE1B7148A5FF13F8F2EF6AB22E9
SHA1:               1128ED677399F969E25D9453320B85EF3D3BA35A
SHA256:             0986E9E8057C476AFF3726AAC6B1B7698E8E6DE77530F394B8BE2E5B5CAF9BEA

Mario Bros. (Japan) (FamicomStation) = Mario Bros. (World)
Size (Bytes):       24576
CRC32:              C4C3949A
MD5:                B51085D9AB4267746A9ED6FC609A98D0
SHA1:               BF43D93D36D7198E65B9B7C4E41DB108FE43FCBA
SHA256:             0CC334007D3EAE698CDCD034D12EC9BAB2B5266E85BC703CF24CCB4E2D63B654

Super Mario Bros. (Japan) (FamicomStation) = Super Mario Bros. (World)
Size (Bytes):       40960
CRC32:              D445F698
MD5:                8E3630186E35D477231BF8FD50E54CDD
SHA1:               FACEE9C577A5262DBE33AC4930BB0B58C8C037F7
SHA256:             FCB6A0EF3A20C19B356005FBB21DC8009563B1CB5A9AAEBC8E9386B4A8C5912E

Tennis (Japan) (FamicomStation) = Tennis (Japan, USA)
Size (Bytes):       24576
CRC32:              D4D9E21A
MD5:                32A5E44B320AE588F560196E49BA13C6
SHA1:               DC851C8DD5F7D6B402D1402C4239400A88382A1F
SHA256:             8DA7129BBA8C61A5BA1CD7CE02932EA4CEFBB12DB75C517C14D96819FC57F299

Wild Gunman (Japan) (FamicomStation) = Wild Gunman (World) (Rev 1)
Size (Bytes):       24576
CRC32:              5112DC21
MD5:                4635D8D82A86E8B99390A0586C96D536
SHA1:               598958B8253CB1E6319D351B8FC50A169D863472
SHA256:             ADFF304553B64384F86F6C2B63571F43972B9D087F92359A1B9B93B54D523542

Wrecking Crew (Japan) (FamicomStation) = Wrecking Crew (World)
Size (Bytes):       40960
CRC32:              9B506A48
MD5:                E7D7225DAD044B624FBAD9C9CA96E835
SHA1:               DEE513DAD7223CFC81BCD859D0AAC6746349CB25
SHA256:             F1EB29DD1C7B2B29F4932DF853F32A7560BBFE64997281AA79F61BA9F131FB17
All of the games present in both sets of dumps match: Baseball, Donkey Kong, Duck Hunt, F1 Race, Fighting Golf*, Golf, Ice Hockey, Mahjong, Makaimura, Mario Bros., Pro Wres, Super Mario Bros, Takahashi Meijin no Bouken-jima, Tennis, Wild Gunman, Wrecking Crew. (*Fighting Golf's CHR chip was bad, but the previous dump only showed differences in the PRG, which this matches.)

This set also includes 10 FamicomStation dumps. All 10 of these match the FamicomBox equivalents: Baseball, Donkey Kong, Duck Hunt, Golf, Mahjong, Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros., Tennis, Wild Gunman, Wrecking Crew.

The new FamicomBox dumps in this set are: Argos no Senshi, Gomoku Narabe Renju, Gradius, Hogan's Alley, Ninja Ryuukenden, Rockman, Soccer League: Winner's Cup, Super Chinese 2, TwinBee, Volleyball. Of these, Gomoku Narabe Renju, Hogan's Alley, Rockman, Soccer League: Winner's Cup, and Super Chinese 2 match known releases.

Argos no Senshi is the same as Argos no Senshi - Hachamecha Daishingeki (Japan) aside from the Nintendo header added at PRG $1FFE0:
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 41 52 55 47 4F 53 55 66 4B 00 00 38 02 01 06 9B 24

Gradius' PRG has significant differences compared to Gradius (Japan). Things have been moved around so much that it's difficult to compare to see what meaningful changes there might be. A Nintendo header has been added at PRG $7FE0, which collides with data in the consumer release, necessitating at least some things moving. Header data:
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 47 52 41 44 49 55 53 C1 56 E7 F9 22 01 01 06 A4 52

Ninja Ryuukenden is the same as Ninja Ryuukenden (Japan) aside from the Nintendo header added at PRG $1FFE0:
4E 49 4E 4A 41 20 52 59 55 4B 45 4E 44 45 4E 20 FB 3A 00 FF 33 04 01 0F 9B 1F

TwinBee's PRG has significant differences compared to TwinBee (Japan). This looks similar in scope to the differences in Gradius. There's a version number and date in the consumer version at the start that isn't present here, which shifts everything forward 17 bytes. It looks like some of the startup code has been rewritten; memory clearing is now done differently. Not sure what else is different. There's now a header at PRG $7FE0:
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 54 57 49 4E 42 45 45 E2 AE B3 A0 21 81 01 06 A4 60

Volleyball, like Pro Wrestling, appears to be a unique cartridge version of the Japanese FDS release. The flags on the team select screen are in the same order as the FDS version, which means Japan is selected by default, which affects the left player on the title screen. Compared to the Volleyball (UE) cart release, the ROM is actually fairly similar. Some stuff at the end has been moved to free up space for the Nintendo header at PRG $7FE0. There's some weird code in the UE version at PRG $001A that will trigger an infinite loop if CHR $0178 is $1B, and otherwise writes $20 to $803D, like it expects to be on something other than NROM (and with bus conflicts). This code doesn't look like it's executed, though; it's jumped over. The FamicomBox version NOPs this whole section out, including the jump over it, so it'll execute the string of NOPs. There's some different palette data, probably for the reordered teams. Reordered team names. A few other changes I'm not sure about. Header data:
FF FF FF FF FF 56 4F 4C 4C 45 59 20 42 41 4C 4C 1A 28 7A 6C 20 00 01 0A 01 EE


I haven't yet seen photographs of the PCBs these dumps came from, so I can't yet verify if there's any weird situation like Knight Rider where extra banks were added at the start.


Edit: I've found that Volleyball was an overdump (8 KB CHR mirrored up to 16 KB). The hash and size information for it above has been corrected.
Not sure I shared pictures of the boards but I’m dumping more games today (Ice Climber and Punch Out) and will get pictures of all the boards.
Fiskbit
Posts: 891
Joined: Sat Nov 18, 2017 9:15 pm

Re: Famicombox Ice Hockey and Volleyball

Post by Fiskbit »

Pictures would be great! I'd really appreciate it. Thanks, too, for the data point regarding gray carts. Perhaps most of the FamicomStations were very early and so most had gray carts. This may also explain the SSS V-2 on the black carts; the gray ones may be considered V-1.
Fiskbit
Posts: 891
Joined: Sat Nov 18, 2017 9:15 pm

Re: Famicombox Ice Hockey and Volleyball

Post by Fiskbit »

famicombox.jp has a software list here that concludes there are 38 games (counting both variations of Punch-Out separately) and has most of the actual box sets, according to a sales flyer. Apparently there were 3 different 10-cart sets and the option to add an additional 5-cart set to the order. There is decent agreement with my guesses earlier in this thread. According to the flyer, these sets are:

System type set B:
Baseball
Donkey Kong
Duck Hunt
Golf
Mahjong
Mario Brothers
Super Mario Brothers
Tennis
Wild Gunman
Wrecking Crew

System type set C:
Baseball
Donkey Kong Jr.
Duck Hunt
Golf
Gomoku Narabe
Hogan's Alley
Mahjong
Mario Brothers
Super Mario Brothers
Wrecking Crew

System type set D:
Baseball
Duck Hunt
F1 Race
Golf
Mahjong
Makaimura
Pro Wres
Senjou no Ookami
Super Mario Brothers
Takahashi Meijin no Bouken-jima

Optional sales set D:
F1 Race
Makaimura
Pro Wres
Senjou no Ookami
Takahashi Meijin no Bouken-jima

Optional sales set E:
Argos no Senshi
Excitebike
Gradius
Twin Bee
Volleyball

Optional sales set G:
Fighting Golf
Ice Hockey
Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!
Ninja Ryuukenden
Rockman

Optional sales set H:
1943
Bomberman
Knight Rider
Super Chinese 2
Winner's Cup

This list is only 33 games. The games not included are:

Devil World
Donald Land
Kame no Ongaeshi
Ice Climber
Punch-Out!!

It's speculated these were offered as another set of 5, which is totally plausible, though I'm not necessarily convinced. For example, I've seen set E in a console with Ice Climber instead of Excitebike, but have also seen a boxed set with Excitebike that was called "SSS-E Type (H2)". It's possible there were multiple versions of some of these sets with games swapped out. I would also expect Punch-Out!! to be swapped into set G in place of the Mike Tyson version, rather than offered in another set entirely unless the earlier set was discontinued by this time. Finally, I've seen in the past a set of manuals that suggested that Devil World, Donkey Kong Jr., Gomoku Narabe, Hogan's Alley, and Ice Climber were sold together at one time, maybe as a set of 5 (which might make sense, given how rare set C is compared to B and D) or with Devil World and Ice Climber swapped into set C in place of two others. Unfortunately, that would then leave us with no idea where Donald Land and Kame no Ongaeshi fit in. Perhaps coincidentally, these two appear to be the rarest games for the platform.

There's also the possibility that there was yet one more set, as indicated by the picture togement found with a console featuring these 5 otherwise-unseen games:

Clu Clu Land
Spartan X
Spelunker
Star Luster
Xevious


Unrelatedly, I've now seen a third copy of 1943's PCB, and this one also has no pad selecting mirroring. I'm skeptical any of these were produced with the correct mirroring configuration, though I find it very strange that it was produced with two different wrong configurations.
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