New here! And I come bearing gifts!

[Ragnarokandroll]

Hi guys!

I'm a newcomer to these boards, and I wanted to say hello. I've dabbled in programming, but I'm certainly no expert and have only really used very...erm...basic languages, although extensively. NES and SNES dev are, to me, the ultimate because of the inherent difficulty level. It's like I was reading Stephen King my whole life and just tried to tackle Finnegan's Wake.

A bit about me:
I'm living in Los Angeles, where I mostly do sound work for film, TV, and video games.

I was working at a game dev studio, and while there had the chance to grab some stuff they were throwing away. I'm not sure how useful it would be, but I managed to rescue from the trash bin, a red binder upon which the words "SNES MANUAL" were scrawled. Inside is what appears to be an official manual for SNES programmers to reference, and I find it endlessly fascinating, if a bit abstract and difficult to comprehend.

In all likelihood you all probably have one of these already...but if not, and if it'd be alright and canny in the eyes of the law, I could potentially scan it.

The sections include:
Part 1 - SNES software
(Object, Background, Mosaic, Rotation/Enlargement/Reduction, Main/Subscreen, Offset Change, Joy Controller, Direct Memory Access, CPU Clock and Address Map, etc)

Part 2 - SNES Sound
(Bit Rate Reduction, I/O ports, Control Register)

Part 3 - SNES CPU data
(Explanation of CPU Terminal functions, explanation of functions, addressing mode, Command Set, Cycles and Bytes of Addressing Modes, etc)

Part 4 - Accessories
(Super scope, Hyper mouse)

Along with several appendixes.

At the very least, with the information I've provided, would some of the more knowledgable people here be able to say what exactly can be yielded, knowledge wise, from these pages? Thanks!

[tepples]

I'm no lawyer. But from a legal standpoint, it'd probably be better to reword things in your own words if at all possible and compare against information found at Super Famicom Wiki and Fullsnes.

Is "Hyper mouse" the same peripheral that shipped with Mario Paint and is described here?

[rainwarrior]

I would just scan it and put it up. In my estimation, the most probable legal action that will be taken against you is none at all, but second to that would be a takedown request, which is usually very easy to comply with.

I'm no more a lawyer than tepples is. I just think it's a reasonable risk to take, and if I were in your shoes I would do it.

[Ragnarokandroll]

I definitely don't even want to kind of risk getting in trouble...I will say that in reading the manual, as a trained english major with little understanding of SNES development, it seems that it's written from the perspective of already being familiar with ASM and assumes a preliminary level of NES development knowledge. Each aforementioned section is very brief and seems to be a desk reference.

But to answer the other question, yes - the "hyper mouse" seems to be internal language to describe the mario paint mouse, as there is an illustration of it on the accessories page.

It also makes mention of "3d glass" peripheral, which I found interesting.

It might make sense to wait on it though...I'm working on establishing a career in game development out here and don't want to dice anything.

[rainwarrior]

By the way, I don't want you to feel like I'm pushing you to release this stuff. I don't even have a dog in this fight, as I don't do SNES dev. I'm only offering my opinion on the severity of the risk you would be taking, which I think is rather low.

Anyhow, I certainly find no fault in preferring zero risk to a non-zero risk in this case.

[thefox]

It could happen that some anonymous person who happens to have the same docs happens to upload them somewhere. And once they're out there, there's no taking them back.

[tepples]

If you do find a discrepancy between the official manual and the community docs, it might be worthwhile to find someone willing to write test ROMs that can tell the difference between how bsnes and NO$SNS implement a feature and how the same feature works on a Super NES with a PowerPak or EverDrive.

[koitsu]

The information being discussed is already available in PDF format on a particular site. I don't like "publicly" disclosing where that is because I'm certain the day Nintendo finds it it'll disappear. The PDFs consist of two books: the first covers console behaviour/features, MMIO documentation, review of SPC700 (audio/sound) and its behaviour, a small overview of the CPU, and some general example code as well as official ROM submission sheets / compliance forms. The 2nd covers the SA-1, the SuperFX, the DSP1, accessories (Mouse, Super Scope, MultiPlayer input, etc.), and that's about it (the TOC implies a little more, but it's missing -- someone either didn't have it, pages were damaged, or who knows).

And I also have a printed hard-copy of documentation that alludes to what's been mentioned, including CPU opcodes and so on (which we already know -- nothing new/surprising here). The PDFs don't have that. So for me, a combination of the two is effective.

The official documentation went through numerous revisions, and at some point was split into separate "books" (literally the cover pages say that). Earlier documentation didn't have that -- it was just a gigantic tome.

What really matters is what version/release date of the documentation is that you have. Some releases (older) contained a datestamp on each page or every other page (I'd have to check -- my printed manual has this for example), while the PDF versions I mention have none of that, but have a copyright date as late as 1995. To my knowledge the PDFs are the last version that were ever provided to dev companies.

Finally, I'll state that I'm already out on a limb even stating any of this at all. Nintendo got "sensitive" back in the 90s about my public-domain documentation (I've mentioned this before in a thread here, byuu was curious what all transpired I think) -- they sent me a legal notice of sorts. It wasn't anything definitive like a C&D, but more along the lines of "you're treading on thin ice, we don't like this, choose wisely". And while that was maybe 16-17 years ago, I'm certain my name coming up again would ring some bells with them. If they ever bothered me, I'd give in and comply with whatever they demanded -- I am not in a position (especially health-wise) to withstand any kind of legal battle of any sort (because even if you win the battle in court, you're still financially destroyed for the rest of your life).

I can assure you that public disclosure of their documentation would result in legal action period, assuming they can track you down (for example, if they read this thread, they would almost certainly subpoena the site owner (WhoaMan), and if I remember right he hosts this stuff at his workplace, and I can assure you that would not look good). Nintendo, along with lots of other companies (Sega, Namco, Atari, etc.) hire third-party companies to do this kind of sleuthing (I've already seen it in action back when I ran Parodius and we got a takedown notice regarding a homebrew ROM with Pac-Man sprites in it). They themselves don't even do the work, they just say "go find the source of this", the companies go and do the heavy lifting, return the results, and legal departments do the rest.

In short what I'm trying to say is: I'm glad you come bearing gifts, but doing so publicly probably isn't a wise idea. The way documentation like this got distributed in the 90s was through underground means, and purely done via word-of-mouth or someone approaching a specific individual who they felt they could trust and would say "I'd like to send you a three-ring binder of something you might find helpful", giving them an address, and magic things appear in the mail in a couple weeks.

So, I guess along the same lines as what Nintendo effectively told me, I'll pass on to you: choose wisely.

[whicker]

Ragnarokandroll,

Hope you didn't get scared off.


Part 3 - SNES CPU data isn't out in the wild.
(talking about explanation of CPU Terminal functions, explanation of fuctions). Granted there are better opcode books directly available from the company in Irvine, CA that made the chip. However, the SNES CPU has some really obscure pins, typically not connected to anything or connected to ground, but it still would be nice to know those official pin names and functional description.


But like Koitsu asked, are there any dates on the pages or a document version?

Also, do you have any additional appendixes?
What is available already (paraphrased) is:
A The video chip memory locations
B The main processor locations
C The sound chip
D and transferring to the sound chip.


Do you know what's often most valuable? Hand scrawled notes of frustration about a passage being wrong, or extra pages added in that don't look like the others. Any of that?

[koitsu]

EDIT: Well crap, I went and got my paper manual copy -- sure enough there are pinout diagrams (and very bare-bones -- it's about useless), and a timing diagram, along with opcode descriptions and all the stuff the WDC docs + David Eyes/Ron Lichty book covers much more thoroughly. If people want the former... uh, well... magic has been known to happen, there are little birdies everywhere... (I'm sure those clever enough will know what to do ;) )

[whicker]

darn. no new info. oh well.
Thanks for taking the time to verify, Koitsu.

[alphamule]

The information being discussed is already available in PDF format on a particular site. I don't like "publicly" disclosing where that is because I'm certain the day Nintendo finds it it'll disappear. The PDFs consist of two books: the first covers console behaviour/features, MMIO documentation, review of SPC700 (audio/sound) and its behaviour, a small overview of the CPU, and some general example code as well as official ROM submission sheets / compliance forms. The 2nd covers the SA-1, the SuperFX, the DSP1, accessories (Mouse, Super Scope, MultiPlayer input, etc.), and that's about it (the TOC implies a little more, but it's missing -- someone either didn't have it, pages were damaged, or who knows).

Surely not a certain Chinese site starting with B, right?
Seriously though, in 2014, OP already messed up by posting this in public view... Google is NOT your friend when you are trying to be anonymous. I would have just posted a link on Freenet and let it pass virally... Eventually, someone would repost/mention it here if it was different. Oh, well, we'll all know this next time.

[Sik]

Seriously though, in 2014, OP already messed up by posting this in public view...

And also koitsu by admitting he knows where to get the documents (now Nintendo can just ask him where the site is to shut down the site).

But I know the docs were already in at least two different sites (no, I don't remember the addresses, I just clicked and didn't bother further =P), and they're probably scattered around in more, so it's probably not as bad as it seems.

[alphamule]

They probably already knew...

[koitsu]

No the site isn't a certain Chinese site starting with a B, but I'm certain you could find stuff there too. ;) (I guess my 4 years of Mandarin comes in handy once in a while...)

And I doubt Nintendo would actually ask me *where*, I think they'd more likely just go through usual legal means and send C&D or subpoena information from the site owner (WhoaMan) who wouldn't know jack squat (really) about any of it. I mean what would they ask him for, the IPs of us all? That doesn't really tell them anything about where the docs are or who hosts them -- but they ain't hosted here (I can assure you that, 100% honest).

If they did bother me, I'd respond (at least first time around) something to the effect of "Seriously? They're available using Google, no joke. Takes only a few minutes to find the site, then about 5-10 to find the actual part on the site that has the docs" while following up with a call to my attorney just as a cover-your-ass procedure. And it looks like they might have originated out of France anyway, not the US, but that's semi-speculative on my part from basic (read: stupid) forensics.

Important thing is: none of it is hosted on the nesdev site, and nobody's provided links to anything publicly, so this thread so far is clean as a whistle aside from some of us saying "sure, we've seen those docs" -- but so have a ton of other people. The issue is more of who "hosts" the docs and then using DMCA to take them down. Like I said, they got third-party companies to do all that sleuthing work, so if they ever go digging, I'm sure they'll find 'em.