snes prototype

pichichi010 · Post by **pichichi010** » Sun Jun 10, 2012 1:51 pm

anyone know what rom is that?

Bt32V?

3 or 4 chips with that on the label.

SkinnyV · Post by **SkinnyV** » Mon Jun 11, 2012 4:14 am

We'll need more info than that to identify anything.

pichichi010 · Post by **pichichi010** » Mon Jun 11, 2012 8:42 am

what kind of information you need?

rkrenicki · Post by **rkrenicki** » Mon Jun 11, 2012 9:55 am

A good photo would be quite helpful.

SkinnyV · Post by **SkinnyV** » Mon Jun 11, 2012 2:46 pm

Not to be rude but how exactly do you expect anyone to give you any clue on this protype with the info you gave us? We have bt32v and the fact it got 3 or 4 eprom. Post clear picture of pcb, where you go it, the circumstance in which you acquired it, what happen when you actually put it in a snes or why you can't try it. You know, anything really. Otherwise the best educated guess I can give you with the little info you gave is that it might be the 32th beta of Battletoad lol

KungFuFurby · Post by **KungFuFurby** » Mon Jun 11, 2012 6:39 pm

I have a guess on the source. Might it be... this particular auction (complete with photo)?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NINTENDO-SNES-P ... 35bbfac2cf

That happens to be the one with the exact same labels.

koitsu · Post by **koitsu** » Mon Jun 11, 2012 8:11 pm

One of those carts has handwriting on one of the EPROMs that says "Boogerman", which is a commercial game from Interplay.

Another one says "Clay 2", which is almost certainly ClayFighters 2: Judgement Clay, which was another commercial title from Interplay.

The final cart only contains a partial ROM set; the main game is missing.

The handwriting, as well as the labels, on the other chips is mostly compliant with what Nintendo requires when submitting the EPROMs to Nintendo for review. That process, and what gets written on each EPROM label, is documented. I can provide that document if needed; the SNES Devkit PDFs you can find on romhacking.net don't contain the sheets; I have them however. :-)

EDIT: Okay, re-examining all the photos, it does look like it says BT32V. It's completely unknown what that means. It could be some internal code set that's used throughout most of their games (common routines) or common graphics. One of them has "Lo1" written on it, which obviously means LoROM, and is probably ROM #1. It wouldn't surprise me if BT32V meant something like "Been Tested, 32 {something}, Verified" or who knows what else.

If you thought any developer actually wrote coherent stuff in that field before submitting it to Nintendo, you thought wrong. Usually programmers desks were strewn with EPROMs and they simply wrote whatever on them. "Hey Dave, do you have that EPROM for Snake Wrangler Ball Busters 8 from last week? The one where there was that glitch when pressing XYAB simultaneously?" "Oh, yeah, uh, it's the one over there with a penis scribbled on it".

The EPROMs themselves appear to be 4mbit (512KBytes) in size, which makes perfect sense since a couple of the boards state "4M/8M" on them (4mbit / 8mbit, e.g. 512KBytes / 1024KBytes). The ones without labels say 27C4001, which are 4mbit chips.

I have no idea what the DIP switch on the one board does, but probably controls MODE 20 vs. 21 addressing maps, etc.. One of the boards without a DIP switch has "20MAP" silkscreened at the bottom (labelled CL3) with a solder pad, for example. DIP switches made this ordeal a lot easier on the developers and was more economical for Nintendo. The same board also has pads called CL1 and CL2, which let you select something with a value of 16, 64, or 256. Maybe they're for larger EPROMs which don't use x8 and instead something larger? Someone would have to reverse engineer the board.

The PCBs are all SNES developer boards that Nintendo used to send authorised companies when they signed up for their dev programme.

I really don't think any of that stuff is worth US$300. As usual, eBay people making bank off of stuff that really isn't worth it.

pichichi010 · Post by **pichichi010** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 11:54 am

Indeed all of the carts are made by intelplay.

Here are the ones working now

Lost Vikings 2
boogerman
clay fighter
Bubsy 2 pre release version
Steven Seagal the las option (UNRELEASED)

and in still working on BT32V which I believe is Black Throne also made by intelplay.

By the way these carts are not mine.

I wanted to bet on the auction but i was to late. but because the world we live in is so small. the buyer happened to live by my house.

and he actually contacted me because I was selling some repros on cragslist and asked me if i could help.

He got Clay,vikings,bubsy, and boogerman working and I gor Steven Seagal working and I fixed BT32V because It had a pin broken.

Im meeting with him today, he is going to give me another cart to test the BT32V eproms.

Ill update

SkinnyV · Post by **SkinnyV** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 1:18 pm

You should redirect him to the board instead. It would be nice that knowledgeable people take a look at them and best way to dump them.

pichichi010 · Post by **pichichi010** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 1:21 pm

Well since there are already dumped roms for these games i didn't bothered mentioning the dumping.

Isnt the retrode a simpler way to dump?

SkinnyV · Post by **SkinnyV** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 1:27 pm

So these prototype are the same revision as the proto rom available? Also, Retrode should be able to dump them otherwise good ol' trusty willem programmer will.

pichichi010 · Post by **pichichi010** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 1:33 pm

I have a willem but I dont know how to read back the information on the eproms.

I dont see the option on the software.

mikejmoffitt · Post by **mikejmoffitt** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 3:31 pm

You select the correct ROM size, then click read ROM. It will then dump the contents of the ROM into the buffer, after which you will save the buffer as a file.

SkinnyV · Post by **SkinnyV** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 3:59 pm

That's kind of why I was saying it might be better if you direct him to the forum so you don't damage anything.

pichichi010 · Post by **pichichi010** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 4:15 pm

Doing it right now.

is there anywhere on the code in the buffer that would tell me the which part of the rom is it? if it is the 1st or second one. etc?