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    Main » Emulation » Konami QT Adapter finally emulated famicom
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    Posted on 19-08-28, 03:09
    Post: #26 of 36
    Since: 12-21-18

    Last post: 969 days
    Last view: 93 days
    Possibly the most obscure licensed Famicom games, and among the few remaining "licensed" games still undumped. (not sure how many "hibaihin" are left)

    It was a cartridge Konami made to sell educational games to schools as add-on cartridges.
    It seems four of the seven games have been dumped recently. (that thankfully includes the one Kotaku famously reported on a decade ago selling for over $4k. "This Famicom game is crazy rare and crazy expensive.")
    Though it sounds like playability would depend on someone with some serious bucks willing to buy and scan the manuals which apparently have necessary information in them.

    It also is the only software to use the previously unknown Konami VRC5 mapper.

    I don't think I could post some links since they contain ROM links as well but I guess I can only say a certain Russian person known in the dumping scene dumped them and figured out the emulation and released a FCEUX build supporting it.
    Apparently the missing part he couldn't tell a decade ago, from lacking the QT base cart, was a 64KB graphics data ROM inside that he was able to reproduce with only a 32-byte table, he said.

    Though I don't know how likely higan is to support it. As I understand, byuu likes to have a real copy of the game for reference, which probably is not likely to happen with something this scarce?
    Posted on 19-08-28, 16:00
    Post: #27 of 36
    Since: 12-21-18

    Last post: 969 days
    Last view: 93 days
    I'm forgetting to mention, but I feel the Study Box briefly seen in the video was another similar device also mostly or completely undumped?
    It was another cartridge device which used cassette tapes to load educational games.
    Posted on 19-08-28, 22:03 (revision 1)
    Burned-out Genius Developer
    Post: #48 of 51
    Since: 10-30-18

    Last post: 1181 days
    Last view: 1104 days
    The VRC5 part sounds pretty cool.

    I'm not opposed to it, I just wonder how I'll ever get the time.

    I don't need to own all the carts, I was just trying to get PCB / memory map information for all the SNES games. As long as a game is officially licensed, I'm okay with supporting it. When it comes to unlicensed games, it can quickly get hairy: eg it would not be a nice thing to emulate Pier Solar in higan.
    Posted on 19-08-29, 01:09
    Dinosaur

    Post: #516 of 1282
    Since: 10-30-18

    Last post: 3 days
    Last view: 13 hours
    Posted by byuu
    it would not be a nice thing to emulate Pier Solar in higan.


    Why not?

    Is there really only the moral aspect to this? Would like to know why most emudevs run away from the idea of emulating a game that you can't readily buy in its original format right now (but for which there is a "HD" remake version being sold in Steam -among other recent consoles-, which I bought years ago because it has a native Linux version)

    FWIW, only PicoDrive somewhat emulates the custom mapper (of which most of it seems to be antipiracy protection) for Pier Solar.

    Licensed Pirate® since 2006, 100% Buttcoin™-free, enemy of All Things JavaScript™
    Posted on 19-08-29, 10:29
    Post: #260 of 426
    Since: 10-30-18

    Last post: 260 days
    Last view: 17 hours
    Because it would be a slippery slope to implement support for 1 unlicensed game? People would then ask why there's no official support for the other unlicensed games...

    AMD Ryzen 3700X | MSI Gamer Geforce 1070Ti 8GB | 16GB 3600MHz DDR4 RAM | ASUS Crosshair VIII Hero (WiFi) Motherboard | Windows 10 x64
    Posted on 19-08-29, 12:43
    Dinosaur

    Post: #517 of 1282
    Since: 10-30-18

    Last post: 3 days
    Last view: 13 hours
    Posted by Nicholas Steel
    Because it would be a slippery slope to implement support for 1 unlicensed game? People would then ask why there's no official support for the other unlicensed games...


    That usually would be byuu's case, or anyone else trying to stick solely to licensed hardware.

    But outside of higan, Pier Solar is not your typical unlicensed game. The game is/was being still sold, and most of its crew are well known members among the Sega scene in general. Some emudevs have refrained from implementing support for this custom mapper out of respect to the devs, as I understand it. But then, a game is a game and should be preserved (and those Pier Solar carts have known design flaws that could cause premature hardware death due to the usual 3V/5V ROM interfacing without using proper level shifters). So it seems it all boils down to a moral issue (conflict of interest?) rather than a "Licensed Hardware® only, sorry".

    Licensed Pirate® since 2006, 100% Buttcoin™-free, enemy of All Things JavaScript™
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