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NESPlayer · Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 40

First and foremost, I wanted to say how much I appreciate the passion and dedication of this site's members in preserving gaming history. Thank you for your great work over the years.

A little while ago, I backed up all of my NES prototypes/samples/paperweights:

A Boy and His Blob NTSC NES Prototype
Adventures in the Magic Kingdom NTSC NES Prototype
Batman Returns PAL NES Prototype
DuckTales NTSC NES Prototype
Jaws NTSC NES Prototype
Kabuki Quantum Fighter NTSC NES Prototype
Little Nemo: Dream Master NTSC NES Prototype
Nintendo World Cup NTSC NES Prototype
Parodius PAL NES Prototype
Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom NTSC NES Prototype
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game NTSC NES Prototype
The Three Stooges NTSC NES Prototype

For photos and more information about any of these twelve games, please visit:
http://nesplayer.com/prototypes/index.htm

Thanks to Skrybe's help, I was able to find out that six of these games were different in some way from retail:

Adventures in the Magic Kingdom NTSC NES Prototype
Batman Returns PAL NES Prototype
Parodius PAL NES Prototype
Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom NTSC NES Prototype
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game NTSC NES Prototype
The Three Stooges NTSC NES Prototype

Magic Kingdom, Princess Tomato, and Stooges turned out to be the same as prototypes previously dumped by Lost Levels. The others were different, so Skrybe was nice enough to host them on his site:

http://www.skrybe.net/old/Batman%20Returns%20-%20Prototype.zip

http://www.skrybe.net/old/Parodius%20-%20Prototype.zip

http://www.skrybe.net/old/Teenage%20Mutant%20Ninja%20Turtles%20II%20-%20Prototype.zip

According to him, Batman and Parodius have a lot of changes (including a cross graphic in Parodius that is missing from the released version), while TMNT 2 has a different build ID from the retail version: SAMP900802.

Thanks again, and I hope to have another NES game to share with you shortly.

Evan · Joined: 17 Mar 2004 Posts: 948

I love your articles. Thanks!

Just a word of wisdom from a fellow prototype analyzer, the first thing I do when I get a prototype is to run it through an auditor (for the NES, GOODNES is likely the best choice) to see if it is the same as the final version. Saves a lot of time, rather passing the game several times to see any differences. I also do a side by side comparison using a tile viewer (such as Sprite View), which will quickly show off any graphical differences.

NESPlayer · Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 40

Hi, Evan! It's kind of you to say that. I've always enjoyed your articles, too. I still feel bad about the Goof Troop prototype I sent you. I could never get a good dump of it. Thing is cursed.

Thanks for your advice. I think that's what Skrybe might have done. I was doing it my typically half-assed way before I got CopyNES. I did a sprite comparison once using Tile Layer Pro on Magic Kingdom ( http://nesplayer.com/features/disney/proto.htm ), and my eyes felt like they were crossing after a while.

I'll soon be able to dump some Gameboy and N64 prototypes, and then everything in my possession will be backed up, and my conscience can finally rest easy. It's stressful having these things around, you know? They feel like ticking time bombs.

GDRI · Joined: 29 Nov 2006 Posts: 352

Too bad the Jaws proto isn't different.

I've been meaning to e-mail you about this, but since you're here...How do you know Hirohiko Takayama did Mappy Kids? (Sorry to hijack the thread.)

Smeg · Posted: Sat Dec 11, 2010 2:38 pm Post subject:

Thanks for sharing, dude!

TheRedEye · Posted: Sat Dec 11, 2010 5:33 pm Post subject:

KingMike · Joined: 04 Nov 2003 Posts: 898

Skrybe · Staff Joined: 28 Aug 2003 Posts: 1610

Hey Mike, good to have you here!

NESPlayer · Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 40

NESPlayer · Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 40

Still no word yet on Mappy Kids, GDRI.

Thought I should let you guys know that I just dumped a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles prototype (the 1989 Ultra/Konami game), and it turned out to be mostly the same except for a few bytes at the beginning, which Skrybe thinks is the header. I'm still trying to figure out how to use GoodNES, but the command line KingMike posted worked great.

If for some reason you want the TMNT proto file, you can contact me on my site and I'll e-mail it to you.

FlowingMindspin · Joined: 18 Nov 2004 Posts: 57 Location: Lewistown, PA USA

Mike! It's been awhile since I've been over to Playa, and this is the first I've checked out most of those proto articles... good stuff as usual. Good seeing you. I basically just lurk here, but just thought I'd say hello. Weird how I run into people I knew years ago on this forum a couple times a year... :D

Tongueman · Joined: 27 Feb 2004 Posts: 631 Location: Japan

GDRI · Joined: 29 Nov 2006 Posts: 352

Tongueman · Joined: 27 Feb 2004 Posts: 631 Location: Japan

Awesome! I'll try to remember that.

Jurai · Joined: 07 Jun 2006 Posts: 118

thanks for sharing NESPlayer!

just curious, did you eventually dump the Little Nemo cart as well?

NESPlayer · Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 40

FM: How's it going, man? Thanks for taking the time to say hi. PA represent!

Tongueman: Mr. Takayama's a very busy guy. It took about a month to do the interview. Hopefully I hear back from him soon.

I don't use Twitter, myself, but you can try contacting him on there to see if you can get a faster response:
http://twitter.com/hirotkym

Jurai: Everything has been dumped. I think Little Nemo was the same except maybe for a different header. If you want to play any of these games, just send me an e-mail on my site.

Almost forgot, if you like lame jokes, then you'll love the new TMNT prototype article:
http://nesplayer.com/tmntprototype.htm

LocalH · Joined: 15 May 2004 Posts: 160

Those bytes found from 0x0b to 0x0f in the "retail" dump spell out "aster"...weird. Seems like a leftover from a fixed and previously clobbered header (in the same vein as all the "DiskDude!" shit). It doesn't seem like bit 0 of 0x06 is used when bit 3 is set to enable 4-screen mirroring. This pretty much seems like it'd be 100% equivalent to a clean retail TMNT dump. Still, what the hell put "aster" in the widely-spread ROM? Some ass-backwards old header editor, probably.

Edit: yeah, definitely the case - a quick google search even led back to here, where "aster" was mentioned in an old Maniac Mansion thread, where lugnut stated he couldn't remember whether "aster" was the name of the tool, or the coder - I also stumbled upon an old "ROMHACK DOCUMENT" that seems to say that it was the name of the editor, so I guess that's that? Wasn't able to find a copy of the editor, and I don't really care that much more, I'm just glad we got past that stage of defacing ROMs (at least when crackers back in the day added intros there was some function, as you could often activate trainer options through such an intro, but the way those old header editors defaced the ROM was functionless).

NESPlayer · Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 40

Absolutely, that's exactly what it was. Thanks once again to Skrybe's help, I finally know how to use GoodNES to check for differences. I am still brand new to all of this, so I appreciate his patience with me. With stuff like this going on, I'll stick to running prototypes through GoodNES first. (Little Nemo and TMNT, by the way, are the same as retail.)

I've been creating tutorials as I figure things out to help other newbies who, like me, want to do right but are struggling to understand everything. These are the general steps that worked for me:

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