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Wired article on lost Soviet games
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PolyFX



Joined: 24 Sep 2015
Posts: 8
Location: Middle Russia

PostPosted: Sat Sep 26, 2015 8:34 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

DarkTetsuya wrote:
PolyFX wrote:
DarkTetsuya wrote:
PolyFX wrote:
handofg0d wrote:
DarkTetsuya wrote:
I'm sure there may have been pirate Famicoms, I'd bet on it even.

I meant original russian consoles - famiclones for sure. Computers - absolutely. But soviet original gaming consoles? No way.

Let me answer your question: in USSR, as far as i know, there were no from-scratch-original home gaming systems. Since the TV set itself was a damn expensive thing (it costed twice as a salary of an regular office worker), evolution of home gaming was really slow.
There were some Electronika portable handheld devices, that was ripped off from Nintendo Game and Watch. Those were popular as hell, and not really pricey.
After Spectrum ZX first came to USSR, it was met with huge popularity! It was so popular, that government made speccy-clones made completely on a russian electronic parts and processors. It may be, that Speccy was the first ever USSR's home gaming console.
And just after that, Dendy happened. Some guys estabilished a tradeline with Taiwan, to produce a bootleg FC. It was made with nice quality, and most of those consoles are still in working condition.


Wow, well thank you for the reply! I forget how it came about but I think I saw that russian arcade article surface again so I was kinda thinking about that, and then I got the notify that there was a reply to this thread, so interesting timing I suppose.

I do remember hearing about the Dendy Famicom system, as I expected it's a bootleg system... probably only half surprised that those consoles still work, Nintendo's stuff is always built to last, so a bootleg system based on one of theirs still being around... well I guess that just means they learned from the best!


Actually, Dendy was really a bootleg - as far as i know, they all made up on NOAC architecture, rather than western motherboard arch. Taiwanese technicians poured black epoxy tar on the crystals. Aside from chip PCB, there were just 2 small pieces that carried joypads and RCA video and audio outputs. This compilation allows console to be almost indestructible - i've seen myself as some guys took battered Dendy from dumpster, and after a small soldering the damn thing worked!


Wow that's pretty impressive! NOACs, huh? I wonder how the quality compares to a real famicom, as I know some of those clone systems weren't quite 100% accurate (I have a 76K-in-1 N64 pad I picked up randomly years ago that probably still works, but indeed some of the graphics and sounds aren't 100% accurate.)


To be fair, its really hard to tell, if there is a difference in proccesing speed. The most and the main difference, is that famiclone accepts any kind of carts - licensed or not, since there are no lockouts chips in consoles.
Other differences vary from batch to batch - its a bootleg after all. Sometimes, there were built-in games, which were accesible by powering the console without any plugged cart.
Most popular games were Super Mario Brothers, Battle City and its bootlegs (bootleg of a homebrew bootleg, yeeeah), and Contra. Since pirated carts didnt had any saving system, big and long games such as Zelda or Metroid were completely obscure to russian gamers. Also, what is funny - russian merchants travelled to China and Taiwan to buy batches of cartridges. But they had a question, what games would be popular? Old serious men and women had no idea what children do like, so they just took carts with games, that were based on Disney shows and TNMT franchise.
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DarkTetsuya



Joined: 05 Sep 2003
Posts: 80

PostPosted: Sat Sep 26, 2015 6:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

PolyFX wrote:
DarkTetsuya wrote:
PolyFX wrote:
DarkTetsuya wrote:
PolyFX wrote:
handofg0d wrote:
DarkTetsuya wrote:
I'm sure there may have been pirate Famicoms, I'd bet on it even.

I meant original russian consoles - famiclones for sure. Computers - absolutely. But soviet original gaming consoles? No way.

Let me answer your question: in USSR, as far as i know, there were no from-scratch-original home gaming systems. Since the TV set itself was a damn expensive thing (it costed twice as a salary of an regular office worker), evolution of home gaming was really slow.
There were some Electronika portable handheld devices, that was ripped off from Nintendo Game and Watch. Those were popular as hell, and not really pricey.
After Spectrum ZX first came to USSR, it was met with huge popularity! It was so popular, that government made speccy-clones made completely on a russian electronic parts and processors. It may be, that Speccy was the first ever USSR's home gaming console.
And just after that, Dendy happened. Some guys estabilished a tradeline with Taiwan, to produce a bootleg FC. It was made with nice quality, and most of those consoles are still in working condition.


Wow, well thank you for the reply! I forget how it came about but I think I saw that russian arcade article surface again so I was kinda thinking about that, and then I got the notify that there was a reply to this thread, so interesting timing I suppose.

I do remember hearing about the Dendy Famicom system, as I expected it's a bootleg system... probably only half surprised that those consoles still work, Nintendo's stuff is always built to last, so a bootleg system based on one of theirs still being around... well I guess that just means they learned from the best!


Actually, Dendy was really a bootleg - as far as i know, they all made up on NOAC architecture, rather than western motherboard arch. Taiwanese technicians poured black epoxy tar on the crystals. Aside from chip PCB, there were just 2 small pieces that carried joypads and RCA video and audio outputs. This compilation allows console to be almost indestructible - i've seen myself as some guys took battered Dendy from dumpster, and after a small soldering the damn thing worked!


Wow that's pretty impressive! NOACs, huh? I wonder how the quality compares to a real famicom, as I know some of those clone systems weren't quite 100% accurate (I have a 76K-in-1 N64 pad I picked up randomly years ago that probably still works, but indeed some of the graphics and sounds aren't 100% accurate.)


To be fair, its really hard to tell, if there is a difference in proccesing speed. The most and the main difference, is that famiclone accepts any kind of carts - licensed or not, since there are no lockouts chips in consoles.
Other differences vary from batch to batch - its a bootleg after all. Sometimes, there were built-in games, which were accesible by powering the console without any plugged cart.
Most popular games were Super Mario Brothers, Battle City and its bootlegs (bootleg of a homebrew bootleg, yeeeah), and Contra. Since pirated carts didnt had any saving system, big and long games such as Zelda or Metroid were completely obscure to russian gamers. Also, what is funny - russian merchants travelled to China and Taiwan to buy batches of cartridges. But they had a question, what games would be popular? Old serious men and women had no idea what children do like, so they just took carts with games, that were based on Disney shows and TNMT franchise.


Ahh ok. Usually when it comes to NOAC that's been my understanding that it isn't 100% accurate, but I'm sure the Dendy developers probably did something different.
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PolyFX



Joined: 24 Sep 2015
Posts: 8
Location: Middle Russia

PostPosted: Sat Sep 26, 2015 8:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

DarkTetsuya wrote:
Ahh ok. Usually when it comes to NOAC that's been my understanding that it isn't 100% accurate, but I'm sure the Dendy developers probably did something different.


I cannot really tell if they did any improvements into the system, but there is one thing for sure - PCB's and components assembling were considered to be made on one of the former military electronic factory, with soviet components. Buut, soviet processors were considered to be step behind of western ones, so i guess there were lower CPU power.
When Steepler (a company that trademarked Dendy) grew larger, components base was moved completely to Taiwan, and near that time New Games company was created. New Game produced various bootleg consoles (NES, Sega MegaDrive) by its own design. When Steepler bankrupted, New Game took over Dendy trademark, and produced rather low quality replicas, which were notoriously untrustworthy.
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Skrybe
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 28, 2015 1:31 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

This is damn fascinating.
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DarkTetsuya



Joined: 05 Sep 2003
Posts: 80

PostPosted: Sat Oct 31, 2015 8:08 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

PolyFX wrote:
DarkTetsuya wrote:
Ahh ok. Usually when it comes to NOAC that's been my understanding that it isn't 100% accurate, but I'm sure the Dendy developers probably did something different.


I cannot really tell if they did any improvements into the system, but there is one thing for sure - PCB's and components assembling were considered to be made on one of the former military electronic factory, with soviet components. Buut, soviet processors were considered to be step behind of western ones, so i guess there were lower CPU power.
When Steepler (a company that trademarked Dendy) grew larger, components base was moved completely to Taiwan, and near that time New Games company was created. New Game produced various bootleg consoles (NES, Sega MegaDrive) by its own design. When Steepler bankrupted, New Game took over Dendy trademark, and produced rather low quality replicas, which were notoriously untrustworthy.


There was something I found out about, there's a guy on youtube 'kinamania' that did a series of videos on some of the dendy titles (though it's in russian it does feature english subtitles)

but in his episode on The Lion King he mentioned something about sometimes the game would show up with a green tint on certain systems (though that may be the version 2 of the game with the added bonus level)

So I assume that's kinda the result of the low quality replicas?
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PolyFX



Joined: 24 Sep 2015
Posts: 8
Location: Middle Russia

PostPosted: Sat Oct 31, 2015 10:52 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:

There was something I found out about, there's a guy on youtube 'kinamania' that did a series of videos on some of the dendy titles (though it's in russian it does feature english subtitles)

but in his episode on The Lion King he mentioned something about sometimes the game would show up with a green tint on certain systems (though that may be the version 2 of the game with the added bonus level)

So I assume that's kinda the result of the low quality replicas?


Oh the glorious comrade Pavel Grinyev, its kinda amazing how western people notice him Very Happy. Actually, the carts are the weak point. Bootleggers always tried to lower costs for cart producing, which sometimes led to shitty results. When I was young, I often visited bootleggers shop for new games, aand one day, they had batch of 10-15 same ROM multicarts, which had their own glitches and bugs. Some carts had corrupted gfx, and other had some buggy logic. Imagine how bad they were, cause it was carts from single batch!
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DarkTetsuya



Joined: 05 Sep 2003
Posts: 80

PostPosted: Sat Oct 31, 2015 5:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

PolyFX wrote:
Quote:

There was something I found out about, there's a guy on youtube 'kinamania' that did a series of videos on some of the dendy titles (though it's in russian it does feature english subtitles)

but in his episode on The Lion King he mentioned something about sometimes the game would show up with a green tint on certain systems (though that may be the version 2 of the game with the added bonus level)

So I assume that's kinda the result of the low quality replicas?


Oh the glorious comrade Pavel Grinyev, its kinda amazing how western people notice him Very Happy. Actually, the carts are the weak point. Bootleggers always tried to lower costs for cart producing, which sometimes led to shitty results. When I was young, I often visited bootleggers shop for new games, aand one day, they had batch of 10-15 same ROM multicarts, which had their own glitches and bugs. Some carts had corrupted gfx, and other had some buggy logic. Imagine how bad they were, cause it was carts from single batch!


Ooh ok. I figured if I asked around here I could find out what the deal is... I'm actually enjoying the series he has some pretty funny moments! (the humor has no problem going from russian to english either. Razz)
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PolyFX



Joined: 24 Sep 2015
Posts: 8
Location: Middle Russia

PostPosted: Sat Oct 31, 2015 5:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

DarkTetsuya wrote:
PolyFX wrote:
Quote:

There was something I found out about, there's a guy on youtube 'kinamania' that did a series of videos on some of the dendy titles (though it's in russian it does feature english subtitles)

but in his episode on The Lion King he mentioned something about sometimes the game would show up with a green tint on certain systems (though that may be the version 2 of the game with the added bonus level)

So I assume that's kinda the result of the low quality replicas?


Oh the glorious comrade Pavel Grinyev, its kinda amazing how western people notice him Very Happy. Actually, the carts are the weak point. Bootleggers always tried to lower costs for cart producing, which sometimes led to shitty results. When I was young, I often visited bootleggers shop for new games, aand one day, they had batch of 10-15 same ROM multicarts, which had their own glitches and bugs. Some carts had corrupted gfx, and other had some buggy logic. Imagine how bad they were, cause it was carts from single batch!


Ooh ok. I figured if I asked around here I could find out what the deal is... I'm actually enjoying the series he has some pretty funny moments! (the humor has no problem going from russian to english either. Razz)


If you dont get something, you can PM me and ask, I would love to help with translation!
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DarkTetsuya



Joined: 05 Sep 2003
Posts: 80

PostPosted: Sat Oct 31, 2015 6:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ooh okay.

I was curious how those famiclones handled stuff like some of the 'specialty' chips like some of the ones Konami used in like Legend of Dracula / Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse?
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PolyFX



Joined: 24 Sep 2015
Posts: 8
Location: Middle Russia

PostPosted: Sat Oct 31, 2015 9:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

DarkTetsuya wrote:
Ooh okay.

I was curious how those famiclones handled stuff like some of the 'specialty' chips like some of the ones Konami used in like Legend of Dracula / Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse?


They didnt, because advanced carts never made out to russian public market. I bet these games wont work at all, or work bad. We had no big titles, such as Zelda or Castlevania, because they were hard to bootleg and\or required translation, which could not be done. People played small simple games, like SMB 1 or Battle City. As for me, I had Tokkyuu Shirei Solbrain and some minor stuff.
You may want to know, that some carts had more specific hardware. Mine version of Top Gun had 3 huge chips, and not just crystals covered in epoxy - so maybe some bootleggers coulda copy those special chips, who knows
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DarkTetsuya



Joined: 05 Sep 2003
Posts: 80

PostPosted: Sat Oct 31, 2015 9:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

PolyFX wrote:
DarkTetsuya wrote:
Ooh okay.

I was curious how those famiclones handled stuff like some of the 'specialty' chips like some of the ones Konami used in like Legend of Dracula / Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse?


They didnt, because advanced carts never made out to russian public market. I bet these games wont work at all, or work bad. We had no big titles, such as Zelda or Castlevania, because they were hard to bootleg and\or required translation, which could not be done. People played small simple games, like SMB 1 or Battle City. As for me, I had Tokkyuu Shirei Solbrain and some minor stuff.
You may want to know, that some carts had more specific hardware. Mine version of Top Gun had 3 huge chips, and not just crystals covered in epoxy - so maybe some bootleggers coulda copy those special chips, who knows


Ah yeah now that I think about it since the hardware was near the NOAC you're right. Those higher-end games probably wouldn't work in the Dendy.
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I am Christina Aguilera



Joined: 25 Feb 2006
Posts: 159

PostPosted: Mon Nov 02, 2015 12:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

DarkTetsuya wrote:
There was something I found out about, there's a guy on youtube 'kinamania' that did a series of videos on some of the dendy titles (though it's in russian it does feature english subtitles)

but in his episode on The Lion King he mentioned something about sometimes the game would show up with a green tint on certain systems (though that may be the version 2 of the game with the added bonus level)

So I assume that's kinda the result of the low quality replicas?


If I'm not mistaken, isn't there an optional set of bits that an NES/FC game can set in the PPU that can tint the whole screen's palettes red (e.g., FDS version of Bubble Bobble), green, blue, or if all three are set, set the NES palettes darker than usual (e.g., Magician, Felix the Cat)? Maybe something is accidentally getting glitched there?

Edit: right here:
http://wiki.nesdev.com/w/index.php/PPU_registers#Mask_.28.242001.29_.3E_write

Possible key detail?:

Quote:
* NTSC colors. PAL and Dendy swaps green and red.
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