Funvision Symbol decyphered!

[Rom Hunter]

I found out that the 'symbol' seen in some of the Goliath - Hot Shot games is actually the old Funvision logo:

 

 

This underlines the Funvision - Goliath connection.

 

Edited January 9, 2007 by Rom Hunter

[Foxsolo2000]

I found out that the 'symbol' seen in some of the Goliath - Hot Shot games is actually the old Funvision logo:

 

 

This underlines the Funvision - Goliath connection.

 

 

You 100% SURE of this?

[Dino]

I found out that the 'symbol' seen in some of the Goliath - Hot Shot games is actually the old Funvision logo:

 

 

This underlines the Funvision - Goliath connection.

 

 

Rom,

 

Goliath and Funvision are surely one in the same. I think the circle logo on each of the boxes in the attachments prove this.

[Rom Hunter]

I found out that the 'symbol' seen in some of the Goliath - Hot Shot games is actually the old Funvision logo:

 

 

This underlines the Funvision - Goliath connection.

 

 

You 100% SURE of this?

101%

 

BTW: the symbol can also be seen on the screen of Zellers' Ocean City Defender.

 

Edited January 9, 2007 by Rom Hunter

[Omegamatrix]

I found out that the 'symbol' seen in some of the Goliath - Hot Shot games is actually the old Funvision logo:

 

 

This underlines the Funvision - Goliath connection.

 

 

You 100% SURE of this?

101%

 

BTW: the symbol can also be seen on the screen of Zellers' Ocean City Defender.

 

Yep that is true:

 

 

Inca Gold has the Funvision logo removed on it's screen, but AFAIK Spider Maze has it. Perhaps there is a connection between K-Tel and Funvision? Or does it go Funvision - Goliath - K-Tel? From Dino's pics it looks like K-Tel is pirating Goliath or vice-versa. At some time the (Atari 2600 Compatible Series with a Zellers logo on the box specific type carts that were made in Taiwan but distributed by Zellers company) pirated off of somebody.

[Omegamatrix]

I found out that the 'symbol' seen in some of the Goliath - Hot Shot games is actually the old Funvision logo:

 

 

This underlines the Funvision - Goliath connection.

 

The connection runs even deeper. I recently acquired a V-Case Galactic cart (PAL). When I fired it up I was fascinated to see the Funvision symbol alongside the Galactic logo on the screen. At first I thought that surely Goliath had replaced the Funvision logo with theirs and that they left the symbol on the screen for whatever reason.

 

 

It seemed logical that since the Funvision logo was still present Goliath must have hacked the rom and therefore came after. I went to Atarimania to look up my Goliath cart. When I got to Atarimania however I saw that my cart was listed as a Funvision cart:

 

http://www.atarimania.com/detail_soft.php?...ERSION_ID=15444

 

I was puzzled. The mystery had just deepend. The cart from the scan was absolutely the one I had, but the screenshots on Atarimania had absolutely no logo at all. So was my cart Goliath or Funvision? It was at that time I remembered an old picture (from Marco I think) of a T-Handle cart opened up with a Funvision chip.

 

 

I decided to open my Galactic cart to see what was inside and then I hit paydirt:

 

 

Yes indeed the chip says Funvision on it! So here is a Funvision chip with a Goliath logo on it! Amazing. I dumped the rom:

 

Galactic.BIN

 

In conclusion my cart is the same as the cart on Atarimania, but the wrong rom is attached to the listing. Rom, this rom belongs to this cart. Afterwards I made many more exciting Funvision discoveries which are coming up shortly (tonight or tomorrow night), Stay tuned.

Edited July 29, 2007 by Omegamatrix

[A.J. Franzman]

I decided to open my Galactic cart to see what was inside and then I hit paydirt:

 

Yes indeed the chip says Funvision on it! So here is a Funvision chip with a Goliath logo on it!

On both your photos and the "old" (Marco?) photo, that is the circuit board which says "FUNVISION", not the chip.

[Rom Hunter]

I found out that the 'symbol' seen in some of the Goliath - Hot Shot games is actually the old Funvision logo:

 

 

This underlines the Funvision - Goliath connection.

 

The connection runs even deeper. I recently acquired a V-Case Galactic cart (PAL). When I fired it up I was fascinated to see the Funvision symbol alongside the Galactic logo on the screen. At first I thought that surely Goliath had replaced the Funvision logo with theirs and that they left the symbol on the screen for whatever reason.

 

 

It seemed logical that since the Funvision logo was still present Goliath must have hacked the rom and therefore came after. I went to Atarimania to look up my Goliath cart. When I got to Atarimania however I saw that my cart was listed as a Funvision cart:

 

http://www.atarimania.com/detail_soft.php?...ERSION_ID=15444

 

I was puzzled. The mystery had just deepend. The cart from the scan was absolutely the one I had, but the screenshots on Atarimania had absolutely no logo at all. So was my cart Goliath or Funvision? It was at that time I remembered an old picture (from Marco I think) of a T-Handle cart opened up with a Funvision chip.

 

 

I decided to open my Galactic cart to see what was inside and then I hit paydirt:

 

 

Yes indeed the chip says Funvision on it! So here is a Funvision chip with a Goliath logo on it! Amazing. I dumped the rom:

 

Galactic.BIN

 

In conclusion my cart is the same as the cart on Atarimania, but the wrong rom is attached to the listing. Rom, this rom belongs to this cart. Afterwards I made many more exciting Funvision discoveries which are coming up shortly (tonight or tomorrow night), Stay tuned.

Somehow I always knew it wasn't the proper ROM.

 

I'm going to correct this immediately.

 

Many thanks, Omega.

 

And please keep that dumper.

 

BTW: that pic is from FND. He sent it to me a long time ago.

 

[Rom Hunter]

Ok, corrected.

 

My question now is:

 

Which ROM is inside this one?

http://www.atarimania.com/detail_soft.php?...ERSION_ID=18465

 

BTW: I still believe that this one also contains another ROM:

http://www.atarimania.com/detail_soft.php?...5456&MENU=2

 

I think genuine ROM has the Funvision logo on screen.

 

Edited July 29, 2007 by Rom Hunter

[staberinde]

I found out that the 'symbol' seen in some of the Goliath - Hot Shot games is actually the old Funvision logo:

 

 

This underlines the Funvision - Goliath connection.

 

The connection runs even deeper. I recently acquired a V-Case Galactic cart (PAL). When I fired it up I was fascinated to see the Funvision symbol alongside the Galactic logo on the screen. At first I thought that surely Goliath had replaced the Funvision logo with theirs and that they left the symbol on the screen for whatever reason.

 

 

It seemed logical that since the Funvision logo was still present Goliath must have hacked the rom and therefore came after. I went to Atarimania to look up my Goliath cart. When I got to Atarimania however I saw that my cart was listed as a Funvision cart:

 

http://www.atarimania.com/detail_soft.php?...ERSION_ID=15444

 

I was puzzled. The mystery had just deepend. The cart from the scan was absolutely the one I had, but the screenshots on Atarimania had absolutely no logo at all. So was my cart Goliath or Funvision? It was at that time I remembered an old picture (from Marco I think) of a T-Handle cart opened up with a Funvision chip.

 

 

I decided to open my Galactic cart to see what was inside and then I hit paydirt:

 

 

Yes indeed the chip says Funvision on it! So here is a Funvision chip with a Goliath logo on it! Amazing. I dumped the rom:

 

Galactic.BIN

 

In conclusion my cart is the same as the cart on Atarimania, but the wrong rom is attached to the listing. Rom, this rom belongs to this cart. Afterwards I made many more exciting Funvision discoveries which are coming up shortly (tonight or tomorrow night), Stay tuned.

Somehow I always knew it wasn't the proper ROM.

 

I'm going to correct this immediately.

 

Many thanks, Omega.

 

And please keep that dumper.

 

BTW: that pic is from FND. He sent it to me a long time ago.

 

 

Well, there is one more problem: I have the same V-case Galactic game, but mine does not have Goliath nor Funvision nor any symbol on screen?

 

In contrast, my V-case Time Race and my Hot-Shot Astro Attack both show the Goliath name with the logo on screen though.

 

Also, I have a couple of Goliath text label game variations. Even there, the same game may have a different logo on screen, depending on the label variation!

[Omegamatrix]

Well, there is one more problem: I have the same V-case Galactic game, but mine does not have Goliath nor Funvision nor any symbol on screen?

 

In contrast, my V-case Time Race and my Hot-Shot Astro Attack both show the Goliath name with the logo on screen though.

 

Also, I have a couple of Goliath text label game variations. Even there, the same game may have a different logo on screen, depending on the label variation!

Life is never simple. This complicates things now. Staberinde would you mind posting some pics of what you see on your TV screen and a few shots of the cart? Or if you have a rom dumper it's even better. I would love to see pics of these other carts and variations you are talking about too.

 

Here are some better chips of that Galactic circuit board (thanks for the correction A.J.).

 

 

Ever since I posted FND's photo, I started thinking more about my Spider Maze and Vulture Attack K-Tels. Both of my carts are NTSC (I don't know what FND's are). Would my carts have Funvision chips inside too? The labels on these type of carts are so dry they sort of crack off in one piece making it easy to get to the screw holes without any worry of damage.

 

Spider Maze:

 

Vulture Attack:

 

A few observations:

- The shells have a "1" and "2" to help the assembly line with production.

- "FUND" only appears on shell number 2 (the bottom shell, the shell without the label)

- Vulture Attack is a Prom, Spider Maze is an Eprom.

- FND's photo shows one cart with a prom, and the other with a Eprom as well.

- The circuit board used for Spider Maze is the same circuit board used for Galactic.

[Omegamatrix]

Moving along, I have recently acquired a Plug Attack (think Plaque Attack). This is a known Funvision cart with a Halley's Comet label underneath. The Halley's Comet series is NTSC.

 

 

When I got my cart the front label was already peeled up some so I took a peek underneath. There was no Halley's Comet label below so I suspected it might be a PAL V-Case instead. I did a rom dump to test it:

 

Plug_Attack.BIN

 

Yes, Plug Attack has Catch Time written on the screen. Catch Time (a hack of Plaque Attack) has been dumped before, and indeed my rom matched these roms on Atarimania by 100%.

 

Here is what is interesting though. Looking at the rom in Z26 I saw that its scan line count is at 288 lines. NTSC aims for about 262 lines, and PAL aims for about 312 lines. IIRC the minimum required for PAL is 290 lines, so this would be below that. It is possible that it is a case of bad hacking, and that even though this is the actual rom released on a few different PAL carts, it really is an NTSC rom. This does nothing to help me decide if my cart is PAL or NTSC though.

 

I decided to open it to see what I could find.

 

 

Yep, another Funvision circuit board. This one is clearly different from the rest.

 

On a side note Marco has told me that he does have the Halley's Comet Plug Attack too, and has confirmed all his Halley's Comet carts do have the Halley's Comet label underneath. I'm still waiting for him to pull his Plug Attack out of storage so we can see if it looks like mine. For those of you who might not know what a Halley's Comet label is then here is a pic of one. Note that Funvision is written on the label.

 

[staberinde]

Well, there is one more problem: I have the same V-case Galactic game, but mine does not have Goliath nor Funvision nor any symbol on screen?

 

In contrast, my V-case Time Race and my Hot-Shot Astro Attack both show the Goliath name with the logo on screen though.

 

Also, I have a couple of Goliath text label game variations. Even there, the same game may have a different logo on screen, depending on the label variation!

Life is never simple. This complicates things now. Staberinde would you mind posting some pics of what you see on your TV screen and a few shots of the cart? Or if you have a rom dumper it's even better. I would love to see pics of these other carts and variations you are talking about too.

 

 

I have no rom dumper, but I can take pictures of the carts and corresponding screenshots, but probably not before weekend.

 

staberinde

[Rom Hunter]

Moving along, I have recently acquired a Plug Attack (think Plaque Attack). This is a known Funvision cart with a Halley's Comet label underneath. The Halley's Comet series is NTSC.

 

 

When I got my cart the front label was already peeled up some so I took a peek underneath. There was no Halley's Comet label below so I suspected it might be a PAL V-Case instead. I did a rom dump to test it:

 

Plug_Attack.BIN

 

Yes, Plug Attack has Catch Time written on the screen. Catch Time (a hack of Plaque Attack) has been dumped before, and indeed my rom matched these roms on Atarimania by 100%.

 

Here is what is interesting though. Looking at the rom in Z26 I saw that its scan line count is at 288 lines. NTSC aims for about 262 lines, and PAL aims for about 312 lines. IIRC the minimum required for PAL is 290 lines, so this would be below that. It is possible that it is a case of bad hacking, and that even though this is the actual rom released on a few different PAL carts, it really is an NTSC rom. This does nothing to help me decide if my cart is PAL or NTSC though.

 

I decided to open it to see what I could find.

 

 

Yep, another Funvision circuit board. This one is clearly different from the rest.

 

On a side note Marco has told me that he does have the Halley's Comet Plug Attack too, and has confirmed all his Halley's Comet carts do have the Halley's Comet label underneath. I'm still waiting for him to pull his Plug Attack out of storage so we can see if it looks like mine. For those of you who might not know what a Halley's Comet label is then here is a pic of one. Note that Funvision is written on the label.

 

Omegamatrix,

 

PAL: 284-312 scanlines

 

So I call this a PAL ROM.

 

Marco owns this title in a blue generic box.

It has the Halley's Comet label underneath, but I don't know what the upper label looks like.

 

Perhaps you found a Taiwanese PAL Atari 2600 Compatible V-Case instead of a Halley's Comet one (although it clearly was made by Funvision).

 

Edited July 30, 2007 by Rom Hunter

[Omegamatrix]

Omegamatrix,

 

PAL: 284-312 scanlines

 

So I call this a PAL ROM.

 

Marco owns this title in a blue generic box.

It has the Halley's Comet label underneath, but I don't know what the upper label looks like.

 

Perhaps you found a Taiwanese PAL Atari 2600 Compatible V-Case instead of a Halley's Comet one (although it clearly was made by Funvision).

 

I do believe it is PAL then. The seller had lots of PAL games. As for the Halley's Comet labels and such I made a few more discoveries about them coming right up.

[Omegamatrix]

Rom, you remember that NTSC Spider Kong (think Spacemaster X-7) I got with my other Halley's Comet games? It had no Halley's Comet label underneath it, and well today it still doesn't. Nothing has changed there. The rom is a genuine NTSC rom of Spacemaster X-7 though. I just dumped it again:

 

Spider_Kong__Funvision_V_Case__NTSC.BIN

 

This is what it had to show inside:

 

 

Yep, another Funvision. This one without the shield on the prom.

[Omegamatrix]

Now on to some Halley's Comets. First Time Warp:

 

 

Time_Warp__Funvision_Halley__s_Comet__NTSC.BIN

 

So we finally have a game that has a Funvision label on it, and guess what? No Funvision on the circuit board. Compare the Time Warp board to the Plug Attack board though. They look very similar.

 

There's more though. Remember this cart that came recently on eBay?

 

 

Some people thought it was a multicart. I thought it was a Funvision. I know my Halley's Comets are double labled including the end label. I finally got some courage to peel it as they rip easy.

 

 

That was as far as I dared to go. While the Halley's Comet front labels are all generic it appears the end labels are all different. Since I can't read Chinese I can only speculate they are different game names. On Time Warp I found the circled number to be 104 and the smaller number to the right to be 4.

 

If anyone is curious here is a Funvision Halley's Comet box and instructions.

 

 

Note that the sticker on the box is actually an end label. The top "Atari 2600 Compatible" portion of the box also appears on the sides of the Funvision system box. On the owners manual we see Fund Intrenational Co., Ltd. appear. Remember too that "FUND" was stamped into the shells of the T-Handles.

 

[djmips]

Rom, you remember that NTSC Spider Kong (think Spacemaster X-7) I got with my other Halley's Comet games? It had no Halley's Comet label underneath it, and well today it still doesn't. Nothing has changed there. The rom is a genuine NTSC rom of Spacemaster X-7 though. I just dumped it again:

 

Spider_Kong__Funvision_V_Case__NTSC.BIN

 

This is what it had to show inside:

 

 

Yep, another Funvision. This one without the shield on the prom.

 

AMD logo!

[Omegamatrix]

On to Dragon Treasure.

 

 

Dragon_Treasure__Funvision_Halley__s_Comet__NTSC.BIN

 

Again no Funvision on the circuit board, but it is the same style board used in Time Warp. Note that the numbers on the back of the circuit boards are different for Time Warp to Dragon Treasure. Dragon Treasure has 184 written in the circle, and 8 written to the right. Now we can truily see the Chinese symbols are not all the same on the end labels between the cart I showed from eBay, and the Time Warp and Dragon Treasure carts.

[Omegamatrix]

Here are all the circuit boards that actually have Funvision on them together:

 

 

And the two Halley's Comet boards that don't have Funvision on the board:

 

 

There is a strange symbol silkscreened into the left circuit board (Time Warp, L410) between ERSO and 21002A. It does not appear on the other circuit board.

[Omegamatrix]

@ Marco do you have a Halley's Comet with this front label?

 

 

I suspect this was a PAL cartridge, but it would be interesting to see if a Halley's Comet had used the same label.

[Dino]

Now on to some Halley's Comets. First Time Warp:

 

 

Time_Warp__Funvision_Halley__s_Comet__NTSC.BIN

 

So we finally have a game that has a Funvision label on it, and guess what? No Funvision on the circuit board. Compare the Time Warp board to the Plug Attack board though. They look very similar.

 

There's more though. Remember this cart that came recently on eBay?

 

 

Some people thought it was a multicart. I thought it was a Funvision. I know my Halley's Comets are double labled including the end label. I finally got some courage to peel it as they rip easy.

 

 

That was as far as I dared to go. While the Halley's Comet front labels are all generic it appears the end labels are all different. Since I can't read Chinese I can only speculate they are different game names. On Time Warp I found the circled number to be 104 and the smaller number to the right to be 4.

 

If anyone is curious here is a Funvision Halley's Comet box and instructions.

 

 

Note that the sticker on the box is actually an end label. The top "Atari 2600 Compatible" portion of the box also appears on the sides of the Funvision system box. On the owners manual we see Fund Intrenational Co., Ltd. appear. Remember too that "FUND" was stamped into the shells of the T-Handles.

 

 

The Chinese on the Funvision 176 cart says "World Series Baseball"

[Dino]

@ Marco do you have a Halley's Comet with this front label?

 

 

I suspect this was a PAL cartridge, but it would be interesting to see if a Halley's Comet had used the same label.

 

I have a number of these (with different end labels) and they are all PAL Funvision carts.

Edited July 30, 2007 by Dino

[Omegamatrix]

The Chinese on the Funvision 176 cart says "World Series Baseball"

How did you translate it? I'm presuming you don't read Chinese here. I tried looking for one online but I couldn't find any type of site where I could sort of draw the symbol and it would translate it. What does the Chinese writing say on the Condor Attacks out there?

 

 

Has anyone made a list of these PAL Funvision carts with the Chinese symbols on the end labels? Dino what ones do you have and what games go with them? I'm curious too why there is a small second number over on the right side of the end label.

 

I also found a good thread from the past about Funvision:

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?s...mp;hl=funvision

 

Inside it had this photo from Marco of his Busy Police board from inside his Halley's Comet cart. It looks the same as mine with different numbers on the back once again. There is something under the silk screen of his board too (under the 21002A), but I can't tell what it is.

 

[Dino]

The Chinese on the Funvision 176 cart says "World Series Baseball"

How did you translate it?

 

I asked a Chinese guy.