17 replies to this topic

[david.winter]

Just wanted to show you two things:
- The (in my opinion) holy grail "gray case" for the 2600: this one was acquired from a friend who happened to work with Atari in France back in 1983 or so. I have no idea why this case was made. He tole me it was a special and very limited and numbered release for the launch of the console in France, but I had a 2600 since 1981 at home some this looks quite late in 1983, especially since it's the black version, as opposed to the woodgrain we had in 81. This said, it has a low 71 serial and has an Atari logo on it, so this is still originall stuff. I'd be happy to know more about it. See pictures.
- A nice set of 9 loaners for PAL games. They all contain eprom boards, Rev 4. No idea of they are pre-release of final versions but PAL loaners are, in my opinion, much rarer than NTSC ones. It's actually the first time I see them. See pictures... !


David

Attached Thumbnails

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[Crazy Climber]

Nice stuff!

[Wickeycolumbus]

Very nice! Do you have a way to dump those prototypes?

[david.winter]

Yes, I have an eprom burner so I already dumped everything, but I want the real PAL releases to compare before posting.

David

[Wickeycolumbus]

david.winter, on Sun Oct 11, 2009 2:35 PM, said:

Yes, I have an eprom burner so I already dumped everything, but I want the real PAL releases to compare before posting.

David

Here you go

Attached Files

•  PALROMs.zip   52.57K   75 downloads

[david.winter]

Thanks ! Apparently, they all differ by two bytes at 0FF9 and 1FF8: your dumps have FF whereas my loaners have 00. I suppose this is a bank-switching issue but Jungle Hunt has 6B & 9D.
The other surprise is Alphabeam which has 29 different bytes. They all seem to be data.
On the left is my PAL dump. On the right is the dump you provided.
27F: 69 63
2CF: 38 34
32C: 30 27
4E6: 38 36
59D: 38 36
B11: 58 C8
B12: 58 C8
B13: 58 C8
B14: 58 C8
D07: AC AA
D0A: BA BC
DA8: 0C 0A
DB2: 0A 08
DBC: 08 06
DC6: 06 04
DD0: 04 02
DDA: 06 04
DE4: 08 06
DEE: 0A 08
FF9: 00 FF
1DE8: 0C 08
1DE9: 0A 06
1DEA: 08 04
1DEB: 06 02
1DEC: 04 00
1DED: 06 02
1DEE: 08 04
1DEF: 0A 06
1FF8: 00 FF



David

[Wickeycolumbus]

david.winter, on Sun Oct 11, 2009 3:21 PM, said:

Thanks ! Apparently, they all differ by two bytes at 0FF9 and 1FF8: your dumps have FF whereas my loaners have 00. I suppose this is a bank-switching issue but Jungle Hunt has 6B & 9D.

Yes, that is just a bank switching issue.

david.winter, on Sun Oct 11, 2009 3:21 PM, said:

The other surprise is Alphabeam which has 29 different bytes. They all seem to be data.
On the left is my PAL dump. On the right is the dump you provided.
27F: 69 63
2CF: 38 34
32C: 30 27
4E6: 38 36
59D: 38 36
B11: 58 C8
B12: 58 C8
B13: 58 C8
B14: 58 C8
D07: AC AA
D0A: BA BC
DA8: 0C 0A
DB2: 0A 08
DBC: 08 06
DC6: 06 04
DD0: 04 02
DDA: 06 04
DE4: 08 06
DEE: 0A 08
FF9: 00 FF
1DE8: 0C 08
1DE9: 0A 06
1DEA: 08 04
1DEB: 06 02
1DEC: 04 00
1DED: 06 02
1DEE: 08 04
1DEF: 0A 06
1FF8: 00 FF



David

Very cool!

[Omegamatrix]

david.winter, on Sun Oct 11, 2009 3:21 PM, said:

Thanks ! Apparently, they all differ by two bytes at 0FF9 and 1FF8: your dumps have FF whereas my loaners have 00. I suppose this is a bank-switching issue but Jungle Hunt has 6B & 9D.

Hello David,

Yes, those are the bankswitching hotspots so they are never read by the Atari. Your eprom dumper might read them accurately though, and it is interesting to know about Jungle hunt.


Alpha Beam would take a disassembly of the rom to figure out what those values are actually doing. There are some discussions of different roms going on in this thread I started:

http://www.atariage....ions-and-dumps/

You'll note that towards the end Tempest mentioned some of the roms you posted and I compared them to Rom Hunter's collection. You can see the results there. Also if you happen to have any of the games that need dumping which are listed on the first page of the thread, well it'd certainly be appreciated. Especially the Secam ones, which you may or may not have being from France.


Jeff

[david.winter]

Omegamatrix, on Mon Oct 12, 2009 1:16 AM, said:

david.winter, on Sun Oct 11, 2009 3:21 PM, said:

Thanks ! Apparently, they all differ by two bytes at 0FF9 and 1FF8: your dumps have FF whereas my loaners have 00. I suppose this is a bank-switching issue but Jungle Hunt has 6B & 9D.

Hello David,

Yes, those are the bankswitching hotspots so they are never read by the Atari. Your eprom dumper might read them accurately though, and it is interesting to know about Jungle hunt.


Alpha Beam would take a disassembly of the rom to figure out what those values are actually doing. There are some discussions of different roms going on in this thread I started:

http://www.atariage....ions-and-dumps/

You'll note that towards the end Tempest mentioned some of the roms you posted and I compared them to Rom Hunter's collection. You can see the results there. Also if you happen to have any of the games that need dumping which are listed on the first page of the thread, well it'd certainly be appreciated. Especially the Secam ones, which you may or may not have being from France.


Jeff

Hi Jeff,

I never saw the Secam cartridges in France. The 2600 units were connected through the RF antenna plug here, and the video signal was modulated in secam. But the initial video generated by the 2600 chips only differed by its refresh rate and possibly some colors. So I really wonder what the "S" means on these cartridges. Do they have different colors than the normal PAL releases ?

As for the roms, thanks for posting them, I still have a last NTSC loaner at my parents to dump. Can't remember the title. But I'd like to know the differences in Sorcerer's Apprentice and Jungle hunt.


David

[Omegamatrix]

david.winter, on Mon Oct 12, 2009 2:12 AM, said:

I never saw the Secam cartridges in France. The 2600 units were connected through the RF antenna plug here, and the video signal was modulated in secam. But the initial video generated by the 2600 chips only differed by its refresh rate and possibly some colors. So I really wonder what the "S" means on these cartridges. Do they have different colors than the normal PAL releases ?

As for the roms, thanks for posting them, I still have a last NTSC loaner at my parents to dump. Can't remember the title. But I'd like to know the differences in Sorcerer's Apprentice and Jungle hunt.


David

Hi David,

Rom Hunter has mention some known differences in the Secam Activision roms. One noticable difference is the French word for "Fuel" is written on the tanks in River Raid for example.


The "S" on the Activision labels represents a Secam format. Activision also put "N" label stickers on their international cartridges that were destined for Canada. Canada is NTSC, while most of Europe uses the PAL format. Activision saved money by printing multilanguage labels and slapping a "N" sticker on the ones that were NTSC. This is what distinguishes the carts.


I will also be taking a look at Sorcerer's Apprentice. Quite honestly I don't know how long it'll take as my plate is overloaded as I'm in school. It has been an incredible week of rom dumping too. We had Cosmic War (Home Vision), Z-Tack (Bomb, NTSC), The Gameline Module, and your Sorcerer's Apprentice dumped amongst a few others. I want to take a thorough look at them all. It's my hobby. I just trying to find the time.


I also wanted to say I really like that grey case of yours. Hold on to that baby, it's pretty cool!

[Rom Hunter]

So, correct me if I'm wrong, only Alpha Beam with Ernie, Jungle Hunt and Sorcerer's Apprentice need to be examined, right?

That Alpha Beam (06-03-83) must be an early proto.

The proto in the collection is from 12-22-83.

Edited by Rom Hunter, Mon Oct 12, 2009 3:32 AM.

[david.winter]

Rom Hunter, on Mon Oct 12, 2009 2:59 AM, said:

So, correct me if I'm wrong, only Alpha Beam with Ernie, Jungle Hunt and Sorcerer's Apprentice need to be examined, right?

That Alpha Beam (06-03-83) must be an early proto.

The proto in the collection is from 12-22-83.

That's correct. But Jungle Hunt differs by two bytes located at the bank switching addresses, however I don't know why they are not 00s or FFs. I used an eprom reader to read the chips separately so I didn't dump through the cartridge hardware.

[Foxsolo2000]

david.winter, on Sun Oct 11, 2009 2:22 PM, said:

Just wanted to show you two things:
- The (in my opinion) holy grail "gray case" for the 2600: this one was acquired from a friend who happened to work with Atari in France back in 1983 or so. I have no idea why this case was made. He tole me it was a special and very limited and numbered release for the launch of the console in France, but I had a 2600 since 1981 at home some this looks quite late in 1983, especially since it's the black version, as opposed to the woodgrain we had in 81. This said, it has a low 71 serial and has an Atari logo on it, so this is still originall stuff. I'd be happy to know more about it. See pictures.
- A nice set of 9 loaners for PAL games. They all contain eprom boards, Rev 4. No idea of they are pre-release of final versions but PAL loaners are, in my opinion, much rarer than NTSC ones. It's actually the first time I see them. See pictures... !


David

God that is a beautiful sight to behold. Deeply envious

[staberinde]

david.winter, on Sun Oct 11, 2009 2:22 PM, said:

Just wanted to show you two things:
- The (in my opinion) holy grail "gray case" for the 2600: this one was acquired from a friend who happened to work with Atari in France back in 1983 or so. I have no idea why this case was made. He tole me it was a special and very limited and numbered release for the launch of the console in France, but I had a 2600 since 1981 at home some this looks quite late in 1983, especially since it's the black version, as opposed to the woodgrain we had in 81. This said, it has a low 71 serial and has an Atari logo on it, so this is still originall stuff. I'd be happy to know more about it. See pictures.
- A nice set of 9 loaners for PAL games. They all contain eprom boards, Rev 4. No idea of they are pre-release of final versions but PAL loaners are, in my opinion, much rarer than NTSC ones. It's actually the first time I see them. See pictures... !


David

Indeed beautiful!

[Rom Hunter]

Tempest,

Exactly which date (and year) belongs to the 104 number on the Jungle Hunt loaner label?

Edited by Rom Hunter, Wed Oct 14, 2009 12:08 PM.

[Omegamatrix]

David, would you mind to post Jungle Hunt and Alpha Beam With Ernie? I'm add it to my list of to do's... getting to be a little long of a list.


Anyhow I'd rather use the rom then trying to hack in the different bytes. Less no chance for errors that way.


Also with Jungle Hunt, if the different bytes are at 0x0FF9 and 0x1FF8, then they can't be read. Off topic, an interesting question is whether bytes at 0x0FF8 and 0x1FF9 can be read, as you are already in that bank? Now if 0x0FF9 and 0x1FF8 can't be read (or used), then 2 possibilites exist:

1. It is just random garbage data.
2. It was intentionally put there. I.e. sometimes programmers put there initials in places that aren't used. Initials don't seem to be the case here as the bytes are higher then normal Ascii ($00 - $7F).

Edited by Omegamatrix, Sat Oct 17, 2009 11:25 PM.

[Shawn Sr.]

david.winter, on Sun Oct 11, 2009 2:22 PM, said:

It's actually the first time I see them. See pictures... !


David

The astrix & obliex are sexy

[david.winter]

Omegamatrix, on Sat Oct 17, 2009 11:25 PM, said:

David, would you mind to post Jungle Hunt and Alpha Beam With Ernie? I'm add it to my list of to do's... getting to be a little long of a list.


Anyhow I'd rather use the rom then trying to hack in the different bytes. Less no chance for errors that way.


Also with Jungle Hunt, if the different bytes are at 0x0FF9 and 0x1FF8, then they can't be read. Off topic, an interesting question is whether bytes at 0x0FF8 and 0x1FF9 can be read, as you are already in that bank? Now if 0x0FF9 and 0x1FF8 can't be read (or used), then 2 possibilites exist:

1. It is just random garbage data.
2. It was intentionally put there. I.e. sometimes programmers put there initials in places that aren't used. Initials don't seem to be the case here as the bytes are higher then normal Ascii ($00 - $7F).

I read the eprom chips themselves without passing through the cartridge hardware. So the bytes read are really what is programmed in the eproms.
The bytes I listed earlier are therefore correct and are the only differences with the NTSC ROMs. To avoid confusions here are the dumps...


David

Attached Files

•  junghunt.BIN   8K   86 downloads
•  alphabeam.BIN   8K   119 downloads