Making this thread for my new top-articl on
[URL=http://superfamicom.org/blog/]satellablog/URL];

http://superfamicom.org/blog/2010/03/new-r...ame-difference/

About the most relevant thing I could think of here is that now we have two additional SRAM using games to go with Kamigami no Trifroce, so we can make better comparisons on how the SRAM works differently between standard carts and BS-X.

Woah... what the heck is up with the title screen of Actraiser? Is that what the logo looks like in the standard Japanese version? I can scarcely tell that is an A at the beginning of the word.

Say, how many battle stages does this version of SBMan 2 feature? Ten or twelve?

Very cool Kiddo. Thanks for your generosity in purchasing the 8M pack and getting it dumped. It's people like you that keep the community alive.

I haven't actually played the JP Version of ActRaiser (I recall a bit of the US one for certain), but I assume that's the standard JP Logo.

I did not play through Super Bomberman 2 far enough to know how many levels. It -appears- to be identical to the standard version, though, so it's likely that it matches up with that one. Is there any particular way to tell in a rather quick fashion?

[quiote]Very cool Kiddo. Thanks for your generosity in purchasing the 8M pack and getting it dumped. It's people like you that keep the community alive. [/quote]

Sure thing. :D I had a few other 8M Packs which are redumps, and one Pack I ended up forgetting to mail to Callis (but mostly because the game itself is forgetable - who cares for "Sonic Blastman?")

I hope to be able to land some more 8M Packs in the future - I won't cosnider my work done until I get a Satella-Q pack, the two BS F-Zero grand Prix 2 Soundlink episodes, the missing BS Super Mario Collection episodes, and maybe R No Shosai.

You've misunderstood me there I think, I don't mean how many stages the one-player story mode has, I meant the stages for the multiplayer battle mode.

Well, I'm only a single player. :( Durrrf.

I'll see if there's a way I can look into it anyhow

"Let's buy this random unlabeled cartridge!
...
Hey, it's Actraiser!" :lol:

Now I have the Filmoa song stuck in my head! :D

Yes there is. Choose battle mode and set all other players to COM.

Ir didn't quite play out like that - the YJA auction description mentioned ActRaiser in some form, which I guess now was meant to be "I used to play ActRaiser on this, but now the data's locked in.'" - Such a thing would be a good cue for a ROM dumper to buy it, since a ROM dumper would essentially be getting new ROM Data out of something that can't be used otherwise.

EDIT: Also, I count 10 stages in Super Bomberman 2.

Ah ok, so it's the same as the standard version.

You see, SBMan2 has ten battle stages plus two secret ones.
Since SBMan5 also had secret stages which were unlocked by default in a special edition of the game, I figured they may have done the same with this one.

Ah I see, makes sense.

On a bit of a different note -

http://kiddocabbusses.tryhappy.net/redumps/

I got upped all of Callis's dumps that ended up being redumps. Don't know how useful folks may find this, but yeah.

Are these files identical to the ones that have already been posted or are these alt dumps or overdumps or some such?

These are redumps of various types. Most of them, at the least, have different download dates than the previous ones.

1) The BS F-Zero 2 Practice ROM is a bad dump (it's title screen is corrupted - it otherwise plays. Rather strange.)

2) the Sutte Hakkun Event Version 2 ROMs seem to be "Purposely deleted" (you all recall when I posted that AK Live Hit Gang ROM?) and thus don't show on a BS-X.

3) the Panel De Pon 98 Event pack is another pack I purchased myself to dump.

With these redumps, it's possible we could have Satellaview ROMs directly labeled with their dates more often.

Interesting. So what's the story with the "BS Zelda no Densetsu: Kamigami no Triforce" title then? Is it identical save for the header date? What is the date?

Also shouldn't the title be corrected considering there's not supposed to be a BS part of that title? I'd recommend "Zelda no Densetsu: Kamigami no Triforce (BS-X) (date)"


Speaking of such things, considering we know that the version of BSZ:AST we have for download here is only one version of the game (i.e. the moles all appear in locations unique to the specific date for this dump and not in locations related to other dates), I think we should rename the ROMs we have here to reflect the broadcast date. Actually I think we should do that for all of the ROMs here and I wish all BS-X ROMs had that info it the title.

It's important if anyone ever wanted to make a full collection of Zelda titles that all different versions (i.e. broadcast runs) were collected since there's original content in the different broadcast runs for such games as AST.

I don't recall checking the KnT ROM in this redump set yet. I'll get to that now. On the note of the filenames, I just quickly upped these files without sorting through the naming schemes properly. It'll probably be renamed "Zelda no Densetsu Kamigami no Triforce (BS) (download date)" akin to how No-Intro currently handles these.

It appears to be set as "locked"/expired. It's download date is 11/30.

In comparison, the version that seems to be in the DATs (and on our site) has it's boot-limit set as BC, which is 4 bootups until the game would "lock". (Callis has been working on some new techical Wiki for help understanding the significance) and it's download date is 5/21.

It'd be difficult to check the broadcast dates of the Sekiban ROMs without being able to read them based on the hex value (Or hacking the game to boot from BIOs). I recall attempting this a few times before, I can't recall if I learned anything interesting.

(I do recall checking the BS Zelda no Densetsu Dai-3-wa's header, though, and it's date coincided with the premiere broadcasts.)

Very cool. I'll have to examine the wiki a bit. :)

I'd really love to see an up to date listing of all known dumps of BS-X titles (including the original broadcast dates) and for all known dumps of SNES titles for that matter.
I have found similar lists in the past but they're usually lists of all known ROMs and so they're choked with entries for fan hacks and weird things like that - playing TLOZ as Zelda and other such nonsense. I'd like a cleaned up list in plaintext or spreadsheet format with only good dumps and alternate versions (e.g. foreign versions). I keep hearing about these DATs, and I had downloaded a bunch once but I'm not sure how to use them really. They seem to require a DAT reader or else they display a lot of extraneous code. I suppose they're the most up to date, though, yeah? Hmmm... Maybe when I have a bit more time on hand.

If it helps you any, No-Intro strives to be a verified ROM dump group who are fairly thorough with the cross-checking, verifying, etc. - they check for alt dumps and the like, and I believe redumps of Satellaview ROMs in the DATs are marked by date.

I haven't shown them these redumps yet though. I'll make a post on it in the meantime.

That DRM issue for Satellaview games appears pretty simple with emulation:
- Find where the boot counter is read by the Satellaview (most likely the same address for all ROMs).
- Change the value in ROM to one that actually boots the game.
- Change the value in ROM at 0xFD5 to 00h to prevent further lockups.

If you can dump the Memory Pack contents, I suppose you can also rewrite it with the hacked ROM? :mario:

there's currently nothing that can re-write into an 8M Memory Pack now. And there probably won't be for the foreseeable future.

Ah that's too bad.

But at least the method should work with bsnes.

It's really for the best - God knows what'll happen if people start being able to write Radical Dreamers into every 8M Pack - potentially overwriting valuable data in the process.

As for hacking the locks outta the ROMs themselves; it's really easy, but it's something I tend to want to avoid because people have had questions about how hack-happy Satellaview ROM dumps have been for years, and combined with how we have a "hacked" BS Zelda Map 2 but not a "clean" dump and such... Of course, that's trying to rationalize things that might not escape my computer anyhow, but yeah.

But yeah, with that you can use the BS-X to view the Download date and filesize.

I agree that people should be really really 100% careful about writing over 8M packs, but at the same time I can't imagine it would be that hard to do. I mean Nintendo used to do it through the Satellaview. How hard a process could that be to reverse engineer?

Thanks for the tip about No Intro, by the way. I've been meaning to look into things over there.

PS - This thread featured in my presentation today. I thought it was the highlight of the show.

It probably isn't theoretically difficult at all - I believe most of the reason it hasn't happened yet is more because of non-technical factors (Collectors want to keep their data rare, ROM dumpers want to keep potentially new data from being erased, the Satellaview information boom's still quite a bit recent, etc.)

I have wondered if in fact this is one thing you could would one be able to "fake" a Satellite signal and get a Satellaview online again.

Yeah a "fake" Satellite signal would be amazing. With the internet it should be eminently doable. It could even be merged with an ambient radio streamer for the off-hours.

Woah, we can't jump quite to that conclusion yet. I don't think we know the first thing about how the Satellite signals worked on the system, how to convert the appropriate signals to ones a standard internet connection to the Satellaview could perform, etc.

Of course, I'd love the ideal, but it's best to err on caution here - it's very possible that the way the connections worked are mutually exclusive from any "standard" internet fare, and "emulating" it would be rather difficult.

Hacking ROMs to work in emulators is an outdated and erroneous approach and causes additional problems down the road; if the emulator doesn't support a game you fix the emulator, not the game. That is one of the reasons why groups like No Intro limit ROMs to unaltered files verified against the original media. Satellaview dumps are no different and should be done as-is, even if they can't run on even the real hardware.

Since the expiry setting probably uses a predictable header it should be easy enough to add global support in bsnes or the like, much like how emulators can already handle incorrect SNES headers.

Wait, the moles are repositioned in later broadcasts? Really? :huh:

Yeah, we learned this from the niconicodouga videos.

Let me quote myself:

(IIRC, the diggings are still in the same place).

Edit:
Hmmm, the other poster (in the thread I quoted) was right about week 1; the mole appears east of the bridge in the video. So that's 3 out of 4 weeks where the mole locations are changed.

My best understanding from the schedules I've seen is that there were 4 distinct run-throughs of AST. I assume the moles were repositioned for each new run-through to keep things lively for the players. I'd consider these different versions of the game considering that their sources are altered. That said, I think it would be nice to label the versions we have with their date or something to suggest that we recognize that they are part of a set of alternate versions.

Except that such a modification would break accuracy, because it'd be using a bypass to run a game that isn't meant to run regardless, and this sort of thing would be cause a hot debate over "Accuracy Vs. Compatibility", of which such debates would rip emulation communities apart and are the kind of things that spawned an emulator like BSNES - with a "high attention to accuracy detail" compared to any other emulator - to begin with.

(In other words, BSNES ain't gonna do it. Xpp XE actually does do something like this, but it has a different problem where it actually outputs -wrong- Day/Date info, so we can't use that.)

Also, 8M Memory Pack dumps most certainly do -not- have the same kind of verifiability as regular cartridges, as, partly because of the very nature of the 8M Memory Packs and the rewritable data, I've yet to see a case where a ROM can be "verified" by finding a completely identical redump, and - as obvious as the case of Sekiban shows - a mere different date of broadcast could have data modifications that make new dumps, and No-Intro had a debate about whether or not to add different-dated redumps previously where two high-profile regulars had opposing opinions.

SUMMARY: The Satellaview makes things a LOT MORE COMPLICATED.

The mole relocation is very interesting. It makes me wonder if they made other subtle changes (a "Map 2" is too much to hope for, however, especially since the broadcast schedules don't explicitly indicate this). Unfortunately it will likely be a while--if ever--before we get alternate dumps of these games.

Sorry, I was meaning as an optional setting--like how various emulators allow overriding the country code from "auto detect" to a setting of your choice.

Ideally all dumps would be from non-locked cartridges but for many games this is impossible, and having that option built right into the emulator is definitely preferable to hacking the games themselves. There are enough "fixed" BS-X ROMs in circulation as it is.

For reference on the sheer impossibility of this - ANY Soundlink game is going to be locked. Period. By any means of "Accurate emulation" - besides the very slim chance that the entire Online service could be emulated - there is no way to play a "good/clean" Soundlink game ROM.

On the note of trying to simulate the actual service, the first idea I'd have to work on that would be to try to hack the BS-X itself, figuring out various areas that aren't used and see what they do - if we can spawn screens such as download screens, schedules, and that one screen of the Satellite-kun flying around while a radio show plays, I'd think we'd be getting somewhere there. So far, though, the most we've gotten is some music that was only used while the service was up.

Yeah, I meant faking it using hubbed ROM-players and a date/timer-based central "broadcast" website. Contests could even be improved over the original because rather than mailing in scores, the ROM-players could potentially be made to transfer scores back to the hub.

Of course this wouldn't be accurate to the original system at all but it would be the closest thing I imagine we'll ever get to approximating the community feeling aspects of it. That is... if there's any interest in the system at all any more... heh.

I will say, I'm also involved with some folks that are Sega fans discussing the possibility of bringing back the "Sega Channel" - a feat that as of current seems a bit more feasible than the Satellaview (besides some games and late-era graphics, there's a lot more collected data and knowledge about the inner workings about the Sega Channel than the Satellaview). They're considering making carts that work through Wi-Fi rather than the coaxial cables that SC used. I think it would be cool to comment on it's progress now and then; on the side of what I do on that project, it's similar to here, as I collect data that hasn't been checked yet (Only recently has any info on the Japanese Sega Channel been found, for example.)

Anyway, one thing I'll say is that if work is done on this, I'd like to have it able to work with my actual Satellaview base setup. :P

And now for something actually related - the redumps I posted are now re-upped as compressed archives and detailed better in this blog article;

http://superfamicom.org/blog/2010/04/redum...that-identical/

There's also one I didn't initially have there that's on now. :P

Kirby! Thanks a lot! :)

Ah excellent.
I definitely approve of the addition of the date to the files!!

Now to test out Kirby. :)

YES!

And more Sutte Hakun for the people too!

http://superfamicom.org/blog/2010/04/inter...bs-x-cartridge/

Just to check, have you folks seen these before? Hrm.

Nope, never ran into that before :)

Ah, okey dokey. :)

I've been pondering the possibility that the SRAM in BS-X carts may have some possible loose data that may relate to BS Zelda, or may be useful somehow regardless. It's a bit frustrating taht there's apparently no current way to dump the SRAM.