E-reader e-cards question

[GameBoyGeek]

Ok so as we know the E-reader didnt do well here and the mario brothers 3 card set was never fully released here. Does anyone know if the japanese cards work on the american game at all?

[Mayhem]

Nope. Technically they are region locked.

[EnforcerOfJustice]

Japanese cards won't even scan on an American e-Reader. You would need both a japanese e-Reader and Japanese copy of Super Mario Advance 4 to use them

[GameBoyGeek]

I see. Are there any codes in exsistance to unlock those levels?

[calthaer]

There was a gentleman who de-coded the SMB3 Japanese cards and figured out how to re-format the dots to operate on an American e-Reader. Somewhere I have the data for those dots; the website was removed at one point and I'd have to dig it up.

The real problem is that you'd need an extremely high-resolution printer to be able to get the dots fine enough for the e-Reader to read it properly. I've been meaning for years to produce the cards but never really bothered. Let me see if I have the data around and I'll update this post. This question was asked a few years ago and IIRC I put the data up on my site for download.

Here is the file. You'll need to right-click and save-as. This one contains a program to format .RAW binary files into e-Reader dot code bars; the unreleased SMB3 GBA cards from Japan have already been translated / turned into image files...but again - you still have the problem of a really high-res printer (again, IIRC, someone was saying something in the range of > 2000 dpi - a run-of-the-mill deskjet / laserjet probably won't do it).

http://www.calthaer.com/sma4card.rar

If anyone ever gets this to work, please PM me and let me know. The guy below mentions 600dpi; I may try this at the laser printer at work sometime in the next few weeks.

EDIT: Looks like the initial site is:

http://users.skynet.be/firefly/gba/e-reader/

[calthaer]

Here is another site that contains the .RAW files and the data required to print them:

http://www.caitsith2.com/ereader/sma4.htm

It also contains some scans of the Japanese cards themselves.

I am going to take these in to work and try printing them out sometime in the next week (work will not be open tomorrow due to the snow). If all goes well, I will see what I can do about laying out in InDesign the ~ 40 cards (38, and there are two rare Wal-Mart cards released for the game here in the US that most people probably don't have) that were never released in the US.

The bar codes themselves look like they are ~ 40 x 984 pixels fit into a space measured 1/8" x 2 7/8". This means that a 600 dpi laser printer may be able to do the trick; I'm going to try.

This may allow me to print them on card-stock, or get them professionally printed. If I do this, and it works (I will test it first), I may do a limited number of runs of the cards and make them available to the folks here for roughly at-cost (plus shipping).

[Blitzwing256]

i'd be interested in a set if you did so (was too lazy to print them out myself)

[calthaer]

It looks like professional cards would cost something in the range of $30-40 per set ($.75 - $1.00 per card) if I got it done, and I'd need to have a fair number of people interested to make it worth it.

Of course, there's always the option of just printing it out on cardstock on a color laser printer. Wouldn't have the semi-gloss laminate, but it would be a lot cheaper. Will do some testing soon.

[c0ldb33r]

If you're looking to set something up, count me in. I'd gladly share in the cost, provided that it was reasonable.

I tried printing those off before and failed miserably. :(

[calthaer]

The CaitSith2 guy has video of him printing out dot reader codes and then reading them right into an e-Reader.

Whether those codes can be manipulated via the RAW2BMP deal and then printed through Adobe InDesign or something is another matter.

The best card place I talked to had a minimum of 100 per card to be printed. With 38-40 cards, this would be 4000 cards at $.5-$.75 per, at least - this doesn't include shipping or packing them (probably adds another $7 or so, hence the $30-40). Not exactly cheap in terms of an initial outlay, but not entirely outlandish, especially if they all go out the door, eventually. Question is whether we'd eventually find 100 people willing to shell out to get those "lost" e-Reader cards that never made it to the US.

[Blitzwing256]

can you make a list of what the cards were?
I know many of them were retro smb1 levels,all new levels and a couple differnt power up packs etc etc,

how many of them are actually usefull cards (ie levels) and not those mostly worthless "demo" cards?

[Baloo]

The CaitSith2 guy has video of him printing out dot reader codes and then reading them right into an e-Reader.

Whether those codes can be manipulated via the RAW2BMP deal and then printed through Adobe InDesign or something is another matter.

The best card place I talked to had a minimum of 100 per card to be printed. With 38-40 cards, this would be 4000 cards at $.5-$.75 per, at least - this doesn't include shipping or packing them (probably adds another $7 or so, hence the $30-40). Not exactly cheap in terms of an initial outlay, but not entirely outlandish, especially if they all go out the door, eventually. Question is whether we'd eventually find 100 people willing to shell out to get those "lost" e-Reader cards that never made it to the US.

That's a lot of moolah. Couple thousand for cards? Wow. I'd be willing to pay $10-15 for a set though.

[buzz_n64]

I'd like a set, I'd fork over around $10-$15 for it too.

[Icarus Moonsight]

Might be less cost prohibitive/more feasible down the road. Desktop publishing, printers etc will get better, or good enough to print these up without the high expense.

I'd be interested, am actually. But honestly, I can't justify that level of cost for cards for a single game as things are now.

[c0ldb33r]

I'd be very interested if I knew that they'd work.

[LimeiBook86]

I tried to do this on my own once, I didn't have any luck - although I didn't try too hard.

A decent laser printer may be able to do it. I remember tinkering with my father's Epson 3000 printer in PostScript mode and it printed out very sharp images, though those were vector images and these are bitmaps.

Have you gotten a chance to try on a laser printer yet? I have a few at my office I suppose I can try. I just have to dig out the e-reader. If this works then it would be far far cheaper then having them professionally printed. Then you always have to worry about deterioration of the digital file if it is converted or re-saved improperly. :)

[calthaer]

"Far far cheaper" depends, as anything, on how many one chooses to print.

If one were to print 2500 sets of the cards, you'd get them for $.03 apiece. But then again you'd be stuck with loads of these things that you'd probably never get rid of. If you want to print something with any amount of durability - say, even uncoated cardstock that is laser-printer-friendly - it may not come out to be too cheap. Cheaper than printing 100 sets of cards at $.50 a piece, probably. But not $.03 / card.

Blitzwing asked for a list, and this is what I have. I have come up with this list by comparing the RAW files from CaitSith2's site (he puts them all, released and unreleased US-encoded cards, into one big file) with the actual SMB3 cards I have (including the Wal-Mart promotional cards, which are most likely very rare and could stand to be printed along with the others):

The vast majority of these cards are un-released levels.

JAPANESE (UNRELEASED)
ITEM CARDS
3 Boomerangs.raw
3 cape feathers.raw
3 Mushrooms.raw
3Up Mushroom.raw
5 P-Wings.raw
10 Item Set.raw
100Up mushroom.raw
Boomerang.raw

SWITCH CARDS
blue switch.raw
cyan switch.raw
green switch.raw
red switch.raw
yellow switch.raw

LEVEL CARDS
mushroom 11 - Magical Note Blocks 2.raw
mushroom 12 - Airship 1.raw
mushroom 13 - Chill Cavern.raw
mushroom 14 - Inner Maze.raw
mushroom 15 - Tropical Splash.raw
mushroom 16 - Castle a Go-Go.raw
mushroom 17 - Frappe Snowland.raw
mushroom 18 - Frozen Fortress.raw
mushroom 19 - Pipe Maze.raw
mushroom 20 - Spiral Tower.raw
mushroom 21 - 60 Seconds.raw
mushroom 22 - Ropeland.raw
mushroom 23 - Haunted Hall.raw
mushroom 24 - Clear Skies.raw
mushroom 25 - Koopahari Desert.raw
mushroom 26 - Aqua Bars of Doom.raw
mushroom 27 - The Gauntlet.raw
mushroom 28 - Hammer Bro. Ship.raw
mushroom 29 - Bowser's Airship Part 1.raw
mushroom 30 - Bowser's Airship Part 2.raw

PROMO LEVEL CARD
promotional - Coro Coro Castle.raw
(also a "Mad Dash" Card? Didn't see this in CaitSith2's list but maybe I missed it)

CLASSIC LEVEL CARD
star 02 - Classic World 1-2.raw
star 03 - Classic World 1-3.raw
star 04 - Classic World 1-4.raw
star 05 - Classic World 2-2.raw

DEMO (EDIT):
It looks like there are 23 additional DEMO cards that were released in Japan and not the U.S. I think that CaitSith2 has these but I'm not sure; will have to check.

The Wal-Mart promo cards are:
1-Up Mushroom (Item 1)
Fire Flower (Item 2)
Super Mushroom (Item 3)
World 4-6 Unlimited 1-ups (Demo)
Airship's Revenge (Level)

So actually there may be a few more than 40 that could stand to be printed, assuming most people don't have those 5 Wal-Mart cards (and the GameFAQs FAQ is correct - I remember Airship's Revenge being one of them but don't rightly recall without the FAQ which ones were promo ones from Wal-Mart).

I'm going to test these on a laser printer, but it's going to take me a week or so to be able to get the time to do that.

[compmike19]

Is there anywhere that has scans of the cards themselves in high resolution?

[joshnickerson]

Count me in as very interested in this.

[duo_r]

I own the US version and thought about what you are saying but thought it was too much hassle. I found an "alternate" way to play and I gotta say, we really missed out on what they got in Japan. This is a classic example on how we get screwed in the NA market...

[Dr. Dib]

I own the US version and thought about what you are saying but thought it was too much hassle. I found an "alternate" way to play and I gotta say, we really missed out on what they got in Japan. This is a classic example on how we get screwed in the NA market...

Well it's a bit harsh to say that we were screwed here. The E-reader failed miserably here, so it's no surprise that those cards were never released. If you want to say we got screwed, than blame the consumers for not liking the
E-reader.

Of course I honestly don't remember Nintendo marketing it too much...

And I guess I would possibly be interested in attaining a pack of cards. Depends on the cost of course. And if my E-reader still works...

[youruglyclone]

putting my name on "interested" list.

[duo_r]

Well...yes the e-reader failed miserably. I am not hostile or anything, but too bad we missed out on the SMA4 cards exclusive to Japan. I guess the fact that it failed miserably is why we got screwed, but really if you think about it the design of the SMA 4 level cards is to blame. How many people had:

* Copy of the Game
* 2 Gameboys
* E-reader
* Link Cable

(ok well I did, and probably most of the GBA collectors on here)

As we all know add-ons fail miserably in the US Market....and so to your point I point the finger at the stubborn Americans that refused to buy add-on junk.... (lol).



Well it's a bit harsh to say that we were screwed here. The E-reader failed miserably here, so it's no surprise that those cards were never released. If you want to say we got screwed, than blame the consumers for not liking the
E-reader.

Of course I honestly don't remember Nintendo marketing it too much...

And I guess I would possibly be interested in attaining a pack of cards. Depends on the cost of course. And if my E-reader still works...

[slapdash]

If you're talking reprinting cards... Could you put multiple original dot-patterns on one card to save money? Didn't the eCards only have the dots on one edge? Seems like you could make square cards with four patterns on them then, or eight if the originals were singled sided...

[calthaer]

A few things:

Scans of the cards in very high-res will not really help with the dot codes. As has already been stated earlier in the thread, dot codes for Japanese cards are incompatible with the dot codes for American cards. If you scan the Japanese codes in high-res, it will do absolutely nothing in terms of you being able to import that data into your GBA game.

I fired up SMB3 GBA today - had never taken it out of the package, in spite of having the full range of US-released e-Reader cards. For some reason, the e-Reader wouldn't communicate with the GBA. Might be because I don't have the official link cable; have ordered one and we shall see what that does.

Once that has been tested I will try the dot codes as printed out from the printer in 600 or 1200 dpi, first using the dot code printer program that CaitSith2 has hosted and then taking the bitmap images themselves and printing them from an Adobe InDesign document to see what happens.

I have found another site that has, in addition to many SMB3 cards (it's missing some that CaitSith2 has), lots of other e-Reader .RAW data:

-all the Animal Crossing cards
-all Pokemon Battle-E cards, except the promo cards released with the game in Australia and the US.
-The Pokemon Sapphire / Ruby Eon Ticket (this is the big one)
-and more

Apologies in advance, as there is some exceedingly cheesy MIDI music on the site:
http://ereader.kiczek.com/

Wish we could find the Japanese Pokemon Battle-E cards that were unreleased. Apparently, there is a method of dumping the memory of the e-Reader and then translating that into US-encoded data (as CaitSith2 has done with the unreleased SMB3 cards). Many of the ROMs for the Japanese dot codes have, apparently, been identified in a .DAT file available from No-Intro:

http://ereader.no-intro.org/

but I haven't the foggiest idea how that might relate to actually getting those codes and translating them for US encoding; maybe someone else with more technical expertise can unlock that mystery. For now, I'll see about printing the SMB3 dot codes from a 1200 dpi laser printer.

[c0ldb33r]

duo-r, what was your other method? Roms? I'd be willing to try that out. I've always wondered what the missing extra levels were like.

[compmike19]

A few things:

Scans of the cards in very high-res will not really help with the dot codes. As has already been stated earlier in the thread, dot codes for Japanese cards are incompatible with the dot codes for American cards. If you scan the Japanese codes in high-res, it will do absolutely nothing in terms of you being able to import that data into your GBA game.



I'm looking for the card images themselves in high-res not really worried about the dot codes as the seem to be readily available on a few sites as you mentioned. I'd like to reprint my own set of cards with the art on them.

[importaku]

I dont think there are many japanese card scans on the net. I did some for my website but i no longer have my scanner so i cant redo them in a super high resolution.

But they might be of some use
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/importaku/importakus%20collection/card-e/ereader%20index.html

There is another way to get the ereader data onto peoples carts. you can use a memory stick like this
http://www.eagb.net/advance/hr47.html

This is exactly how i do it for people who want my ereader data to get the extra levels, however i only have the japanese version of mario advance 4 but all you do is plug in the stick & select my data to overwrite the data on the cart & tadaa the get an exact copy of the data in my game. Without having to touch an ereader, however one of you would need to get the usa save data & a stick to do the same then pass it round between you all.

Action replays can back up & restore the save data but they don't work properly with mario advance 4, it screws up the save data by duplicating levels in the save as i discovered when i originally dumped the saves from the ereader cards to the net so everyone could try out the levels.

I was planning to dump all the cards but i lack the hardware to do so as my laptop dosent have the right ports as the cable needed a serial port if i remember correctly.

[compmike19]

I dont think there are many japanese card scans on the net. I did some for my website but i no longer have my scanner so i cant redo them in a super high resolution.

But they might be of some use
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/importaku/importakus%20collection/card-e/ereader%20index.html

There is another way to get the ereader data onto peoples carts. you can use a memory stick like this
http://www.eagb.net/advance/hr47.html



I did find your site during my surfing and saved your pages of images, they are some of the best that I have found surfing around the net. Thanks

The ereader memory stick is interesting did not know about that. Thanks again for the heads up.

[Baloo]

Those are some very interesting site linked to there. I have about 30 or so Animal Crossing e-cards myself, along with some of the Nintendo classics e-cards.

Now, does the E-reader itself have to be Japanese in order for it to work with the codes? Or can just the game or GBA be in Japanese for it to work?

[importaku]

The ereader the cards and the game all have to be the same region. However what your plugging the ereader into dosent matter for region as any region gba or gba player will accept it.

[calthaer]

A serial port shouldn't be a problem - I am sure there are serial to USB adapters of many kinds, like this one:

http://www.serialtousbconverter.com/

Might even have one of these downstairs. I'd buy one and have it shipped to you if you were going to dump some of the unreleased Japanese e-Reader cards and upload them.

I did not know about that e-Reader flash card, either - that is some good stuff. So are those scans of the Japanese cards, at least for printing up one's own set. The e-Reader is such a neat little device that combines the best of trading cards + video games; I really wish we had seen things like that Mario vs. Donkey Kong set over here in the US.

[duo_r]

I am not sure the policy of discussing it on this site, but I actually used a flashcart for GBA. All you do is load a GBA Rom, and then you have to load a save file that has the games already downloaded. Can be found on the net pretty easily.




duo-r, what was your other method? Roms? I'd be willing to try that out. I've always wondered what the missing extra levels were like.

[calthaer]

Just tested a printed version of the e-Reader codes today and it worked great - had to wait to get an official link cable. SMB3 for the GBA is more finicky than some of the other GBA games, apparently, as the knock-off link cable I had been using with Pokemon and such wouldn't work with SMB3.

Got the Coro-Coro Castle level imported to my SMB3 game (it's a pretty tough level). Printed the dot code using that program from CaitSith2 to a 1200x1200 dpi printer; this prints the code in exactly the right size for the GBA e-Reader, and the e-Reader can read these dots just fine.

Next up I will try to make either a large bitmap image or will do an Adobe InDesign doc to print these on card stock with the Japanese card images from importaku's site.

[joshnickerson]

Nice! Please keep us posted!

[c0ldb33r]

Next up I will try to make either a large bitmap image or will do an Adobe InDesign doc to print these on card stock with the Japanese card images from importaku's site.
Won't that require a Japanese SMB3 cart?

[calthaer]

Won't that require a Japanese SMB3 cart?

No. The .RAW files available for download from CaitSith2's site are encoded for US SMB4a games. I have already imported data into my US game from those dot codes and I know they can work on US carts.

Yesterday I took the .bmp files generated by the RAW2BMP program and placed them on top of one of Importaku's scans (scaled for high-res) - a single high-res bitmap image. Then printed this out at 1200dpi in both color and then B&W to see how the dots printed out. Initial tests didn't turn out all that well and the dot codes didn't print finely enough to scan properly. I need to fool around with some of the print options to see if I can get the picture to print out pixel-perfect and adjust some settings...e.g., making sure it's printing raster vs. vector images, and that the image isn't being compressed when it is sent to the printer. I am not sure just what method CaitSith2's program, nedcprint.exe, is using in order to get the dot codes pixel-perfect, but they print very finely. His program is also printing at a size slightly larger than what is on the actual e-Reader card (his dot code lines are, in total, around 4 inches long). But his print-outs work really well when using a 1200dpi laser printer. A 600dpi one might work, too, it says, but no lesser resolution than that.

Unfortunately, his program will only print one dot code per piece of paper (although it could be turned around and make 2, I suppose, and maybe one could get 4 dot codes on one sheet). I suppose it would also be possible to run a sheet of paper through twice: once to print "card" picture, once to put the dot codes on. Would require some tests, though. I'll continue to work on this. The necdprint.exe program does allow one to offset the dot code by x / y on the page...maybe I'll do some of this some Saturday and fiddle with those offsets. Then I'll see if I can't print out some card outlines on paper, then run those same pages through with necdprint.exe and get dot codes on the cards. Because necdprint.exe prints these out slightly larger than they were on actual e-Reader cards, any cards I print out would be larger, too.

Then I would just need to get some card stock and do it for real. I don't think getting these "professionally" printed will work, as the only dot codes that seem to actually do the trick are the ones done by necdprint.exe. Other programs must do funny stuff to the image, compressing it as it gets sent to the printer, and that messes up the pixel-perfect dot codes that necdprint prints correctly (and on the same printer).