Game Master/Master Kid Proto Inside Pics

[rbudrick]

Hi Folks,

Perhaps this should go to the prototype forum, I apoligize if this is out of line in this forum, but I thought thatthose who don't frequent that forum may be interested in this also.

I recently aquired this proto from Adaml. I was the high bidder in an auction he had for it, and I didn't hit the reserve price, but I struck a deal with him anyway through private emails.

Many have wondered how this thing compares to the original, and I thought I'd point you to some pics, and and also post an email I sent to Adam explaining the immediate differences I noticed. Some parts may be edited for brevity.

Here goes:

> Adam!
>I got the Master Kid today...Damn, it works better
than
> my original Game Action Replay! I opened it up and took some scans of
it.
> Two things that jumped out at me immediately was that there was a larger
> battery in the proto. Also, it was on the back instead of the front like
> the release version. Second, there is one EPROM in the Proto. It is
> labelled with a sticker by none other than BUNG! The kings of
> backup/copy/save devices. Big surprise, huh? That seems VERY mysterious
to
> me...almost shady. The release version has a chip in that spot that
> certainly does not say Bung on it, nor is it an eeprom, of course. I'll
> send you a zip of the pics when I get home.>
> I think it would be a good idea to post these pics where some NES sceners
> could make use of them or even offer some insight. Hmmm.....wonder
> where....maybe DP or Atariage or that NES Dev site that Memblers runs.
>
> The board looks very professional, not a hand-soldered job (as opposed to
a
> handjob, right?). :-D
> It looks very much like the release version except for that EEprom. I
> believe there's probably a bunch of added/removed/different traces on the
> board too. I guess many of the traces are slightly different. There might
> even be a spot for an extra chip or something...well, check out the pics
> when I send em.
>
> Oh yeah, one other thing, there's 3 screws on the proto that seem to add
> support to the black connector where it attaches to the board. Apparently,
> they didn't find these necessary for the release version, but left the
holes
> there anyway. Either that, or I lost the screws in the release version a
> long time ago! :-D Strangely, they filled the tips of the 3 screws
with
> a bit of solder so you cant put a screwdriver in there and remove them. I
> did anyway, thinking I needed to to get it out of the case (Derrr! Turns
out
> I didn't need to remove those screws at all). I just used a pair of needle-nosed pliers and sort of turned
> them...wasn't too hard. Dunno why they bothered with the solder on them
> though...
>
> I scanned the release version too for comparison. Don't mind the crappy
> solder job on the release version. I'm pretty sure mine died and I
> re-soldered many of the contacts to be sure there wasn't a loose
connection.
> I think the SRAM shit the bed in it (the release version I have), as I hear these things do (and
> permanently). This is why I need to get this thing backed up...I believe
> there is a very real chance of it dying for good. Why they used SRAM
> instead of a real ROM is way beyond me! There's two versions of the
> pics...some I contrast enhanced cuz they were sorta dark. I'll send the
> original non-contrast enhanced pics too.
>
> Talk to you soon!
>
> Yours,
> Rob


So, with that said, I will point you to the pics. If someone could please host them, it would be appreciated, as I do not yet have a web site. I Uploaded them to a free storage site (they took up 14 MB--high res for detail). I trust no one will go deleting the files on us, as I trust the people of this forum. And even if they do, like I said, I hope someone can host these on their own site for the world to see.

Also, if anyone knows someone who can back this thing up for me, it would be much appreciated. Feel free to let those who are in the NES Dev seen check this out.

www.Streamload.com , username, masterkid, password, masterkid.

Note that I posted 6 pics of it. One is under the files tab and one is right in the inbox (dunno why that happenned). Also, enjoy my Solstice map I created (that EdOscuro is now hosting on his site). It is also at this location if you wanna download it.

-Rob

[portnoyd]

Once the files are back up, I can put them on my site (unlim bandwidth, unlim space).

dave

[rbudrick]

Ahh, so there's lockouts on there. Only a few computers per day can access that account.

So, many people read this post, snagged the files, but didn't reply to the thread. EVIL LURKERS/LEACHERS LOL :angry:

Note my devilishly mixed-message emoticons.

For those that have them, share with others who don't, please. Also, try again, maybe late at night or something.

Bummer about that lockout....

-Rob

[Balloon Fight]

Dang, I really want to see the pics. It would be a ton easier if dave could host them. Nice deal on the masterkid though sincer there are only 2. Kinda funny how it's better than the real GAR.

[portnoyd]

http://schwillz.com/mk/

EDIT: DNS is down, give it some time.

Sleep....

dave

[Balloon Fight]

Awesome stuff. Thats a fat download for the picture by the way. @_@

Very interesting to say the least. I wish that there was something on the Master Kid that wasn't on the GAR, such as an added feature.

[rbudrick]

For all I know there is added features. I'd love to be able to compare the code to at least see what is different (Psssst, any dumpers yet? Jesus, people were dying to dump past protos, lol, ok, so this is no Earthbound Zero, but...).

I have a unit for the Famicom called the Game Master. It is smaller than the famicom, but covers quite a bit of the top. It too saves game states, but it can also permanently store them. There is even a menu to configure it. It is made by Bung. So, the fact that this original proto was called Game Master/Masterkid doesn't surprise me, since Bung had a hand in it. I am particulalry intrigued by this unit becasue it has a15 pin famicom tyoe expansion or com port on it, but the instructions don't say what for. Sux, because I spent 2 1/2 months translating the Chinese manual.

That still gets me....Bung had a hand in the Game Action Replay. It makes sense, but it sure isn't obvious from the release version. Like I said, it almost seems shady...

Oh, yeah, and let's not forget the cheat device for MSX1 and 2...the Game Master and the Game Master II. I believe at least one of these let you save to it also. Bung have a hand in these?

Hey, check this link:

http://sardius.fefea.org/undumped.txt

It says the GAR can't be safely dumped? I heard Kevin Horton did it once...

-Rob

[rbudrick]

Oh yeah,

You rock Portnoyd. Life is easier for all now. And better. :-)

By the way, STD made the GAR, Bung had a hand in it. STD? Bung? WTF?

-Rob

EDIT: actually QJ made the GAR...STD...what did they make...what am I thinking of...darn. Sorry, it's late, and I should be drunk.

[rbudrick]

I did a search on QJ and "Game Action Replay" and found really only one site that mentions that they made any other products:

http://www.nesworld.com/upd-q399.htm

And this link:

http://www.nesworld.com/a-gar.htm

This mentions that QJ stands for QuickJoy.

-Rob

[rbudrick]

Looks like quickjoy made some joysticks...assuming this is the same quickjoy.

Here's some pics:

http://www.heimcomputer.de/english/kurios/joysticks.html

One thing I found iteresting is that the Game Action Replay is model # sv-801 (it says right on the cart). If you check that link, the second to last item is SV-120. ANd I always thought SV was an abrreviation for "Save!" Like there were different versions of this save device...I guess I was probably wrong.

-Rob

[pentarou]

Oh, yeah, and let's not forget the cheat device for MSX1 and 2...the Game Master and the Game Master II. I believe at least one of these let you save to it also. Bung have a hand in these?

I doubt it - the carts were made by Konami specifically for use with Konami games.

[rbudrick]

http://216.239.53.104/search?q=cache:YkhjhVRINk0J:www.thosewerethedays.d e/joystick_galerie.htm++QuickJoy&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

A bunch of Quickjoy controllers on this site.

Oh, and on this link on the DP game database, it doesn't mention the Konami-only thing for the MSX Game Masters, but I think I've heard that before.

http://66.92.250.36:8080/DP/cmf/listing.cmf

-Rob

[rbudrick]

http://www.geocities.com/NES_Master/NES/GAR.htm

I just remembered...coming across the link above, the release version of the Game Action Replay has a menu screen. However, I can't remember how to get into it. I'm not so sure the proto has this. Anybody know how to access it?

-Rob

[portnoyd]

TSR can help.

http://www.atarihq.com/tsr/odd/scans/gar.html

dave

[rbudrick]

Ahhh...thanks, portnoyd!

I know I've seen that site before and I couldn't for the life of me figure out where...google was no help.

So, Select+A+B to get to the menu. That's what I thought.

So, I guess we can add to the things that are different about the proto: no menu.

The save and load is the same and there is a slo-mo w/ and w/o flashing feature, but no menu.

-Rob

[Skrybe]

(Psssst, any dumpers yet? Jesus, people were dying to dump past protos, lol, ok, so this is no Earthbound Zero, but...)
It's not that no one wants to dump it, it's just that no one currently has the know-how to do so without damaging it. I'm no tech expert, but I know that attempting to dump SRAM is very different from dumping a regular ROM, in that with SRAM you run the risk of destroying what's stored there, pretty much ruining the cart in the case of the GAR/Master Kid. I know Kevin Horton tried to dump a GAR before, but I don't think he was sucessful, though I could be wrong. It's awesome that you want to get it copied, and I'm very glad to see that it went to someone so willing to share it, but I don't think it can be done, not at the moment anyway. Just take good care of it for now, I'm sure someone will figure out a way eventually. They'd better, my Racermate carts that I want to get dumped are stored on SRAM too.

BTW, I hear you're the one who sent those FF2 scans to Lost Levels. Thanks for those, they were really interesting to see.

[rbudrick]

Hey Skrybe,

No prob on the FFII pics...my pleasure.

I heard that Kevin did successfully do it....maybe with a copynes it is possible. Only thing is, only like 10 were made, afaik. Also, Kevin Horton made them! He has never replied to any emails I sent him....so, I'm not sure. If anyone knew how to do it, I'm sure it would be him. Anyone know how to get hold of him or point him to this thread (or in my direction?). I'd love to hear what he has to say about all this.

As far as protos go, I'm always willing to share them (I'm not the miserly type w/ my r0mz)....it's just very difficult to find someone to dump them. I've got a bunch I need to back up...anyone wanna sell me a GB Xchanger? Or a copynes for that matter? LOL

It's not like I wouldn't pay what they are worth....

-Rob

[Skrybe]

You're right, if anyone could dump the Master Kid, it'd be Kevin, but I'm pretty sure that he bowed out of Nes dumping a while back. Too time-consuming, from what I heard. Your best bet right now would probably be to talk with TheRedEye. He's got a CopyNes and also still keeps in touch with Kevin. I imagine Red's too busy to try to dump anything right now (I'm still waiting for his okay to send some of my own carts,) but if nothing else he should be able to tell you if the CopyNes can do it.


As far as protos go, I'm always willing to share them
Seriously, that is awesome of you. It's people like yourself that allow me to keep my faith in humanity. :P

What else have you got besides the Master Kid? I know that just about any standard Nes proto should be a very simple matter to dump with a CopyNes, though I'm not sure what to tell you about your GB games. I don't follow GB emulation very closely. There's been some talk of finding a GB dumper over on this thread (http://lostlevels.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=153&start=20) at Lost Levels, so you might want to watch that.

[rbudrick]

Seriously, that is awesome of you. It's people like yourself that allow me to keep my faith in humanity.


Wow. I'm absolutely flattered! I appreciate that very much. :o :embarrassed: After a shit-ass day it's good to hear something like that!

The way I see it, there's just no sense in not letting the world see these great pieces of history....yes, HISTORY. That's exactly what they are, and in 50 years, these will almost certainly be museum quality pieces (protos in general). To not let others learn from them, study them and PLAY them is ludicrous, imo.

Hell, they are never leaving my hands until I die or my house is involved in a natural disaster, so why not share them? What good is a game if you can't play it between friends or talk about it with others?

Some people hoard and never share protos, and while I am VERY much against that, I firmly believe that that is their God-given right tp do so (ya bastids!) :D

What else have I got in protos? Well, a fair amount, but I don't wanna be a bragger..I only own 4 or so NES protos. There's a bunch of other protos for other systems that I REALLY need to back up soon.

Does anyone know Kevin Horton? Could they ask him if he was successful in his attempts?

Actually, Red, It was you I spoke to about backing up some of my protos (just remebered our PMs). Send me a PM if now is a better time than before. Actually, I'll send you one...why should you go out of your way?Thanks again!

-Rob

[TheRedEye]

Did somebody page me?

I can't dump that thing, and I'm pretty sure kev can't either. But, really, he's the only one to ask right now. I'll ask him myself, I'm actually sending him my CopyNES for repair today.

...which pretty much answers the question of whether or not I can accept anything right now. Nope. CopyNES is fucked. I'll get back to both of you.

[rbudrick]

Thanks, Red!

You rock!

Till later, er, soon, or whatever. :-)

-Rob

[adaml]

I told you before Mr. Budrick, my lone proto couldn't have found a better home than with you. The fact that you want to get that thing dumped and preserved and not hide it away like Gollum with the One Ring says volumes about your character. Again, you're one of the good guys.

As for STD, I thought they did have a part in the GAR. I don't know why I think that...either I saw it in a magazine article/ad, on the box or on the cart itself, but now that you mention QJ, that rings a bell too. The fact that Bung had a hand in an STD-related device does smell a bit...eh.

By the way, non-video game related, but I was watching a movie with my wife tonight (Open Range...Costner flick) and I had my hand on her [pregnant] belly and felt those buggas move quite a bit tonight. It's one of the weirdest feelings in the world. I'm waiting for a little alien to pop out a la Spaceballs.

[portnoyd]

I'm waiting for a little alien to pop out a la Spaceballs.

So we were lost. None of us knew where we were. And then Harry ... began feelin' around on all the trees. And then he says, "I got it: we on Ploo-to. And we said, "Harry how can you tell?" He said, "From the bark you dummies! From the bark!

Is he all right?

Bring 'em some water!

Water my ass! Bring this guy some Pepto Bismal!

Waitress! Waitress, what did order?

Oh, he had the special.

The special .... That's what I ordered! Change my order to the soup.

Good move.

Oh, no. Not again.

Hello, my baby. Hello my honey. Hello my rag-time gal. Send me a kiss by wire. Baby my heart's on fire. If you refuse me, honey, you lose me, then you'll be left alone. Oh baby, telephone and tell 'em, I'm your oooooooown.

Check please!

[Skrybe]

Rob, you should post over at the Lost Levels forums or Sardius' board (http://donut.parodius.com/sardius/index.html) if you get the chance. Red, Adam, and I all frequent both places, and I know you'd fit in just fine with everyone else there.

[rbudrick]

Thanks, Skrybe!

I tried giving it a shot and I got

ERROR: Invalid Referer
Your request for a post did not originate from a valid site.

FOr some reason, I can't post there....

I kept trying to post:




Hi Folks,

As the title suggests, I am the proud owner of this NES proto, sold to me by AdamL. There is a thread on the Digitpress.com forum concerning this and Skrybe mentioned that you folks might be interested. So, here's a link:

http://digitpress.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=31256&sid=c599cc92eb0c1e2eb3caf6e46457b241

I very much appreciate any input you guys might offer. If you post something on it here, it might be good to post the same there, but do whatever you like. :-) Wishing you all the best!

Yours,
Rob

But no luck. Maybe you could point em this way and let em know I tried. :-(

And thanks, Adam! I try to be one of the good guys but sometimes I'm really mean, lol, jk!

You hear that guys? Adam says send all your protos to me!
:D :D :D

-Rob

[rbudrick]

Well, posting there worked today, so don't sweat it, skrybe.

Looks like we'll just wait to see what Red says after speaking to Kevin. I also wrote a note to Memblers today. I pointed him this way. It's kinda funny, I ran into him in another forum when he offered to help me find someone to back up some of my other protos....betcha he would pointed me to Red though. ;)

-Rob

[rbudrick]

Hey folks,

I got a message from kyuusaku from the tototek.com message boards. He said

"Hey I noticed you have a Game Action Replay proto, I think I can clear many things up. Bung actually is the creator, the Game Action Replay is a scaled down version 72-pin version of their Game Master BOY. Bung has always gone by many names, QJ and STD are just fronts for the product (I mean, have you heard of them anywhere else?) they aren't real companies. The GAR and your GMK's menu is directly ripped/rewritten from a submenu in the Game Master down to the same arrow icon. You have something great there be happy, I'm one of the biggest Bung fans out there and wouldn't mind having some history like that :) I Also see you want to dump the cart, that can be done with a simple EPROM programmer, theres no way a CopyNES could even talk with the GAR. Also dumping the program would be pretty useless, I've made backups of my Game Master and Game Master BOY's ROMs but have yet to activate the menu, I'm sure you could finger some address but I have no clue which."

So, maybe that info is useful to someone? Maybe someone could add to this?

Yours,

Rob


EDIT: I replied to him with this:

Thanks, Kyuusaku!

I'll post your message in a couple of other forums people are talking about this in. With any luck people will respond. :-)

There's actually no menu in the GMK, but there is on the GAR...strange.

I actually have a Game Master for the famicom (I believe gamechoiceclub.com still sells them) and the menu looks quite different!

Also, Memblers said he thought the Copynes actually has a function to repair GARs, but he wasn't sure. Do you own a Copynes? Are you sure?

Thanks!

Yours,
Rob

[leonk]

any updates? I've been looking for a GAR dump for quite a while..

[rbudrick]

I haven't heard jack. I tried diligently from many sources but I haven't got the word yet.

SPeaking of which, any word from Kevin, TheRedEye?

-Rob

[rbudrick]

BTW, I thought of something last night.

Some say that it is nearly impossible to dump the SRAM.

I say it's not because my Gameboy flash cart can dump the SRAM from save game w/ no problems.

How much harder can it be for NES?

-ROb

[leonk]

I think you're approaching it the wrong way..

instead of focusing on SRAM + NES + DUMP. Why not go more generic? See if anyone ANYWHERE has information on how to dump SRAM memory! How card can it be? SRAM is SRAM, no?

I'd also be interested in finding out if one can replace an SRAM chip with an EPROM!

[leonk]

The GAR (from your pictures) has an SRAM for memory and EPROM for other memory.

The EPROM is of type 27128A. Should be easy to dump on its own.
The SRAM is of type 76C256. Here's a good document on how to read this memory:

http://www.cse.cuhk.edu.hk/~khwong/ceg3430/mrobot2.pdf

Once dumped, I don't see why the 76C256 can't be replaced by an EPROM (and hence the battery can be removed!). Unless ofcourse the SRAM is used to store the actual state of the game. In which point, you have no choise but to have it there, but if you can read the SRAM.. you can write to the SRAM!

[leonk]

Have you noticed that CopyNES allows you to save and write save states from the GAR?

http://www.tripoint.org/kevtris/Projects/copynes/copyware.html

Download the executable and try it out. If this is the case, it might be dumping the entire SRAM chip! The source code is included.

[rbudrick]

Well it would certainly be nice if I had a Copynes. Unfortunately, Kevin Horton only made like 10 or 12 of them. I think I offered to double or triple his original fee, but he never responded to any of my emails.

As far as that info on those chips goes, that's pretty cool. Now I only need someone experienced enough to do it.

-Rob

[rbudrick]

One thing I'm worried about is that while the Copynes software can fix a GAR, can it dump one?

In this thread it was mentioned that there's a couple other undumped NES games thathaven't been dumped because of the whole SRAM thing. I think the fear is that if you do it wrong, you erase the whole thing. You only get one shot at it.

-Rob

[leonk]

What other carts are undumped?

As far the the GAR goes, I believe (if I'm not mistaken) SRAM is just like regular RAM (except faster). So the SRAM chip on the GAR does two things:

- It has some of the GAR runtime on it
- It stores the save states/etc on it.

So when you "fix" the GAR via a CopyNES, you're basically overwriting the SRAM chip with a good copy. The good copy BIN file is found in the copyNes program folder. Look at the QBasic source to get the exact file name.

I could also be mistaken.. I'll look up the info on the other chips on the board to see what they are.

[rbudrick]

http://sardius.fefea.org/undumped.txt

This list is probably pretty outdated, so I'm not sure which of these it was. I do remember that the two were stored on SRAM...Sardius probably knows...


I thought they were mentioned in this thred, but skimming through it, I didn't see them....it mighthave been actually on the Sardius message board, but I don't see any archives there....just the last 3 days worth or so. Darn...Skrybe, do you remember which games those were? I think you were in on that discussion.

-Rob

[leonk]

Sorry to bring this up from the dead folks, but I actually have a GAR being shipped my way as we speak, and I would really like to get to the bottom of all of this.

Has anyone ever been able to dump the cart since, or not yet? Anyone feel like sending me their SRAM dump for an experiment I'm conducting with spare SRAM chips I got??

I'm going to try and dump my cart. I'll run traces between the SRAM and a 28 pin dipp socket. The socket will then be places inside an eprom programmer, and then told to READ.

I have a great solution for the GAR (one that will last over 100 years!!!) but need to get a valid good dump first. I can get the EPROM dump, but need help with the SRAM.

[rbudrick]

Thanks fo rthe revival, actually. I sorta just let this die because no one could help me and I could never get a hold of Kevin Horton. Any one know how to get a hold of him?

I'd love to get that damn proto backed up.

-Rob

[rbudrick]

Good news! I'm reviving this thread from the dead here, but Kevin Horton is now dumping games again. I got a hold of him and he very quickly was able to dump my GMK proto along with some other protos of mine.

Also, he will soon be selling Copynes units again...he is having professional boards made for them.

Man, am I relieved to have that baby backed up. Turns out the menu info is in the code, but not accessible, much like Kyuusaku's other Bung units.

-Rob

[Li Wang]

Awesome. I'm glad to hear everything went smoothly and the Game Master Kid data is finally safe.

[rbudrick]

Thanks, to you, Li!

I would have never known Kev was dumping games again if it weren't for you. I owe you lots of beer if we meet up one day, heh heh.

-Rob