View Full Version : Genesis rip out the cart codes
alexkidd2000
03-26-2005, 02:32 AM
I have always wondered how the hell these codes worked. The first year of Sega made Genesis games would usually give you unlimited lives or something if you started with one cart, ripped it out while powered on and put in another. Like if you stuck in Altered Beast, ripped it out and put in Space Harrier 2 you would get unlimited lives. I remember being so scared to do this because of the warnings that it would fry your system. Were these outcomes intentional or just fluke somehow?
Graham Mitchell
03-26-2005, 08:07 AM
I was wondering about this too, recently. It think they were just flukes. I'm sure there's some explanation for it. Anybody know more?
anagrama
03-26-2005, 08:13 AM
I think I read an explanation somewhere that said it was due to values being left in the memory by the first game, which the second read as meaning something different. Or something like that anyway...
FurinkanianFrood
03-26-2005, 10:43 AM
It's from values left over in ram whether it's a fluke or not.
Maybe someone has researched it.
A Pro Action Replay 2 might make the research more feasible?
That's the best commercial device for mucking in the systems ram that I know of.
Now that I think of it couldn't one just examine memory dumps from an emulator. That would be way easier.
Graham Mitchell
03-26-2005, 11:12 AM
I think I read an explanation somewhere that said it was due to values being left in the memory by the first game, which the second read as meaning something different. Or something like that anyway...
That's what I always though, but I just didn't have the vocab to verbalize it. Thanks!
vulcanjedi
03-26-2005, 08:24 PM
Ok
The sega has some ram for high scores and such that only gets cleared out on a hard reset. This ram was used in different games for lives and weapons and all. So there were some combos that produced unlimited lives. Pulling an altered beast and inserting a rambo and just hitting the reset is an example.
And it is a way to bypass the cart lock for old games like budokan.
VJ
Bluteg
03-26-2005, 10:58 PM
Yes and to add to what VJ said the Genny ram also saves options settings unless you unplug or power on and off.