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nes error cart?


Nes Freak

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i found a nes cart without a save battery as in there never was one soldered in from the factory.  the game is hatris.  can any one confirm this is an error?  or they just used the battery curcuit and didnt use the save function.

 

this isnt the first time ive come across a error cart.   about 13 years ago i got a super mario bros cart that was missing solder on the nes 10 lock out chip again non was on it from the factory and thus only functioned in a toploader.

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Ok now here's the million dollar question.

Can it save if the right conditions are met?

I get there's no SRAM on the cart, but if some genius could rig it up and solder a battery would it?  Or if you tossed it on a flash kit or one of those dumb Super Games 500ish style carts with a battery would it?

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31 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

Ok now here's the million dollar question.

Can it save if the right conditions are met?

I get there's no SRAM on the cart, but if some genius could rig it up and solder a battery would it?  Or if you tossed it on a flash kit or one of those dumb Super Games 500ish style carts with a battery would it?

Yeah, this is normal, and it would have to be reprogrammed to save anything since most games have initialization protocols to reset high scores and such so that you don't get random ascii crap in there...

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9 minutes ago, Dr. Morbis said:

Yeah, this is normal, and it would have to be reprogrammed to save anything since most games have initialization protocols to reset high scores and such so that you don't get random ascii crap in there...

Yes, that's the key. You can have all the hardware you'd need for such a change, but if the codes not there, you're not saving anything.

Wasn't Metroid almost a save state game?  I feel that's part of it's lore but at the last minute they pulled the option to save money and opted for the horrible password system.

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Alright well that's what I was asking.  I was curious if the code supported it IF the parts were there or not.

I'm familiar with the flaky garbage again due to the super games 500in1 style carts with a battery.  There are a number of games that do not save, but have been coded to have that as a possibility in development and was removed, SMB3 is one.  If you fire up that game at all on that cart, but say you have a Final Fantasy RPG save of some time, it's gone, nuked and replaced with SMB3 filler.

It was also a reminder to me of an old conversation I had with a GBA developer 20 years ago over a game that never came out in the US and they were both salty/mad and overly honest in issuing blame.  Pinball Challenge Deluxe by BITS was published by Ubisoft and they were told to develop the PC/Amiga high score tables and allow them to save, then when it came time to run to market, they used the saving board, but to save literally a dollar, excluded the battery.  They were PISSED and openly ripped and blamed the cheapskates at UbiSoft telling me and others to just pirate the game and use a flash kit or emulator if you enjoy saving your scores.  Not an everyday conversation from a game developer so you tend to remember that.  If someone included the missing bits on that specific GBA cart, it would save.

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31 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

Alright well that's what I was asking.  I was curious if the code supported it IF the parts were there or not.

I'm familiar with the flaky garbage again due to the super games 500in1 style carts with a battery.  There are a number of games that do not save, but have been coded to have that as a possibility in development and was removed, SMB3 is one.  If you fire up that game at all on that cart, but say you have a Final Fantasy RPG save of some time, it's gone, nuked and replaced with SMB3 filler.

It was also a reminder to me of an old conversation I had with a GBA developer 20 years ago over a game that never came out in the US and they were both salty/mad and overly honest in issuing blame.  Pinball Challenge Deluxe by BITS was published by Ubisoft and they were told to develop the PC/Amiga high score tables and allow them to save, then when it came time to run to market, they used the saving board, but to save literally a dollar, excluded the battery.  They were PISSED and openly ripped and blamed the cheapskates at UbiSoft telling me and others to just pirate the game and use a flash kit or emulator if you enjoy saving your scores.  Not an everyday conversation from a game developer so you tend to remember that.  If someone included the missing bits on that specific GBA cart, it would save.

Actually according to the source mentioned above it could save if it had a battery and a SRAM chip with the aid of a game genie code

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1 hour ago, RH said:

Wasn't Metroid almost a save state game?  I feel that's part of it's lore but at the last minute they pulled the option to save money and opted for the horrible password system.

Metroid was originally released on the Famicom Disk System, which did allow saves. It had three slots available on that release, as did other FDS games.

NES Metroid had to utilize passwords (largely taking into account which region you were last in to respawn and what weapons/suits/missiles you had), as the battery save wasn't yet developed.

Legend of Zelda (another FDS game in Japan) was given a battery for the NES, as the tech had finally matured to make it viable.

Edited by Tulpa
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I see an 8KB SRAM chip in there that's not part of PRG or CHR, to me it seems like everything is there but they skipped the battery last minute perhaps to save costs.  Re-enable the SRAM routine with game genie, wire a CR2032, and I'd imagine it'd work. 

Just checked my collection I don't have Hatris, darnit haha, I was going to try it out!

Edited by nesmaster14
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