Sharedata Chiller NES Advertisement

[NESWORLD | 13]

[NESWORLD | 13]

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

Martin is a GOD!

Comparing that to Bootgod's page, it would appear that the only obvious difference is that it uses EPROMs instead of Mask ROMs.  This does lend credence to the demo theory, as EPROMs were significantly cheaper and would likely be used in the dev process vs the final build.  However, it's just as possible that the switch to Mask ROMs was done by AGCI after taking over...so it's not PROOF per se, but compelling circumstantial evidence nonetheless.

When class is through I'm gonna get on the case and start documenting what's already known, what's speculated, etc.  Keep it up y'all!

[NESWORLD | 13]

Didn't Baby Boomer and "most" of the early Color Dreams carts have eproms? Again an assumption, but it looks like it was manufactured just like any other Color Dreams game at the time...

Here's Metal Fighter from Bootgod's site: NesCartDB - Profile (bootgod.dyndns.org)

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

That's a good point too.  It's clear they sourced parts from Color Dreams at the start, and reused as much as possible from the process.  Like I said, EPROMs don't automatically prove or disprove anything, just that it lends credence to the idea that they may have been demos.  For all we know though, it could also be a matter of the early run being manufactured by Color Dreams.  I don't know if anyone has any data about that partnership kicking about an old email address or hard drive somewhere, but I'd love to see it...

Anyway, thanks to @NESWORLD I have another ace up my sleeve here...may not prove anything either, but it'll still be another piece of the puzzle.

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

So here's the piece I alluded to.  It isn't much, but it's something. @NESWORLD was kind enough to provide a dumped ROM of his Sharedata Chiller.  I took it upon myself to compare the two ROMs, and found one single, solitary byte that is different between the Color Dreams cart and the AGCI cart.  Screenshot provided:

US ROM on top, SD ROM on the bottom.  As you can see, the SD version has a value of "AA" while the AGCI one has a value of "CE."  As my knowledge of ROM hacking is limited at best, I leave it to someone else to determine what exactly that byte refers to.  Also, just cuz I could, I compared the US and Australian releases as well, and damn near the entire code is switched...although I think it may have been remapped as opposed to flat out redone from scratch.  I did notice that they replaced the Sharedata text with AGCI related text in the code, but they're at separate ROM addresses, leading me to the remapping theory.  Someone with more knowledge should take a peek at this...

EDIT: @0xDEAFC0DE perhaps?

Edited October 29, 2021 by the_wizard_666

[0xDEAFC0DE | 1,277]

1 hour ago, the_wizard_666 said:

EDIT: @0xDEAFC0DE perhaps?

It looks like it's a delay as part of the lockout chip stunning code. Here's what the relevant code disassembles to.

 01:FFDB:A0 04     LDY #$04
 01:FFDD:A2 CE     LDX #$CE
 01:FFDF:CA        DEX
 01:FFE0:D0 FD     BNE $FFDF
 01:FFE2:88        DEY
 01:FFE3:D0 F8     BNE $FFDD
 01:FFE5:60        RTS -----------------------------------------

Your 0xCE (since the US ROM is what I had on hand) pops up at address 0xFFDE and it is the value that is loaded into the X register. This code is just a time waster. It loads 0xCE or 0xAA (206 or 170 in decimal respectively) into the X register and loops doing nothing but decreasing the X register that many times. And then it repeats that operation four times (based on the LDY 4). This code is called a couple times during initialization and in between it changes some of the signals related to the lockout chip stunner circuit via the mapper registers (see here for more details). So, TL;DR they made the lockout chip stun last longer.

[guitarzombie | 924]

This thread when from supreme cringe to highly informative.  This is the stuff I enjoy reading.

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

1 hour ago, 0xDEAFC0DE said:

It looks like it's a delay as part of the lockout chip stunning code. Here's what the relevant code disassembles to.

 01:FFDB:A0 04     LDY #$04
 01:FFDD:A2 CE     LDX #$CE
 01:FFDF:CA        DEX
 01:FFE0:D0 FD     BNE $FFDF
 01:FFE2:88        DEY
 01:FFE3:D0 F8     BNE $FFDD
 01:FFE5:60        RTS -----------------------------------------

Your 0xCE (since the US ROM is what I had on hand) pops up at address 0xFFDE and it is the value that is loaded into the X register. This code is just a time waster. It loads 0xCE or 0xAA (206 or 170 in decimal respectively) into the X register and loops doing nothing but decreasing the X register that many times. And then it repeats that operation four times (based on the LDY 4). This code is called a couple times during initialization and in between it changes some of the signals related to the lockout chip stunner circuit via the mapper registers (see here for more details). So, TL;DR they made the lockout chip stun last longer.

That makes sense then.  One of the biggest complaints against Nintendo in a few antitrust lawsuits was how often they would make slight changes in the lockout chip.  Unlicensed companies had a lot of trouble keeping up because of it.  This was likely a slight modification done to counter a lockout update.

[fcgamer | 4,729]

6 hours ago, darkchylde28 said:

You're being needlessly adversarial and pedantic at this point.  I understand that @Dr. Morbis shit in your Cheerios, but please take your personal beef with each other to PMs at this point.  I'm still, at least momentarily, involved and interested in this discussion, so even if Dr. Morbis never concedes that his third fact on page 6 isn't actually one and that he misunderstood Martin Neilsen's article as being a quote from an employee versus being the author's own theory, it's immaterial at this point.  What Dr. Morbis paraphrased was him quoting Marin Neilsen from his own article, which does exist, and was produced on page 1, even if it wasn't a direct quote from someone who actually worked at Sharedata.  So, for the final time before I just click ignore to this who bit of shenanigans and leave you to shout whatever you want to make up in your own echo chamber, please, for the love of whatever, drop it.  The horse died, was autopsied, confirmed to be deceased, a service was held, the body was incinerated, then we buried the ashes and entombed it in concrete.  The end.

No offense intended, but how is this relevant?  So, based on you shooting down Martin Neilsen's article's veracity, you're saying you all did bad, undocumented, unsourced "research" at the same time and/or together?  If anything, everyone you mentioned would have had an easier time getting information in those days, seeing as memories would be fresher, records more recent and less likely to be archived in a warehouse somewhere, etc.

Regarding point 1:

I'm not going to mention it again, aside from the fact that a website owner's opinion was misinterpreted as being a quote from an employee. I'm not trying to be pedantic here, rather I'm just pointing out this fact, whether it changes anyone's opinion or not, well that's for them to decide.

Regarding point 2: 

It was a lot harder to track down people back in those days, as well as a lot harder to access news archives, etc. There were tons of pay walls, social media consisted primarily of MySpace, and Nintendo Age wasn't even around. There were small pockets of collectors on Martin's forum, a lot hung out on Digital Press, etc. Really different times, and those of us who were doing research did an excellent job all things considered.

Back then, it was also somewhat "way too soon" to be asking strangers questions about these things. We were researching this stuff in the late 90s and early 2000s, only ten years after they occurred. I had a few people who were even worried I was from the legal department of Nintendo, after initially messaging them. It's not like now where the stuff occurred 30 years ago, AND collecting has become mainstream. 

[fcgamer | 4,729]

4 hours ago, NESWORLD said:

Didn't Baby Boomer and "most" of the early Color Dreams carts have eproms? Again an assumption, but it looks like it was manufactured just like any other Color Dreams game at the time...

Here's Metal Fighter from Bootgod's site: NesCartDB - Profile (bootgod.dyndns.org)

I just wanted to quote this post. This is definitely true, a lot of the Color Dreams (and some of the other unlicensed companies) were using eproms in their retail carts at that time.

This led to numerous situations where "prototype/demo" game cartridges from these companies had been found, and collectors had no real way of determining if they were legit or not, outside of where the cartridge came from.

My point is that the eproms don't really prove anything, one way or another.

[Dr. Morbis | 2,089]

7 hours ago, the_wizard_666 said:

  @Dr. Morbis just seems to be content with raising his voice and trying to drown out the opposition.  I honestly wish he'd put that enthusiasm to use trying to find tangible data that we could use to solve this puzzle instead of just saying "I'm right, you're wrong, we're done" repeatedly like that's gonna help things along.

I have nothing to prove, why would I try to find tangible proof of something I already don't believe in?  I don't believe in Bigfoot, so I'm not going to spend one minute of my time trying to research if Bigfoot exists.  Likewise, I don't believe that Blue Chiller was released, so why would I spend a minute of my time trying to research something I already don't believe?  Much like Aliens, Bigfoot, Ogopogo and Blue Chiller being released, the onus is on YOU believers to do the research and come up with evidence to the contrary.  I cannot prove a negative!

6 hours ago, darkchylde28 said:

Sadly, no solid proof either way, but I have to admit that the severe lack of copies known to exist of the blue Sharedata Chiller carts does shade it as them not having been officially distributed in my eyes.

And some food for thought: of the miniscule amount of Blue Chillers in existence, the two people in this thread who have come forth claiming ownership of a cartridge have both referenced their carts as originally coming from people involved on the inside.....   hmmm... if it wasn't a slam dunk that this demo was unreleased before now, it has certainly become a lot more obvious in the last 24 hours! 

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

16 hours ago, fcgamer said:

The time of the advert was a very dark time for ShareData; they were hemorrhaging money, and struggling to keep their doors open.

Here's a few things I've found (please see attachments). The articles are all from about the second or third week of March, 1990.

It's interesting that Color Dreams was mentioned in one of the articles, despite them having been around since 1989.

Tonight I messaged the former CEO of ShareData too, hopefully I'll hear back from him and we can take things further. He's an old man though, so who knows.

 

Hey Dave, are these snippets all you have, or are these bits from longer articles?  I know some of these sort of articles were tiny blurbs, but the formatting makes me wonder if they're from bigger articles.  Or were they from the article you sent me?  If this is the extent of what they are, I'll make due, but I'd like to check out the full listings and have sources for them if possible.  If it's not possible though, no worries, I'll use what's here to track down further info.

To anyone else, I have no idea how to navigate searches for potentially relevant business info (without signing up for services I don't wanna pay for anyway).  If anyone knows where to go to find it, or can source the info themselves, your help would be greatly appreciated.  A lot of stuff should be available through public archives, but not knowing how to navigate them is a bit of a problem for me.  And if you don't wanna post it here, or wish to remain anonymous, PM me anything you can get.  I'll keep looking, but I'm also a student in the midst of a job hunt, so yeah, time is a premium commodity for me.  Anything on ShareData from, say, '88 onward, or AGCI at all should make for an okay starting point.  Anything from patents to lawsuits to business info to financial data, all of it could potentially shed some light for me.  I'd like to solve the Chiller issue, but there's so little known about the company as a whole that I would like to put together as much as I possibly can about them.  Knowing who we're dealing with can at the very least give us plausible hypotheses rather than straight up conjecture.

[Dr. Morbis | 2,089]

4 minutes ago, fcgamer said:

I just wanted to quote this post. This is definitely true, a lot of the Color Dreams (and some of the other unlicensed companies) were using eproms in their retail carts at that time.

This led to numerous situations where "prototype/demo" game cartridges from these companies had been found, and collectors had no real way of determining if they were legit or not, outside of where the cartridge came from.

My point is that the eproms don't really prove anything, one way or another.

Except that a company using eproms for protos and their production run is way different than a company using eproms in five blue demo carts and then using mask ROMS in their production run.... Hmmmm,  yet another strike against your release theory...

Edited October 30, 2021 by Dr. Morbis

[fcgamer | 4,729]

5 hours ago, darkchylde28 said:

Not at all in other mail order software spheres of the day.  Plenty more copies of other games which were shipped in baggies, with photocopied documentation (at best) stuffed in with a diskette or two

With all due respect, this is just as relevant as the stuff I posted earlier about other unlicensed companies and their operations.

How some other (unnamed?) software companies operated has no relationship to how ShareData or AGCI operated.

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

2 minutes ago, Dr. Morbis said:

 

And some food for thought: of the miniscule amount of Blue Chillers in existence, the two people in this thread who have come forth claiming ownership of a cartridge have both referenced their carts as originally coming from people involved on the inside.....

Point me to those references.  I didn't see Martin reference where it came from, but I may have simply overlooked it.  As for the other, my reskimming of the thread brought nothing to light, and my eyes hurt too much from that pass to go check again

[Dr. Morbis | 2,089]

6 hours ago, NESWORLD said:

I don't remember where my Chiller cart came from, most likely Phil Mikkelson,

There's one...

[fcgamer | 4,729]

4 minutes ago, Dr. Morbis said:

And some food for thought: of the miniscule amount of Blue Chillers in existence, the two people in this thread who have come forth claiming ownership of a cartridge have both referenced their carts as originally coming from people involved on the inside.....   hmmm... if it wasn't a slam dunk that this demo was unreleased before now, it has certainly become a lot more obvious in the last 24 hours!

I distinctly remember one cart being sold in eBay back in the day. It was the first time I (and likely many others) ever saw the blue Chiller cartridge, it was sold in a lot with other NES games.

Of course folks connected with the company would be likely to have some of these, it's akin to how some folks got NWC cartridges from those working to host the event.

The rest is just your personal opinions and theories.

[Dr. Morbis | 2,089]

13 hours ago, Ferris Bueller said:

I've got a box of randomness that came from somebody close to the company, which how I got the Chiller "Demo" cart.

There's the other.... Sorry can't figure out how to put quotes from two different pages in one post...

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

1 minute ago, Dr. Morbis said:

There's the other.... Sorry can't figure out how to put quotes from two different pages in one post...

Thanks.  And you do it by clicking the quote button on the first one, going to the next page, clicking the reply box to bring back your prior post info, and then quoting the second one.  VGS automatically saves what you've typed in case you navigate away and return to your post later...you just need to click the box to access it

[fcgamer | 4,729]

8 minutes ago, Dr. Morbis said:

Except that a company using eproms for protos and their production run is way different than a company using eproms in five blue demo carts and then using mask ROMS in their production run.... Hmmmm,  yet another strike against your release theory...

More garbage theories from you, not presenting any facts and just muddying up the thread.

From the above articles from the NYT and others, the NES venture was looking to be their swan song, of course they would go cheap initially, I mean, CD might have even been doing the production for them originally.

I think CD also switched to mask ROMs later...

So yeah, all your above post did was add unnecessary confusion for those who are interested in finding out the truth

[Dr. Morbis | 2,089]

1 minute ago, the_wizard_666 said:

Thanks.  And you do it by clicking the quote button on the first one, going to the next page, clicking the reply box to bring back your prior post info, and then quoting the second one.  VGS automatically saves what you've typed in case you navigate away and return to your post later...you just need to click the box to access it

Thanks for the lesson!

Now to put it all in perspective:

-Five known copies
-eprom boards while production run was mask roms
-100% of cart owners in this thread (representing ~40% of overall worldwide owners) acquired from inside source

Come on, guys!  Literally the only reason on planet earth that this thread even exists is because of the professional looking labels.  Take away those labels, and the other 99999999 thousand facts surrounding this cart point directly to it being a demo/proto.

GO DO SOME RESEARCH AND THEN COME BACK WITH NEW INFO RATHER THAN THE HAIL MARY THEORIES YOU KEEP PRESENTING OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER......   please?

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

So basically one is from a lot that is alleged to have been from someone with some sort of connection to a company (if @Ferris Bueller could specify which company, assuming it wasn't mentioned in his original post, that'd be swell), and the other was probably (though not definitively) attributed to Phil Mikkelson, who worked for Color Dreams and neither ShareData OR AGCI.

Assuming the company referenced by Mr. Bueller is also Color Dreams, what this says to me is that the carts were likely done as a proof of concept for ShareData and manufactured by Color Dreams.  For whatever reason, ShareData went with manufacturing their own carts instead of using Color Dreams shells.  What those reasons were is unknown at this time.  Whether there was a batch that ShareData used to fill orders, or if they were rejected, that is what is unclear.  But at least it points to a reason for them to exist in Color Dreams shells.

[Dr. Morbis | 2,089]

4 minutes ago, fcgamer said:

More garbage theories from you, not presenting any facts and just muddying up the thread.

From the above articles from the NYT and others, the NES venture was looking to be their swan song, of course they would go cheap initially, I mean, CD might have even been doing the production for them originally.

I think CD also switched to mask ROMs later...

So yeah, all your above post did was add unnecessary confusion for those who are interested in finding out the truth

This post of yours is a TEXTBOOK EXAMPLE of adding unecessary confusion... seriously!  I listed facts directly related to the cartridge in question, while you mentioned the NYT "and others,"   ....the fuck?!?

Pot.... meet kettle!

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

Just now, Dr. Morbis said:

This post of yours is a TEXTBOOK EXAMPLE of adding unecessary confusion... seriously!  I listed facts directly related to the cartridge in question, while you mentioned the NYT "and others,"   ....the fuck?!?

Pot.... meet kettle!

He posted some article snips earlier in the thread.  I quoted it on this page so you can see it.  I also have the NYT article he's mentioning.

That said, they point more to the financial state of the company long after the fact, and are pretty irrelevant to the Chiller debate (although I still love seeing it as it's gonna help fill some gaps).

@fcgamer, I'll be a bit blunt here.  Some of the stuff you post really comes off as a jumbled mess of thoughts.  There's definitely good information to be had there, but you aren't exactly presenting it in ways that are well thought out.  I admire your passion, but you might want to reread posts before making them, just to make sure everything is presented in the way you intend it to be perceived.

Also, to both of you, the hostility is counterproductive.  We really all want the same thing here - for the truth to come out.  Let's leave the personal shit out of it, and debate in a civil fashion.  You don't change minds by screaming "you're wrong" and bonking someone on the head.  You do it by framing well thought out arguments, putting facts and sources on the table, and working to debunk theories instead of just being argumentative.  It's hard enough to piece this together with all the data being drowned out by chaff.