Code Monkey

I have prototypes I currently don't want to share but I don't know if in the future I might. Also, I want to play it and one day I'm not going to be able to play it because of bit rot. Thankfully it has been dumped so I can always play the dump even if the cartridge dies.

On 12/6/2023 at 3:17 PM, Reed Rothchild said:

Maybe we can get @Code Monkey's thoughts on the matter...

What am I even looking at here? Is this a thread full of weird photos? I've never been in here.

I managed to traverse the mural procession here and it appears like this guy is arguing you can't really sit in a wing? Do you need me to comment how obvious that is? It'd be more fun to talk about why. Do you know how much those wings flex up and down? They literally pull the plane upwards, you'd have no choice but to wear a seat belt because you'd be flopping around inside there. And isn't that where they store fuel? So you'd have that to deal with as well, what a nightmare that would be, you'd be high, concussed and dead.

Why would anyone think a comic about sitting on a plane wing is serious when it comes from an ex-NASA mathematician that quit to draw comics 3 times a week?

RetroUSB sends them in bubble envelopes so no.

I heard prototypes and got here as quickly as I could.

Hopefully mine comes soon.

2023 now available.

6 hours ago, avatar! said:

Supposedly LRG is having some black Friday even or whatever, but it's a real shitshow. You wait and wait, and during checkout it will crash - multiple times. I'm about ready to give up and say screw it, the frustration is not worth it.

I checked on Friday, nothing was on sale.

Booyakasha

I feel graded games still have the completely valid use case they have always had and that is ease of sales world wide. Think about the scenario where you buy a lot of 11 games and one of them is a sealed game you have no interest in. You need to sell that game on the internet and everyone asks you for 20-30 photos from all angles in different lighting, it is a complete pain in the ass. But what if there was some magical company that would validate the legitimacy of a seal and also grade it so that potential buyers around the world wouldn't be so concerned with finding damage in photos?

Well, that's what grading companies offer, it's incredibly helpful. How other people use it is irrelevant.

Nice. I lived in Nova Scotia for 5 years.

On 11/18/2023 at 12:39 PM, mbd39 said:

I loved Gran Turismo on PS1 but never beat it. I couldn't even earn all of the licenses because the challenges became too tough.

 

I got 100% on Gran Turismo 3 and then started on Gran Turismo 4. I went pretty hardcore doing the 24 hour races (24 hours real time) and was on my last one while we started moving out of one house and into another. For 8 days the only thing left in the old house was the projector, PlayStation 2 and a single chair. I sat there for hours day after day just going round and round until the very last day we had possession of the house and completed the race. I literally picked up the 3 items and walked out of the house.

This is interesting, beyond the cartridge, board and game play, how would you even know? Is there a date on any screen? Date on the chip? Did you put that sticker on the chip?

4 hours ago, fcgamer said:

You should focus your YT channel around this. I'm sure it would be a huge hit...

Thanks, that's the plan for the next few videos if I can figure this out.

2 hours ago, final fight cd said:

How were you able to find this extremely small change?

I only know from Hidden Palace and The Cutting Room Floor, two websites focused on finding things in ROM. My Mega Man 3 prototype is well known and documented but my Mega Man 2 is unreleased and has never been documented by anyone before. While the ROM has been dumped, it has not been released and I would like to keep it that way which means I need to do it myself.

I think it's time I finally document differences from retail across all of my prototypes however I have no idea how to do that outside of playing them each one by one. I have a Gaunlet prototype with a different music track on level 1 so that's an easy one to find but I also have a Mega Man 3 prototype where one specific enemy in one specific stage is slightly shifted to one side by about a pixel. Even if there were differences in the binary code, how would anyone map that to a single enemy being shifted by a single pixel?

Sorry to hear that. There are many municipal and provincial (state?) programs that give you free grief therapy for things like this. I hope you find any resources you may need.

Wata's promotional claim is for the star code on the box, not the manual. They're also wrong, the star code box refers to the extra country added to the warranty on the side.

On 8/20/2023 at 8:38 PM, dogbowl said:

I couldn't say.  It came to me in this box from (what I assume) to be the original owner.

The cart doesn't have any Rev-A marking and neither does the box.  No date code on the flap.

 

Isn't 1987 the earliest date for a MT Punch Out?  Do you have a 5 screw in your collection?

Wow, super cool. I have 7 different variants of this game and I'm still missing this one. So it seems like this used left over chips, box and cartridge label but used a new cartridge shell. Likely an early 1988 release from the last stack of media.

So that would mean there were 2 print runs (at least) of the white bullets. Then third print is orange bullets, no REV-A and fourth print is REV-A.

2 hours ago, ThePhleo said:

Well....again "ackshtually"

There's two box designs.

It's never brought up because it's a redundant callout, but during the switch from Circle SoQ to Oval SoQ the layout of the back changes near the bottom.

NES Logo is completely different, copyright block and legal text changes, position of the NES-GP thing. Lots of stuff moves around.

 

BUT, yes I agree with you on this point.

You're gonna love what I'm working on when I publish it because I do split up "Box Changes" as unique editions, and everything else as variants.

The purpose is to make variants take a back burner position again, yet document that they exist. The structure of my database works like this.

 

GAME - The overall game, regardless of region

REGION - The "lockout" region, North America, PAL A, PAL B, Famicom, and "Others"

RELEASE - What we consider "subregions" or "marketing region", so the USA Release, or the Canadian release, or the Greek release (etc.)

EDITION - Think, Big Box Gyromite vs. Small box, or Blue box Untouchables vs. Black Box.

VARIANT - This is where all 12 of the SMB box variants I listed go. Yep, only one edition but 12 variants.

So to draw it all out...

I guess @Brickman you are correct...I am a little mad.

You forgot one level deeper........print runs. Each variant may have been reprinted multiple times with differing date codes on the tabs. So one variant may have multiple print runs. That's how I'm separating mine in the mobile application.

17 hours ago, DeterioratingBrains said:

Stop trying to make this topic about you and your endeavors, thanks. Three of your four replies to the quotes start with "I". Self-centered and insufferable much?

'm very offended.

10 hours ago, xelement5x said:

I was thinking about it a bit more and I also wonder if the most recent sales were done in terms of taking investment losses against other gains for the year.  I don't have first hand experience to know how all the rich people do it to make it more efficient, but sometimes it's more worthwhile to lose the money instead of paying taxes on profits they made on other things if they can. 

Not sure if this is what the deep pocketed people do, or if this even classifies as an investment though.  

Only if it puts you into a lower tax bracket. Otherwise you're losing thousands of dollars to make back 30% of that loss in tax.

If it drops you to a bracket with 6% lower tax, that 6% applies to everything and could be a huge savings.

21 hours ago, Tulpa said:

He already said NFS/NFT, not for sale, not for trade.

I have a very convincing personality.

13 hours ago, final fight cd said:

Are there any other items in a similar situation that might exist but has not been discovered yet?

Tengen Police Academy and a shitload of other NES games advertised in the backs of manuals.

8 hours ago, DeterioratingBrains said:

- Frank Cifaldi / GameHistoryOrg dumps all of the proto WATA gets but isn't releasing any, only the owner shall make that decision. I don't think there ever were any drama in that regard with him and his org, and he most certainly has trusted acquaintenances that can do the said reverse engineering to ultimately help you out and your friend.

I wouldn't trust someone else having a copy of the dump and it not getting out. What about a rogue employee? What if I bought The Video Game History Foundation and effectively owned all of the dumps? According to Frank they apparently have Police Academy but it hasn't been proven.

7 hours ago, Tulpa said:

Seriously, anyone pestering him to sell it is a good way for him to disappear back into cyberspace. Give him some space, please.

I haven't messaged him. I posted here and in the high end group on Facebook, he knows I want it. If he'll sell, he'll come find me. I would be quite aggressive with this one, it's very cool.

Can I buy it?

2 hours ago, Kguillemette said:

If you don't want to wait and are looking for a non illegal rom...

It's how I first played it.

I have 3 Super NES and 2 Analogue Super NT, the medium isn't the problem. It's just the time to set up the old console and get into it, I'd rather just have it on a modern and portable console for convenience.

Chrono Trigger

I started it on an emulator around 2005 and then started again on the PSP (also emulator) around 2010. Both times got about halfway through and never finished. Then I bought a complete copy on eBay for $109 (remember those days?) with the intentions of getting to it eventually but then sold it recently for $800 before I even played it.

I'm hoping it comes out on Switch so I can actually play it all the way through.