Continue discussion from there:
http://famicomworld.proboards58.com/index.cgi?board=famicom&action=display&thread=1138409489
to here.
How does one back up Famicom disks? I've been so hesitant to buy the Disk System because I'm weary of the disk errors and problems with the disks themselves.
There was a Disk Hacker Disk made by Hacker International that was used to copy games. I'm not sure on the details on how it works though, I am interested in this as well if anyone knows more about the Disk Hacker.
I think they had their own small machine aswell...
Is this at all related: HERE (http://cgi.ebay.com/Famicom-Disk-System-Back-UP-Copy-Tool-KOSODATEGOKKO_W0QQitemZ250029975298QQihZ015QQcategoryZ62053QQtcZphotoQQcmdZViewItem)
Ugh, zrx has the worst shipping prices ever...
I take it you know nothing about this thing, JL?
To me it seems like a pirate of a pirate, haha. Well, the Disk Hacker was a pirate, sorta, in the sense that it was unlicensed by Hacker International. It's just a disk like this and I believe you hook up(solder together maybe?) two FDS's. But the real Hacker International one has cover artwork.
seems someonehad this conversation before
http://72.14.235.104/search?q=cache:s8k1CVEnb8oJ:www.cherryroms.com/viewtopic.php%3Fp%3D46485%26sid%3D40430a2a12818836458c43169c21d547+KOSODATEGOKKO&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&client=firefox-a
Whoa, Chimy before he fell off the face of the Earth!
Hi everyone. I did fall off the face of the earth, I got a new gig that required me to focus big time but alas it is no excuse. But if someone wants to restore a disk, I have a copier prg from bung that copies disk. You need a modified FDS or an older FDS with a 3201 Disk controller.
-CFB
Welcome back. :P
Quote from: featherpluckinfilm on September 16, 2006, 11:25:27 pm
There was a Disk Hacker Disk made by Hacker International that was used to copy games. I'm not sure on the details on how it works though, I am interested in this as well if anyone knows more about the Disk Hacker.
Found this pic --
[Removed]
Well, I finally got my setup to write FDS images to a famicom disk. Now I don't have to worry about my legitimate disks losing data. There are a couple of other users on this board who can do it as well.
The benefit of this is that I can play some of the cool FDS games like All Night Nippon Super Mario Brothers on my Sharp Twin Famicom versus playing them on an emulator.
As always, I will take pictures and show my setup on how I accomplished this. I used a combination of FDSLoadr, CopyMaster, Game Doctor and my old Pentium Pro PC loaded with DOS.
Stay tuned...
-CFB
That Is my goal this year. I just dont know where to get the game doctor. i just got a few 486 comps froma a buddy for my arcade machine. Can wait to see some pics.
The FDSLoadr works through the parallell port right? I believe my dad has an old pentium notebook that would suit this project perfectly. Then all I need is the fdsloadr-cable. Eh.. Is it difficult to make?
In theory you can write disks with the fdsloadr cable alone, but I've never seen this actually work for anyone. The best route to go is really getting an MGD1, MGD1<->PC cable and a modded FDS drive.
Quote from: chimyfolkbutter on January 04, 2007, 08:20:37 pmAs always, I will take pictures and show my setup on how I accomplished this. I used a combination of FDSLoadr, CopyMaster, Game Doctor and my old Pentium Pro PC loaded with DOS.
I'd like to see this. It'd be awesome to know how to write disks.
The biggest drawback w/the fdsloader cable is the software is designed to run under pure DOS only. It's been on my list of things to do to port it to a modern OS using something like the dlportio driver to allow direct LPT access under modern versions of Windows. Either way, it's a cool cable to have.
I wish there was a way to write with out the game doctor. Thats the last thing i need to do it. If anyone has one up for sale let me know
There is, but it requires an MGD1 and a cable.
Still no pics and stuff man, I want to know how you did this so I can make one
I've done a bit of research but never found a definitive answer (so I apologize if this is redundant!) to this.
I've seen that there are a Rev 1 and Rev 2 of the FDS. Supposedly the 1st revision has more writing capabilities.
Is it somehow possible to interface the FDS with a PC (or Amiga, Mac, etc.) to write disks? It seems like it should be possible to recreate a way, similar to the Disk Writers, to write entire games to an FDS disk. However, I don't know how limited the actual FDS hardware is in terms of writing disks.
Thanks, and again I'm sorry if this is a hammered topic!
yeah, the I think the rev2 made some small changes in copy protection.
well, the FDS uses the Mitsumi Quick Disk format so if you could find a Quick Disk drive somewhere I suppose you could write your own disks.
I find this topic pretty interesting actually because of the possibilities of game development with the FDS. Much easier than game development for cartridges. The first step is figuring out how to write your own disks.
Also, another VERY important reason for finding a way to write new disks is for historical preservation. Magnetic disks, much like cassette tapes and 8 tracks tend to start to go bad after 20+ years.
That's a cool idea there. I didn't know anything about the Quick Disk. But once you mentioned it, it just so happened that I received in the mail today a lot of pirate disks and among them were two Maxell Quick Disks. So, I made up something on the site about Quick Disks: HERE (http://www.famicomworld.com/Workshop/Maxell_Quick_Disk_Pirate.htm). (We'll see if I got my info right.) It would be fascinating if someone could tell us more about the possibilities with these Quick Disks and drives.
yo man, read wikipedia! especially the article on the FDS and then there is a large section in the Floppy Disk article that talks about quick disks. That's where I learned about it. 8)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famicom_disk_system
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floppy_disk#Mitsumi.27s_.22Quick_Disk.22_3-inch_floppies
One thing that might not be clear is, Mitsumi manufactured the actual magnetic disk itself (they also have manufactured all of nintendo's controllers even to this day!). Other companies like Nintendo, Maxell and what have you made their own cases.
Well now, this is interesting. If they are just modified Quick Disks, then would it be possible to find out how they are burned (what information goes where) and then just use a quick-disk burner to burn them using ROM images?
This is big stuff, guys. Great thread!
oh, ok, now I get what chimy and people were talking about. there seems to be a way to modify your FDS to write disks, then you plug it into one of these game converter things and you plug that into your computer. It is explained in much more detail over here:
http://www.tototek.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=548
anyway, this would be a hell of a lot simpler if you had a quick disk drive. but I'm sure that those were even hard to come by in the 80s. You might be able to get one out of an old yamaha or roland synth and modify it to work on you computer.
Yeah, there's some FDS loader cable that you craft to hook up the FDS to a computer. I've been wanting to do it but haven't. The Quick Disk things does sound easier, if possible.
tototek needs to just sell all the stuff to do this
seriously i'd buy a bundle with all the materials for like 150 bucks or something
I just got a dump of Disk Hacker 2. This copy program has been a bitch to get. I have to write it to disk and test it out. I should have some time this holiday weekend. I will try and put something together for the board.
-CFB
I have a disk that was originally Kid Icarus and i was wondering if anyone had the means to maybe re-write it back to it's original form
Its one of my favorite games and every time i see the lable i want to play it soooo bad, but alas all i get is some RPG i can't even read..lmao
i'd be willing to pay for to and from shipping and for the time it would take..
James
I just got my new FDS today and it turns out that my old copy of Zelda 1 doesn't work. It keeps giving me error 22, while all my other disks work fine. Rather than pay for another copy first, I want to know if someone here can rewrite FDS disks.
So whatever happened to chimy and the how to guide? This sounds like a challenging project, but well worth it if finished.
It'll come you just have to be patient. I wouldn't mind getting some of my disks fixed.
I just talked to Chimy yesterday. He's around.
Interesting. I gotta learn how to write disks. I have ~20 disks that won't work. It'd be awesome to get a network of trading & re-writing disks going on here. :)
what size is a zip disk drive
It's not the same as an FDS disk, if that's what you're getting at. FDS disks are modified Quick Disks.
how modified? ???
The disks are longer (2.8" x 3.0", instead of 2.8" x 2.8"). Dunno if there were any internal changes.
I wonder how hard it would be to hook up a 3 1/2" drive (or zip drive, hard drive, or flash drive, whatever) to a famicom instead of using their drive and play games from that? There's gotta be a way to do it. 133mhz ???
First, I do not own a FDS :(
And since FDS systems aren't widely owned (How hard is to get a used loose NES? easy as cake. How much? cheap as dirt. How about the FDS?), and also due to the lack of official technical documentation there hasn't been much opportunity to completely reverse engineer the Famicom Disk System mechanism.
Also AFAIK the FDS drive doesn't store data as sectors like almost all other disk drives, data is stored as continuous 'files', running along the disk surface forming a really long spiral, analogous to a record player. Converting this to a standard sector format would require some serious shit (please correct me if wrong, i've read something like this a long time ago and may not be correct).
Last but not least, our resident FDS expert is chimyfolkbutter, he's been involved on the FDSLoadr project which allows you to stream FDS games from your PC to your real Famicom by plugging the FDS RAM Adapter to your PC's parallel port, or you can connect a real FDS to your PC and read/write Famicom disks. It's very timing sensitive and doesn't work with all computers (especially newer ones or laptop computers), but still awesome nonetheless, if I had an FDS I'd build myself one of those cables in a pinch ;D
Quote from: 133MHz on August 12, 2008, 12:48:44 pm
if I had an FDS I'd build myself one of those cables in a pinch ;D
OK, time for all of us to pitch in and get 133MHz a FDS so we can get this documented for the site. :P
Man! 133mhz if I had the money I would get you 2 FDS one that works and you won't touch and another one that you can open up and operate on.
I am planing on getting a fammycom and a disk system but after watching fammycom dojo, I found out the games could be over written,
Is there some sort of device where I can write over a game if it is not the game says it to be? and could I also write Regular cart games to a disk? Like mother 1 but the English version?
thanks guys
Are you doing that "Fammycom" thing on purpose? Because it's really annoying.
That might be a disk writer you're thinking of, which would be at several stores in Japan that would, for a small fee, rewrite a disk to another game that was selected from a menu. These units have been extremely hard to find since they were retired, and would be expensive both in actual price and shipping if you did find one somewhere.
"Are you doing that "Fammycom" thing on purpose? Because it's really annoying"
What are you talking about? Am i spelling it wrong?
Also what I'm talking about is remaking my own disks, like with a computer I have an old computer I could use if that is what I need
He is probably spelling it phonetically. Give the guy a break. :)
As for how to write disks, there's plenty of info here on the site. Search around and ask any specific questions that you're confused about.
Phonetic spelling can be hilarious. I think I have the right to say that as an Asian.
http://www.engrish.com/
:-[ Guys, its kind of hard for me, to spell in English as my main languish is french.
also I have found the info that I need, so I will think about it, but eulation seems the best way for me at the moment thanks guys
my setup:
rf famicom
tgd6+
disk system stock (3206)
disk system thats half moded (3206)
disk system thats fully modded (7201)
alot of copy programs/ 200+ fds disk
running fdsloadr on pc running purely dos.
have pc-fds cable(thanks to ericj -owe you one eric!)- powered buy circuit i built using 7805 +5v voltade regulator( using its own dedicated power supply now)
have fds-ram cable now.
if you need help, ill try and help just hollar at me
maverick
Any one have a guide on how to write a image of a famicom game to a disk, also how to backup your disk? I currently own two famicom disks and would like to back them up just in case something happens to them. They currently work but don't want them to die when I show someone the system / games.