Hello to all!
famiac here with 3 ROMs of some legally acquired famicom prototype/sample games!
What this thread is: A fundraiser!
Basically how this works is that i set a goal for donations, and the community of famicom world sends me money until a set goal is reached. When the goal is reached, i will release the roms to the community so that you may do whatever you want with them. (repros or emulation i guess).
I have received moderator permission for this fundraiser.
The goal is: $175 (which isn't bad because i paid 300 for the games.)
The games at hand are: Pyokotan no Dai meiro; Saint Seiya (the second one i think); and Holy diver!
I will not spend any donation money until the goal is reached.
All games are dumped and running in emulators. (had to get mottzilla to modify his emulator because other emulators don't recognize the prototype holy diver rom)
Proof pic:
(http://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2012/38/1348101919-photo.jpg)
Thanks to all!
Good luck with the fundraiser!
Don't forget to supply the cartridge and PCB scans to Bootgod's database!
Good idea, nice going famiac and of course good luck with your fundraiser :yoshi:
You know what would help? A donation! hahaha. Thanks guys. Ill try to scan the pcbs. But i dont want to damage any EPROMs. Plus they're just regular carts with sockets and wires.
If we donated ten bucks each, we could get these dumped in no time. Famiac, do donators get anything special, like early access to the ROMs before they're distributed?
Have you already dumped them,? I think 175 is a fair amount personally. I'd love to get in on Holy Diver, are there any differences? It would be great to hear about them here.
Yeah there is a no death cheat in holy diver, i havent figured it out yet though. Im not sure about the other games but i would assume there is. I thought about early access but someone could easily release the roms once they have early access so it's a bad idea. I have already dumped the games, i thought i made that clear in the first post. I also think 175 is a fair amount and yeah the purpose of the community dump is to get a swift release using community support. It's surprising how much as little as 10 dollars piles up.
Thinking of something special for donators... Perhaps a 4th rom of some sort? Something undumped but not as cool as a proto. Im taking ideas.
Quote from: famiac on September 20, 2012, 11:46:30 am
Thinking of something special for donators... Perhaps a 4th rom of some sort? Something undumped but not as cool as a proto. Im taking ideas.
Maybe a badge of sorts, that kind they have on NintendoAge, below their avatar... give this thought to admins! ;)
(http://fhsw-europ.ucoz.de/donator_gold.png)
Maybe you'd get donation from a place such as assemblergames.
Maybe... But i dont have a high post count there. I also have a glover 2 rom i want to community dump for.
Quote from: jpx72 on September 20, 2012, 12:35:53 pm
Maybe a badge of sorts, that kind they have on NintendoAge, below their avatar... give this thought to admins! ;)
(http://fhsw-europ.ucoz.de/donator_gold.png)
We considered adding a badge system in the past, but the idea just sorta went away. My concern was forum clutter -- I hate when the user's information to the left of the post is regularly longer than their actual post. JC's concern was that they're dumb ;D
UglyJoe, it doesn't have to be badged system, my idea is to simply replace/add a "post rank" (converter, famiclone, famicom... and so on) or whatever that is, with a "donator" title just like "administrator/moderator" one, whatcha think ? :bub:
I guess we could set donators' custom titles to "Cart Dump Donator" or something.
Sounds like it would be a pretty good incentive for FCW forum dwellers. ;D
Blah no donations yet... I should try assembler... You disappoint me FW. *sniff*
Don't look at me. All my money goes to tuition. :upsetroll:
You need to tell us differences ;) No one wants to spend the money when they don't know what they're paying for. I had a prototype recently I also was trying to gets funds for dumping, but absolutely no one was interested since I didn't have any way of dumping it then and wanted funds so I could buy a dumper. Since no one knew how early the game was on the cart, they didn't care. I'll probably never do things like that again. :)
Ok ill compare files this weekend. I know there are differences in holy diver.
I don't really see the point in paying you to just post a rom file. I mean you've already bought the carts and dumped them...maybe its just me.
When the games are dumped they lose value, this is a way to compensate me, the owner, and to provide the roms a place for eternal storage and use within the community at the same time.
Like I said, I don't see the point. Oh well, good luck.
Quote from: famiac on September 26, 2012, 09:48:57 pm
When the games are dumped they lose value, this is a way to compensate me, the owner, and to provide the roms a place for eternal storage and use within the community at the same time.
This is what I don't get about prototype collecting in the first place:
If they lose value when they're dumped, why'd you dump it in the first place?
And if you were intending to dump the rom before buying it knowing it'd lose value, why'd you buy it in the first place?
And if you dumped the rom for preservation purposes knowing the rom won't last long, again, why'd you buy it in the first place?
And who says the rom loses value after it's dumped?
And technically, you're not the real owner of the rom data you're raising money for. That's like me finding a vault of John Williams' entire sheet music collection, with demo samples, & unreleased orchestral pieces & selling digital copies (for eternal storage).
There I said it. Flame on. :fire:
^Yes, that
Quote from: Jedi QuestMaster on September 27, 2012, 10:50:05 am
If they lose value when they're dumped, why'd you dump it in the first place?
Data preservation. EPROMs can lose their data as decades march on, so an undumped prototype eventually will be lost forever. You can dump it and not release the ROM image if you want to preserve it without 'losing value'.
Quote from: Jedi QuestMaster on September 27, 2012, 10:50:05 am
And if you dumped the rom for preservation purposes knowing the rom won't last long, again, why'd you buy it in the first place?
So you can dump it for preservation purposes? Kind of hard to do that if it's not yours and the owner doesn't like the idea. ::)
Personally I don't see anything wrong with trying to recoup your costs in exchange for releasing the data to the community - it's your own property and you can do whatever you want with it. Not getting the donations flowing due to lack of interest (or people not seeing the point) is one of the risks you have to assume.
Quote from: Jedi QuestMaster on September 27, 2012, 10:50:05 am
And who says the rom loses value after it's dumped?
And technically, you're not the real owner of the rom data you're raising money for. That's like me finding a vault of John Williams' entire sheet music collection, with demo samples, & unreleased orchestral pieces & selling digital copies (for eternal storage).
I agree with that, I don't get the whole 'value is lost when the ROM is out there' thing, since you're still the owner of the physical cartridge and I don't see how even a reproduction would lower the value of the real deal, being two different things. Also I don't feel comfortable with the idea of making money off a copyrighted work that's not yours, but if other people do it's none of my business and I'm not obliged to participate.
P.S.: Famiac, If I had some money right now I'd donate you a few bucks so you could replace the '5' key on your laptop. ;D :P
I never understand why people think anyone with prototypes have some sort of obligation to release the ROMs. Considering how there's some people out there who buy protos and then go into hiding never sharing what they have at all, you're lucky you're even being offered anything at all. And personally, after all the money that goes into obtaining prototypes usually, I'd definitely want to be paid at least half or so, else why does the whole world deserve it for free while I'm the only one that had to sacrifice any money? And like famiac pointed out, you're paying for its eternal storage on the internet, rather than being in the hands of just one person.
I think everyone's just a little too used to the fact that ROMs = free. Never forget, "no one owes you anything" is the phrase to remember :)
The cart loses value because anyone who wants to play this unique version no longer has to pay a premium, just make a repro. So demand goes down.
Also, i'm not trying to make money from copyrighted material, (even though i am) that's not the purpose of this project.
Don't worry about it famiac, there's always haters when it comes to proto fundraisers, it comes with the territory ;)
Dump the cart, sell the cart, release dump after sale; money problems solved
Anyway sorry, I don't mean to shit all over your thread.
Hahaha no problem guys. Fw is too laid back for this shit.
Quote from: son_ov_hades on September 27, 2012, 05:18:28 pm
Dump the cart, sell the cart, release dump after sale; money problems solved
Anyway sorry, I don't mean to shit all over your thread.
Problem with that is it wouldn't be fair to whoever bought it to release it for free after they just spent all the money to get it from you. That is, if you aren't going to tell them anyway. And if you did ask if they'd be OK with that, I think you'd have a hard time getting many people to agree with it, really.
I don't mind the idea of these sorts of fund raisers. It's your item, do what you want with it whether that is to hide it away, dump for free, or try to recoup a few bucks.
I just won't consider donating to such a project if I don't have a clear idea of what the proto's contain, and probably wouldn't donate unless it was a previously unreleased game.
Having said that, I wish you the best for your fundraiser. Let us know what you have once you take a look.
If there are interesting differences in Holy Diver I'll help out. I think pre-release games are overrated though, they're never 'better' versions, they just offer some insights.
In turn, that insight is overrated if you work in the industry, as you see it every day. I do think these should be documented though, in an ideal world.
I see. I wish i had the time to play through all of this... Maybe during the weekend. Saturday should be good.
I just wanted to add that if you have had there for example a Rockman proto, you would have had my money on your account by now...
(damn I really think this sentence is grammar-killer ;D)
Ah ah ! I remember these protos, they were sold on Ebay by gametimevault, right ? I remember bidding on these guys, but the final price went too high for my budget (especially as a few of them were described as 'unknown', so it was a bit of a gamble) - but it was worth it in the end, Holy Diver is a neat find. Good luck with the fundraising :)
Holy diver was not from gametimevault ;)
By the way, I'm curious. What do you use to dump your Famicom prototypes ? I have a few myself and I would love to dump the roms...
Maybe he is using copynes? When i have the money i will buy a copynes and start dumping
Yup CopyNES and a converter.
I looked into CopyNES at some point but the installation is quite difficult... I mean, you have to desolder the NES's CPU, and solder a socket in its place (among other things)... did you build yours ? I wished there was a version of the Retrode that would also read NES/FC cartridges :)
Yes i built mine.
So uh.. any news?
I have been too busy with school to post on assembler or nintendoage. I will try to some time. Im going to a music festival this weekend, but ill try to find some time to post.
After the ROM dump, will you be holding on to these protos? :)
Yeah unless i get offers.
Well, everyone else is throwing their two cents in, so I might as well have a go. I think trying to argue that protos don't lose value after they're dumped is a bad argument to make. Talk to any proto collector, and they'll tell you that's a hard fact of their niche. Once a title has been dumped, there's a significant drop in value for the actual cart, unless it's a big name title to begin with (Zelda, Mario, Megaman, etc.). If I collected protos still (my collection only got as high as 2), I certainly wouldn't be offering to reduce the value of my carts by releasing them to the public.
That said, I also don't think it's exactly kosher to be dumping ROMs onto the net without the IP holder's permission. Dumping it for your personal use is one thing, but I don't personally support community dumps now that I've done some research into how copyright works and all that. I think if you're truly interested in preservation, the only "right" course of action is to dump it for personal storage. You can't really claim to care about posterity if money is changing hands for something that isn't yours to begin with. It's bad joojoo. You might own the physical cart, but you don't own the rights to the code inside.
Well, if im gone, or my computer's gone, the code's gone forever. Whether you agree or disagree is your personal opinion. But i need money right now and this is one way to do it. Donate if you want, don't if you don't.
Actually, if you're "truly" for preservation, you'd want to insure it spreads to the masses and doesn't just stay with one person only, where you never know what might happen. Your house could go on fire, faulty electric wiring...you could die and that one copy would be lost forever(and FYI there is one known case of this, a guy with a Conker's Bad Fur Day debug cartridge for N64 passed away and his family ended up trashing all his stuff). People have their own ideas of preservation of course, but in my mind it's making sure something isn't lost in history forever and can be appreciated by the whole world. Keeping a one of a kind thing locked away for yourself and calling it preservation doesn't make much sense to me, but again, different definitions I guess..
As for the morals behind it all, I hate to say it but law isn't the be all and end all of the world. We weren't born with it, it's not nature, it's just there to keep things in check. And it's great for lots of things, but In the case of prototypes....really, how many protos out there have gotten attention from companies and caused all sorts of issues because they were dumped? In a world where there's ROMs freely on the internet and no one cares(even game companies apparently download ROMs of their own games for compilation packs because they lost the original data for their own products!), some stranger putting out an early version of a 20 year old game isn't going to hurt anybody. Hell, lots of companies are pretty irresponsible or uncaring for their own history and the importance of prototypes, even Sega apparently destroyed their whole archives going back from the time of Sonic Xtreme(something drx found out from a Sega employee).
Clearly if there's anyone that cares about the history behind these things and wants to do anything about it, it's us internet nerds, not the companies themselves =p
(BTW Sorry for cluttering the topic more famiac, but healthy proto debate never hurt anybody unless it gets to name calling, which I doubt will happen :P)
Many companies didn't even bother keeping source code because they don't place the same inherent value on these things as we do.
No problem. Im enjoying this discussion.
Quote from: famiac on October 16, 2012, 08:38:12 am
Well, if im gone, or my computer's gone, the code's gone forever. Whether you agree or disagree is your personal opinion. But i need money right now and this is one way to do it. Donate if you want, don't if you don't.
It wasn't an opinion, it was a proposition. To say it a different way, one of my points was that a person shouldn't claim that they want to benefit posterity by releasing a ROM while trying to make money on the deal, but more importantly, neither option was really right (or legal) when it came to the moral implications of giving away someone else's work without their permission. You might be able to make a defensible moral argument of some kind if you were just giving away the ROM (i.e. no such thing as owning an idea, freedom for the dissemination of information, etc.), but when you couple that with money, it complicates the argument and takes the power out of your position. Your need for money, while legitimate, doesn't automatically make right the way you want to get it. You could also knock an old lady over and swipe her purse, but that wouldn't be right. You probably wouldn't get caught for either infraction, too, but a lack of direct consequences isn't a morally justifiable position, either.
Now, if you were to say, "Hey, I know it's illegal and immoral, but who wants to pay me for this ROM", I think you'd hear less argument out of me since at least you're being open about your own goals and the ramifications of what you're doing. At that point, the only assertions I'd be making would be about how it'd be a bad idea for our community to get behind supporting illegal endeavors, and the slippery slope it starts toward sanctioning other kinds of activity (reproductions, etc.).
Also, on a bit of a tangential note, posterity might be overrated. I think there's something to be said for allowing time and obscurity to run their course. It allows for old ideas to be legitimately created as new ideas, without all the hassles of IP. I think we're coming to an age where history mostly benefits the historian (and IP benefits no one but the man at the top). I really do wish that there was more freedom in the exchange of ideas and information, but sadly that isn't the way our societies are set up.
I still don't see how that's a proposition to literally tell me: "hey you! No, bad. That's bad."
I don't believe it to be immoral because there is literally no person being hurt by my actions. Making your "old lady" example obsolete.
I fully accept that this is illegal. But oh well. Sucks for me i guess? I honestly don't care.
Except it does hurt someone. Passing around someone's code deprives them of their copyright to the code. Whether or not they choose to currently pursue monetary compensation for their work is their business, not yours, and doesn't change the fact that you're passing off copies of their work for your own gain. That's the immoral part of it, not just the illegal part of it. Just because they aren't currently aware of your violation of their rights doesn't change the moral harm done.
For example, prior to the launch of the Virtual Console, few would have believed that there was a viable market for classic games in today's generation of consoles outside of an occasional "collection" release. How much more successful do you think the market for VC games would have been if ROM's and emulators weren't so widely available through illegal means on the internet? It's highly probably that many more people would have turned on their Wii's to get a fix of classic gaming than currently happens because of the ROM's openly and illegally distributed on the net.
I think if this is where the argument's going, we should draw the distinction between a prototype and a final release.
A prototype was never released so no one ever bought it. The final version is what was sold to the consumer. In this regard, a rom for a prototype never directly generated money from the consumer, the final version rom did. So, releasing a rom that never generated income would not financially harm the developer/company, only releasing a final version rom would.
It'd be hard to argue that a proto is the same thing as the final version. In the case of famiac's prototypes, they may be fairly similar to the final release. However, a prototype could be vastly different from the released game, and where would threshold be as to when they're similar enough to be considered the same thing? :)
By the way, I don't feel strongly either way on the matter...
Hmm, that's a unique argument there! I still think that the violation of someone's copyright is indefensible, morally/legally, because that exists outside a person's choice to monetize that copyright. However, you do make an interesting point regarding the mitigation of potential monetary loss, and that's certainly something worth thinking about. I'm just trying to think of analogous situations here, but this might be like taking a chapter from an author's manuscript and putting it out on the internet. It doesn't necessarily tell the whole story, but still does damage to the author? I'll have to work this one out some more on my own, I think.
Honestly, I think the best places for these things is in a proper library or archive. There are already some institutions that are setting up video game sections, and libraries are granted legal privileges not available to regular people. The broad internet isn't itself a real place to "store" data, but merely to access it. I think that's why the whole "distribute it to preserve it" is a really weak argument because websites go down, people change computers, and information is just as easily lost online as off.