Arkanoid II has a level editor built in with load/save functions. These are functional right? What handles those functions? There's no battery/sram onboard so it must be something external.
Good question. Data recorder maybe?
Quote from: daskrabs on April 17, 2015, 06:05:28 am
Good question. Data recorder maybe?
You wouldn't be able to plug in the data recorder hardware since the expansion port would have the Arkanoid II controller plugged into it.
A data recorder could have a pass through exp port built in. Or it might be expected you just unplug the vaus for editing. Either way it has to be something like that, or the save might would not actually work, which seems unlikely. I just don' t know anything about the data recorders made for the fc.
Would be cool if the controller itself had a battery and some flash memory. I don't have one, though, so I can't open it up and look.
Post Merge: April 17, 2015, 08:03:15 am
Oh, I didn't realize the Arkanoid II controller had another controller port at the top of it. It might use data recorder hardware, afterall.
Anyone have an ASCII turbo file and this cart and want to see if that's the right thing? Seems like the most likely at this point.
I didn't think that worked with anything other than ASCII titles (Wizardry games, mostly).
I have a Turbo File but no Arkanoid, sadly.
alright, let's try a different approach. anyone have the Arkanoid II instruction manual handy?
I'm pretty sure it uses the data recorder now. Was able to "save" a level using Nestopia and load it up in Audacity -- definitely save data. Haven't gotten Nestopia to load it back yet, but I'll figure that out later.
Castle Excellent is using both tapes and the Turbo File I heard, so one thing isn't necessarily excluding the other. I have Family Keyboard and Everdrive so I could test it too when I have time to unpack my Famicom.
Quote from: UglyJoe on April 17, 2015, 01:45:12 pm
I didn't think that worked with anything other than ASCII titles (Wizardry games, mostly).
Works with Itadaki Street through a "hidden" menu.
I tried with the turbo file but it didn't work...
Also it really takes some time for saving, so I assume it is a tape. Saving to the turbo file goes quick.
cool, thanks for the help guys.
I have an arkanoid 2 manual if you're interested I could take some pictures.
Yes please do.
Took some pictures of the part that I think is talking about the edit function (pages 17, 18, 19, 20). If these aren't what you're looking for I'll just take pics of the whole manual.
Page 19 definitely mentions the keyboard and a tape recorder:
ファミコン本体へキーボード、テープレコーダーをそれぞれ接続し、テープレコーダにカセットテープをセットします。
Which is roughly:
Connect the keyboard to the Famicom expansion port, connect the tape recorder to the keyboard, then set a cassette tape into the tape recorder.
Great! That's seven titles that use tape recorder saving. I'd bet there are more.
Do you see anything unusual on page 20 in regards to loading? I'm curious if there's some extra steps that need to be done and if those are keeping emulation from working.
I see nothing special (except that LOAD becomes ROAD several times in the text ;D). I suspect the emulator is at fault.
Hey guys. Picked up an Arkanoid II with controller and I have a data recorder. Work is busy this week but I'll try it out next week.
Sounds good. Make sure to let us know how it goes.
Family BASIC unpacked I made an Arkanoid II level (I wrote "TEST" in bricks) and saved it to a tape. No errors (if the game even has any error messages). But then I tried to load it and it loaded a scrambled version of my level (I could make out the "T" in the scrambles). Maybe Arkanoid II's tape routines aren't very well programmed. I loaded a Family BASIC program a minute before on the other side of the same tape.