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Famicom / Disk System / Re: Last Famicom game you play...
Last post by hippy dave - November 29, 2025, 11:16:17 amArkanoid
Why is level THREE (3) so
ing hard?
Why is level THREE (3) so
ing hard?12
Famicom / Disk System / Re: Scan Requests (label, cove...
Last post by jpx72 - November 27, 2025, 12:49:10 amA little late for the Metal slader glory:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/gJ2EDtKvBWjZ9n7S9
https://photos.app.goo.gl/gJ2EDtKvBWjZ9n7S9
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Other Gaming / Re: GBA (Not SP) Aftermarket B...
Last post by Jedi Master Baiter - November 22, 2025, 05:44:26 pmI went ahead and bought a bunch of different brands of GBA buttons and membranes (including OEM) from Hand Held Legend.
I'm going to mix and match and see how it goes.
Thinking about it now, I probably should have bought some shells as well.
I'm going to mix and match and see how it goes.
Thinking about it now, I probably should have bought some shells as well.
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Famicom / Disk System / Re: New Family BASIC Disassemb...
Last post by P - November 20, 2025, 05:56:28 pmFamily BASIC was initially made by Hudson as part of the Sharp My Computer Televi C1 set which includes an early version of the Famibe keyboard. Hudson had previously developed BASIC for Sharp's computers so I guess Sharp picked them for the job to make BASIC for Famicom as well.
So it's no coincidence the tape protocols are similar, Hudson likely designed both.
IIRC all first-party games that support the data recorder (Excitebike, Mach Rider and Wrecking Crew) uses the same Hudson-designed protocol too.
Castle Excellent uses Kansas City Standard (or more specifically the CUTS variant) since it's a port the MSX game (MSX uses a variant of CUTS), but they inverted some of the bits, maybe to make the save data incompatible with the MSX version.
So it's no coincidence the tape protocols are similar, Hudson likely designed both.
IIRC all first-party games that support the data recorder (Excitebike, Mach Rider and Wrecking Crew) uses the same Hudson-designed protocol too.
Castle Excellent uses Kansas City Standard (or more specifically the CUTS variant) since it's a port the MSX game (MSX uses a variant of CUTS), but they inverted some of the bits, maybe to make the save data incompatible with the MSX version.
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Famicom / Disk System / Re: New Family BASIC Disassemb...
Last post by UglyJoe - November 20, 2025, 05:56:37 amQuote from: micahcowan on November 20, 2025, 01:52:19 am...I've read your doc on emulator formats. I'm confused about you saying the VirtuaNES format "happens to be usable as a WAV" file because they have a consistent "one-byte-per-frame" format. To my understanding, WAV files have to be RIFF format, so a file that is [interpretable as] raw 8-bit PCM data couldn't be interpreted as a WAV file, because it would be missing the RIFF id and header structures. Are there some very forgiving, probably older audio-file programs that would interpret things this way by default?
It is effectively raw/headerless WAV data. You would have to tell your audio decoder the format of the data (basically filling in the info that the RIFF header would have provided). You can import raw audio data into Audacity, for example. I think 32000Hz, unsigned 8-bit PCM, is what you would use for VirtuaNES and Nestopia tape files.
I would just use my FBTT nowadays, but it was useful info for me getting started to more easily go to/from emulator/hardware.
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Famicom / Disk System / Re: New Family BASIC Disassemb...
Last post by micahcowan - November 20, 2025, 01:52:19 amQuote from: micahcowan on November 19, 2025, 07:45:02 pmQuote from: UglyJoe on November 19, 2025, 05:49:09 pmI found this to be a good reference (now on archive.org:
https://web.archive.org/web/20240606013759/https://original.sharpmz.org/mz-700/tapeproc.htm
Doesn't look related to the Famibe tape format, apart from[...]
On closer inspection, there are many similarities, though they do differ when you get to the details. I'd misread a couple things at first glance, and the largest/most obvious of the dissimilarities threw me. (It's also possible I'm using a slightly different document than what you linked: archive.org was down for maintenance, I used this one instead. I think the archive one didn't have nearly this detail about bit representation, but could be mistaken since I can't verify that earlier impression for now.) I've also read some of your JS code for your Family Basic Tape Tool.
They both issue a header block followed by a file block, and use LTM for the header, STM for the file. They both use the same pattern for data bytes. They both begin the blocks with a "GAP", followed by a "TAPE MARK", followed by "LONG pulse", and then the data in bytes, a checksum, and a final long pulse.
The header format is an extremely close match, and both are 128 bytes in length. The core differences are that many of the fields in MZ go unused, and Famibe uses $00 to terminate the filename where MZ uses $0D. Famibe repurposes byte 22, in the header for BG saves, to hold the vertical scroll register's value.
Differences (based on my knowledge, which is currently exclusive to Famibe v3 of course):
- Bits are very similarly represented, but not the same.
The frequencies/wavelengths differ, which makes sense, bc so do their CPU clockspeeds(Edit: actually, the freqs are at least comparable). MZ starts with the high period and finishes with the low, while the reverse is true for Famibe (for many readers, depending on the implementation, that might not matter at all - certainly doesn't for your tape conversion tool!). - Biggest difference: payloads are not sent twice on Famibe. Everything after the second "L" in each of those block diagrams, does not exist on Famibe tape saves. (It was seeing this MZ's lengthy string of format sections that misled me to conclude it had little in common - it has more than twice as many structures involved as Famibe has!)
- There are no SGAPs on Famicom, only LGAPs for both, and they are
(I believe) 20,00019,744 cycles instead of 22,000. I can't imagine this mattering.
But I'm guessing you're already familiar with these discrepancies, from writing your WAV conversion tool.
...I've read your doc on emulator formats. I'm confused about you saying the VirtuaNES format "happens to be usable as a WAV" file because they have a consistent "one-byte-per-frame" format. To my understanding, WAV files have to be RIFF format, so a file that is [interpretable as] raw 8-bit PCM data couldn't be interpreted as a WAV file, because it would be missing the RIFF id and header structures. Are there some very forgiving, probably older audio-file programs that would interpret things this way by default?
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Famicom / Disk System / Re: This is Family Computer Ma...
Last post by hippy dave - November 19, 2025, 10:47:32 pmNice!
I enjoyed reading the English translation of the first issue that I encountered while rummaging through this forum.
I enjoyed reading the English translation of the first issue that I encountered while rummaging through this forum.
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Famicom / Disk System / Re: New Family BASIC Disassemb...
Last post by UglyJoe - November 19, 2025, 09:28:05 pmQuote from: micahcowan on November 19, 2025, 08:12:24 pmDo you have a link to any of these things? I did a cursory check of the top post on the mega-thread, but didn't see it, didn't see a (different) website mentioned in your profile, and don't see a downloads area to this one.
I host them here: https://hvc7.dev/
My lexer/parser mini-IDE thing isn't currently on there as I need to rewrite the docs for it, but I could share it if interested.
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Famicom / Disk System / Re: New Family BASIC Disassemb...
Last post by micahcowan - November 19, 2025, 08:12:24 pmQuote from: UglyJoe on November 19, 2025, 04:23:54 pmNice work, best of luck to you!
Thank you very much!
QuoteWhat you are probably seeing with V3 tape dumps not working with V2 is that V3 introduced short-hand values for the numbers 0-9, so that they get tokenized as a single byte rather than three bytes.
Yes! I noticed that as well. Didn't realize that it's v3-specific! I'll add a note.
I don't actually remember what trouble I had intermingling saves across version numbers, just remember running into trouble the last time I was messing around with Family BASIC, like 7 years ago. But my dim memory was it either failed to load completely, or the tokens were all jumbled around (maybe one was inserted mid-list? I could especially see that happening with a command that takes line-num args, as Family BASIC requires those to occur before all other commands in the keyword list (their numeric args are tokenized differently, so they have to be recognized).
Quote from: undefinedI've made some Family BASIC tools over the years (lexer/parser, tape reader / converter, etc.). Mostly I'm working on preserving old magazine type-ins now. Let me know if you want to talk Family BASIC sometime
Do you have a link to any of these things? I did a cursory check of the top post on the mega-thread, but didn't see it, didn't see a (different) website mentioned in your profile, and don't see a downloads area to this one.
I've some tools planned myself (probably in-browser stuff mostly), and some of the main ones are aimed at making preservation of type-ins a lot more practical/versatile.
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Famicom / Disk System / Re: New Family BASIC Disassemb...
Last post by micahcowan - November 19, 2025, 07:45:02 pmQuote from: UglyJoe on November 19, 2025, 05:49:09 pmSomeone pointed out to me on the Gaming Alexandria discord that the tape format is the same as the Sharp MZ (and probably some other Japanese microcomputers). Definitely seems to track, and backed up everything that I had started to work out empirically by going cross-eyed staring at waveforms in Audacity
I found this to be a good reference (now on archive.org:
https://web.archive.org/web/20240606013759/https://original.sharpmz.org/mz-700/tapeproc.htm
Doesn't look related to the Famibe tape format, apart from possibly that the same representation might be used to represent ones and zeroes, and for individual bytes ("might"... that link is a little sparse on details at that level). The higher-level format appears to be utterly unconnected. Small wonder, the one used by Famibe is... pretty shit, TBH.