Making an Earthbound famicom repro, EPROM suggestions?

[jpx72]

'Mother' simply is not a rare game. Sorry, I wish it were, but 'tisn't.  

So that's the reason you can destroy it, right?

You are talking about jumpers, reverse process... Do you really think that anybody will do that? Ok, you have the tools, the ability and everything. But you are a lonely soldier among all the self-taught "electricians". Most repros are done unprofesionally.

Let's ask the OP  - do you have the tools and the required skills?

[famiac]

Yes i do, i have everything. It's not hard at all to desolder and preserve the original eproms. And the jumper wires? It's not too hard to bend up a pin now is it?

Edit: Sorry for shitty grammar. Fixed.

[ericj]

Are you burning the eproms yourself, or having someone else do them?

[jpx72]

Yes i do, i have everything.

Ok then, I'm sorry for underestimating you. But I'm still mad about Destroying (I have no other word for it) the Mother cartridge.

[P]

We just don't like the fact of modifying parts of history like that. It's normal for collectors of other things as well. A furniture collector don't want to find an old escritoire from the Jurassic period only to find out that the drawers was repaired with plywood. Of course now gaming collecting isn't even 100 years old yet, but I hope our feelings towards this are a bit closer to be understood.

when items are taken out of circulation by one means or another, it is only improving the value of collections

That might be good for our personal collections but I don't see what good it does to the gaming collecting at large. For every item that is destroyed (I'm not just talking about this case with Mother) it increases the chances that it will cease to exist. Even though something extreme needs to happen for something like this to cease to exist anytime soon.

Even so, I hold the opinion that no person has the right to instruct others in how they should run their lives, or what they should do with their possessions.

If anyone thought I tried to do that I want to apologise. I just want to advise people to not do things that I think could be harmful to the gaming world. But I can't and won't try to stop anyone.

with a little extra effort, you could socket the ROMs or with a tad more effort, put both sets on a switch to select either the EU/US or JP version.

That kind of modification wouldn't be that bad in my book.

they can now play the game in their native (or an understood) language

Hmm that's a very good point though.

Yes i do, i have everything.

I also believe in you. Good luck!

[famiac]

Are you burning the eproms yourself, or having someone else do them?

i have  a USB willem GQ-3X programmer.

EDIT: thanks guys for the support and opinions, all opinions are respected and taken into consideration.

[lobdale]

Disregarding all the ethical questions, I just want to mention that I can easily buy a Japanese Mother cart for a few bucks just about anywhere, but my Mother/EarthBound repro is something that was much harder to find, and is unarguably more expensive to acquire no matter how you're doing it.  Either you need the skills, parts, and time to produce the chips and solder them in yourself, or you need the money not only to get the Mother cart in the first place but to pay someone else to do it.  True, though the number of Mother repros is theoretically "unlimited," there currently exist far fewer Mother reproductions than even exceedingly rare Famicom games.  For me, not only as a "collector" but as a gamer, I went a little more out of the way to get my reproduction cause it is a curiosity, and it's useful, to boot: it's in my native language, as Xious mentioned, and I can enjoy it on real hardware with the real ROM chips on my Famicom.

It may not ever "increase in value," but unless someone decides to flood the hobby market with them it will likely never decrease, and it will always be something special: an item you could never buy that was homemade by someone who had to have known what he was doing.

[ericj]

What kind of eprom UV eraser do you have?

[famiac]

i actually don't have one. would i need one?

[ericj]

You'll need one to erase/clear the data on a chip if you incorrectly write it or the data isn't correct on it; otherwise, you'll be using a new eprom each time since the programmer can't erase them.

[famiac]

yeah i know that. But i guess ill just be careful. or buy one right now XD

[Xious]

It's a good idea to have a UV eraser on hand if you're working with EPROMs. You may also want to check for PROM pricing, as you could save some money that way if you ever decide to make games in bulk or to order. PROMs used to cost quite a bit less per unit in bulk, but these days, that may no longer be true.

My own programmer no longer works on any piece of computer technology that I regularly use, so eventually I'll need to buy a new one. As I own a PowerPak, I don't have much use for encoding EPROMs, but on occasion I feel like making a custom game, as I did for 'Outlands', so it's be handy, and it would allow me to make custom games for sale. 

[gorgyrip]

I don't know why people insist in using EPROMS when you can use FLASH.

[NintendoKing]

How much harder is it to use FLASH over EPROMs? Because I am assuming it all has to do with ease of build.

[gorgyrip]

It's not harder. But if something goes wrong you can simply erase the flash fast and easy without UV.