Reproduction Carts Thread

For rare reproduction games like NWC, maybe we could do an irreversible mark to the cartridge, like branding "reproduction" on the back or something, and then on the inside seams, melt the cartridge together so people can't easily take it apart. Not sure how easy it would be to do, but if there was some sort of watermark somewhere and then we made it difficult to open, maybe that would curb people from trying to print on a "real" label and trying to pass it on as the real deal.

 

While this is true, people that may do this and actually have the skill to reproduce a quality original label may not need to buy the cart from you anyway. Someone that needs to buy the cart from you probably is too lazy, uninterested, or incapable of replacing the label with something that could be passed off as original. The best thing that could happen would be if the retro game interest died down and the money went out of the market.

SnoopKatt, there is no passing off a fake NWC cartridge unless you are going to manufacture a cloned PCB. There is no suitable "donor" for that cartridge.

 

True but anyone who really wants to simply bootleg carts is probably buying their own programmer and printer with proper labels to bootleg Chrono Trigger and Earthbound rather than Dynamite Headdy with a superior translation. Most of the time anyone has wanted me to make them a reproduction of something they've whined and moaned about the lack of a label and just wanted something to stick on their shelf and didn't care much that I didn't produce a box with box art, manual, and random inserts to look "authentic".

At the very least if someone does take something I make and slap an authentic looking label on it I'm not the one doing anything wrong. There isn't that much that can be done to prevent it either as they could simply swap shells.

Firmly against such an idea. It is wasteful for the fact that if something went wrong with the cartridge and it was a stupidly easy repair (such as the EPROM/FLASH needed to be rewritten in 20-50 years) then you'd be creating waste for a landfill. Granted with some of this it isn't too easy with clipped pins and who knows how easy it will be to reprogram EPROMs in the future but I see absolutely no reason to deliberately make it difficult to repair my own work. The people who make "professional" reproductions can suck a rail if they want to do this.

 

I wasn't saying anything about putting a label on it that looks legit (which is obvious a no go and a bad move). I was just saying there is no difference at all between no label and a label that obviously says its a repro - as you can remove the rebranded one.

Obviously blank or a modified label requires someone to do their own label before passing it off as legit - but that wasn't my point. You had them listed as 2 points on your list - but fact is, it's the same thing and makes no difference if you put a modified label on it.

Ideal world, you would want custom shaped pcbs that will not fit a genuine cart and then have custom shells. But that's far too much work and outlay for most people and would never happen

 

I think this is two topics. Technical info and help for noobs on actually making repros and discussing as always selling them what kind of markings they should have and how evil these things can be.

 

APE: fair enough. Just throwing out an idea, since this seems to be a big problem without a good solution.

Bad_Ad84: that PCB idea is interesting. RetroUSB uses their own PCBs and cartridges, so on a small scale, making custom PCBs probably isn't smart, but if someone truly is a professional reproduction maker on a high scale, it seems pretty doable to make a PCB that will not be able to work in a regular cartridge, but only in a custom cartridge that can still be gray, but have a watermark on the back or something that can't be removed. Maybe the screws in the back could be placed differently so that it would not be stable in a regular cartridge or even fit. It's unfortunately more expensive than using a donor cartridge (NWC was just a rough example, I was just throwing out a rare game that has been bootlegged before), but if this is a serious concern, maybe more professionals should look into it. Just expanding on another idea.

Teancum: good point lol.

I do have a question though., Konami PCBs, are they any different than regular PCBs? Would a Konami TLROM PCB be subject to the same instructions as a regular TLROM?

 

The "most people" part, was because I know retrousb do them - I just couldnt think of the name while posting and was typing on my phone, so not easy to google it.

 

I guess my only issue is that people are going to do shady shit, no matter what. derekb made me a great Thexder repro that I have for private use. There are several games I'd love repros of for that purpose alone.

I thought about, in addition to having labels marked as reproductions, some kind of "watermark" on the carts themselves, but, then, peole could swap out the casing.

If people want to scam badly enough, they will. I think repro producers just need to follow their gut.

I have the same potential problem with game cases - if someone ordered cases for a bunch of 360 or PS2 titles, I'd be really suspicious - that's why I only sell custom cases (different format case, or custom artwork) for anything made past the late 1990's.

People are scum, but it shouldn't discourage the people that strive to have integrity with enjoying the hobby.

 

Yeah, theres nothing you could do to the shell of a cart that would prevent someone from just plopping the pcb into another shell. I guess you could device soem sort of 'wires glued to shell that rip apart if you try to pull pcb out' setup, but still

 

Or you can edit the game's title screen to say REPRODUCTION.

 

Good idea, but that's not going to discourage scammers at first - it would speed up their ousting, however.

 

I noticed yesterday theres a dude whose been flipping massive amounts of Earthbound Zero on ebay for awhile (pulling 60-100 a pop), it's kind of surprising so many people fall for those prices when even nesreproductions.com will sell you one for 25

 

I'm not entirely against people reproducing a game for personal use from entirely new materials (well, as long as you aren't making a serious impact in the world's part supply, which is an actual concern these days with some EPROMs and logic devices), but I am opposed people sacrificing games for any purpose but research, and even then you should feel bad.

On a moral standpoint however, even if you sell repros for the cost of labor, you gain at the very least in part through ILLICIT MEANS. Learn to do something productive like make your own games instead of parasitically profiting off other people's work. It's sickening for this to be promoted and encouraged through easy guides.

The world doesn't need more repros, repromakers, profiteers, or illegitimized carts. In general, people are dumb. Show them something shiny and they want it without thinking of the consequences. For this reason it's best to not instruct people on how to do things they don't really understand. Instead let them educate themselves first, then use their education how they please. That's the natural progression of things instead of this ridiculous internet guide culture we're living in where people attempt to do skilled labor first, then learn it later, if at all. Guides get the author short term praise, but it's not worth it, man. You're not really doing anybody a service.

 

Agreed. I can't say I like the idea of sacrificing existing cartridges to make other titles but I cannot say I shed much of a tear when tearing apart a sports game.

OTOH I've managed to turn a dead cart into something useful by swapping in an EPROM.

That said is there any sort of database/spreadsheet that has info on what "garbage" carts are good for "good" games SNES wise? I haven't tried opening too many of my SNES cartridges as of yet but I don't want to willy nilly waste cartridges. Though I'd like to map out a schematic to attempt to produce PCBs with; most of the carts I have lack any sort of save functionality.

 

Can I use this thread to ask this:

I want to burn those roms into eproms.
Which eproms do I need for those size:



4096KB
2048KB
1024KB
512KB
128KB

I need the part number of those to be able to find them on ebay.

 

snes list, also containg pics of pcb. You can search by, low, hi, encoder, pcb type, etc. Very nice.
http://ks353712.kimsufi.com/pcb-snes/

You can (easy) modify a lorom pcb to be hirom.
I also think it's easy to add sram. Never tryed it, yet.
I'm also against destroing good games. I hate it when people destroy zelda, metroid, ff1 to make final fantasy 2. I prefer using a slrom game and add some sram.

 

27C320 - 4mb
27C160 - 2mb
27C080 - 1mb
27C040 - 512kb
27C020 - 256kb
27C010 - 128kb

Keep in mind some of these may have 8 and 16 bit modes that you can set interchangeably. The 27C322 is 16bit only IIRC but it makes for easy Genesis reproduction work (16bit only). My understanding is vastly incomplete but you'll find valid EPROMs under each of the titles with correct sizing.

Thank you! I just discovered this too: http://www.snescentral.com/system.php (scroll down).

I converted Tecmo Basketball into Earthbound Zero and one of the Ultima games into FF2 but I need to pull the EPROM and reprogram it with a patched ROM that has a fix for the fading text bug. I felt somewhat bad about both but justified it in that I wouldn't play either before conversion. I did buy another copy of Ultima to socket but it came with the manual which made me feel really guilty just thinking about what I was planning on doing to it. I'll probably sell the manual to someone who has a cart and box to make a complete set.

 

I don't have earthbound and ff2 anymore, but what do you mean about "fading text bug"? i didn't noticed anything wrong. i used the earthbound proto rom. ff2+eng patch+mmc1 fix

 

I'm on the same page as you with this, although the standard is a bit subjective, since a game that is totally garbage to us may be amazing to others. Then again, I felt like I was doing the world a favor when I turned Where's Waldo into Super Mario Brothers 2j.

That's good to know about the Super Nintendo stuff. It's a lot more difficult to find information on that, thank you.

If I replace the RAM chip on a Sgrom with a CHR ROM, will I be able to use SNROM games?