Tiger Electronics Handheld Simulation

Hello friends and country people of assemblergames

let me start of by saying I love the site and I love the releases

I come to you for the sake of preservation. I have spend thousands of dollars collecting every Tiger Electronics game some very rare and limited prints. I finally have the entire collection give or take 1 or 2 games. I have teamed up with collectors around the world to make this possible. Much sweat and tears where put into this to make this happen.

There are some sites online that offer handheld LCD LSI simulation. But these sites are not collectors so there resources are limited. As time goes by it is becoming harder and harder to find certain games. The scene has become scarce over the past few years. At this rate of lack of care and interest we will lose hundreds if not thousands of LCD and LSI games to preserve online for future generations.

I provide 1200dpi card and booklet scans
1200dpi scans of the handheld on
1200dpi scans of the handheld off
HD sound of the games beeps and noises
full HD video of the game getting beat
and a list of sprites and times they pop up

Here I am looking for individuals that care about preservation. I have money to have your work will not go unappreciated. I require flash game makers, HTML5 game makers, or just good ole coders. Let me know if anyone can help me out with this preservation

Here is a beta list I will update as I go there are some rare ones that are not on this list

Tiger Regular and Junior Style Handhes NOT including Classic style:

101 Dalmatians1990 -- Action/Adventure
101 Dalmatians 72-503 1994 -- Action/Adventure
Addams Family, The 1991 -- Action/Adventure
After Burner 7-797 1989 -- Shooter
Al Unser Jr. Turbo Racing 7-812 1990 -- Racing
Aladdin 72-514 1990 -- Action/Adventure
Aladdin, Disney's: The Series - The Tower of Gold Adventure 72-806 1994 -- Action/Adventure
Altered Beast { 7-831 1989 -- Action/Adventure
Amazing Spider-Man, The 72-808 1993 -- Action/Adventure
American Gladiators 7-813 1991 -- Sports
An American Tail - Fievel Goes West 7-884 1991 -- Action/Adventure
Animaniacs Hollywood Hi Jinx! Part Number:72-539 1995 -- Action/Adventure
Barnyard Commandos 7-878 1990 -- Action/Adventure
Baseball Super Stars Part Number:7-866 1988 -- Sports
Batman Part Number:7-799 1989 -- Action/Adventure
Batman Forever Double Dose of Doom 78-572 1995 -- Action/Adventure
Batman Returns 78-507 1991 -- Action/Adventure
Batman The Animated Series 72-505 1992 -- Action/Adventure
Battletoads 1991 -- Action/Adventure
Beauty and the Beast 7-877 1990 -- Action/Adventure
Beethovens 2nd 72-545 1994 -- Action/Adventure
Beetlejuice 7-870 1991 -- Action/Adventure
Berenstain Bears 72-525 1993 --- Action/Adventure
Biker Mice from Mars 72-807 1990 -- Action/Adventure
Bonkers 72-809 -- Action/Adventure
Bruce Lee 78-561 1988 -- Fighting
Bugs Bunny 7-871 -- Action/Adventure
Captain Planet And The Planeteers 7-847 1990 -- Action/Adventure
Casper -- Action/Adventure
Castlevania II: Simon's Quest 7-781 1988 -- Action/Adventure
Chip N' Dale Rescue Rangers 7-879 1990 -- Action/Adventure
Cinderella 72-532 -- Action/Adventure
Conan the Adventurer 78-542 1988 -- Action/Adventure
Dan Marinos Quarterback Challenge 78-512 1988 -- Sports
Darkwing Duck, Disneys 7-881 1990 -- Action/Adventure
Days of Thunder 7-818 1990 -- Racing
Demolition Man 78-562 1993 -- Action/Adventure
Dennis the Menace 78-532 1993 -- Action/Adventure
Dick Tracy 7-816 1990 -- Action/Adventure
Dinosaurs -- Action/Adventure
Double Dragon 7-780 1988 -- Action/Adventure
Double Dragon 3: The Rosetta Stone 7-858 1991 -- Action/Adventure
Double Dragon II: The Revenge 7-798 1990 -- Action/Adventure
Duk Tales 7-874 1990 -- Action/Adventure
Family Dog 7-849 1993 -- Action/Adventure
Fighting Golf, Lee Trevino's 7-795 1991 -- Sports
Flash, The 7-859 1990 -- Action/Adventure
Flintstones, The 72-507 -- Action/Adventure
Full House 72-534 1990 -- Action/Adventure
G.I. Joe Star Brigade 72-541 1993 -- Action/Adventure
Gargoyles Night Flight 1990 -- Action/Adventure
Gauntlet 7-788 1988 -- Action/Adventure
Golden Axe 7-817 1989 -- Action/Adventure
Goldeneye 007 78-594 1995 -- Action/Adventure
Goof Troop, Disneys 1993 --Action/Adventure
Goofy -- Action/Adventure
Guerrilla War
Hang-On 7-784 1989 -- Racing
Hard Drivin 7-846 -- Racing
Harley Davidson Road to Daytona 78-529 1993 -- Racing
Heavy Barrel 7-782 1988 -- Shooter
Home Alone 1990 -- Action/Adventure
Home Alone 2 Lost in New York 1992 -- Action/Adventure
Home Improvement 78-554 1994 -- Action/Adventure
Hook -- Action/Adventure
Hunchback of Notre Dame 1992 -- Action/Adventure
Incredible Crash Dummies 1992 -- Action/Adventure
Inspector Gadget
Jim Henson's Muppets Street Surfin' 1990 -- Sports
John Elway's Quarterback 7-790 -- Sports
Jordan vs. Bird: One on One 7-793 1988 -- Sports
Judge Dredd 1995 -- Action/Adventure
Jungle Book 72-537 --
Jurassic Park 78-524 1994 --
Karnov 7-783 1989 -- Action/Adventure
Kings of the Beach --
Land of the Lost 1992 --
Lion King, Disney's The 72-802 1990 -- Action/Adventure
Little Mermaid, Disney's The 7-882 1990 -- Action/Adventure
Little Mermaid, Disney's The 72-518 -- Action/Adventure
Little Nemo: The Dream Master 7-862 --
Looney Tunes 72-535 1994 -- Action/Adventure
Looney Tunes Road Rally Riot 1990 -- Racing
Madden '95 78-588 1995 -- Sports
Magic Johnson's Basketball 78-501 1992 --
Marsupilami 72-528
MC Hammer - U Can't Touch This 7-865 1991 --
Mega Man 2 7-811 1989 -- Action/Adventure
Mega Man 3 7-834 1990 -- Action/Adventure
Michael Jordan in Flight 78-546 1993 --
Mickey & Friends 72-511 --
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers 78-563 1994 --
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Alpha 5
Monster in My Pocket 7-855
Mortal Kombat 78-553 1992 -- Fighting
NBA Jam 1993 --
New Kids on the Block 7-861 1990
Nightmare Before Christmas 78-537
Ninja Gaiden 7-787
Ninja Gaiden III 78-503
Operation Aliens 78-552 1993 --
Outrun 7-796
Outrun F1
Pagemaster, The 72-803 1994 -- Action/Adventure
Paperboy
Paperboy 2
Peter Pan and the Pirates 7-873 1991 --
Pit Fighter 7-863 1991 --
Pocahontas
Polly Pocket 72-805 1994 --
Primal Rage
Rescuers Downunder 7-833 1992
Road Race 7-753
Road Runner
Robin Hood 7-861 1991 -- Action/Adventure
RoboCop
RoboCop 2 7-830
RoboCop 3
Rocketeer, The
Seaquest DSV 78-564 1993 --
Shadow, The 78-559 1993 --
Shaq Attack Monster Jam 78-547
Shari Lewis' Lamb Chop & Friends 78-526 1993 -- Action/Adventure
Shinobi
Skeleton Warriors
Skull and Crossbones 7-839 1990 --
Sleeping Beauty 72-533 --
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs 72-531 --
Solar Jetman 7-845 --
Sonic the Hedgehog
Sonic the Hedgehog 2
Sonic the Hedgehog 3
Space Fight
Space Harrier II
Space Jam
Speed Racer
Spider-Man
Spider-Man - Revenge of the Spider-Slayers
Star Trek The Next Generation
Stargate
Street Fighter 2010: The Final Fight
Street Fighter II
Strider
Super Double Dragon
Super Sprint
Superman
Swamp Thing
Swan Princess
Talespin
Taz-Mania
Tecmo Bowl
Tecmo Super Bowl
Terminator, The
Thumbelina
Thunder Blade
Tiger's Baseball All Stars
Tin Toon Adventures
Tom and Jerry
Toy Story
Transformers Generation 2
Treasure Trolls
Vindicators
Viper
Virtua Fighter
VR Troopers - When Worlds Collide
Wayne Gretzky & Brett Hull Shoot Out
Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?
World Cup USA 94
World Games
X-Men
X-Men Project X
Yo, Yogi!

Tiger Premium

Action Man
Anastasia 1997 -- Action/Adventure
Bug's Life, Disney/Pixar's A 1998 -- Action/Adventure
Babe
Castlevania Symphony of the Night 63-015 1998 -- Action/Adventure
Cat Dog
Crash Bandicoot 1998 -- Action/Adventure
Doug
Grudge Match
Hang Time
Hercules
Mighty Ducks
Mortal Kombat Trilogy
Mountain Biker
Mr Potato Head
NBA Live 98
Nights into Dreams
Pepper Ann
Power Rangers in Turbo
Power Rangers in Space
Rockos Modern Life
Rugrats
Sabrina
Silver Surfer
Sonic 3D Blast
Sonic R
Sub Zero
Tarzan
The Mummy -- The Mummy the Movie
The Rugrats Movie
The Simpsons
WWC Nitro
WWW Super Stars
Zorro



-handheldme

 

Very cool endeavor, handheldme. I'm also a big fan of Tiger Electronics' work. Sounds like you have an impressive collection! Are you doing the dot matrix games as well?

I wouldn't have the time to help out on this project myself, but you may want to speak with the people behind http://www.pica-pic.com/ . These guys have already recreated several LCD handhelds (including some Tiger handhelds) in flash.

Many of Tiger's games were originally programmed in BASIC by Tiger's Hong Kong contacts.

 

Trust me I have been to the depths of the internet looking for anyone willing to help. I actually talked to the admin of pica-pic and was told that, that project was just for fun and that they have no intentions of making any more games. Ive talked to dozens of HTML5 dev's but they are much too pricey for me. I even went over to ToSec and asked for help. It seems everyone just points me in a different direction.

As reffering to your DOT Matrix question I want to have them dumped but I don't have the tools or the knowledge. There is only a small collection of DOT Matrix games there are three 99x games Resident Evil 2, Crash Bandicoot, and WCW vs Nitro. There are also the arcade classics series DOT Matric games which include Sonic Adventure, NFL Blitz, Q-bert, Hydro Thunder, there is one more but ya I would like to have these dumped as well.

 

There's also Tiger's 1998 dot matrix handheld Bombs Away, which was a pretty solid game.


Too bad about the pica-pic guys. Wish I could help more. I do know that the Hong Kong teams developed internal emulation of titles as they were being developed.

 

If your goal is preservation, I am going to recommend not developing simulations in Flash, which is being very rapidly phased out of web browsers.

 

If preservation is truly the goal, then the ROMs need to be dumped from all the games and submitted for emulation. The problem with that is that it can be pricey and time consuming to dump the ROMs without damaging the game (in many cases, the chip would have to be de-capped (or de-epoxy'd) and the ROM contents read visually off the chip die, this usually renders the game unplayable). Not a huge deal for common games, but sacrificing a Galaxx or Star Castle is going to be tough... And I know some of the 'white body' Tiger games are pretty rare and expensive too...

I've been working with the MESS/MAME team on the handheld side getting a lot of LED and VFD based handheld games emulated. They've been starting to move toward the LCD based games, but they tend to be more difficult since they usually don't have removable/dumbable chips in the games, and not all the CPUs are emulated yet.

 

Psycho thanks for this reply! Although preservation is my true goal I cannot make the handhelds I have unplayable since not all of them are mine. I have some very rare games as you said would be hard to part with. This is not the first time I have been pointed to MESS/MAME however I have not been unable to find a community like this that you speak of that emulates handhelds like this. Please share a link.



after watching a video of mess mame it is interesting but I think lacks the classic feel of playing a LSI game with the vibrant light and glass display artwork and controls. However it is accurate and awesome that it is emulated but I think classic games deserve both this and simulators. I wonder what they will do for LCD games since there is a paper background.

to be honest I think I would also like to contribute to MESS/MAME as well as I have many doubles and my friend has many doubles. It sucks that they will be destroyed but it is nice that they will be accurately preserved. With the people I would be working with I would want simulators for the most part and I would contribute as much as I can to the MESS project. For double games I would say we have atleast half of the collection in doubles.

 

Oh yeah, playing them like this is never like having the original game, even the arcade games in MAME are like that. But this isn't any different than the simulation you are looking for, except that it's accurately running the real code from the game.

This is still in early stages, so it just looks like what you see in the YouTube video, but MAME supports overlays, underlays, monitor bezels, etc. So if the graphics are fully implemented, it will look like any of the simulators with a picture of the full game surrounding the game play. Images under the LCDs can be scanned or photographed, and MESS can be programmed to use the graphic as an underlay beneath the LCD sprites. There's not much it can't do, and if it can't do it, it can be programmed... I don't think they've gotten into the later Tiger games much, but they have dumped a couple of Konami games (Contra, Top Gun and TMNT).

As for dumping them, it is possible to decap the chips without damaging the game, but there's a risk. Once you expose the chips and the tiny wires that connect it to the circuit board, breaking a wire is very easy... You then may have to re-epoxy the chip to put the game back together. It's possible, just not easy or risk free... But unless someone can find a way to x-ray the chips with enough detail to see the ROM data, that's the only way to get the code... (Although for a few, the ROM code has actually been found printed out in the patents for the game.)

I have an older build of MESS with all the handhelds in it you can download here:
http://www.handheldmuseum.com/Z_Imgs/MESS/MESS.zip
Just unzip it and run it, all the graphics and ROMs for the handhelds are included for the games that were supported at the time I made this build.
I'll probably update this build with the latest code and games, though we still graphics for the VFDs on a lot of the new ones... Looks like someone is working on bezel art though, so that's progress:
http://project-megs.blogspot.ca/

Here's what this build will play, though not all are fully functional:

mathmagi (APF- Mathemagician)
bambball (Bambino- Dribble Away Basketball)
bmboxing (Bambino- Knock-Em Out Boxing)
bmsafari (Bambino- Safari)
bmsoccer (Bambino- Kick The Goal Soccer)
splasfgt (Bambino- Space Laser Fight)
ssfball (Bambino- Superstar Football)
ufombs (Bambino- UFO Master-Blaster Station)
bcclimbr (Bandai- Crazy Climber)
bdoramon (Bandai- Dokodemo Dorayaki Doraemon)
bfriskyt (Bandai- Frisky Tom)
machiman (Bandai- Machine Man)
packmon (Bandai- Packri Monster)
zackman (Bandai- Zackman)
alnattck (Coleco- Alien Attack)
amaztron (Coleco- Amaze-A-Tron)
cdkong (Coleco- Donkey Kong)
cgalaxn (Coleco- Galaxian)
cmspacmn (Coleco- Ms. Pac-Man)
cpacman (Coleco- Pac-Man (Rev. 29 ))
cpacmanr1 (Coleco- Pac-Man (Rev. 28 ))
h2hbaseb (Coleco- Head to Head Baseball)
h2hfootb (Coleco- Head to Head Football)
tc4 (Coleco- Total Control 4)
advision (Entex- Adventure Vision)
ebball (Entex- Electronic Baseball)
ebball2 (Entex- Electronic Baseball 2)
ebball3 (Entex- Electronic Baseball 3)
egalaxn2 (Entex- Galaxian 2)
einvader (Entex- Space Invader (TMS1100))
epacman2 (Entex- Pac Man 2)
raisedvl (Entex- Raise The Devil)
edracula (Epoch- Dracula)
efball (Epoch- Electronic Football)
astrocmd (Epoch- Astro Command)
galaxy2 (Epoch- Galaxy II)
invspace (Epoch- Invader From Space)
gckong (Gakken- Crazy Kong)
gdigdug (Gakken- Dig Dug)
ghalien (Gakken- Heiankyo Alien)
gjackpot (Gakken- Jackpot: Gin Rummy & Black Jack)
gpoker (Gakken- Poker (1979 version))
maniac (Ideal- Maniac)
starwbc (Kenner- Star Wars - Electronic Battle Command)
starwbcp (Kenner- Star Wars - Electronic Battle Command (prototype))
msthawk (Mattel- Star Hawk)
mwcbaseb (Mattel- World Championship Baseball)
mvbfree (Mego- Mini-Vid Break Free)
comp4 (Milton Bradley- Comp IV)
microvsn (Milton Bradley- MicroVision)
simon (Milton Bradley- Simon (Rev. A))
ssimon (Milton Bradley- Super Simon)
bankshot (Parker Bros- Bank Shot - Electronic Pool)
merlin (Parker Bros- Merlin - The Electronic Wizard)
mmerlin (Parker Bros- Master Merlin)
pbqbert (Parker Bros- Q*Bert)
splitsec (Parker Bros- Split Second)
wildfire (Parker Bros- Wildfire (prototype))
alnchase (Tandy- Alien Chase)
kingman (Tandy- Kingman)
tandy12 (Tandy- Tandy-12: Computerized Arcade)
tcaveman (Tomy- Caveman)
tccombat (Tomy- Cosmic Combat)
tmpacman (Tomy- Pac Man)
tmscramb (Tomy- Scramble)
tmtennis (Tomy- Tennis)
tmtron (Tomy- Tron)
vinvader (V-Tech- Invaders)

 

Psycho you are convincing me more and more to sacrifice what I have for this project. Honeslty I have a Tiger handheld collector friends I have a few but one is much more serious. By serious I mean like 6-9 copies of each game. Some games he has 1-2 but some he only has 1. If you can place me in contact with the project captains email I can contact him to tell him what I can do. There is about half of the collection that I actually own and the other half my friend has but I currently have the whole collection in my possession because he is letting me scan what he has. Honestly the scans look good but not nearly as good as they could look in MESS/MAME I would like to send a couple games. also it would be really nice to have some of the 99x games backed up. DOT MATRIX games fade over time so im just ready to sacrifice the whole collection of DOT MATRIX.

The only thing that worries if the LCD games have paper backgrounds which are very delicate any heavy pressure or object being placed on it definitely shows damage. I would seriously like to see what they have done with konami since they are similar. I don't think the projects captain will have a problem with me wanting my games back it would be nice to have some place to send them. As I started this entire collection because I was angered that no one tried to emulate these gems.

edit: I have sent a email

 

I genuinely don't know enough about this topic. Psycho, are you telling me if one is able to view a ROM chip at high enough resolution, you can determine the machine code used to create it?

 

I cant find the proper person to do the CPU dumps any suggestions. I can make the bezels myself so I only require the CPU dump any ideas

 

Yep. The preferred way is to dump the ROM electronically, which many of the CPU chips can do via a 'test mode', or in some cases there's simply a line for reading the ROM. Other chips either don't have this as an option, or have 'security measures' to prevent it (usually the 'test mode' is done in factory to verify the chip, then the line that activates the test mode is blown so that it won't work anymore). In these cases, the chip has to be decapped, photographed with a microscope and you have to manually write down a '1' or '0' for each bit on the ROM based what it looks like. This can be automated using high-contrast images though, so it's not as bad as it sounds, but sometimes you have to double check it all...

Then you need to know the character/code set used by the CPU in under to dis-assemble the code and get emulation to work. That can be tricky if the CPU isn't very well documented...

Sean Riddle is the guy doing a lot of this via decapping, you can see some descriptions of his process here:
http://www.seanriddle.com/tms1100.html
The 'Close up of ROM array' and 'Annotated close up' show exactly what you are looking for to transcribe the ROM contents manually...
Here's the main Decapping page where he links to dozens of chips he's done this for:
http://www.seanriddle.com/decap.html

He'd be the one to get in touch with for the Tiger games...

 

Really awesome information, Psycho! Only catch is that the acid wash required to get a clean image of the ROM sounds completely terrifying. Best leave it to the people who've already been doing this for a long while.

 

Yes entirely terrifying But most games my friend has backup's im ready to sacrifice it all there are only a few games that we both don't have Apollo 13, Superman, Flipper, Beethovens 2nd, Hercules Premium , Castlevania Premium, ect... there are only a few less than 10. The heavy hitters Goldeneye and GI Joe Spacebridge we have doubles and triples of even the ever so rare Super Double Dragon we have multiple copies. I guess it pays to have friends that also do this.

Currently I am scanning the cards that come in the packages so far I have scanned up 100GB and im only halfway done scanning the cards. Next I scan the games for the bezels and then the booklets. After everything is converted I think it will be like a 80GB collection of information. I will sort of the games and make a list of doubles and open the games for this project ill just be sending the boards unattched to the game since they are going to there doom anyhow. But for the rarer titles I will have to speak with my friend for super rare we have doubles but there are just some games that don't come around. My friend check ebay for 15 years straight to get Flipper he has only seen this game twice!! For the sake of preservation I might be abel to convince him to part with the rarer titles honestly I think he just enjoys the artwork and just having such a rare title he does not play these games. So I think we have a shot on getting him to contribute. Also I have convinced some other collectors of mine to round up there doubles I even have one friend that has all the DBZ LCD games MIP but he doesn't want to part with it but he has a friend that also has the collection and he is willing to part with them!! As for watches I have a friend that has over 100 but he is focused on money and collecting but he does have doubles as well im trying to convince him. To even dig deeper I have a friend overseas and he was over 2000 handhelds doubles triples you name it any brand he is quite the collector.

Thanks Psycho for the new lead!!!!!!! This is all moving along just how I want it even if we are the only 3 people that talk about this. Let me know if you guys need anything because with who I know I can find almost any game.

edit: to add some icing on the cake I also collect Systema handhelds. Systema handhelds are very rare. Like very very very rare only 93 units where made of each game so that's less than 100 copy each game. This makes them extremely difficult to collect but I have some of the rarest games Dungeons and Dragons, Pirates of Dark Water, Toxic Crusaders! Its very nice to have these I am ready to have these games preserved as well

-handheldme

 

I'd say we'll probably want to move slowly with this, unless Sean or someone is all gung-ho about receiving 300 games at once. Pick 5 or 10 really common ones, the ones you can't give away (Bowling comes to mind... ) so that way they can be ruthlessly attacked with chemicals without concern of accidentally damaging a nearly one-of-a-kind game. Once the process of getting to the data is fine tuned, we can work our way through to the rarer ones...

Just out of curiosity, where do you get the information that Systema only made 93 of each of those games? I've had more than one Pirates of Dark Water, and have a Dr. Who and the Daleks myself. These are packaged with barcodes and were sold in stores, I'm sure there's more than just 100 that were made... They aren't very common it seems, but I think that's more to desirability of the game itself at the time it was released, as opposed to quantity made... I usually find them in game lots, rather than being sold one at a time...

 

Ive bought a few Systama games brand new on the back they have a product count x/92



Systema games are manufactured in the UK and the game usally had very short runs I would hold on to that Dr. Who since it very comes and and I don't have a copy of that game. It is the only one missing from this particular style. I know they don't seem rare when you see them here and there but you are just seeing the same 92 games get sold over and over on ebay and various markets around the world. Anything Systema I conceder to be dipped in gold.


I sent a email to Sean I hope to hear something back soon . Also me and a friend broke open a Little Mermaid board and extracted the CPU by force. Beside the board being destroyed I think the chip came out pretty flawlessly but obviouslt there could be some damage to the board since we just ripped it in half. Regardless it was nice to see what we are all looking for in the emulation community it felt nice to hold in my hand. Ill come back with a picture. Even tho it means nothing without a microscope.

 

Do you happen to have a picture of that with a number over 12? I'm pretty sure that's just the date it went through quality control (Dec, 1992 in this case, or week/year like 12th week of 1992, so you'd never see above 52/92). These games were released in the early 90's (91, 92, 93 or so), and these stickers are on all kinds of games, ecen by companies other than Systema (they come from the factories in China).

Like I said, I've had 3 Dark Water games in my possession over the years, and several others in this same body style... They made far more than 92 or 93 of them, and they didn't number them (they weren't collectibles, they were just toys). Minimum production run on any toy of this type was likely in the thousands (1000-5000 at least, more if it was popular)

Systema is just one of those mostly generic 'LCD game companies'. They didn't even manufacture/design a lot of them themselves, just slapped their name on cheap games from China. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the licensed games (like Dark Water and Dr. Who) are the exact same games as some generic game with a different LCD put in it. That happens a lot more than you might think. New LCD, new sticker on the game, and you have an instant new product.

The brute-force method to open chips has been used a lot... Sean with go after them with blow torches and such (the ones in normal chip packages). It's surprisingly successful, but you don't want to risk it on a rare game because you sometimes break or shatter the chip... But that's the fun of the really common games, you can just do what you want with them and find another if you destroy it...

I would be interested in the names and pictures of all the ones in this style (of Dark Water and such) to add to my website, if you want to help out with that... I don't usually look to hard for Systema games, but if you have a lot of them already, I'd be willing to add the info to the Systema page.

 

Psycho my friend I need to update you since I like to keep you uptodate since you are helping me so much in my quest. I have got incontact with Sean. He seemed interested and willing to help me. However he has informed me that currently he has not figured out a way to dump the chips and preserve the CPU. So all the games I would have done would be destroyed after the dump. This is unfortunate he also expressed his concern for pallet backgrounds. I have the same concerns but I have been scanning for the greater side of this month and have compiled a marvelous collection of Tiger Electronics information. Currently ive finished scanning the cards the games come in. Next is bookets and then scanning the actuall game itself. On top of this I actually take out the pallet backdrop and scan it however it scans shinny and has square blocks over it from the distribution of light. I have contacted the artsy friend and am meeting with him to discuss how to accurately capture the essence of the pallet. But with much consideration I am considering either having pictures taken or photoshop the backdrop from the back of the card. Meaning the pictures on the back of a game MIP HD scans

Also I have looked at my copy of Dungeons and Dragons and it has the exact same markings as the one on Ebay. You are right it is either the week or weeks they produced the game.

Also if you have any information about the Tiger chips since Sean has informed me it is very hard to find information about them. Best always.

As for that Systema list a lot of games are listed on http://patoe.fr/GAME/LCD.htm. They don't have everything but its is my go to for checklists. But for what you have asked

Doctor Who
Pirates of Dark Water
Dungeons & Dragons
Dinosaurs Vally
Toxic Crusaders
WCW

I really only collect games with marvelous art and Systema games rarely have art but I can get you pictures of any of these games my Systema collection really only boils down to this list of six games the only other Systema game I am interested in is Lemmings. There are other titles that definitely capture my attention but im just working on a small collection now since my Tiger and MGA collection is almost 100% complete plus I think ive reached my top dollar a long time ago. So my collections are pretty much everything there going to be.


-handheldme

 

Yeah, looks like Sean was on 'game hiatus' for a month or so, and popped back with a vengeance... He has a few dozen new games he's working on, some of them seem to be Tiger games, so hopefully more info can be obtained about them. Worse case, they can be emulated visually if we have detailed photographs of the chip. You can actually re-create the chip in a computer based on physically looking at it and get perfect simulator/emulator of it working:
http://www.visual6502.org/
It's actually kind of cool to watch the chip visually complete it's operations...

It's theoretically possible to decap the chips without destroying them, it's just never guaranteed. You want to very cleanly remove the epoxy without damaged the tiny wires... There's probably just too much chance of an accident since he's not really working in a scientific reverse-engineering lab...

As for the artwork behind the LCD- good, clear photographs would be the best way. They won't scan well due to their reflective nature, so get them flat (sandwich them between two pieces of glass if they are curled or warped), put them in a light-box with multiple light sources not coming directly from the camera and photograph them. You can get really high-resolution, near-scan quality image like this.

Some of these might even be able to be made into vector art if it's cartoony enough, just depends on the design I guess.

I'd love to get some of the MGA arcade-game themed handhelds emulated (Mappy, Rolling Thunder, Pac Man, Ms Pac....)

 

honestly I would like to capture the pallets with photograph and accurate lighting but after seeing my scans in 1200 dpi I can see this will be way more acceptable since it is the FULL color and not a printed pallet. I don't know how to explain it since well when you take the screen apart there are 2 layers of tint a clear liquid crystal display and then this paper. The majority of game have a couple has these clear pictures on the back. I think a game scan of the game and a photoshopped screen from the back of the card will do better than the pallet picture itself. I mean maybe they could take the pallet photograph and simulate layers of tint to match the color? Everything is so confusing with LCD. I don't mind making pallet pictures but I think people would much rather prefer like they are playing right off the back of the box. However it would be nice to have the option of both. This also makes the collection much more serious to obtain since its easier to find a loose game instead of a MIP game. But the games can be sanned and CPUs dumped and they will need a scan of the back of the box in most cases to get a flawless backdrop. Some cased they are not provided like on many MGA games the back of the box is blank or with some nonimportant info.

A example:


I can make it bigger than this but this can be smoothed out in photoshop and make a much more accurate pallet in my opinion. It just sucks that in every chase you will need a scan of the card and also an undamaged and unfadded card scan to be completely accurate.