3 ms·

The patent has expired. Rabbits are clean reverse engineering of the Tengen chip, besides. Also, don't be a narc.

by eropple 6y ago

kalium-xyz 6y ago
The CIC on the SNES is a different one, turns out it was already reverse engineered during the lifetime of the product.
- eropple 6y ago
  You're right that it's a different one, but the patent's still expired. I was confusing the Rabbit with the more generic SNES CIC clones, though.
29athrowaway 6y ago
I am asking a legitimate question here that is not explicit in the article. They say they are using a CIC chip from a supplier other than Nintendo.
- kalium-xyz 6y ago
  Seems like someone up above answered your question: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23366883 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23366883
  - 29athrowaway 6y ago
    Is it legal?
    - weewee2018 6y ago
      If the patent is expired, why wouldn’t it be legal?
    - danbolt 6y ago
      I think the CIC chip would be clean-room [1] designed in this case. It's been done with the Nintendo 64 chip as well via decamping-microscopes. [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_room_design https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_room_design [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwEdqAb2l50 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwEdqAb2l50
      - kalium-xyz 6y ago
        [2] includes the explanation of why its legal, the atari vs nintendo lawsuit.
    - kalium-xyz 6y ago
      Keep in mind that legality only matters within a jurisdiction and that everything is illegal somewhere and at some scale, privately doing this is almost never illegal but doing it at industry scale would be. Next, try asking your lawyer if the factual law has much sway over the commonly shared understanding of the law (in a lot of countries it does not (e.g. you cant insult the monarch in most constitutional monarchies according to the exact word of the law, however this is not enforced nor cared about). Lastly, its only really legal till Nintendo throws enough money at it being illegal (there is no money in it for them, unless its about brand protection). To conclude: the real answer lies in that the presets given from the Atari vs Nintendo case in America state that clean room reverse engineering of these chips is legal. PS: IANAL, also gameboy games would be a trademark violation because of the security involving the nintendo logo being rendered on the screen by the cartridge and then being compared to one from ROM, a personal fav trick from nintendo also physically applied on the disks of the famicom disk system which held the nintendo logo on them physically indented allowing a stamp inside the disk reader to be inserted into it (easily bypassed by great groups such as hacker limited by simply adding a flat piece of plastic to the 2.8 inch quickdisks, or sipmly adding instructions on how to add this yourself). A lot of this gets bypassed using ye olde method of selling the means and then making the user do the bypass themselves using the means.
      - duskwuff 6y ago
        > gameboy games would be a trademark violation because of the security involving the nintendo logo being rendered on the screen by the cartridge and then being compared to one from ROM This is legal. It's analogous to the TMSS mechanism used by Sega in the Genesis; Sega v. Accolade [1] established that a "trademark violation" which the trademark holder forces to occur through technical measures is not, in fact, a violation. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_v._Accolade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_v._Accolade
- drludos 6y ago
  Hi! For the legal aspect the other comments have already answered with loads of details (thanks!). But to answer your question more precisely, this game uses the CIC chip alternative made by Infinite NES lives: http://www.infiniteneslives.com/snessupplies.php http://www.infiniteneslives.com/snessupplies.php This is one of the several CIC alternatives available, including the most popular that is the open-source SuperCIC chip: https://sd2snes.de/blog/cool-stuff/supercic https://sd2snes.de/blog/cool-stuff/supercic

The patent has expired. Rabbits are clean reverse engineering of the Tengen chip, besides. Also, don't be a narc.

kalium-xyz 6y ago

The CIC on the SNES is a different one, turns out it was already reverse engineered during the lifetime of the product.

eropple 6y ago
You're right that it's a different one, but the patent's still expired. I was confusing the Rabbit with the more generic SNES CIC clones, though.

29athrowaway 6y ago

I am asking a legitimate question here that is not explicit in the article. They say they are using a CIC chip from a supplier other than Nintendo.

kalium-xyz 6y ago
Seems like someone up above answered your question: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23366883 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23366883
- 29athrowaway 6y ago
  Is it legal?
  - weewee2018 6y ago
    If the patent is expired, why wouldn’t it be legal?
  - danbolt 6y ago
    I think the CIC chip would be clean-room [1] designed in this case. It's been done with the Nintendo 64 chip as well via decamping-microscopes. [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_room_design https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_room_design [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwEdqAb2l50 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwEdqAb2l50
    - kalium-xyz 6y ago
      [2] includes the explanation of why its legal, the atari vs nintendo lawsuit.
  - kalium-xyz 6y ago
    Keep in mind that legality only matters within a jurisdiction and that everything is illegal somewhere and at some scale, privately doing this is almost never illegal but doing it at industry scale would be. Next, try asking your lawyer if the factual law has much sway over the commonly shared understanding of the law (in a lot of countries it does not (e.g. you cant insult the monarch in most constitutional monarchies according to the exact word of the law, however this is not enforced nor cared about). Lastly, its only really legal till Nintendo throws enough money at it being illegal (there is no money in it for them, unless its about brand protection). To conclude: the real answer lies in that the presets given from the Atari vs Nintendo case in America state that clean room reverse engineering of these chips is legal. PS: IANAL, also gameboy games would be a trademark violation because of the security involving the nintendo logo being rendered on the screen by the cartridge and then being compared to one from ROM, a personal fav trick from nintendo also physically applied on the disks of the famicom disk system which held the nintendo logo on them physically indented allowing a stamp inside the disk reader to be inserted into it (easily bypassed by great groups such as hacker limited by simply adding a flat piece of plastic to the 2.8 inch quickdisks, or sipmly adding instructions on how to add this yourself). A lot of this gets bypassed using ye olde method of selling the means and then making the user do the bypass themselves using the means.
    - duskwuff 6y ago
      > gameboy games would be a trademark violation because of the security involving the nintendo logo being rendered on the screen by the cartridge and then being compared to one from ROM This is legal. It's analogous to the TMSS mechanism used by Sega in the Genesis; Sega v. Accolade [1] established that a "trademark violation" which the trademark holder forces to occur through technical measures is not, in fact, a violation. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_v._Accolade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_v._Accolade
drludos 6y ago
Hi! For the legal aspect the other comments have already answered with loads of details (thanks!). But to answer your question more precisely, this game uses the CIC chip alternative made by Infinite NES lives: http://www.infiniteneslives.com/snessupplies.php http://www.infiniteneslives.com/snessupplies.php This is one of the several CIC alternatives available, including the most popular that is the open-source SuperCIC chip: https://sd2snes.de/blog/cool-stuff/supercic https://sd2snes.de/blog/cool-stuff/supercic