9 ms·

If you're into this kind of thing, just dig in and give it a shot! Old systems are surprisingly understandable after a few hours' research and fooling around.

by coldpie 12y ago

If you're into this kind of thing, just dig in and give it a shot! Old systems are surprisingly understandable after a few hours' research and fooling around. There's a community that looks for unused content that remains in games. The main wiki for this community is <http://tcrf.net/ http://tcrf.net/ >, which contains a fascinating amount of material. If you don't see your favorite old game on there, why not dissect it and try to find some unused stuff? I did this for a favorite old game of mine called M.C. Kids. I reverse-engineered the game's level and graphics data formats and managed to create a level dumper for the game. Then, I did the same for a leaked prototype version of the game. I took the dumped images and made a page on TCRF comparing them: http://tcrf.net/Proto:M.C._Kids http://tcrf.net/Proto:M.C._Kids It took a few months on afternoons and weekends. It was very challenging, but I never felt overwhelmed by the details. There's really only so much you can do with three registers and little more than adding and branching instructions. If you're curious to see what a reverse-engineered level dumper looks like, the code is available at <https://gitlab.com/mcmapper/mcmapper/blob/master/main.c https://gitlab.com/mcmapper/mcmapper/blob/master/main.c >.

ayuvar 12y ago
It's pretty fun to work on this kind of stuff. I wrote an OperaFS (3DO CD filesystem) extractor in Go to get at a video file that was contained in an old game. Admittedly, I should get back to work - because I still don't know how to play the video file that I pulled out.
jdalgetty 12y ago
MC Kids was one of your favorite games? My wife and I actually played that the other night and wondered who actually bought it when it came out? Was it something you wanted or was it a random gift of some sort?
- coldpie 12y ago
  Honestly, I don't remember how we got it. I was four years old when it was released. My mom used to go into Funcoland and just buy whatever looked good, or maybe what an employee recommended. Actually, I should ask her if she remembers. And yeah, I'm a big fan. Aside from just growing up with it, it's a really solid NES-era platformer. If you're curious to learn more about it, one of the developers actually maintains a blog and has written about it a few times. He also posts on HN infrequently. http://games.greggman.com/game/m_c_kids/ http://games.greggman.com/game/m_c_kids/ http://games.greggman.com/game/programming_m_c__kids/ http://games.greggman.com/game/programming_m_c__kids/ Also he & the other two primary developers actually signed my cartridge: http://gamesplusone.com/mckidscart.jpg http://gamesplusone.com/mckidscart.jpg I'm a dork.
  - Jeremy1026 12y ago
    It was a solid game. It was dynamic enough to remain interesting. And the difficulty level was perfect for my ~6 year old self. Though, I don't think I ever actually beat it. Got stuck on Hamburgler too many times.
- bitJericho 12y ago
  Cinemassacre did a really good review of it here: http://cinemassacre.com/2006/09/01/mckids/ http://cinemassacre.com/2006/09/01/mckids/
fit2rule 12y ago
>Old systems are surprisingly understandable after a few hours' research and fooling around. This is why I say old computers never die - their owners do! Old systems have lots of technology to engage the hacker mind. By the way, my favourite emulator is Oriculator, which emulates the Oric-1/Atmos/Telestrat/Pravetz 8-bit machines that never had much of a chance in the 80's .. just look at this beautiful code, for example, of how to emulate a 6502: https://code.google.com/p/oriculator/source/browse/trunk/6502.c https://code.google.com/p/oriculator/source/browse/trunk/650... With the revival of emulation of these systems, we're even getting new software written for them - in the modern era, titles are being released for these old machines that we would never have though possible in the 80's. Just look at this beautiful collection for the Oric-1 - all made in the 21st Century - for example: http://space1999.defence-force.org/ http://space1999.defence-force.org/ http://stormlord.defence-force.org/ http://stormlord.defence-force.org/ http://1337.defence-force.org/ http://1337.defence-force.org/ http://im.defence-force.org/ http://im.defence-force.org/ http://skooldaze.defence-force.org/ http://skooldaze.defence-force.org/ http://oricium.defence-force.org/ http://oricium.defence-force.org/ Featuring Gameplay and Graphics that we would never have thought possible in the 80's! http://www.oric.org/software/pulsoids-1515.html http://www.oric.org/software/pulsoids-1515.html Check out this collection from Twilighte, who before his untimely departure was a real master of this platform in the 21st century: http://www.oric.org/index.php?page=software&fille=softwaresearch http://www.oric.org/index.php?page=software&fille=softwarese... So much fun to be had on these old machines!
- henrikschroder 12y ago
  I wonder why it's possible to get "better" programs for old hardware now. Is it because the field of CS has advanced further, which means that we can apply modern ideas and algorithms? Or is it because we can cheat and have a toolchain running on vastly superior hardware, which enables us to use it in ways that would have been too time-consuming to develop back in the day?
  - pascal_cuoq 12y ago
    Probably a bit of these two, and a third one: today, we have plenty of programmers who have been at it for thirty years. They got started on these very machines, and in the meantime they have been doing other things on other computers—but which were still programming—and now, if they decide to go back to the original computers, their instincts more than compensate for the lost familiarity. In some of my last years as a student (late nineties), I dug up my old ZX81 from my parents' basement, and the effects of all three items were visible: I had access to a cross-assembler that I ran on a SPARC workstation. Techniques that may or may not have been known in the 1980s were now published and available on the Internet for anyone curious about them. And my ability to concentrate and understand the issues I was facing was better than when I was eight.
ewams 12y ago
I have always wondered how did they get all the ROMS for the games. Any insight?
- kevinchen 12y ago
  Use a ROM dumper! You need access to the original hardware, then the dumper reads out the chip. To make a dumper you first need to find the ROM pinouts for the chips they used. This tells you which pins select an address, which pins output data, etc. Then, build a dumper (for example writing an Arduino program) that selects each address one by one, and outputs the response from the chip in a format your computer can read.

by coldpie 12y ago

ayuvar 12y ago

It's pretty fun to work on this kind of stuff. I wrote an OperaFS (3DO CD filesystem) extractor in Go to get at a video file that was contained in an old game. Admittedly, I should get back to work - because I still don't know how to play the video file that I pulled out.

jdalgetty 12y ago

MC Kids was one of your favorite games? My wife and I actually played that the other night and wondered who actually bought it when it came out? Was it something you wanted or was it a random gift of some sort?

coldpie 12y ago
Honestly, I don't remember how we got it. I was four years old when it was released. My mom used to go into Funcoland and just buy whatever looked good, or maybe what an employee recommended. Actually, I should ask her if she remembers. And yeah, I'm a big fan. Aside from just growing up with it, it's a really solid NES-era platformer. If you're curious to learn more about it, one of the developers actually maintains a blog and has written about it a few times. He also posts on HN infrequently. http://games.greggman.com/game/m_c_kids/ http://games.greggman.com/game/m_c_kids/ http://games.greggman.com/game/programming_m_c__kids/ http://games.greggman.com/game/programming_m_c__kids/ Also he & the other two primary developers actually signed my cartridge: http://gamesplusone.com/mckidscart.jpg http://gamesplusone.com/mckidscart.jpg I'm a dork.
- Jeremy1026 12y ago
  It was a solid game. It was dynamic enough to remain interesting. And the difficulty level was perfect for my ~6 year old self. Though, I don't think I ever actually beat it. Got stuck on Hamburgler too many times.
bitJericho 12y ago
Cinemassacre did a really good review of it here: http://cinemassacre.com/2006/09/01/mckids/ http://cinemassacre.com/2006/09/01/mckids/

fit2rule 12y ago

>Old systems are surprisingly understandable after a few hours' research and fooling around. This is why I say old computers never die - their owners do! Old systems have lots of technology to engage the hacker mind. By the way, my favourite emulator is Oriculator, which emulates the Oric-1/Atmos/Telestrat/Pravetz 8-bit machines that never had much of a chance in the 80's .. just look at this beautiful code, for example, of how to emulate a 6502: https://code.google.com/p/oriculator/source/browse/trunk/6502.c https://code.google.com/p/oriculator/source/browse/trunk/650... With the revival of emulation of these systems, we're even getting new software written for them - in the modern era, titles are being released for these old machines that we would never have though possible in the 80's. Just look at this beautiful collection for the Oric-1 - all made in the 21st Century - for example: http://space1999.defence-force.org/ http://space1999.defence-force.org/ http://stormlord.defence-force.org/ http://stormlord.defence-force.org/ http://1337.defence-force.org/ http://1337.defence-force.org/ http://im.defence-force.org/ http://im.defence-force.org/ http://skooldaze.defence-force.org/ http://skooldaze.defence-force.org/ http://oricium.defence-force.org/ http://oricium.defence-force.org/ Featuring Gameplay and Graphics that we would never have thought possible in the 80's! http://www.oric.org/software/pulsoids-1515.html http://www.oric.org/software/pulsoids-1515.html Check out this collection from Twilighte, who before his untimely departure was a real master of this platform in the 21st century: http://www.oric.org/index.php?page=software&fille=softwaresearch http://www.oric.org/index.php?page=software&fille=softwarese... So much fun to be had on these old machines!

henrikschroder 12y ago
I wonder why it's possible to get "better" programs for old hardware now. Is it because the field of CS has advanced further, which means that we can apply modern ideas and algorithms? Or is it because we can cheat and have a toolchain running on vastly superior hardware, which enables us to use it in ways that would have been too time-consuming to develop back in the day?
- pascal_cuoq 12y ago
  Probably a bit of these two, and a third one: today, we have plenty of programmers who have been at it for thirty years. They got started on these very machines, and in the meantime they have been doing other things on other computers—but which were still programming—and now, if they decide to go back to the original computers, their instincts more than compensate for the lost familiarity. In some of my last years as a student (late nineties), I dug up my old ZX81 from my parents' basement, and the effects of all three items were visible: I had access to a cross-assembler that I ran on a SPARC workstation. Techniques that may or may not have been known in the 1980s were now published and available on the Internet for anyone curious about them. And my ability to concentrate and understand the issues I was facing was better than when I was eight.

ewams 12y ago

I have always wondered how did they get all the ROMS for the games. Any insight?

kevinchen 12y ago
Use a ROM dumper! You need access to the original hardware, then the dumper reads out the chip. To make a dumper you first need to find the ROM pinouts for the chips they used. This tells you which pins select an address, which pins output data, etc. Then, build a dumper (for example writing an Arduino program) that selects each address one by one, and outputs the response from the chip in a format your computer can read.