Nintendo high score save kits....

incrediblegamez

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With the current popularity wave of vs. systems either the upright or red tents, there are alot of us who would like some high score save kit for the boards. To the programming gurus, is this possible? I ask because seems most all nintendo games, dk, popeye, jr have them available.


Thanks
 
Kits for the VS boards have been asked about and discussed many times and every time the outcome was that it basically would never happen.
 
Kits for the VS boards have been asked about and discussed many times and every time the outcome was that it basically would never happen.

I've got some Vs. games that save high scores... there's just no easy way to "kit it", w/o doing completely custom boards for the nintendo CPUs.
 
Would it be possible to make one for a Playchoice?

I *seriously* doubt it.

Remember - the PlayChoice is nothing more than a 200 pound NES on a timer. The game software varies wildly between cartridges, and there would be no "in console" method of saving the scores. The only possible thing I could think of would be to essentially have some complicated hardware device sitting there, between the processor and the RAM, with the ability to copy out and store a chunk of system RAM, then load it back on command. And it would have to have a separate store/load routine for every possible game.

It simply wouldn't be worth it.

-Ian
 
I *seriously* doubt it.

Remember - the PlayChoice is nothing more than a 200 pound NES on a timer. The game software varies wildly between cartridges, and there would be no "in console" method of saving the scores. The only possible thing I could think of would be to essentially have some complicated hardware device sitting there, between the processor and the RAM, with the ability to copy out and store a chunk of system RAM, then load it back on command. And it would have to have a separate store/load routine for every possible game.

It simply wouldn't be worth it.

-Ian

Pffft. That bitch weighs 350 at least.
 
I *seriously* doubt it.

Remember - the PlayChoice is nothing more than a 200 pound NES on a timer. The game software varies wildly between cartridges, and there would be no "in console" method of saving the scores. The only possible thing I could think of would be to essentially have some complicated hardware device sitting there, between the processor and the RAM, with the ability to copy out and store a chunk of system RAM, then load it back on command. And it would have to have a separate store/load routine for every possible game.

It simply wouldn't be worth it.

-Ian

Umm that same description could be used for the Vs. games.
 
Umm that same description could be used for the Vs. games.

Almost, but not quite. There are noticeable differences between the Vs. versions and NES versions of games. Whereas, the PC-10 are just direct ports from my understanding.

Examples of difference in Vs. games to name a few:
- Vs. Balloon Fight: Dualscreen co-op play and different level layouts.
- Vs. Excitebike: Different game progression and bonus level.
- Vs. Duck Hunt: Bonus level.
- Vs. Super Mario Bros.: Different levels, difficulty, etc.
- Vs. The Goonies: Only released in Japan on the Famicom.

Though, I'm not sure if you were talking about games or just the concept of having a high score save kit. :)
 
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Almost, but not quite. There are noticeable differences between the Vs. versions and NES versions of games. Whereas, the PC-10 are just direct ports from my understanding.

Examples of difference in Vs. games to name a few:
- Vs. Balloon Fight: Dualscreen co-op play and different level layouts.
- Vs. Excitebike: Different game progression and bonus level.
- Vs. Duck Hunt: Bonus level.
- Vs. Super Mario Bros.: Different levels, difficulty, etc.
- Vs. The Goonies: Only released in Japan on the Famicom.

Though, I'm not sure if you were talking about games or just the concept of having a high score save kit. :)

I was talking about the high score kit. If you take out the Nes on a timer system sentence mentioned above, then all of it is true for the Vs. as well. Each game is different. Maybe Mark's kit would work for the Playchoice as well.

Also, should I list the differences in some of the Playchoice games compared to the Nes as well?
 
I was talking about the high score kit. If you take out the Nes on a timer system sentence mentioned above, then all of it is true for the Vs. as well. Each game is different. Maybe Mark's kit would work for the Playchoice as well.

Also, should I list the differences in some of the Playchoice games compared to the Nes as well?

Ah...got it. Actually, yes, that would be cool to see the comparisons because I honestly don't know. I've just never heard of any differences. Even though I'm not a fan of the PC-10, I think it was a cool concept BITD and I wouldn't mind eventually owning the countertop or red tent kit versions since I'm limited in space.
 
Ah...got it. Actually, yes, that would be cool to see the comparisons because I honestly don't know. I've just never heard of any differences. Even though I'm not a fan of the PC-10, I think it was a cool concept BITD and I wouldn't mind eventually owning the countertop or red tent kit versions since I'm limited in space.

Here's the differences I know off the top of my head. Most games are the same as the NES.

1. Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! ironically it save high scores. The NES version does not.
2. Goonies Released on the Famicom and Playchoice. Vs. Goonies may be a bit different then version on the Famicom and Playchoice.
3. Castlevania - I believe is the same as Vs. Castlevania set on Medium difficulty. Nes version I believe is Easy difficulty.
 
Only the PC10 games that were originally Nintendo vs. or certain arcade titles would really make good use of a high score save. Who cares what your high score is on Double Dragon or Ninja Gaiden titles?

I think the easiest way to do a high score save for PC10 would be an adapter that plugs into the PC10 games slots, then you plug your PC10 game pcb into that high score adapter. But then again, there is not much room between the slots anyway.

Here's something that works for Atari 7800 cartridges using the same principle. Can anyone here make something like this?

http://www.atari7800.org/manuals/High_Score.htm
http://www.atarimuseum.com/videogames/consoles/7800/hsc/new_hsc/
 
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I think the easiest way to do a high score save for PC10 would be an adapter that plugs into the PC10 games slots, then you plug your PC10 game pcb into that high score adapter. But then again, there is not much room between the slots anyway.

Yeah, That would be one way of physically connecting the device to the console. But it still wouldn't be able to work, because every game that the system uses is DIFFERENT! They're going to use different places in system RAM to store the variable that holds the score. You'd need a different high score save adapter for every different Playchoice game.

Here's something that works for Atari 7800 cartridges using the same principle. Can anyone here make something like this?

http://www.atari7800.org/manuals/High_Score.htm
http://www.atarimuseum.com/videogames/consoles/7800/hsc/new_hsc/

Yeah, but those 7800 games were written with the idea of a high score save cartridge already in mind. Remember that the high score cart for the 7800 is NOT a new design. It was intended to be released with the 7800 - but wasn't because Atari liked to put game console designs on the shelf to ferment for a few years, only to pull them out after the technology was nice and outdated in a last-second attempt to get back into the market. When they pulled the 7800 off the shelf and dusted it off, they didn't bother with the high score cart. But the early games had been written with support for the device from the get-go. So, this new production cartridge only works with those games.

-Ian
 
Yeah, That would be one way of physically connecting the device to the console. But it still wouldn't be able to work, because every game that the system uses is DIFFERENT! They're going to use different places in system RAM to store the variable that holds the score. You'd need a different high score save adapter for every different Playchoice game.

Nah... you'd just have to write new roms for each game, then have an generic kit with RAM/SEEP on it it for storage... just assign each game a unique ID so each writes to a different area of the shared RAM and they don't stomp on each other.
 
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