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frederic-mahe / Hardware-Target-Game-Database

Flash-cart optimized file and folder layouts.
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Coleco: Black Onyx (Mega Sg, Nt Mini) #459

Open tjanas opened 3 years ago

tjanas commented 3 years ago

There are three copies of this homebrew game within the pack with different checksums, and one has a size of 64K while the others are 32K. Are all of them correct? Do all of them use EEPROM for save support? One is named to indicate it is the original 2007 developer rom, the other two are labeled as PixelBoy releases. Do all three need the special file extension for Nt Mini and Mega Sg?

tjanas commented 3 years ago

@hotelvictorcharlie would you be able to help me with this?

hotelvictorcharlie commented 3 years ago

I found this page about the developer Bruce Tomlin, which reads:

In 2007 was he also the man who started up the big Sega SG-1000 game "The Black Onyx" for our ColecoVision. The Black Onyx was almost ported, but some unfortunate events led Bruce to abandon the project. Bruce went through the trouble of translating all the japanese texts to english.

Bruce posted his source code on the AtariAge forums so that anyone else could compile his port into a usable ROM file. Team Pixelboy contacted a programmer that would do the job on condition that he remained anonymous. Eduardo Mello at Opcode Games was first attached to the project in the past, then Stephen Seehorn. But at the end was it Team Pixelboy with his anonymous programmer that was the one that did the actual job.

The game have now its new password system replaced together with a EEPROM savegame chip. A read/write routine, in addition to some beta-testing and minor bug fixing.

The Black Onyx was finally released in 2013 through Team Pixelboy.

hotelvictorcharlie commented 3 years ago

Here's the AtariAge thread they're talking about.

tjanas commented 3 years ago

So the 2007 developer rom is probably legit, but which one is the correct 2013 eeprom version? One is 32K, the other 64K.

hotelvictorcharlie commented 3 years ago

I just tested them on my Nt Mini Noir (I don't have a Mega Sg). The 64K version (dddd1396) allows me to save and load my games, while the 32K version (bbf5ec4d) just shows me an error message that reads EEPROM ERROR when I try to do that. So I think the 64K is the one to keep.