So i'm getting an original Sonic Crackers cart...

[Robivy64]

Getting this in a trade from a friend of mine who got it in the mid 90's (he used to be in to collecting beta hardware and software). Any idea as to how many of these are out there?

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d40/robivy64/soniccrackers.jpg

[Elusive]

Very few. What have you traded for it? An arm? Perhaps a few kidneys?

[Mr Smith]

Wow! That is amazingly awesome. I would like to offer you the life of my firstborn in exchange for the cart.

[evildragon]

I was going to suggest to dump the ROM, but forgot you don't have a Sega CD.

[Robivy64]

I have a few Sega CDs. How would I go about doing this with a Sega CD?

[evildragon]

I have a few Sega CDs. How would I go about doing this with a Sega CD?
With this: http://retrodev.com/transfer.html

I used that to dump all my carts, and my Sega CD BIOS (i made the only working 9303 BIOS dump).

You just HAVE to remember to put your parallel port on EPP. Not SPP or ECP, but EPP.

you also must remember to tape pin B32 on the cartridge, otherwise the cart will boot, not the Sega CD, to load the dumping program.

[Robivy64]

Thats slick. I'll definitely dump the ROM image.

Perhaps it will be a different version? (unlikely but still :p)

[evildragon]

Thats slick. I'll definitely dump the ROM image.

Perhaps it will be a different version? (unlikely but still :p)
Only one version to find out: MD5 Hash ;)

This was my famous dump with this system: http://www.eidolons-inn.net/tiki-download_file.php?fileId=270

[TmEE]

I'd just plug the cart into my MultiPurposeComputerPeripheral (http://www.hot.ee/tmeeco/DWNLOADS/MPCPSHIT.RAR) and run one proggy and I have the dump in maybe 30 seconds.

[evildragon]

This ones easier (and same speed, according to your results). No logic required, just wire-to-wire.

[TmEE]

Oops... 30 seconds was for writing... reading is lot faster, 120KBytes/sec or more. That cable takes around 10KBytes/sec...

[evildragon]

I'm patient, it's just a 1 time thing.

[Elusive]

...he really hooked me up with this cart for next to nothing...

suddenly, there was a disturbance in the Force ... like a million shut-ins all screaming out in anguish at once




evildragon: No need for tape, it can 'gum up the works'. I got one of those cheap 'IMPORT ADAPTOR' passthrough cartridges that haunt the Accessories section on eBay, the ones that simply extend the cartridge slot. If you cut the pin permanently on the passthrough cartridge - I cut it where the second slot is, on top - you avoid any risk of damaging the original cartridge, and you don't need to fiddle with tiny bits of tape either.

[Genesis Knight]

Impressive, although I still don't understand how people just 'acquire' these things like they're nothing special.

[Robivy64]

Still no word on how many are out there? Hmmm

[ThunderForce]

Still no word on how many are out there? Hmmm

Some of these carts were giving to magazines and stuff like that.

So I guess 10 or something like that.

[Mr Smith]

Impressive, although I still don't understand how people just 'acquire' these things like they're nothing special.
Tell me about it. Why can't I just acquire a house or a bag full of cash?

The cart of Sonic Crackers is going to be very rare and very valuable. Hardcore collectors will probably pay through their noses to get a copy.

[Genesis Knight]

The only way I'll ever 'acquire' that sort of crap is through a Five-Finger Shopping Discount.

[Elusive]

Still no word on how many are out there? Hmmm

Seeing as it's flashed onto a rewritable cartridge in the first place - you know, to test the game - you have no concrete way of knowing how many units were produced (or even knowing if it's an authentic SEGA cartridge).

Why do you want to know how many more are out there, anyway? You sound like you just want to sell it on. :|

[Genesis Knight]

There's another thing, all this talk about 'sources' and crap. Who is that - the janitor of SoA? :p

[Zebbe]

Must've been Paris Hilton. She'd let anyone get in.

[danox574]

I'm the current possessor of the cart until I get the mail out to Rob. I was a pretty serious console collector in the days of rec.games.video.arcade.collecting being the main Unsenet meeting place, mostly Atari 2600 + 7800, and obtained this in about 1997 or so from some friends who were doing a good job of providing a lot of prototypes from out west. Most of these guys were dumpster divers, getting chased off, but Atari and some of the other troubled videogame companies were not high-security on their garbage. We had some press contacts that helped us, and a lot of these guys were tracking down ex-employees to offer them some money to raid their closets. 2600 prototypes were all the rage then, and having an unreleased Sega cart at the time was a novelty, and honestly I think it was thrown in as a freebie at the time on a large trade. This basically came my way with a 2600 Saboteur, Xevious, and a sealed Motorodeo, and the following oddity:

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d40/robivy64/ggproto.jpg

This board fits a Sega Game Gear, and the silkscreening gives you instructions for setting the DIPs for different ROM sizes and whatnot. The chips that came on it had nothing over their windows (thus my 3m yellow dots) and it ended up being identical to the released version of Mortal Kombat. It has a SMS/GG mode switch as well, but I never experimented with it.

Anyway, Rob has the game because he had the elusive Madden '94 for trade. No, seriously, he has it because he loves Genesis and I really don't have much love for it. It's literally been sitting in a box for about 10 years, and it's certainly possible that it was 'assembled' from a ROM image to bring in some money for someone unscrupulous, but based on the large amount of trading and acquisition that we were doing in that hobby at the time (the classic gaming conventions were just barely getting started) and developers were coming out of the woodwork with interesting toys left and right to take advantage of the boost in popularity, and the fact that the largest onslaught of pirated/faked prototypes didn't happen for a few years after that, my take is it's a legit handout from sega for testing or showoff, or something that simply walked out of their dev area in a pocket.

Realistically, all test versions, beta versions, are hobbled together. It's very hard to tell. Cross your fingers that it's unique to the existing ROM, that would obviously be fun to have for everyone.

This was also in the lot - it may be more common, but with this kind of stuff generally being part of the lot, I hope to show that at least my sources at the time were reliable.

http://homepage.mac.com/dmowczan/webphotos/misc/tully.jpg

Rob will have it soon. Enjoy!

Oh, can I hang out here? Rob is making it possible for me to actually play Genesis games again too.

[Elusive]

I highly doubt that this is a bootleg considering the EPROMs aren't socketed, and the cart was acquired from a reputible source not long after Sega canned this game.

Ah.


Most of these guys were dumpster divers, getting chased off, but Atari and some of the other troubled videogame companies were not high-security on their garbage.

Hee hee. I keep picturing some overweight rent-a-cop waving a broom at some similarly overweight nerds clutching assorted junk. "Shoo, nerds! Shoo!"

I'm surprised at the quality of the Lodestar CD. I'm sure I've seen images of Mega-CD-R discs complete with scribbled marker pen labels, they look nothing like your disc. I guess that's one difference between review copies of games and internal testing versions.

Also, you aren't sat on any more interesting items, are you? Just asking. :)

[Mr Smith]

Oh, can I hang out here?
You have my blessing, just watch out for the mods, most of them are power crazy and likely on narcotics.

[Robivy64]

dont lie dan, you know they came from Paris Hilton

:p

[Joe Redifer]

I love the Genesis far more than Rob does, so you should the cart and CD to me.

[Robivy64]

Nonsense!

My real name is Sega btw.

[Vehemont]

Hee hee. I keep picturing some overweight rent-a-cop waving a broom at some similarly overweight nerds clutching assorted junk. "Shoo, nerds! Shoo!"

I was thinking the same thing except the overweight rent-a-cop did not have a broom and instead he released the attack hounds, which then proceded to chase the overweight nerds as they ran off.

[Mel]

Wow.... some ppl have all the luck...

[Blaze]

dude like how?!

[Robivy64]

OK I got the cart today, thanks again Dan!

A couple of things to note. The ROM version appears to be the same as the dumped ROM, however, I did notice that the SEGA intro and menu will freeze if you dont blaze through it by hitting the start button. All of the same levels and glitches appear to be in place. It will not boot on a Genesis with a 68010 processor. Here are a few pics:

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d40/robivy64/DSCN1450.jpg

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d40/robivy64/DSCN1451.jpg

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d40/robivy64/DSCN1452.jpg

[TmEE]

awesome !!! That halt happens only if you're not able to make it play music fast enough... try getting to sound test and make it play something (need fast fingers for that)

[Robivy64]

I assume you have loaded this on your flash cart?

[TmEE]

Yes I have... first I thought that its caused by a bad dump, but now it seems its a bug in the "game" (can't really call it a game).

[nissling]

I've got Sonic Crackers on ROM and it's really boring.

[Kogen]

It's just an early tech demo of Knuckles Chaotix, what do you expect? It's a great collector's item.

It's too bad they decided to drop Sonic and Tails for such amazing characters like Bomb and Heavy. They would have made great unlockables for beating the game with all the emeralds.

[kylera]

I'm afraid of getting a prototype/beta cart like that because once I get one, I'll want a bunch of others...*shudder*