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Hello all. I just picked up a Kazzo cartridge "INL Retro" Dumper-Programmer and found this site in the install instructions. Lovin it so far and hope to learn as much as I can and build up my own library as well. I do have a few questions if people don't mind, and would love some advice as well in the future.

I see a few others use the Kazzo system and would like to know about about the erase process. Shouldn't I be able to erase legitimate NES cartridges? Here is a specific example I am doing and have had no luck so far. John Elways Quarterback. NEStopia says it is PRG-Rom 32k and CHR ram 32k as well. No matter what I try, I have not been able to erase these chips. I know I am not totally brain dead, because I also bought a 4mb SNES chip and have been able to erase and install Chrono Trigger, DK1, and Secret of Evermore with the install/erase process. As long as I don't piss off everyone with this initial post, I would love to discuss in detail burning some homebrews in the future as well.

Commercial games that released in that era were released on so-called "mask" ROMs, where the values have been indelibly baked into the ROM when it is made. You cannot erase them, and you cannot rewrite them.

Good to know, I feel a bit foolish for asking but thanks for the quick respond. My next question was reference to burning homebrews on the Kazzo. I have yet to be able to successfully burn a homebrew to the snes cartridge I bought. Is this because there is errors with alot of the roms out there, or am I doing something dumb.

The only foolish question is the one you choose to not ask for fear of looking foolish

I don't actually have one of his flashcarts, so I don't know why that's not working. The small images may not be handled well by the flashing tool, since nothing commercial smaller than 256 KiB was ever released for the SNES. Have you tried using Danin's replacement flash tool?

Thanks I pm'ed about the software, I will have to give it a try. I think I jumped into the buying side a bit early, and purchased a FME-7 cart randomly without knowing what I was doing. I need to order a few more carts, and until they arrive will keep trying the SNES side.

I am looking to burn the much desired Zelda Parallel Worlds, and am having no luck. I don't know if I can provide a link to my original source, however, I have tried both a "ready to burn" version and a version I had to use Lunar IPS patch then expand and neither seem to work. Any ideas if there is a specific version I am supposed to be using to ensure this works on a NA system, or am I missing a step? Thanks again for the help so far.

Think of MaskROM's like pressed CD's as opposed to CD-R's. The data is imprinted as part of the manufacturing process, not programmed onto a complete chip. There are such things as OTP (one-time-programmable) ROM's which are more like single-burn CD-R's but that's not what is used in cart-based video games, and they definitely don't use erasable chips (EEPROM's), except in prototypes.

A few Bandai games use a small (1 or 2 kbit) I2C EEPROM for saved games. The program is on a mask ROM as usual.

Games from the modern era also use EPROM of some sort. My copy of Action 53 vol. 1 has black electrical tape, and Battle Kid: Fortress of Peril has an ST M27W201, apparently an EPROM in OTP packaging. I'm told Study Hall has flash memoryand saves to it.

Good to know. The analogy of cd-r and cd-rw definitely makes it concrete. I have a store local to me that specializes in classic gaming, and I bought 10~ .99 cent NES games just to try out on. Oh well... Looks like John Elways Quarterback, Baseball, Hoops and MLB will live to see another day!

Besides the fact I cannot seem to burn homebrews (probably something I am still doing wrong), I think I should be able to get the programmer running correctly with the right boards ordered. If anyone is able to help guide me with some homebrews such as Zelda Parallel Worlds, or one of the many Mario World remakes, I think I should be good and wont have to bug anyone for a while! Thanks again for all the help so far.

Zelda Parallel Worlds is easy enough, you just need a 16Mbit LoROM donor like College Slam, Dig & Spike Volleyball, NBA Live 96, or NBA Showdown (or any other SHVC-1A3B or SHVC-1A3M board, check snescentral). You can use a Micron M29F160 flash ROM with an adapter board, or any 16Mbit EPROM. If you're talking about Super Mario World for the SNES, it's worth mentioning that a large number of SMW hacks use broken tools that result in ROM hacks that are only really playable on emulators, and they break when you play them on real hardware, so be sure to try the game out in higan/bsnes before going to the trouble of building the repro only to be disappointed.

qwertymodo you solved my problem immediately! I bought a 4mb card from INL.com and all I had to do was throw it in high and set and expand to 16mb instead of 4mb. It works, with a bit of pixel problem on the front screen. I will try a few other versions to see which is the best and go from there.

The original patch has a glitch in the title screen on real hardware. Here's a fixed patch: http://zelda.qwertymodo.com/gamefiles/z ... _ikari.zip

I will patch the file and see what happens. Any ideas why the battery is not saving? I got Chrono Trigger and Secret of Evermore to save perfectly fine with the same setup.

So I have been fooling around a bit more, and I have found the following: Retro:Prog runs and burns alot more games successfully than INL-prog (for me anyways). Also many homebrews either 1/2 work or certain portions don't work. Examples: My version of Parallel Worlds will save a file name i.e. "Link", but will not save the game data. Super Mario 3x (SMB hack) will play the first level but the second level has no sound, and if you die, the game crashes. This is both on a Retro Duo portable as well as the standard system. I am guessing that many homebrews rely on an emulator to work rather than work correctly on a cartridge and am wondering if there is a list of ready to burn games, or is there a program that will allow me to easily fix some of these errors?

To rule out reliance on an emulator, you can try running the games on SNES PowerPak or Super EverDrive.

Nowadays, I'd guess that original homebrews are less likely to rely on emulator bugs than ROM hacks. Most Super Mario World hacks, for example, run correctly only on older Super NES emulators, such as Snes9x or ZSNES, and not newer emulators that try harder to emulate the limits of the actual S-PPU, such as bsnes-classic or higan SNES. On the NES it's better because decently accurate emulators have been around for years, such as Nintendulator, Nestopia, and to a lesser extent FCEUX. But on the Super NES, a lot of the hacking community is stuck in what amounts to the NESticle days.

I think now that I have successfully burned a few roms, I will make a list of whats gone right/wrong and post and see if others are having the same issues with SNES Hi/Lo ROM reproduction PCB/flash boards, or if its the roms, or if its something I am still doing wrong.