Reproduction carts board/forum/section

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Do you feel a separate "Reproduction carts" board/forum would be beneficial?

Yes
80
71%
No
9
8%
I don't care either way
18
16%
Other (please explain in a follow-up post)
6
5%
 
Total votes: 113

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koitsu
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Reproduction carts board/forum/section

Post by koitsu »

There have been a massive influx of people posting about assisting with repro carts. I know historically (and it's understandable) these have been shunned because one of the main reasons people are doing them is to sell the results on eBay or their own site to make money. I'm politely asking folks put their ethical/moral/legal quandaries aside for a moment and instead think about this: do you think it would be worthwhile to have a separate board/forum/section here for those sorts of posts could go?

Yes, in a lot of cases they relate directly to the NES Hardware and Flash Equipment or SNESdev forums, which makes perfect sense since repro carts involve a bit of hardware familiarity (including finding donor carts). But links to relevant technical tips about address/data line remappings when making a PCB could be used (ex. "Yeah, for the issue with /ROMSEL or A14, check out this thread for details").

Please don't reply with a post here unless you've voted for the "Other" option (in which case feel free to propose an idea/recommendation).

Thanks!

Edit: And for those who are legally-conscious and are curious about what sorts of games can be legally repro'd and sold, tepples has compiled a nice list.
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Bregalad
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Re: Reproduction carts board/forum/section

Post by Bregalad »

Personally I'd vote for other, and such posts being deleted by mods. I understand they don't want to because it's so much work, though.

I can't stand this kind of posts, and I've already made it know a couple of times. The hardware section is basically the "90% garbage" section of these forums.
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tokumaru
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Re: Reproduction carts board/forum/section

Post by tokumaru »

I'm particularly annoyed by the amount of repro discussion in the SNESdev forum. Even though I don't make much use of that forum, I find it terrible how there's so little actual development discussion in there. Most topics are about hardware, and out of those, many are about making repros.

EDIT: I am, however, against having too many forums/sections, so I think we'd benefit from merging the least used ones. Since there's hardly any development talk in the GB and SNES sections, I don't see why they can't be merged with the "other retro dev" forum (aside from these consoles being close relatives to the NES, but what's the point in having these forums if they're not used?). The same goes for the FCdev forum. It's supposed to be for discussions in japanese, but people end up using it to talk about japanese hardware more than anything, with the occasional software translated japanese text. I see no reason to have more than one international language forum, since no language other than english is used often enough here.
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blargg
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Re: Reproduction carts board/forum/section

Post by blargg »

A quick classification of the first page of posts in the SNES forum yielded this breakdown:

1111111111111111111 programming
1111111 reproduction
1111111111 flash cart
1111111111111 hardware
3gengames
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Re: Reproduction carts board/forum/section

Post by 3gengames »

I'd like the extra forum section, it'd keep 99% of the crap out of the other sections weather most educated respond or not...there'll be a new breed of nesdev guys made....good or not. It's good for the forums neatness, and it's gonna happen anyway...so I'm cool with it.
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skarstoker
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Re: Reproduction carts board/forum/section

Post by skarstoker »

hello friends, I think it is good idea to separate this issue, because there are a lot of important information about the programming for snes, which is very difficult to find in the forum, the same applies when looking for important threads of cartridge reproduction

mmm, now I understand that when I ask things about reproduction in cartridges, never are answered with the exception of some people.

on the other hand, I think we came here with questions and doubts, because the information that exists, is very confusing and unclear, some things I learned taking approaches, however, sorry for asking so much, thought that the forums are for that,

but I am supporter that the information is for everyone, no one is born knowing and I think sharing is a double triumph...

if there some types of manuals, tutorials, like Bazz, would be another story.
ailI
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Re: Reproduction carts board/forum/section

Post by ailI »

I think we should talk about hardware and game programming information that could be used that way, but not assist people who ask for help destroying games.
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Dwedit
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Re: Reproduction carts board/forum/section

Post by Dwedit »

Segregation is good, because it's the first step towards banning it.
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tepples
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Re: Reproduction carts board/forum/section

Post by tepples »

Perhaps if there were some compelling homebrew Super NES games, there would be people trying to reproduce those, and the discussion might be more civil.
zzo38
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Re: Reproduction carts board/forum/section

Post by zzo38 »

Banning it is not a good idea, but maybe you can make subsections? Would that help? (I think phpBB supports that.)
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3gengames
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Re: Reproduction carts board/forum/section

Post by 3gengames »

Maybe we need to make a 100% correct guide, with all logically needed information....ban the talk, but make a wiki page on to do it clear. If they're not smart enough to understand, too bad. We get too many "REPRO DOESN'T WORK!" posts in general.
tepples
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Re: Reproduction carts board/forum/section

Post by tepples »

Here's what I'd recommend:
  1. Find a worthwhile from-scratch homebrew game (not a translation, not a SMW hack) whose author is fine with third parties making and selling carts. I could probably provide examples for most of the discrete NES mappers; I'll need help with Super NES however.
  2. Make a 100% correct guide for reproducing that game.
  3. Allow talk of reproducing that game and other homebrews, but not of reproducing commercial games or hacks of commercial games. If someone asks about a game, ask "Have you tried reproing (homebrew game on the same board) first?".
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infiniteneslives
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Re: Reproduction carts board/forum/section

Post by infiniteneslives »

I originally voted yes, but now that I think about it I really don't think it'd accomplish anything...

Is there someway to block the subsection so you don't see it in 'unread posts' and such? If not, I don't see the point really. Only a change in the small font that is rarely read anyways. Maybe I just don't get it, but what's the point of any subsection really? Do people really browse the sections? Isn't the norm to just view unread posts? I find the separate subsections a hindrance to searching for old threads, it only helps when you know for certain which subsection it's in which is rare in my case at least.

If there is no feature like that it's about as worthless as blocking a person you're trying to ignore. Only to still get email notifications when they post in your threads of interest. You come all the way to view the topic only to find it's that freak you've been trying to ignore, but you get suckered into clicking to look at their comment now that you're there, only to immediately regret it...

The only thing I see it accomplishing is starting arguments as to where the topic belongs. "I'm developing something new with old hardware", "no you're making repros", "move the thread", "this repro has some new hardware", etc... If we don't like them, then don't reply to them offering help. Or just crush em every time to try and scare them away. Unless there is some sort of real obstacle, people will post about their broken repros if they believe they can get answers here.
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Bregalad
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Re: Reproduction carts board/forum/section

Post by Bregalad »

blargg wrote:A quick classification of the first page of posts in the SNES forum yielded this breakdown:

1111111111111111111 programming
1111111 reproduction
1111111111 flash cart
1111111111111 hardware
I played the same game as you for the 1st 2 pages and ended up with the following results :

Code: Select all

Programming : |||||||||||||
Hardware    : |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Repro       : ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Emulation   : |||||||
Sound / SPC : ||||||
Spam        : |
Now, I'd have to say it really varies a lot. A guy asked a long series of questions about sound, another guy is trying to make a flash card asking quite a few questions in a row, and all this biases the forums towards a particular subject.

The first half of the first page is currently almost exclusively reproduction stuff more or less directly.
Sometime it's more subtle like questions about the MAD-1 chip but in the end I'm sure it's for reproduction.

PS : What pisses me off the most about these guys is not only the fact they illegally create carts and sometimes sells them for very expensive, but that their questions are often tremedously stupid like :
"How do I wire A14 to MAD-1 pin 7".
As if it was normal for us to know such things by heart and to answer them.

And generally their post count is < 10.
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koitsu
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Re: Reproduction carts board/forum/section

Post by koitsu »

infiniteneslives wrote:I originally voted yes, but now that I think about it I really don't think it'd accomplish anything... Is there someway to block the subsection so you don't see it in 'unread posts' and such? If not, I don't see the point really.
1. The point is to have a board specific to repro questions, rather than have the posts scattered all over 4 or 5 separate boards. The proposed board would be placed under the "Other" forum, and probably named "Reproduction Carts" or something along those lines.

2. With stock phpBB there is no way to "hide" a board on a per-account basis. -- Edit #2: Nope, I'm wrong. It's very much possible, just not something the user can do in the User Control Panel. It is something we forum admins can adjust on a per-account basis. This post is what made me go poke about and look.

I spent the past 5-10 minutes inside of phpBB's admin section and found that it's possible to accomplish. You wouldn't see the board itself, nor any of its posts in any way. The amount of administration work on our part to accomplish this is minimal -- no phpBB "mods" needed, it's all possible with stock/built-in features. You'd just have to ask one of us to stick you in the "no-repros" group and voilà. I did test it too, and it does work.

Regardless of #2, I'd like folks to stay focused on the matter at hand -- it's one of organisation. I made this indirectly clear in my initial post, quoting:
koitsu wrote:... I'm politely asking folks put their ethical/moral/legal quandaries aside for a moment ...
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