Easiest way to get this SNES cartridge dumped?

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Bananmos
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Easiest way to get this SNES cartridge dumped?

Post by Bananmos »

Short story long: I bought Dorke and Ymp from Piko Interactive, enthusiastic to see that this "New SWEDISH SNES game!" I saw in a Swedish gaming mag in the 1990s that never appeared would finally be available after a 20 year delay.

The game is notoriously difficult to play though, mostly due to the very limited attack and enemies that are hard to hit, making it quite a frustrating experience at times. Still, as a oldskool gamer I do enjoy a good challenge from time to time... up to a point. And that point was reached when the game unexpectedly crashed just as I was completing the second world after many hours of countless deaths:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/i89rfnute90fs ... h.mp4?dl=0

So while I still want to complete the game, I'm not too keen on having to replay all of those frustrating levels due to this software glitch. So as we are in the 2016 with emulators with savestates and SNES powerpaks, I figured it should be easy enough to warp myself to the next place... if a file I could load in an emulator or my SNES powerpak would be included with my purchase.

Piko Interactive turned out to be like any big bad company's customer support filter though: Saying the game is fine because people have evidently been able to play it to the end, and refusing to give me a file due to "company policy". Bit of a shame that they can't show more goodwill towards their paying customers, but guess game publishers are just made of the same stuff no matter the company size and target audience.

So long story short: I have no current easy means to dump SNES cartridges as I've never needed to until now, and was wondering what the cheapest/easiest option is? I know the "Retrode" exists and looks pretty cool for what it is, but has more functionality than I need and seems like a slightly expensive option to get just a single cartridge dumped. A SNES version of something like Chris Covell's TapeDump that I could run on my SNES powerpak would be ideal for this situation, but I don't think something like that exists yet?
Last edited by Bananmos on Sun Nov 13, 2016 6:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Revenant
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Re: Easiest way to get this SNES cartridge dumped?

Post by Revenant »

The Retrode is probably still the easiest way to dump stuff, aside from tracking down an old 90s backup unit and hoping it still works. There are some other, newer solutions, like the 21fx and this Arduino cart reader but they involve a bit of DIY hardware stuff that may not be worth it just to dump this one game.

However, Dorke & Ymp also has a Steam release for just $5 which is just a SNES ROM plus a customized build of Mednafen. I'm willing to bet that the ROM included with this version is identical to the one on the cartridge release.
Bananmos
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Re: Easiest way to get this SNES cartridge dumped?

Post by Bananmos »

However, Dorke & Ymp also has a Steam release for just $5 which is just a SNES ROM plus a customized build of Mednafen. I'm willing to bet that the ROM included with this version is identical to the one on the cartridge release.
Ah, thanks for pointing that out! $5 is a lot cheaper than a Retrode, even if it is always a bit annoying to have to buy the same software twice.

More importantly though, would you happen to know if the ROM is easy to extract from whatever sort of executable you get from the Steam purchase? Given how paranoid Piko Interactive seem to be, I could easily imagine some encryption or other scheme being used for the Steam release, and spending time on trying to crack copy protection has never been my cup of tea...
Revenant
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Re: Easiest way to get this SNES cartridge dumped?

Post by Revenant »

The Steam version is literally just two files: the emulator executable, and the ROM. It's an ordinary ROM, and as far as I can tell it works out of the box in any emulator.
hangmanhorror
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Re: Easiest way to get this SNES cartridge dumped?

Post by hangmanhorror »

In which folder do i find the ROM ? I just got gifted this game on Steam and i really want to put it in my Wii Snes emulator.
Revenant
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Re: Easiest way to get this SNES cartridge dumped?

Post by Revenant »

[your steam library path]/steamapps/common/Dorke and Ymp

I don't actually have the game in my Steam library anymore (oops!) so I don't remember what the ROM file is actually called, but it's the only file in there that isn't an executable or a config file.
hangmanhorror
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Re: Easiest way to get this SNES cartridge dumped?

Post by hangmanhorror »

Thank you man ! i got it working on my Wii. Awesome.
fabio_rosendo
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Re: Easiest way to get this SNES cartridge dumped?

Post by fabio_rosendo »

hangmanhorror wrote:Thank you man ! i got it working on my Wii. Awesome.
Wow........ :shock:
Any chance to share the game.
tepples
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Re: Easiest way to get this SNES cartridge dumped?

Post by tepples »

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Fisher
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Re: Easiest way to get this SNES cartridge dumped?

Post by Fisher »

Interesting solutions. :beer:
Unfortunatelly it's out of my reach. :-(
I got some pirate SNES games that just won't boot.
Phisically, I found no problem. I even tested the tracks I could.
I think that if I dump them, I could have an idea of what's going on.

Long time ago, I've seem a guy nicknamed DiskDude who had build an SNES cartridge reader with only discrete parts. This dumper was named CartDisk.
The last version I could find to download is the one that is built with 2 microcontrolers, wich I just can't afford. :cry:
The e-mail in the page's contact info doesn't exists anymore, all the links I've found on the wayback machine are broken too.
Does someone have the schematics and software for the discrete logic version and are willing to share?
Thanks in advance!
lidnariq
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Re: Easiest way to get this SNES cartridge dumped?

Post by lidnariq »

On some level, all you need to do is read 16 MiB from the cart, starting at address 0. What kind of hardware do you have access to?

If you're ok with doing some manual "uncooking" of the memory map, you could just use an array of digital counters (74'161 / 74'590 / 4040) and a computer with a parallel port. Some software on the computer would have to set up the parallel port in ECP mode to support reading things a byte at a time.

... and honestly, I don't know how you're supposed to do that under Windows's modern I/O permissions. The last time I checked was when GiveIO was the answer.
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Fisher
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Re: Easiest way to get this SNES cartridge dumped?

Post by Fisher »

If I remember correctly, it used some flipflops or buffers with a demux to tell where to write/read the paralel port bits to/from.
I don't remember very well the details, since I knew a lot less then what I know today.
Not that I know very much about it right now... but it's definetively more.

It was a Win3x program that controlled it, looks like it had no problems with direct paralel port access.
I have some old PCs that I would happly repurpose to read the games.

I tried to put some wires on a SNES cartridge connector and solder it on the PC's BIOS chip slot, but the results weren't that good :-(
It was what I used to dump that GameGenie BIOS a while ago.

Is it me or some epoxy blobs containing memory chips are prone to fail?
hangmanhorror
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Re: Easiest way to get this SNES cartridge dumped?

Post by hangmanhorror »

fabio_rosendo wrote:
hangmanhorror wrote:Thank you man ! i got it working on my Wii. Awesome.
Wow........ :shock:
Any chance to share the game.
Only if you can hook me up with the roms of Haunted Halloween '85 and 86 on NES :twisted:

Haha, only joking, i really want these roms thought.

(truth be told, if it weren't for the moderators, i wouldn't mind sharing Dorke and Ymp with you, i don't really see what's the big deal)
tepples
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Re: Easiest way to get this SNES cartridge dumped?

Post by tepples »

  1. Buy the cartridges at Cash-In Culture
  2. Dump them with your Kazzo
  3. Don't share them
hangmanhorror
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Re: Easiest way to get this SNES cartridge dumped?

Post by hangmanhorror »

tepples wrote:
  1. Buy the cartridges at Cash-In Culture
  2. Dump them with your Kazzo
  3. Don't share them
I live in France so Cash-In Culture is not an option (if you talk about the actual shops)
i don't know if the online shop ships to France

I wouldn't drop 60$ on homebrews nes cartridges anyway

How much for a Kazzo ?

too bad the roms aren't included on the steam releases, like for Dorke and ymp, cause the price is actually fair on steam.
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