Battlekid localized for japanese market

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Banshaku
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Re: Battlekid localized for japanese market

Post by Banshaku »

@Sivak

Thank you for the answer. If it was an issue with their first try then there is good chance they don't have that issue anymore. Since it is still not out yet I could always drop them a line about the concern of the community.

As for the amount available, understood! I think it was popular in Japan long time ago because I remember they were selling it at used store in Akihabara ;)
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FrankenGraphics
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Re: Battlekid localized for japanese market

Post by FrankenGraphics »

sivak wrote:I have a prototype cart, but I don't really see any way of opening it easily... I did do entire playthroughs of the game and didn't notice issues.
The devious trouble with improperly designed 3.3v device boards plugged into a NES/famicom is that they don't kill immediately. Rather, they wear the NMOS logic in the console slowly. It's a bit like smoking. Any one cigarette doesn't kill immediately, but it is still bad for your health, and fatality may vary - when and if. A shorter life span is still statistically probable.

I'm sorry for the cold shower this might be, but opening it is the only way to know for sure. Photographing the board for a review by the EE savvy people here may help if it's your first time identifying parts and traces.

A technical explanation can be found here: https://db-electronics.ca/2017/07/05/th ... -consoles/
There was a discussion going on on the forums some time ago about the boards inside Quest Forge.


Ps. Cool to see you back on here!
Last edited by FrankenGraphics on Thu Jul 19, 2018 11:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Banshaku
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Re: Battlekid localized for japanese market

Post by Banshaku »

I already sent them an email on the subject. I hope the answer will be that now their board are better engineered.
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Sumez
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Re: Battlekid localized for japanese market

Post by Sumez »

There's a chance they improved that aspect, as it really wasn't out in the open at the time 8-bit Music Power was released, and I think most people weren't aware that it could cause any issues.
It was famously an issue with the Everdrive too, and as far as I know, Krikzz has been using 5V components from that point on? despite defending the idea that he didn't consider 3.3v components damaging to the system.

Actually, the smoking comparison is incredibly apt.
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Banshaku
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Re: Battlekid localized for japanese market

Post by Banshaku »

I just hope they will give an honest answer about it. For now, I only received the automated mail about the message.

By "smoking comparison " I just hope you don't mean to compare on much smoke it make based on voltage :lol: sorry for the lame joke, too tired today!
tepples
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Re: Battlekid localized for japanese market

Post by tepples »

In case anyone else reading this in the future doesn't understand English language metaphors:

Tobacco use causes damage over the long term.
Use of 3.3 V parts in a 5.0 V environment without voltage translation causes damage over the long term.
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Banshaku
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Re: Battlekid localized for japanese market

Post by Banshaku »

@tepples

Now that I re-read the previous message, I remember the metaphor about smoking (by FrankenGraphics I think?) and I did understand it but now it just that I didn't sleep well most of the week (busy and very hot these days) that my mind don't make much sense and miss/forget many things along the way :) My bad.

But sometime those state of mind are good for creativity. I should try to write something now ^^;;

Still, thanks for the explanation!
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Sivak
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Re: Battlekid localized for japanese market

Post by Sivak »

I found out that they are using 3.3 volt boards, but improved. I don't know what that means, though.
-Sivak
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Sumez
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Re: Battlekid localized for japanese market

Post by Sumez »

Thanks for being honest about it. It's up to people if they want to use that stuff in their NES or not, but it's good to at least know about it.
Great Hierophant
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Re: Battlekid localized for japanese market

Post by Great Hierophant »

The boards for Columbus Circle's first cartridge, 8-bit Music Power, were not just modern pirate quality boards, they failed in more official systems than they worked in. The board I linked to had no translation Their next release, Kira Kira Star Night DX worked in pretty much any Nintendo-made system but had iffy luck with the Sharp-released stuff. I do not know if the situation further improved with their next releases, 8-bit Music Power Final and NEO Heiankyo Alien, but I know they were still using 3.3v flash with Kira Kira.

Ultimately, the architecture of the NES makes it rather unattractive for level translators. Assuming they use 5v parts for the mapper, you still need translators for the two chips. That's 15 address lines and 8 data lines for the PRG-ROM and and 13 address lines and 8 data lines for the CHR-RAM (Mapper 2). So unless they are using three 16-line voltage converters, they aren't implementing 3.3v properly without them. Current limiting resistors aren't good enough.
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Banshaku
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Re: Battlekid localized for japanese market

Post by Banshaku »

I was able to receive an official answer from them and they said that their are still using 3.3v but an improved one and they didn't receive any inquiry about issue with those.

After living in Japan for a while, it can only means 2 things:

- yes, there is no issue
or
- there is an issue but nobody complained about it and just "gaman" (endure) the problem

I guess time will tell which one it is :lol:
Great Hierophant
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Re: Battlekid localized for japanese market

Post by Great Hierophant »

There is little harm in putting the cartridge into a CopyNES-enabled system for the brief period of time it takes to dump the ROM and then to put it on your shelf to never use again.
SlashX
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Re: Battlekid localized for japanese market

Post by SlashX »

Hey guys and Sivak if you can! Could someone tell me if the famicom cart will work on a Nes NTSC system if I use a 60-72 converter? I preodered the game but I just wanna be sure that everything will be ok. Thanks for you answer :) I already made the hardmod of taking off the Nes10 Lockout Chip.
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rainwarrior
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Re: Battlekid localized for japanese market

Post by rainwarrior »

I don't think there's any reason it wouldn't work with such a converter. The main thing that converters usually get wrong (4-screen or other unusual mirroring) isn't something that Battle Kid does. I don't have the Famicom cart to test, though, but from my experience almost everything works anyway.
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tokumaru
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Re: Battlekid localized for japanese market

Post by tokumaru »

Banshaku wrote:their are still using 3.3v but an improved one and they didn't receive any inquiry about issue with those.
The thing is, using 3.3V parts doesn't result in any immediate problems, everything appears to work at first and may continue that way for years even, so that's why there were no complaints. In the long run, however, parts may begin to fail, and the evil part about all this is that most people won't even think that these carts were to blame, since they may have worked fine for a long time.
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