Space Race

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lidnariq
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Re: Space Race

Post by lidnariq »

Amitari wrote:It seems to be impossible to find schematics for it, which is weird considering it's just some wires connected to the expansion port.
There's no schematic because there's no parts to it. It's exactly the same as the ordinary controller, just connecting players 3 and 4 to the (&2)s bit that's read instead of the (&1)s bit.

It also never existed as a "four player adapter"; rather it just adds two more players to the two built-in tethered controllers that are part of the Famicom.
Amitari
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Re: Space Race

Post by Amitari »

lidnariq wrote:
Amitari wrote:It seems to be impossible to find schematics for it, which is weird considering it's just some wires connected to the expansion port.
There's no schematic because there's no parts to it. It's exactly the same as the ordinary controller, just connecting players 3 and 4 to the (&2)s bit that's read instead of the (&1)s bit.

It also never existed as a "four player adapter"; rather it just adds two more players to the two built-in tethered controllers that are part of the Famicom.
Hori did make a version that turned the expansion port into 4 ports, enabling all 4 players to use their own controllers.
lidnariq
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Re: Space Race

Post by lidnariq »

Then they bald-facedly lied. There is no way for player 1 to be connected to the expansion port, at all.
Amitari
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Re: Space Race

Post by Amitari »

lidnariq wrote:Then they bald-facedly lied. There is no way for player 1 to be connected to the expansion port, at all.
Are you really sure?
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lidnariq
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Re: Space Race

Post by lidnariq »

There is quite literally no way for an external peripheral connected to the expansion port to put bits in the correct place to be read as player 1 by the CPU.

The Famicom expansion port connector provides access only to player 2 ([$4017]&1), player 4 ([$4017]&2), three other pins used for other expansion port devices ([$4017]&$1C), and player 3 ([$4016]&2). There is no connection to player 1 ([$4016]&1).

Software could be written to read the extra controllers off one of the available pins that are there, but that requires a software intervention, not a hardware one.
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rainwarrior
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Re: Space Race

Post by rainwarrior »

For Famicom games that are only 2 player anyway, 1=3 and 2=4 as duplicates of each other, as per software conventions.

Has anyone looked at the 4-player Famicom games' controller reads? Maybe there's a redundancy for the missing J0 bit 0?

(It's also entirely possible that the Hori adapter doesn't quite work as advertised.)


Edit: Here's one of the Technos games, Nekketsu Koukou Dodge Ball Bu:

Code: Select all

 07:FDC2: A6 FB     LDX $00FB = #$00
 07:FDC4: E8        INX
 07:FDC5: 8E 16 40  STX $4016 = #$00
 07:FDC8: CA        DEX
 07:FDC9: 8E 16 40  STX $4016 = #$00
 07:FDCC: A2 08     LDX #$08
 07:FDCE: AD 16 40  LDA $4016 = #$00
 07:FDD1: 4A        LSR
 07:FDD2: 26 F5     ROL $00F5 = #$00
 07:FDD4: 4A        LSR
 07:FDD5: 26 00     ROL $0000 = #$00
 07:FDD7: AD 17 40  LDA $4017 = #$01
 07:FDDA: 4A        LSR
 07:FDDB: 26 F6     ROL $00F6 = #$00
 07:FDDD: 4A        LSR
 07:FDDE: 26 01     ROL $0001 = #$00
 07:FDE0: CA        DEX
 07:FDE1: D0 EB     BNE $FDCE
 07:FDE3: 60        RTS
So... appears to only pay attention to bits 0/1, and I would not expect this to work as claimed with 4 controllers in the Hori adapter.

Also looked at Kunio-kun Nekketsu No Soccer League, which is the lastest-made Technos game in that list, and it was the same. The only non-Technos game on the list was Wit's, but it also appears to only read bits 0/1.

So... no, the Hori adapter should not work as it claims, to the best of my knowledge.
tepples
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Re: Space Race

Post by tepples »

FCEUX for Windows supports Famicom 4-player. Famicom games for 1 or 2 players treat controller 3 as controller 1 and controller 4 as controller 2.

In Config > Input, do this:
  1. Change Famicom Expansion Port to 4-Player Adapter
  2. Change Port 1 to Gamepad and click Configure
  3. Change Port 2 to Gamepad and click Configure
fceux4p.png
fceux4p.png (6.07 KiB) Viewed 17081 times
Speculation I: If the Hori thing does actually support four players, then perhaps it's like the Hudson Multitap: two controllers while strobe is 0 and the other two while strobe is 1.

Speculation II: The diagram shows the built-in controllers being disconnected. Perhaps at least input 2 works when built-in controller 2 is internally unplugged. Who can translate the Japanese?
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rainwarrior
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Re: Space Race

Post by rainwarrior »

tepples wrote:If the Hori thing does actually support four players, then perhaps it's like the Hudson Multitap: two controllers while strobe is 0 and the other two while strobe is 1.
The games I mentioned above do not do this. Everything is read while strobe is 0. Only 8 reads of each of $4016 and $4017. Only the low 2 bits are used.
lidnariq
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Re: Space Race

Post by lidnariq »

tepples wrote:Speculation II: The diagram shows the built-in controllers being disconnected. Perhaps at least input 2 works when built-in controller 2 is internally unplugged. Who can translate the Japanese?
android translate says the left is
"When using a genuine controller"
and on the right is
"When using an optional controller"

The rest of the text on the box either doesn't get OCRed correctly, or is irrelevant.
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Myask
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Re: Space Race

Post by Myask »

gauauu wrote:Well, got my new CF card today. It works with it. I think the problem was the CF card somehow.

That said, ugh, my game has problems on real hardware. Flickery stuff where the background jumps around improperly. sigh.
[PowerPak]
yup. More so on Ludicrous Speed or when there're shots on screen.

Fun enough on one-player. Are powerups supposed to persist between stages? They do…

edit: oh, and I got some weird CHR corruption on title when I touched the NES to change to another game. A mistimed write hit the blank tile with some nonblank maybe? Or could just be something hardware.
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gauauu
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Re: Space Race

Post by gauauu »

Myask wrote: yup. More so on Ludicrous Speed or when there're shots on screen.
Did you see those problems on the latest version?. I fixed all the issues that I saw when running it on the powerpak. (I haven't yet put the newest fixed version on my own website, so if you downloaded from there, you have an older version that still shows these bugs on hardware)
Fun enough on one-player. Are powerups supposed to persist between stages? They do…
No, but the 2nd round (Battle Round) starts you with all the attack powerups, which might make it seem like they persist? (you should be back to a single shot with a long cooldown when you get to the ludicrous speed round)
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Myask
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Re: Space Race

Post by Myask »

Yeah, everything works nicely now.

How many kinds of rounds are there? Standard, battle, speed, kamikaze…
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gauauu
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Re: Space Race

Post by gauauu »

There's 5. The four you mentioned plus one with a really narrow Hall. (I forget what I called it, will have to look it up later)
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Myask
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Re: Space Race

Post by Myask »

is it perhaps "Trench run"? ;)

Other simple notions of modes:
Sudden Death: no respawn, win on points
Last Ship Flying: no respawn, win by surviving
Deathrace: no respawn, 10-20-30 bonus points for being second/3rd/4th eliminated (/surviving) (Alternately implementable as starting with 30 and penalizing 30-20-10 for 1st-2nd-3rd eliminated)
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gauauu
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Re: Space Race

Post by gauauu »

Myask wrote:is it perhaps "Trench run"? ;)
That would be better than what I picked: "challenge round"
Other simple notions of modes:
Sudden Death: no respawn, win on points
Last Ship Flying: no respawn, win by surviving
Deathrace: no respawn, 10-20-30 bonus points for being second/3rd/4th eliminated (/surviving) (Alternately implementable as starting with 30 and penalizing 30-20-10 for 1st-2nd-3rd eliminated)
Those would be interesting. Although you die so easily, that the round might be too short. Maybe giving a life limit (ie 5 lives) would work better. Sounds like a fun idea though.
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Does that mean going down instead of up? Or something else?
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