400 in 1 Gamebox - Rebuilding or cracking the software

[mamejay]

Hi Everyone,

Long time lurker and first time poster.
I recently got a new Candy cab which had a faulty Gamebox 400 in 1.
The hard drive is dieing.
I attached it to a desktop PC and managed to copy all the files from the drive except for a folder C:\EMU. I did manage to find in C:\BAK another folder call EMU.
I grabbed a working hard drive and formatted it with a DOS 7.1 boot disk. Then I copied all the files and folders that I previously backed up.
I reattached it to the gamebox and got a working menu. Buttons and joystick are working.
now when I start a game it hangs on a loading screen. There is only so much that I can diagnose as the autoexec.bat file calls game.com which obviously was a batch file converted to a COM file.
Does anyone know how to read the game.com file correctly or a way around this problem? I know that the com file was created using BAT2EXE V1.5 as when opened in TEXTPAD I can read that in the first line.  I have read that these units use some sort of encryption or marry up to the actual hard drive serial so if you recovery to a different drive this is what happens.
I have read that there was a site called 400in1.com which had recovery software but that site is history and no mirrors or trace of any of the recovery files.

Here are some pictures of the MB and case so you know what I a working with. Its only a Pentium 3 MB.
I feel that I am so close to getting this thing running. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

[BobA]

You might find relevant info on your PCB here multi board forums

This may be a bad going by the 60 in 1 thread but info should be free.

[mamejay]

I have tried that site and have not gotten any joy.  The majority of that forum relates to the new XXXX in 1 boards.

Was hoping someone here has had experience with one of these and could possible offer some assistance.

[lilshawn]

game.com which obviously was a batch file converted to a COM file.

a .com file behaves identical to an .exe file, except that it's loaded into a different memory area... long LONG ago it was a type of modified batch file but not since the XT has it been that way.

 

[mamejay]

I know that the .COM file is just the batch file that calls everything up and that it was created with an application call BAT2EXE.  If i open this file in TEXTPAD i see the first line states the application that was used to create it.

There is an old thread on XXXXin1.com site which someone states that he had a way around this file which contained some sort of security.

I just want to savage this Gamebox as it just seems a shame to have to turf it due to a dud hard drive.

[WhereEaglesDare]

What OS does the game box run?  Whats the Specs of the box?

[mamejay]

DOS 7.1.  Its a PIII 1Ghz with 256mb.
AC97 onboard sound and a SIS onboard graphics card.
From the file structure that I recovered it looks like it uses SNES key for the keyboard controls.

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

I think you're going about this in the wrong way.

What you need to do is clone the drive, not duplicate the files.

http://clonezilla.org/

[Lilwolf]

have you tried to just create your own batch file?  I bet your not even getting to that point... or there is some copy protection you are getting too.

You might also want to go in the direction to see if anyone can copy their drive for you.  I'm not sure if anyone has chd's for them.

But I don't believe that .com files where ONLY compiled batch files.  I think there where multiple compiles that compiled to them. I just remembered that they needed to be treated as themselves (and you couldn't rename a .exe -> .com file).  But it could be that some compilers created a simple script that launched what they built?  

[mamejay]

Yeah I would clone the drive but it errors out.  I have tried ghost and I get errors. The original drive is clicking and making noise.  I spoke to a distributor who used to supply them locally and he said that they where married up to the serial of the hard drive so cloning would give me the results that i have been getting with game menu and selection working then hanging on loading a rom.

I have ordered a 1940 in 1 board which is a P4 based board.  I have been playing with other methods of using DOS or Windows but the unit really has some problems.  The jamma finger board where the RGB signal comes out at seems to be screwed.  i had to hack a VGA cable and then I got an image on the arcade monitor. 
Also the key encoding is also screwed.
This I may just let this one go to God and be done with it.  The case is quite nice so I will have a play with other motherboards that I have laying around and see if I can get something working.

[BobA]

If I recall the old multis like this one worked with a version of arcadeos.  It is just a frontend for the older dos mame that allowed certain video cards to output to an arcade monitor.  If you have any idea what the screen looked like when it was running arcadeos was a list of games that could be set for vertical or horizontal monitors.  They probably made their own encoder back then and used a bit of a joypad since you mention you found traces of sneskey. Only certain video and sound cards would work but there was not a great choice back then so the sound was ac97 based and the video cards had to follow a certain spec and your board sounds like it follows.  If you take a look at the arcadeos files you might be able to work up your own files to run the 400 board. If the com is the part stopping the board from running because it does not have the right serial number then you could work around it by making your own batch files to startup arcadeos and sneskey.

[mamejay]

Cool.  i will rem out the Game.com from the autoexec.bat file and then try to work out how to start the emulator.  If i can just get the VGATSR and Sneskey working i think I can manage to get it running.