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Question of backing up old 1980s/1990s era cabinet
MrInitialMan:
I am writing a story in which a young man purchases a 1980s/1990s era arcade cabinet (it is a computer game, to be specific a side-scrolling space shooter). The cabinet is old and dilapidated, and he decides to back up the game onto a hard drive in case the computer decides to fail.
How would he do that?
Just a couple things to keep in mind:
1) No other ROM of the game exists
2) The company that made this cabinet is LONG out of business by the time the story takes place
3) This is the last cabinet of that game known to exist.
abispac:
Send it to the mame team.
PL1:
--- Quote from: MrInitialMan on September 04, 2024, 08:48:44 am ---I am writing a story in which a young man purchases a 1980s/1990s era arcade cabinet (it is a computer game, to be specific a side-scrolling space shooter). The cabinet is old and dilapidated, and he decides to back up the game onto a hard drive
--- End quote ---
Backing up a typical 80's/90's era side-scrolling space shooter to a hard drive would require dumping the ROM chips using an EPROM reader/writer.
- The ROMs would contain the game software, graphics, and sound data.
- Given the game description, there would probably be no hard drive or optical media (CD, laser disk, etc.) to back up to a MAME CHD (Compressed Hunks of Data) file.
If your protagonist is going to find some information while backing up this game, keep in mind that ROMs don't hold much data.
- There were CHD games in this era so that's a possible option for finding a large amount of data like a detailed map or multi-year journal.
You can find a list of CHD games from that era by going to this page. http://adb.arcadeitalia.net/lista_mame.php
- Click on "Additional filters" -- select "Year from", Year to", and "Use CHD".
--- Quote from: MrInitialMan on September 04, 2024, 08:48:44 am ---in case the computer decides to fail.
--- End quote ---
"Computer" implies a more general-purpose machine configuration.
Arcade games from that era used many components that you would find in a computer, but most arcade PCBs were configured to run a single game.
That said, game developers often reused hardware for later titles or bootlegs. For example, check out this excerpt from the Scramble History entry. (bottom of page)
--- Quote ---This game was the first title to use the 'Scramble Hardware', which was later used for "Super Cobra", "Lost Tomb", "The End" and a number of other titles. Many of these titles were actually bootlegs of other games, such as Namco's "Pac-Man". This was because Konami neglected to give Scramble ANY copy protection whatsoever; making it incredibly easy to run just about anything that used a Z80 processor, which, at the time, was pretty much every game out there. There were, of course, a lot of Bootleg copies of Scramble itself floating around, such as "Explorer" or "Strafe Bomb".
--- End quote ---
Hope this info helps you avoid those pesky plotholes. :D
Scott
abispac:
--- Quote from: PL1 on September 04, 2024, 05:03:15 pm ---
--- Quote from: MrInitialMan on September 04, 2024, 08:48:44 am ---I am writing a story in which a young man purchases a 1980s/1990s era arcade cabinet (it is a computer game, to be specific a side-scrolling space shooter). The cabinet is old and dilapidated, and he decides to back up the game onto a hard drive
--- End quote ---
Backing up a typical 80's/90's era side-scrolling space shooter to a hard drive would require dumping the ROM chips using an EPROM reader/writer.
- The ROMs would contain the game software, graphics, and sound data.
- Given the game description, there would probably be no hard drive or optical media (CD, laser disk, etc.) to back up to a MAME CHD (Compressed Hunks of Data) file.
If your protagonist is going to find some information while backing up this game, keep in mind that ROMs don't hold much data.
- There were CHD games in this era so that's a possible option for finding a large amount of data like a detailed map or multi-year journal.
You can find a list of CHD games from that era by going to this page. http://adb.arcadeitalia.net/lista_mame.php
- Click on "Additional filters" -- select "Year from", Year to", and "Use CHD".
--- Quote from: MrInitialMan on September 04, 2024, 08:48:44 am ---in case the computer decides to fail.
--- End quote ---
"Computer" implies a more general-purpose machine configuration.
Arcade games from that era used many components that you would find in a computer, but most arcade PCBs were configured to run a single game.
That said, game developers often reused hardware for later titles or bootlegs. For example, check out this excerpt from the Scramble History entry. (bottom of page)
--- Quote ---This game was the first title to use the 'Scramble Hardware', which was later used for "Super Cobra", "Lost Tomb", "The End" and a number of other titles. Many of these titles were actually bootlegs of other games, such as Namco's "Pac-Man". This was because Konami neglected to give Scramble ANY copy protection whatsoever; making it incredibly easy to run just about anything that used a Z80 processor, which, at the time, was pretty much every game out there. There were, of course, a lot of Bootleg copies of Scramble itself floating around, such as "Explorer" or "Strafe Bomb".
--- End quote ---
Hope this info helps you avoid those pesky plotholes. :D
Scott
--- End quote ---
If the game is that unique, instead of having to risk of trashing the game, go with a team that knows what is doing, send it to the name team.
PL1:
--- Quote from: abispac on September 04, 2024, 08:16:18 pm ---If the game is that unique, instead of having to risk of trashing the game, go with a team that knows what is doing, send it to the name team.
--- End quote ---
If he was talking about preserving a real game, then I would suggest getting ahold of experienced MAME dumpers like the Dumping Union (DU) or maybe someone who used to be with CapsOff if there's encrypted hardware to decap/crack.
The downside to that approach is that the real game preservation process usually does not make for a compelling narrative . . . unless we're talking about raflsiau. :P :duckhunt
Scott
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