>>>>> Donkey Kong II released <<<<<<<

[Level42]

Yeah. I wonder if they care about tiny little fish like these....

If you see the number of on-line documents available everywhere (talking about service manuals, flyers, art etc. etc.) that IS still copyrighted that no-one does anything about, I don't think they're really interested.

Harry, to be honest, I don't like your double morality.....

[CheffoJeffo]

If I were Nintendo, I would be ecstatic about this and would feature a classic DK with the D2K kit at trade shows.

But I don't know if they are that cool.

On a related note, I read about Exidy releasing a bunch of ROMs (including never-released games) to the public domain. 

[missioncontrol]

hell if I were Nintendo, I'd offer the guy a job revamping many of the other classics in need of an update, yet still close enough to its original form....

[FrizzleFried]

Go mind your own business and leave Jeff alone.  He's selling a ROM upgrade that requires that you own the original board to even use it (unless you decide to purchase a separate product from Arcadeshop to play it on).  It's people like you who cause good folks like Jeff who HELP the community to stop. 

EDIT: Cleaned up after realizing there is nothing that can be said that can do more harm to this guys rep around here than what he has said already himself...

[bigh4th]

I never said my machine wasn't illegal.  I just said that I'm much less of a threat than someone pirates and hacks someone's material and then sells it (for $40 according to his website).  As I said before, If he had released them for free, or at least for the cost of the parts, I wouldn't have given a rip.

And I'm sure Jeff put a lot of work into it, but I'm sure he didn't put as much into it as nintendo did, considering they created the game he hacked.

I don't think you guys are getting the big picture here.

This guy and people like him are not helping the community at all.  They're hurting it. Stealing someone else's stuff and selling it for profit is exactly why companies don't like their stuff being downloadable on the internet.   It makes it very easy for folks to do stuff like Jeff has.

Don't beleive me?  Go to an arcade auction sometime.  The one that just happened in Richmond had 5 or 6 brand new Multi-cades.  All illegal, all home-made, and all of them had a pricetag of $1200 or more, none of which the copywright owners will see.  At least one of them was running mame ( I saw the computer case through a gap in the cabinet).  Now, do you think all of those multi-cades had chips produced by the original manufacturer (assuming they even have chips), or chips with roms downloaded off the internet?

Thats what I'm getting at.  You can call me all of the cuss words you want, but if you sit down and think about it, you'll find I'm right.

-Harry

[FrizzleFried]

If you had a problem with Jeff,  you'd discuss it with Jeff.  You wouldn't go cry to momma (NOA).  Do you really think Nintendo sells any more Donkey Kong stand up arcade games?  Give me a break.

How about this...mind your own business?  If you don't like the guy's hack,  don't buy it.  That simple. 

EDIT: Cleaned up after realizing there is nothing that can be said that can do more harm to this guys rep around here than what he has said already himself...

[bigh4th]

http://www.amazon.com/Donkey-Kong-Mario-Bros-Donkey-Kong-Jr/dp/B000GF7L4M/ref=pd_sbs_sg_njs_title_2 Yes I do.

You obviously need to grow up.

-Harry

[FrizzleFried]

Don't beleive me?  Go to an arcade auction sometime.  The one that just happened in Richmond had 5 or 6 brand new Multi-cades.  All illegal, all home-made, and all of them had a pricetag of $1200 or more, none of which the copywright owners will see.  At least one of them was running mame ( I saw the computer case through a gap in the cabinet).  Now, do you think all of those multi-cades had chips produced by the original manufacturer (assuming they even have chips), or chips with roms downloaded off the internet?

Thats what I'm getting at.  You can call me all of the cuss words you want, but if you sit down and think about it, you'll find I'm right.

-Harry

Question Harry...how much profit do the original copyright holders see when people sell their 25 year old cabinets at an auction?  NONE!  NOT A DIME!  Why?  Because they ALREADY MADE THEIR MONEY when they sold it the first time!  Jeff isn't selling Double Donkey Kong cabinets out the door.  He is selling a hack to folks who HAVE a Donkey Kong that was paid for MANY YEARS AGO. 

Please point me in the direction of where I can pick up a minty fresh brand new Donkey Kong cabinet?   

Well?

Also,  please point out the profit that ANY manufacture makes off machines RESOLD at an auction...

Well?

Do you now see where your argument falters?   Sheesh...

Perhaps you may want to spend a little time here in this community before you make big decisions like going and tattle-telling on a well known and respected member of the arcade community (NOT the MAME community...the ARCADE community) to NOA...

[FrizzleFried]

http://www.amazon.com/Donkey-Kong-Mario-Bros-Donkey-Kong-Jr/dp/B000GF7L4M/ref=pd_sbs_sg_njs_title_2 Yes I do.

You obviously need to grow up.

-Harry

You gotta be kidding me.  I give up. 

PS: That DK/DKJr combo cab is a Namco product....perhaps you'd be best served reporting to them?

[bigh4th]

Ok, how about the fullsize version: http://www.amazon.com/Brookstone-Donkey-Kong-Arcade-Game/dp/B000JJILMQ/ref=pd_sbs_sg_njs_title_1

Nintendo (and in this case, Namco) are still making money from DK.

And until saint (the owner of the forum i.e. NOT you) tells me to take a hike, I'll continue to post.  If you don't like what I have to say, don't read it.

-Harry

[RayB]

Harry, you're being totally misguided. The guy selling the rom hack isn't going to get rich, or even be able to afford himself anything more than dinner and movie once every 4 months.

Do you know how much it costs to manufacture custom circuit boards and roms in such small quantities? He's asking $40 for pete's sake. That's barely enough to cover his cost. If there's a any profit at all, it might cover the hours of time he spent making this, but nothing more.

Get a little perspective.

[FrizzleFried]

Funny thing Ray is that Jeff MAY sell,  I am guessing,  200 of these units....TOTAL?!  Lets say that he has a huge boom...what...500?

Jeff does the home arcade community a great service by engineering and producing freeplay hacks, etc...he's been around for years...

[Singapura]

Question Harry...how much profit do the original copyright holders see when people sell their 25 year old cabinets at an auction?  NONE!  NOT A DIME!  Why?  Because they ALREADY MADE THEIR MONEY when they sold it the first time!

You're taking things out of their context. When you buy an arcade cabinet (or a CD or a book) you buy the right to use the content. You can transfer this right but not multiply or change the content.  Imagine if someone would change Tolkien's Lord of the Rings or recorded a sequel to Dark Side of the Moon without consulting with or getting permission from the copyright owners. He would be sued, wouldn't he? It gets worse if he decides to sell it on the internet because then it's not a non-profit operation anymore. Just because he's under the radar of a big corporation like Nintendo doesn't mean that they won't go after him. Nintendo did bring out sequels to Donkey Kong, just not in the arcades. Nintendo hold separate copyrights on the DK and Mario (Jumpman) characters and stills gets millions in revenue from them. Even using those in a complete rewrite of the DK game would make it illegal. Don't confuse legality with justice 

[Level42]

Harry, you're being totally misguided. The guy selling the rom hack isn't going to get rich, or even be able to afford himself anything more than dinner and movie once every 4 months.

Do you know how much it costs to manufacture custom circuit boards and roms in such small quantities? He's asking $40 for pete's sake. That's barely enough to cover his cost. If there's a any profit at all, it might cover the hours of time he spent making this, but nothing more.

Get a little perspective.

Actually, he is not selling a board, just the chips that carry the hacked program. The Braze kit that carries the chips are not Jeff's product AFAIK. That doesn't make your point less valid Ray. His costs were his hours spent to create it. (And the chips. And I also see that US shipping is included in the 40 bucks.)

I wonder if Harry has any idea how much hours this must have taken to create. He did a one-man job. You have to have a very good knowledge of the original program first. That takes a lot of time to figure out. Then go and think up new levels that are both fun AND challenging enough to play. Test-play, adjust, test again etc. etc. You think he did this in a couple of hours or something ? If you read this: http://www.hyperspacearcade.com/D2K1.html you'll get a first idea of how much work has gone into this.

Some important things: Nintendo sold the rights to the arcade games to Namco apparently, or at least licensed them. So Nintendo is pretty much out of the way in this story. Unless you include the fact that the Nintendo characters Donkey Kong and Mario are being used (although Mario is actually still Jumpman here). Now, to play this game, you need an original Donkey Kong PCB. If you own one, Nintendo made some money of that sold board (or the cab it came from) about 27 years ago.
The characters used in the hack that is called DK2 are ALL already present in the code on that board. The only thing Jeff did was re-arranging the game mechanics to create new levels. For his re-arranging work, he asks some money yeah. Do you work for free Harry ? Most people don't. He's not getting rich from this. I think Frizzle's number of sold units is pretty realistic.

The basic thing is that this is still a hack, not a new game.

The really funny thing about Harry's attitude is that he obviously wouldn't have "blown the whistle" (Nice analogy, ever seen Sound of Music ?) if Jeff would have given away DK2 for free.

[CheffoJeffo]

It makes it very easy for folks to do stuff like Jeff has.

As I said, educate yourself before you continue to make ridiculous statements ... ever tried to write code and graphics in a 4K space ?

Go to an arcade auction sometime.  The one that just happened in Richmond had 5 or 6 brand new Multi-cades.  All illegal, all home-made, and all of them had a pricetag of $1200 or more, none of which the copywright owners will see.  At least one of them was running mame ( I saw the computer case through a gap in the cabinet).  Now, do you think all of those multi-cades had chips produced by the original manufacturer (assuming they even have chips), or chips with roms downloaded off the internet?

Clue in, noob! The people that you are arguing with are real collectors and we have been to the odd auction (where is the sarcasm tag when you need it). Again, if you would take the time to gain some experience and educate yourself, then you might have a chance at understanding what we are talking about.

You speak as if you are a console gamer who has played some MAME and been to an auction ... and it shows ... the point is that you can't see the differences in what you are talking about. After all Frizzle is the guy who regularly chastise folks on the multi-board issue ... I think he understands what they are. BTW, Multicade is a particular brand of cabinet that contains licensed games.

It is clear to me that you believe in what you say and think that you have thought it all out ... the difference is that you have an extremely limited view of the context in which this is occuring, so you can't see the differences and distinctions in the examples that you raise.

[CheffoJeffo]

This guy and people like him are not helping the community at all.  They're hurting it.

I'll tell you what, you go over to RGVAC or KLOV and make this statement ... let's see what the people in the community actually think.

I'll make the popcorn ...

[bigh4th]

I probably shouldn't be typing this, since I'm tired from being up all night with some bug I caught from the local chinese place.  But, here goes...

I never said what jeff did with the programming was easy.  I'm sure he spent many hours on it.  However, him or anyone else obtaining ROM information and burning a chip IS easy.  Any 12 year old who can read can figure it out.  Either way, that does not change the fact that:

He does not have nintendo's permission to alter and/or produce and sell their property.

He does not have nintendo's permission to use their characters in his own product.

He does not have nintendo's permission to download ROM information to his computer to alter it, either by using a chip reader or by downloading the ROM from the internet.

In doing so, he is BREAKING THE LAW.  THAT is why it make this community look bad.  For all nintendo or anyone else knows, he could've downloaded the ROMs from the internet, depsite what he says.

This all seems pretty cut and dry to me, but I'm not a game collector who would sell his first born to have a Starwars  cockpit, so how dare I let common sense get in the way of a few folks getting their fix on home-brew pirated goodness.

You know, I really like it here and there are a lot of good folks who have loads of helpful information to share (cheffro and frizzle included), and it has helped me a lot.  I'm thankful for it and try to return the favor whenever I can.  However, I find it very odd that a group of people who strongly hate multi-game boards as much as you guys do can condone esentialy the same actions on something that is just as illegal. 

-Harry

[CheffoJeffo]

However, I find it very odd that a group of people who strongly hate multi-game boards as much as you guys do can condone esentialy the same actions on something that is just as illegal. 

No one said that I hated multi-game boards ... again you really need some more background ... you are equating multi-game board with illegal xxx-in-board. I don't even hate some of the xx-in-1 boards. You need to learn more about what you are talking about before you sound off equating all of these things.

I, personally, love that people like Jeff put together hacks like this that we hobbyists can use to enhance our machines. You can tell that many others do as well.

People who would turn him in, when his pricing is reasonable and he is not making this available for mass distribution, disgust me, particularly when they are guilty of breaking the same laws (different paragraphs, but the same laws).

It seems cut and dry to you because you don't have the contextual experience to appreciate the differences between the things you are comparing (e.g. WTF do Jeff's ROM hacks have to do with illegal multiboards in your pizza place ?). You further complicate things with your "it's bad for him to make money from his illegal activities, but my activities, which encompass violating vastly more IP, are fine because I am in the middle of nowhere and not making any money".

I have no problem with your personal view on the subject. I disagree, but I understand.

I have a problem with you boldy charging in and saying that you are going to turn Jeff in to NOA because you disagree. Then you say that you know that you are breaking the law and rationalize it. Then you completely fail to accept anybody's rationalizations of what Jeff is doing and proceed to tell us how bad he is for the community (that we have all been part of for quite a while now).

I would just ask that you tone down your rhetoric, lest someone lob a brick at your glass house, and, more importantly, leave Jeff alone.

 

[saint]

I'm just not sure any laws are being broken here, leaving any moral arguments aside.  This hack only works if you have a DK board, and already own the intellectual property in question. I have not seen anywhere that says any of Nintendo/Namco's intellectual property is contained on the kit he's selling. If the kit is simply a new set of instructions telling the game how to present and manipulate the data on the legally purchased DK boardset, then I don't believe there is any illegality involved. People sell kits to modify products consumers own all the time, such as kits to modify cars. There are many different arcade hacks out there, such as chips that will enable free play. Without evidence of copyright infringement to the contrary, I think any claims of illegality are speculation, at best.

If he does have Nintendo/Namco intellectual property on the kit he's selling instead of just referencing the code on the original board, then the discussion changes. I'm not entirely clear what is and isn't allowable as a derivative work.

--- saint

[Level42]

I never get personal on this forum, because there is never a need to really.

Most people here actualy _have_ some common sense and don't shout at eachother. Shouting is a sign of weeknes IMHO.

I'm done about this.

[polaris]

again i'm sorry dude, didnt mean to make the thread pollute like this with my question.

[CheffoJeffo]

I would ask why saint makes so much sense and cuts to the real heart of the matter, but I guess that's why he is the Supreme Chancellor and I'm lumped in with the troublemakers.

 

[ChadTower]

Having poked around in this space before on the Vectrex and 2600 (and having left because of being harassed by guys like bigh4th), let me tell you... what Jeff has done is no small achievement.  It's not only coding in a 4k space (though I would bet a DK board has more than that), it's coding in assembly on a 25 year old CPU.  There aren't exactly a wealth of resources out there on 25 year old assembly languages and there aren't that many people anymore with actual professional experience on them - which means if he's not one of a rapidly shrinking group, he had to extend a modern programming education back into far more primitive techniques and spaces - stuff they just don't teach in college anymore unless you look hard for it.  I'd love to hear from the guy how he went about it - whether he reproduced from scratch in assembly or if he located a disassembler, analyzed the results, and then went from there, as well as where he managed to find that compiler.

Since he's writing on a closed platform, the question would be does he owe any license fees to the copyright holders of that board layout.  Since there never was a licensing arrangement, and since it has been 25 years, I'd say no.  That leaves the two remaining issues of IP:  is he recycling pieces of Nintendo's original code and is he reproducing actual visual IP?  Both are possible, and not having seen this game I can't give a reasonable guess, but again... it's 25 years later and not being commercially produced.  There just isn't any profit being made, and therefore, it isn't worth the single hour a Namco retained attorney would spend drafting a C+D.... unless they decide to use this as demonstration of IP protection.  That could happen.  In trademark law, if you don't defend your trademarks, you lose them, even if the violators are hobbyists like this guy.  If he's going to have a problem that is where it will happen.

I love that people are still out there doing this and I really, really, really hope some bonehead with a poor understanding of hobby doesn't come along and dump these out for MAME. 

[FrizzleFried]

Question Harry...how much profit do the original copyright holders see when people sell their 25 year old cabinets at an auction?  NONE!  NOT A DIME!  Why?  Because they ALREADY MADE THEIR MONEY when they sold it the first time!

You're taking things out of their context. When you buy an arcade cabinet (or a CD or a book) you buy the right to use the content. You can transfer this right but not multiply or change the content.  Imagine if someone would change Tolkien's Lord of the Rings or recorded a sequel to Dark Side of the Moon without consulting with or getting permission from the copyright owners. He would be sued, wouldn't he? It gets worse if he decides to sell it on the internet because then it's not a non-profit operation anymore. Just because he's under the radar of a big corporation like Nintendo doesn't mean that they won't go after him. Nintendo did bring out sequels to Donkey Kong, just not in the arcades. Nintendo hold separate copyrights on the DK and Mario (Jumpman) characters and stills gets millions in revenue from them. Even using those in a complete rewrite of the DK game would make it illegal. Don't confuse legality with justice 

You quote one thing then argue another.  PER MY QUOTE,  if someone was to take their copy of Lord of the Rings and change it,  and sell ONLY THAT COPY at an auction... I doubt the estate of Tolkien would be there at the auction ready to bust the seller.

[shardian]

Chad,
There is a fairly in-depth article in Gameroom magazine in which the programmer details how he created each level. I suppose all of his info is also on his website, so it may pay to look there. According to the article, everything in the new game was already there in the source - even the pies. He basically "finished" a level that was already planned in the first place. Then he decided to go on and create a few more levels based on stuff that was there, but not implemented.

[ChadTower]

BTW, his analogy is completely flawed anyway... when you buy a cab you're buying commercial equipment, not just a license... it is nothing like a DVD or a book.  You are allowed to use that equipment for alternate uses if you wish.

Ah... so it sounds like he is definitely dipping into Nintendo's IP space.  Don't think Namco will care, really, nor do I...  I'm not sure when copyrights on embedded code expire, though, and 25 years does sound like an awfully long time in the technology sector.

[shardian]

He could have contacted Nintendo and propsed to do this under license, but would most likely not have been listened to. As we speak, Joymonkey is trying to license his Ms. Pac stencils. Will he be successful, who knows? Could this guy have gone the same route? Surely.

I think that unless Nintendo steps out and says otherwise, leave the guy alone.

[CheffoJeffo]

In Jeff's own words:

http://www.hyperspacearcade.com/D2K1.html

I was mistaken in my assessment above ... the total coverage in GRM was 2 articles over 8 pages (only part of which is covered by the link above).

[FrizzleFried]

I am not arguing about legality,  illegality,  etc.  I am arguing about the need for someone to go "tattle" to Nintendo of America over a product squarely aimed at the collector of 25 year old arcade machines.  It's not like Jeff is busting out Donkey Kong 2 disc's that can be played on the Xbox 360 or Playstation 3.  The guy is doing a service to the arcade enthusiast community and the last thing he needs is someone who hasn't a clue going and causing troubles for him.

Nintendo KNOWS about his upgrade.  There is a story on hyperspacearcade.com about how it was created and Scott mentioned about 2 weeks ago that a ton of Nintendo owned IP addresses were checking out that article on his site.  Jeffs "Foundry" hack has been around for a couple years now.  Nintendo has done nothing.  Perhaps they will though if some "genius" starts emailing his "outrage" to them?   Who knows.

The irony that a guy who has likely thousands of illegal ROMS sitting on his PC (along with an illegal version of Windows XP no doubt) is trying to somehow paint a picture that Jeffs single ROM hack is Satan Incarnate,  but his PC box chalk full of illegal software is somehow OK.

 

[CheffoJeffo]

This may not be strictly relevant, but in case the Nintendo folks come looking at this thread ...

I haven't had much to do with consoles in a number of decades. When I got my Apple ][, I pretty much lost interest in consoles. Further, at no point in time was I ever a fan of Nintendo games, either coin-op or console.

Decades passed and I got into this hobby.

My kids loved playing DK and Super Mario Bros on dedicated cabs. That interest has resulted in our acquiring a bunch of Nintendo consoles and GameBoys, along with the myriad cartridges to play on those units. We don't have a DS and don't have a GameCube, but have pretty much everything else.

For a guy who never really liked Nintendo games, I now have a lot of Nintendo gear ... all because my kids liked the original DK and SMB from my gameroom. And they are dying to play D2K (when they're not playing Super Mario Galaxy or Mario Party 8. ).

FWIW

[saint]

(Looking around my house)

1 NES console
2 SNES consoles
2 Game Boy Advances
1 Nintendo DS
1 Donkey Kong arcade cabinet
1 Donkey Kong Jr boardset
2 Nintendo Vs. cabinets
1 Nintendo dual VS. cabinet
1 Nintendo Wii just purchased
Edit - forgot my N64

A brazillion games for all of the above.

.... Nintendo's gotten their money out of me

[ChadTower]

Man, I don't even want to go to the effort of figuring out how much Nintendo hardware I have around... off the top of my head, and this is just at the moment:

6 NES + 500 NES games
2 SNES + 25 games
7 N64 + 150 N64 games
3 GC + 25 games
1 Wii + 4 games

6 Gameboys + many games
2 Gameboy Color + many games
2 GBA + a few games
2 GBA SP + a few games

That's not even taking into account the amount of Nintendo consoles I've found at yard sales, repaired, and sold on CL and Ebay, saving them from someone's trash bin.  That's got to be in the 50+ range for consoles and hundreds for games.

Let's just say that D2K isn't going to have any effect on my Nintendo console habits.

[CheffoJeffo]

Let's just say that D2K isn't going to have any effect on my Nintendo console habits.

Yeah, but you're a Collector!

 

[ChadTower]

Consoles were my bridge drug to vid cabs which were my bridge drug to pins.  It's a vicious cycle.  I fear what may be next.

[saint]

Consoles were my bridge drug to vid cabs which were my bridge drug to pins.  It's a vicious cycle.  I fear what may be next.

BYOHD

(Build Your Own Holo-Deck)

[ChadTower]

BYOHD

(Build Your Own Holo-Deck)

I was wondering if saint is where next is... writing a book/hosting a web community.   

Or maybe I started next working on old console homebrews and I wasn't hardcore enough to measure up.

[Level42]

Hey guys, someone is reproducing Nintendo restrictor plates.

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=73374.0

Let's mail Nintendo about this criminal !!!




O, and wasn't Donkey Kong a hack of Radar Scope ? 

[ChadTower]

Those plate are, ahem, already restricted.

 

[saint]

Those plate are, ahem, already restricted.

 

I need another new icon to go with my "annoyed" one. "Groan of the day."  Chad gets the first one.

[ChadTower]

Maybe this one?