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This year, no one was able to dress as Santa and deliver your yearly ROM gifts. But we did not want to dismiss the year 2021 without another dose of previously-undumped Chinese educational computer cartridges and multicarts. We know you definitely can't retain yourself from extensively playing those.
超級五筆漢字卡 8-in-1 (鸿达)
This early Hongda educational computer cartridge is unique in many ways.
First, it requires a keyboard whose protocol matches the original Family BASIC keyboard; most educational computer cartridges require Subor-type keyboards instead.
Does this mean that it predates the Subor keyboard famiclones? We don't know.
If so, that would make the rather run-of-the-mill selection of editor, typing mini-games and Family-BASIC-ripped programs the first of its kind.
小学语文数学智力游戏 趣味教学卡 - 小状元
Last year, we released the ROM image file of a 7-in-1 educational computer cartridge from Hongtu that was labelled "B version", speculating that there might be an A version with a different
set of games. We have not found the original "A version" yet, but this 16-in-1 here has all seven games from last year's "B version" plus what we deem to be the nine games from that "A version".
家庭电脑教学键盘 - Family Competer Keyboard
A bootleg version of the original Family BASIC, complete with what must be considered either an embarassing spelling error or a subtle joke (Family Competer).
This cartridge was commonly bundled with a New Star branded console bundled with the DB15-rewired Intellivison keyboard. Yes, you read that right: a company converted and sold leftover Intellivison keyboards to be compatible with the Famicom. This oddity in the already bizarre Famicom life in China appears to be one of the first attempt to sell an educational game with a keyboard in the country.
Sachen Superpack (versions A-C)
Around 1999-2000, Sachen released some famiclone consoles of their own that included their old games as built-in multicarts, namely the Super Mega Joy (version A) and Super Magic Joy (version C).
The ROM data of version C turned out to just be the ROM data of version A and version B tacked after each other, allowing us to provide version B despite not having (or knowing) the particular
console that had version B inside. Suspiciously, the multicart circuit board matches that of Tetris Family 19-in-1. In terms of games, these are all titles you have seen before, with the exception of
Pyramid, which has been changed into Mr. Stone, and which we have provided in extracted form. The copyright year also reads 1999, which hints the release date of these consoles.
帝释天 (Dì shì tiān)
无名传说 (Wúmíng chuánshuō)
Name-changed versions of an original Waixing game (魔神法师 - Demogorgon Monk) and of Waixing's translation of Hanjuku Hero.
The SMD133 writes in the games' initialization code to set up the ASIC for MMC3 compatibility mode strongly suggest that these were made by the notorious Hengge Dianzi.
Sonic REC-9388
This must be Dongda's first attempt at entering the Russian educational computer market, though they did release the more well-known PEC-586 in that country later.
This ROM file consists of the built-in ROM of that computer plus both of the small expansion cartridges, with "Logo" in the no. 2 slot, and the "PB" card in the no. 3 slot.
Once selecting the no. 3 slot, you must soft-reset to advance from the title screen to the actual sub-menu, then use the numeric keypad to move the selection before pressing "C" to select.
"Music and Drawing" is not functional at this point, as the ROM data for that part is encrypted and the encryption pattern not understood at this time. "Education with tape" seems to load
data from additional cassette tapes that we do not have.
超级学习卡 - Golden Key - 金钥匙
Another mysterious educational computer cartridge from another mysterious manufacturer named Shenzhen Guangda (光达). This one assumes yet another keyboard protocol that is somewhat similar to the Dongda PEC-586 keyboard, but with a different assignment of the keys that we have not quite figured out yet, so don't be disappointed that your key presses do not accomplish anything. We have no idea what kind of computer this was made for.
18-in-1 (DEX DX-011D)
This is the built-in ROM of the DEX DX-011D VT02 famiclone available in Thailand.
A rather unremarkable collection of Inventor hacks.
1993 Super HiK 6-in-1 - 街霸系列出撃! (B-010)
1500-in-1 (ET-187)
1995年超値系列 HiK 4-in-1 (EW-014)
1993 Super HIK 4-in-1 新卡 256K 組合系列 (F-034)
Super 4-in-1 (GameStar No. 41)
1996 Super HiK Gold Card 2-in-1 (GS-01)
500-in-1 (HH-xxx)
王牌系列 Super HiK 42-in-1 (K-42001)
12-in-1 (Liko)
Super Game 143-in-1 (HKMK-143)
117-in-1 (M3H12 PCB)
Super 3-in-1 (NT-933)
100000-in-1 (NTDEC)
Golden 8-in-1 (NTDEC)
Super 4-in-1 (ST-401)
4-in-1 (T-4010)
Super 4-in-1 (Techline A0010100)
9-in-1 (Techline A010207)
Super 4-in-1 (Techline)
2000 Super Aladdin (VT-104)
Super Game 3-in-1 (YH-3125)
Exciting Sport Turbo 4-in-1 (YH-4131)
Exciting Sport Turbo 4-in-1 (YH-4135)
Exciting Sport Turbo 4-in-1 (YH-4136)
Super 1998 3-in-1 (卡聖 VT-835)
1994 超值金卡 画面选关 8-in-1 (小霸王 0801)
1992 突破 劃面選關 190-in-1
1992 蓋世 190-in-1 劃面選關
1992 超値高K金卡 110-in-1
1992 超级天王卡新 150-in-1 棋王版
1993 New 860-in-1 Over-Valued Golden Version Games
1994 Super 9999-in-1 超級強卡 超越羣倫
9000000-in-1
92年超高K 黄金卡 35-in-1 刺激大驚險旅風侠
'93 世界冠軍卡超値享受
Game 500-in-1
Home Video Game 3500 Built-in Games
PAL Home Computer 3600
YH 78-in-1 Super Game
The rest of today's releases are the usual merry band of multicarts, most of which with boring text-only menus; we only show screenshots of those that offer at least something for the eye.
Game 500-in-1's #110 Bar Games is reported to be glitchy even on original hardware. 9000000-in-1 requires you to awkwardly select a game by entering its number.
Download the ROM archive here.
Credits to Dušan, ggdjr and krzysiobal for dumping some of the ROM files.
超級五筆漢字卡 8-in-1 (鸿达)
This early Hongda educational computer cartridge is unique in many ways.
First, it requires a keyboard whose protocol matches the original Family BASIC keyboard; most educational computer cartridges require Subor-type keyboards instead.
Does this mean that it predates the Subor keyboard famiclones? We don't know.
If so, that would make the rather run-of-the-mill selection of editor, typing mini-games and Family-BASIC-ripped programs the first of its kind.
小学语文数学智力游戏 趣味教学卡 - 小状元
Last year, we released the ROM image file of a 7-in-1 educational computer cartridge from Hongtu that was labelled "B version", speculating that there might be an A version with a different
set of games. We have not found the original "A version" yet, but this 16-in-1 here has all seven games from last year's "B version" plus what we deem to be the nine games from that "A version".
家庭电脑教学键盘 - Family Competer Keyboard
A bootleg version of the original Family BASIC, complete with what must be considered either an embarassing spelling error or a subtle joke (Family Competer).
This cartridge was commonly bundled with a New Star branded console bundled with the DB15-rewired Intellivison keyboard. Yes, you read that right: a company converted and sold leftover Intellivison keyboards to be compatible with the Famicom. This oddity in the already bizarre Famicom life in China appears to be one of the first attempt to sell an educational game with a keyboard in the country.
Sachen Superpack (versions A-C)
;)
Around 1999-2000, Sachen released some famiclone consoles of their own that included their old games as built-in multicarts, namely the Super Mega Joy (version A) and Super Magic Joy (version C).
The ROM data of version C turned out to just be the ROM data of version A and version B tacked after each other, allowing us to provide version B despite not having (or knowing) the particular
console that had version B inside. Suspiciously, the multicart circuit board matches that of Tetris Family 19-in-1. In terms of games, these are all titles you have seen before, with the exception of
Pyramid, which has been changed into Mr. Stone, and which we have provided in extracted form. The copyright year also reads 1999, which hints the release date of these consoles.
帝释天 (Dì shì tiān)
无名传说 (Wúmíng chuánshuō)
Name-changed versions of an original Waixing game (魔神法师 - Demogorgon Monk) and of Waixing's translation of Hanjuku Hero.
The SMD133 writes in the games' initialization code to set up the ASIC for MMC3 compatibility mode strongly suggest that these were made by the notorious Hengge Dianzi.
Sonic REC-9388
This must be Dongda's first attempt at entering the Russian educational computer market, though they did release the more well-known PEC-586 in that country later.
This ROM file consists of the built-in ROM of that computer plus both of the small expansion cartridges, with "Logo" in the no. 2 slot, and the "PB" card in the no. 3 slot.
Once selecting the no. 3 slot, you must soft-reset to advance from the title screen to the actual sub-menu, then use the numeric keypad to move the selection before pressing "C" to select.
"Music and Drawing" is not functional at this point, as the ROM data for that part is encrypted and the encryption pattern not understood at this time. "Education with tape" seems to load
data from additional cassette tapes that we do not have.
超级学习卡 - Golden Key - 金钥匙
Another mysterious educational computer cartridge from another mysterious manufacturer named Shenzhen Guangda (光达). This one assumes yet another keyboard protocol that is somewhat similar to the Dongda PEC-586 keyboard, but with a different assignment of the keys that we have not quite figured out yet, so don't be disappointed that your key presses do not accomplish anything. We have no idea what kind of computer this was made for.
18-in-1 (DEX DX-011D)
This is the built-in ROM of the DEX DX-011D VT02 famiclone available in Thailand.
A rather unremarkable collection of Inventor hacks.
1993 Super HiK 6-in-1 - 街霸系列出撃! (B-010)
1500-in-1 (ET-187)
1995年超値系列 HiK 4-in-1 (EW-014)
1993 Super HIK 4-in-1 新卡 256K 組合系列 (F-034)
Super 4-in-1 (GameStar No. 41)
1996 Super HiK Gold Card 2-in-1 (GS-01)
500-in-1 (HH-xxx)
王牌系列 Super HiK 42-in-1 (K-42001)
12-in-1 (Liko)
Super Game 143-in-1 (HKMK-143)
117-in-1 (M3H12 PCB)
Super 3-in-1 (NT-933)
100000-in-1 (NTDEC)
Golden 8-in-1 (NTDEC)
Super 4-in-1 (ST-401)
4-in-1 (T-4010)
Super 4-in-1 (Techline A0010100)
9-in-1 (Techline A010207)
Super 4-in-1 (Techline)
2000 Super Aladdin (VT-104)
Super Game 3-in-1 (YH-3125)
Exciting Sport Turbo 4-in-1 (YH-4131)
Exciting Sport Turbo 4-in-1 (YH-4135)
Exciting Sport Turbo 4-in-1 (YH-4136)
Super 1998 3-in-1 (卡聖 VT-835)
1994 超值金卡 画面选关 8-in-1 (小霸王 0801)
1992 突破 劃面選關 190-in-1
1992 蓋世 190-in-1 劃面選關
1992 超値高K金卡 110-in-1
1992 超级天王卡新 150-in-1 棋王版
1993 New 860-in-1 Over-Valued Golden Version Games
1994 Super 9999-in-1 超級強卡 超越羣倫
9000000-in-1
92年超高K 黄金卡 35-in-1 刺激大驚險旅風侠
'93 世界冠軍卡超値享受
Game 500-in-1
Home Video Game 3500 Built-in Games
PAL Home Computer 3600
YH 78-in-1 Super Game
;)
The rest of today's releases are the usual merry band of multicarts, most of which with boring text-only menus; we only show screenshots of those that offer at least something for the eye.
Game 500-in-1's #110 Bar Games is reported to be glitchy even on original hardware. 9000000-in-1 requires you to awkwardly select a game by entering its number.
Download the ROM archive here.
Credits to Dušan, ggdjr and krzysiobal for dumping some of the ROM files.
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We heard you like multicarts, so here's a 74 multicart-in-1 post. Two more and we would have had the same number as the world-famous 76-in-1.
Liming Electronic 18-in-1 Educational Computer
WOW Study Computer
Two educational computer cartridges for use with the Subor keyboard. All of its programs have been seen many times before.
Liming Electronics cartridge
Next, we have a large number of multicart dumps. We shall group them by common features.
(NTDEC) 14-in-1
This plain-looking menu from our esteemed friends at NTDEC may well be the first unlicensed multicart with a selection screen ever made, going by the 1988 date, and so is deserving of being presented on its own.
Cartridge cover
(外星 kk3312) 8-in-1
(外星 kk3313) 8-in-1
(外星 kk3315) 8-in-1
More from Waixing's "kk" series that bundle one of their larger original games with seven mini-games from Nice Code Software. In this case, we have versions of Happy Biqi, Shock and Tianwang Jiangmo Zhuan a.k.a. Gods & Devils. This version of Happy Biqi is slightly different from all the previously-dumped ones, having the English title as the main title, but retaining a Chinese subtitle. Gods & Devils is the Chinese version, while an English one was seen on Waixing's 120-in-1 multicart. We had high hopes for this version of Shock -- all previous dumps crashed upon reaching the third stage, but some poster on Famicom World had claimed to have finished the version found on this multicart. To our great disappointment, this version crashes just as all the other (dumped) ones.
Cartridge covers:
kk3012
kk3013
kk3015
(BS-6028) 180-in-1
(FK-014) 128-in-1
(FK-033) 52-in-1
Three more members of the "bouncing ball" series of 256+128 KiB multicarts, all of whom select different game counts using a solder pad setting. FK-014's menu song is from the homebrew NSF "Vampire Hunter - Scotland" by "Alf Layla", although the DPCM samples are broken here.
(YH-4132) Exciting Sport Turbo 4-in-1
(GK-L03A) 4-in-1
(GK-L06A) 4-in-1
(SV105) 52-in-1 (WQ1506 E)
(NT-2054) Super GK 54-in-1
(VT-321) Super GK 53-in-1
(VT-331) Super GK 47-in-1
Super GK 48-in-1
Going by mapper hardware rather than by cartridge ID code, these all seem to have been made by GameStar. YH-4132 is the most interesting of the bunch, giving us a unique hack of Konami's Track & Field with some nice menus.
GK-L03A, GK-L06A and SV105 at least have nice pictures in their menus, while NT-2054, VT-321 and VT-331 are just boring.
(HH-001) Super 500-in-1
(HH-022) Super 63-in-1
(HH-038) Super 116-in-1
(HH-054) 81 in 1 Super
(HH-xxx) Super 31-in-1
(WS-0181) 18-in-1
(WS-1162) 天天樂 Super 116-in-1
(WS-1351) 135-in-1
The HH-xxx multicarts all share the same "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" menu music. The WS-xxxx multicarts have boring black-background menus, but run on the same or compatible mapper hardware.
(0301) 4-in-1
(0404) 118-in-1
(0405) 138-in-1
130-in-1
(0408) 126-in-1
700000-in-1 (BS-400 PCB)
(GD-106) 18-in-1
Double Dragon 530-in-1
More assorted multicarts from various manufacturers, having pretty pictures and some even music in their menus. Some of them have broken music in "Magic Jewelry" even on real hardware.
(108-03) 9999-in-1
(110-05) 40-in-1
(AB-5027) 158-in-1
(C-32) Golden Best Selling Card 39-in-1
(CA-006) 20-in-1
(DP-33) 3-in-1 High Standerd
(FL-14A) 14-in-1
(GN-91B) 2-in-1
(KB46) 1000000-in-1
(KD-6126) Super 76-in-1
(KD-6129) Super 78-in-1
(KD-6130) Super 66-in-1
(Mekosonic) 晝面選關 300-in-1 超值享受 情報員
(MK-150) Super Golden Cart 4-in-1
(NJ-01b) Super 63-in-1
(NT-220) Super 57-in-1
(NT-514) Super 4-in-1
(NT-8011) Super 4-in-1
(PS-5033) 卡聖 Hi Game 2000 800-in-1
(PS-5046) 51-in-1 New Game 2000
(Realtec AN-555) 6-in-1
(VT-4251) 1999 Super 3-in-1
(VT-5320) 200-in-1
(WQ5209) 1998 Super 64-in-1
(YH-313) Super 3-in-1
1998 4000000-in-1 (BS-400 PCB)
2200000-in-1
27-in-1
3000000-in-1 (BS-300 PCB)
67-in-1 (VT1512A PCB)
7500-in-1
9700-in-1
98+1800000-in-1
Super 165-in-1
Super 7-in-1
Even more assorted multicarts, most of them from Realtec, with menus too boring to depict as screenshots here. One point of interest: KB46 has a hitherto unknown hack of Nintendo's Soccer named "Futbol Columbiano", which we present in extracted form as a separate ROM file.
(VT-2037) 2-in-1 (Terminator 2: Judgement Day/Batman: The Video Game)
(VT-2038) 2-in-1 (Monster in my Pocket hack "Flash Batman"/Alien 3)
Super 2-in-1 (WQ 2047, 1998) (TMNT Tournament Fighters, Karnov)
Reset-based multicarts, switching between two games each. It's quite rare to see Karnov on a multicart, even more so on a reset-based one.
(FK-8380) Spider-Man꞉ Return of the Sinister Six
(VT-3121) Captain Planet and the Planeteers
Single-game bootleg cartridges, mostly of interest to be able to associate a cartridge ID to them.
➡Download the ROMs⬅
Credits to Consolethinks and Nikolka for dumping most of these.
Liming Electronic 18-in-1 Educational Computer
WOW Study Computer
Two educational computer cartridges for use with the Subor keyboard. All of its programs have been seen many times before.
;)
;)
Liming Electronics cartridge
Next, we have a large number of multicart dumps. We shall group them by common features.
(NTDEC) 14-in-1
This plain-looking menu from our esteemed friends at NTDEC may well be the first unlicensed multicart with a selection screen ever made, going by the 1988 date, and so is deserving of being presented on its own.
Cartridge cover(外星 kk3312) 8-in-1
(外星 kk3313) 8-in-1
(外星 kk3315) 8-in-1
More from Waixing's "kk" series that bundle one of their larger original games with seven mini-games from Nice Code Software. In this case, we have versions of Happy Biqi, Shock and Tianwang Jiangmo Zhuan a.k.a. Gods & Devils. This version of Happy Biqi is slightly different from all the previously-dumped ones, having the English title as the main title, but retaining a Chinese subtitle. Gods & Devils is the Chinese version, while an English one was seen on Waixing's 120-in-1 multicart. We had high hopes for this version of Shock -- all previous dumps crashed upon reaching the third stage, but some poster on Famicom World had claimed to have finished the version found on this multicart. To our great disappointment, this version crashes just as all the other (dumped) ones.
;)
Cartridge covers:
kk3012
kk3013
kk3015
(BS-6028) 180-in-1
(FK-014) 128-in-1
(FK-033) 52-in-1
Three more members of the "bouncing ball" series of 256+128 KiB multicarts, all of whom select different game counts using a solder pad setting. FK-014's menu song is from the homebrew NSF "Vampire Hunter - Scotland" by "Alf Layla", although the DPCM samples are broken here.
;)
(YH-4132) Exciting Sport Turbo 4-in-1
(GK-L03A) 4-in-1
(GK-L06A) 4-in-1
(SV105) 52-in-1 (WQ1506 E)
(NT-2054) Super GK 54-in-1
(VT-321) Super GK 53-in-1
(VT-331) Super GK 47-in-1
Super GK 48-in-1
Going by mapper hardware rather than by cartridge ID code, these all seem to have been made by GameStar. YH-4132 is the most interesting of the bunch, giving us a unique hack of Konami's Track & Field with some nice menus.
GK-L03A, GK-L06A and SV105 at least have nice pictures in their menus, while NT-2054, VT-321 and VT-331 are just boring.
;)
;)
;)
(HH-001) Super 500-in-1
(HH-022) Super 63-in-1
(HH-038) Super 116-in-1
(HH-054) 81 in 1 Super
(HH-xxx) Super 31-in-1
(WS-0181) 18-in-1
(WS-1162) 天天樂 Super 116-in-1
(WS-1351) 135-in-1
The HH-xxx multicarts all share the same "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" menu music. The WS-xxxx multicarts have boring black-background menus, but run on the same or compatible mapper hardware.
;)
(0301) 4-in-1
(0404) 118-in-1
(0405) 138-in-1
130-in-1
(0408) 126-in-1
700000-in-1 (BS-400 PCB)
(GD-106) 18-in-1
Double Dragon 530-in-1
More assorted multicarts from various manufacturers, having pretty pictures and some even music in their menus. Some of them have broken music in "Magic Jewelry" even on real hardware.
;)
(108-03) 9999-in-1
(110-05) 40-in-1
(AB-5027) 158-in-1
(C-32) Golden Best Selling Card 39-in-1
(CA-006) 20-in-1
(DP-33) 3-in-1 High Standerd
(FL-14A) 14-in-1
(GN-91B) 2-in-1
(KB46) 1000000-in-1
(KD-6126) Super 76-in-1
(KD-6129) Super 78-in-1
(KD-6130) Super 66-in-1
(Mekosonic) 晝面選關 300-in-1 超值享受 情報員
(MK-150) Super Golden Cart 4-in-1
(NJ-01b) Super 63-in-1
(NT-220) Super 57-in-1
(NT-514) Super 4-in-1
(NT-8011) Super 4-in-1
(PS-5033) 卡聖 Hi Game 2000 800-in-1
(PS-5046) 51-in-1 New Game 2000
(Realtec AN-555) 6-in-1
(VT-4251) 1999 Super 3-in-1
(VT-5320) 200-in-1
(WQ5209) 1998 Super 64-in-1
(YH-313) Super 3-in-1
1998 4000000-in-1 (BS-400 PCB)
2200000-in-1
27-in-1
3000000-in-1 (BS-300 PCB)
67-in-1 (VT1512A PCB)
7500-in-1
9700-in-1
98+1800000-in-1
Super 165-in-1
Super 7-in-1
Even more assorted multicarts, most of them from Realtec, with menus too boring to depict as screenshots here. One point of interest: KB46 has a hitherto unknown hack of Nintendo's Soccer named "Futbol Columbiano", which we present in extracted form as a separate ROM file.
;)
(VT-2037) 2-in-1 (Terminator 2: Judgement Day/Batman: The Video Game)
(VT-2038) 2-in-1 (Monster in my Pocket hack "Flash Batman"/Alien 3)
Super 2-in-1 (WQ 2047, 1998) (TMNT Tournament Fighters, Karnov)
Reset-based multicarts, switching between two games each. It's quite rare to see Karnov on a multicart, even more so on a reset-based one.
(FK-8380) Spider-Man꞉ Return of the Sinister Six
(VT-3121) Captain Planet and the Planeteers
Single-game bootleg cartridges, mostly of interest to be able to associate a cartridge ID to them.
➡Download the ROMs⬅
Credits to Consolethinks and Nikolka for dumping most of these.
It's Christmas in the most god-forsaken year since World War II, so what could be more appropriate than a gargantuan onslaught of grotesque new mini-games for the most wretched of plug'n play consoles?
First, we have the second edition of NES ports of various Intellivision games. Techno Source, seemingly unhappy with Nice Code's NES ports of games such as Night Stalker and Astrosmash, commissioned a different developer -- whose name is known but to God and to manufacturers of cheap dance mats -- to re-port some and newly-port other Intellivision games for their "Intellivision 2nd Edition" and two-players-supporting "Intellivision X2" consoles. Their effort bestows unto us a total of fourteen new NES versions of Intellivision originals. There would be even more titles bestowed unto us if the current "Intellivision X2" ROM image were complete; we have to work with what we have.
Next, we join in spirit the ranks of cartoon enthusiasts who rejoice any time a long-lost original title card of a Blue Ribbon Merry Melody is recovered from a dusty 16mm film can, thanks to a slew of Jungletac UM6578 and VT03 games with newly-found title screens. Did you know that "Push the Box" was originally called "Big Workload"? Did you know that "Gobang" was really called "Gobang" even inside the game? Did you know that Jungletac originally had a "Speed Racer" license? It's all true! And, you can now play "Snood" and "Snood Towers" in their "original" VT03 versions before they became "Magic Bubble" and "Bubble Factory", respectively. If that does not excite you, I don't know what will.
But wait, there is more! Jungletac (a.k.a. D.J. Jungle, a.k.a. Junglesoft) did not rest on their laurels after having blessed the world with their VT03 games. When V.R. Technology of Taiwan unleashed their next enhanced famiclone model, the VT369 with 256-color eight-bits-per-plane graphics, the "D.J." rose to the challenge and gave many of Jungle's games a much-needed facelift. All this in addition to entirely new titles, such as something that pretends to be a Golf game, something that pretends to be a Mini-Golf game, and something that pretends to be a Fishing game. The first impression is all that counts, they say, and accordingly, the games end or repeat after the first impression, or about three holes in Golf. Jungletac's business partner Lexibook seemingly had more luck than brains and for some inscrutable reason managed to obtain a license to publish Disney-themed variants of various Jungletac mini-games. So don't get suspicious when you see a Star-Wars themed "One Day of Mr. Potato", or Huang Xinwei's "Columns" port -- a game that Jungletac had originally hacked into "Jewel Master" -- with Minnie Mouse in it.
Project Plug'n Play had previously omitted one of the most prolific developers of plug'n play material: Cube Tech. Our exhibition of their handiwork will begin with an overview of their graphics hacks of regular NES games. Cube Tech's VT03 hacks can easily be recognized by their over-use of garish rainbow colors, and by some of them crashing after the first level, such as "Eat Beans" (Pac-Man). These early hacks were originally included as bonus material on various Macro Winners "Game Sporz" consoles whose main attraction, such as it were, was a single original Cube Tech sports game.
Cube Tech later created many, many hacks of NES games for the VT369, featuring all-enhanced tasteless 256-color graphics and completely-replaced audio comprised of 8 kHz samples of stolen Italo Disco and public domain tracks. Many of these VT369 hacks even exist in high-resolution (512x480) variants, but we only have the NES-resolution editions so far.
Slightly more exciting are Cube Tech's originals. You have seen many of their VT03 games without realizing that they were originally from Cube Tech: Waixing games such as Cat vs. Dog, Get Lost, Helli-Mission or Water Fire were all made by Cube Tech. Having an aversion to the NES APU, Cube Tech instead made use of a custom ADPCM sound chip to deliver low-fidelity smashing music on the title screens, and appropriate sound effects in-game. Waixing had no time for such extravagant nonsense, and in a jiffy replaced all audio with a single nerve-wrecking NES APU muzak track per game that never stops, and no sound effects whatsoever. With the original ADPCM audio, games such as Get Lost are actually somewhat fun to play. Some of the restored VT03 titles come from a VT369 source for the time being, so don't be surprised that it does not say "VT03" in the emulator's Debug window.
Another batch of Cube Tech originals are the aforementioned Boxing/Ping Pong/Tennis games from the Game Sporz consoles, plus ten soccer-themed sports offerings from a Taikee plug'n play controller. The term "soccer-themed" should be taken with a grain of salt though in light of such gems as "Soccer Arkanoid". The remainder of Cube Tech titles are all-original VT369 games, "original" in the sense that Cube Tech programmed them by themselves, though obviously "inspired" by the game ideas of more capable game authors.
Last, but certainly least, we have a few entirely original games from Shenzhen Wellminds. The most outstanding feature of these are the samples recorded at the ultra-low rate of 4 kHz. "Baba qu Naer" is a game based on some Chinese reality television show. The others are native games for a 160x128 handheld display, and will therefore look like thumbnails on a normal computer screen.
That concludes our fantastic journey into the cave of monsters for today. Be sure to download the latest NintendulatorNRS build from the left-hand panel of this blog, or you won't see much of many of the new exhibits. Refer to the WHATSNEW.TXT file for a complete list of changes since the last release, and LIST.TXT to search for any particular title in the archive. Download the current archive here. Merry Christmas!
Credits to bunnyboy, Tim Schuerewegen and MAME for dumps of the various consoles from which these extracts were taken.
First, we have the second edition of NES ports of various Intellivision games. Techno Source, seemingly unhappy with Nice Code's NES ports of games such as Night Stalker and Astrosmash, commissioned a different developer -- whose name is known but to God and to manufacturers of cheap dance mats -- to re-port some and newly-port other Intellivision games for their "Intellivision 2nd Edition" and two-players-supporting "Intellivision X2" consoles. Their effort bestows unto us a total of fourteen new NES versions of Intellivision originals. There would be even more titles bestowed unto us if the current "Intellivision X2" ROM image were complete; we have to work with what we have.
;)
Next, we join in spirit the ranks of cartoon enthusiasts who rejoice any time a long-lost original title card of a Blue Ribbon Merry Melody is recovered from a dusty 16mm film can, thanks to a slew of Jungletac UM6578 and VT03 games with newly-found title screens. Did you know that "Push the Box" was originally called "Big Workload"? Did you know that "Gobang" was really called "Gobang" even inside the game? Did you know that Jungletac originally had a "Speed Racer" license? It's all true! And, you can now play "Snood" and "Snood Towers" in their "original" VT03 versions before they became "Magic Bubble" and "Bubble Factory", respectively. If that does not excite you, I don't know what will.
But wait, there is more! Jungletac (a.k.a. D.J. Jungle, a.k.a. Junglesoft) did not rest on their laurels after having blessed the world with their VT03 games. When V.R. Technology of Taiwan unleashed their next enhanced famiclone model, the VT369 with 256-color eight-bits-per-plane graphics, the "D.J." rose to the challenge and gave many of Jungle's games a much-needed facelift. All this in addition to entirely new titles, such as something that pretends to be a Golf game, something that pretends to be a Mini-Golf game, and something that pretends to be a Fishing game. The first impression is all that counts, they say, and accordingly, the games end or repeat after the first impression, or about three holes in Golf. Jungletac's business partner Lexibook seemingly had more luck than brains and for some inscrutable reason managed to obtain a license to publish Disney-themed variants of various Jungletac mini-games. So don't get suspicious when you see a Star-Wars themed "One Day of Mr. Potato", or Huang Xinwei's "Columns" port -- a game that Jungletac had originally hacked into "Jewel Master" -- with Minnie Mouse in it.
Project Plug'n Play had previously omitted one of the most prolific developers of plug'n play material: Cube Tech. Our exhibition of their handiwork will begin with an overview of their graphics hacks of regular NES games. Cube Tech's VT03 hacks can easily be recognized by their over-use of garish rainbow colors, and by some of them crashing after the first level, such as "Eat Beans" (Pac-Man). These early hacks were originally included as bonus material on various Macro Winners "Game Sporz" consoles whose main attraction, such as it were, was a single original Cube Tech sports game.
Cube Tech later created many, many hacks of NES games for the VT369, featuring all-enhanced tasteless 256-color graphics and completely-replaced audio comprised of 8 kHz samples of stolen Italo Disco and public domain tracks. Many of these VT369 hacks even exist in high-resolution (512x480) variants, but we only have the NES-resolution editions so far.
Slightly more exciting are Cube Tech's originals. You have seen many of their VT03 games without realizing that they were originally from Cube Tech: Waixing games such as Cat vs. Dog, Get Lost, Helli-Mission or Water Fire were all made by Cube Tech. Having an aversion to the NES APU, Cube Tech instead made use of a custom ADPCM sound chip to deliver low-fidelity smashing music on the title screens, and appropriate sound effects in-game. Waixing had no time for such extravagant nonsense, and in a jiffy replaced all audio with a single nerve-wrecking NES APU muzak track per game that never stops, and no sound effects whatsoever. With the original ADPCM audio, games such as Get Lost are actually somewhat fun to play. Some of the restored VT03 titles come from a VT369 source for the time being, so don't be surprised that it does not say "VT03" in the emulator's Debug window.
Another batch of Cube Tech originals are the aforementioned Boxing/Ping Pong/Tennis games from the Game Sporz consoles, plus ten soccer-themed sports offerings from a Taikee plug'n play controller. The term "soccer-themed" should be taken with a grain of salt though in light of such gems as "Soccer Arkanoid". The remainder of Cube Tech titles are all-original VT369 games, "original" in the sense that Cube Tech programmed them by themselves, though obviously "inspired" by the game ideas of more capable game authors.
;)
Last, but certainly least, we have a few entirely original games from Shenzhen Wellminds. The most outstanding feature of these are the samples recorded at the ultra-low rate of 4 kHz. "Baba qu Naer" is a game based on some Chinese reality television show. The others are native games for a 160x128 handheld display, and will therefore look like thumbnails on a normal computer screen.
That concludes our fantastic journey into the cave of monsters for today. Be sure to download the latest NintendulatorNRS build from the left-hand panel of this blog, or you won't see much of many of the new exhibits. Refer to the WHATSNEW.TXT file for a complete list of changes since the last release, and LIST.TXT to search for any particular title in the archive. Download the current archive here. Merry Christmas!
Credits to bunnyboy, Tim Schuerewegen and MAME for dumps of the various consoles from which these extracts were taken.
Super Mega Christmas
Three years ago, LIBG offered to all of its reader an Idea-Tek'mas. It's only natural that a Super Mega Christmas would happen someday, and here it is! Now we can only hope for a TX'mas in the future?
Venice Beach Volley (Super Mega)
This sports game, originally commissioned by American Video Entertainment, was published in Taiwan by developer Idea-Tek themselves under their "Super Mega" brand. Nonetheless to say, this is definitely the hardest Super Mega and TXC Micro Genius title to find.
A mapper-hacked dump has been in GoodNES for a long time; we now provide the original unmodified ROM that uses Idea-Tek's custom mapper 172.
Cartridge cover
Olympic I.Q.
Kuk Je Academy was likely on a ride to release all of Sachen's educational catalog. But they were ultimately stopped at their... third release? Olympic I.Q. is their last known release. The Thin Chen version was advertised in the English, Pyramid manual, meaning it was not finished at the time of its release. Any subsequent game to Olympic I.Q., if any must have went completely unnoticed.
Cartridge cover
虎門禁煙 (Hǔmén Jìnyān)
In 1996, Fuzhou Waixing published an original RPG under the name 林則徐禁烟 (Línzéxú Jìnyān, "Linzexu Banned Smoking").
It was popular enough to be pirated by other Chinese companies, such as 振华 (Zhènhuá). This ROM file here is assumed to be Zhènhuá's pirated version of the Waixing RPG, which changes the title slightly.
Apparently, the name of the pirated version had become enough of an established name for Waixing to later re-release the game, under their Fuzhou Coolboy brand, with that name.
Pokémon 2000
This previously-undumped variant of the Pokémon-themed hack of Hudson's Felix the Cat has the player begin as Charmander, who turns into Pikachu on the occasion of a power-up.
Super 500-in-1
Super Mario 160-in-1 Funny Time
Y2K 76-in-1
Generic multicarts of various sizes, dumped for their colorful menus, and because we can.
Smart Kids
A rather large educational computer cartridge in Spanish. There is also a speech chip on the circuit board whose functionality is not emulated at the moment.
The latest version of NintendulatorNRS (binary and source) can be downloaded from its dedicated page in the blog sidebar.
➡ Download the ROMs ⬅
Credits to SupahRetroooo for dumping Hǔmén Jìnyān, Pokémon 2000 and Smart Kids, to Consolethinks for dumping Super 500-in-1, superretrogamer2741 for dumping Super Mario 160-in-1 Funny Time and Y2K 76-in-1 and to GamingAlexandria for Olympic I.Q.
Venice Beach Volley (Super Mega)
This sports game, originally commissioned by American Video Entertainment, was published in Taiwan by developer Idea-Tek themselves under their "Super Mega" brand. Nonetheless to say, this is definitely the hardest Super Mega and TXC Micro Genius title to find.
A mapper-hacked dump has been in GoodNES for a long time; we now provide the original unmodified ROM that uses Idea-Tek's custom mapper 172.
Cartridge cover
Olympic I.Q.
Kuk Je Academy was likely on a ride to release all of Sachen's educational catalog. But they were ultimately stopped at their... third release? Olympic I.Q. is their last known release. The Thin Chen version was advertised in the English, Pyramid manual, meaning it was not finished at the time of its release. Any subsequent game to Olympic I.Q., if any must have went completely unnoticed.
Cartridge cover
虎門禁煙 (Hǔmén Jìnyān)
In 1996, Fuzhou Waixing published an original RPG under the name 林則徐禁烟 (Línzéxú Jìnyān, "Linzexu Banned Smoking").
It was popular enough to be pirated by other Chinese companies, such as 振华 (Zhènhuá). This ROM file here is assumed to be Zhènhuá's pirated version of the Waixing RPG, which changes the title slightly.
Apparently, the name of the pirated version had become enough of an established name for Waixing to later re-release the game, under their Fuzhou Coolboy brand, with that name.
Pokémon 2000
This previously-undumped variant of the Pokémon-themed hack of Hudson's Felix the Cat has the player begin as Charmander, who turns into Pikachu on the occasion of a power-up.
Super 500-in-1
Super Mario 160-in-1 Funny Time
Y2K 76-in-1
Generic multicarts of various sizes, dumped for their colorful menus, and because we can.
Smart Kids
A rather large educational computer cartridge in Spanish. There is also a speech chip on the circuit board whose functionality is not emulated at the moment.
The latest version of NintendulatorNRS (binary and source) can be downloaded from its dedicated page in the blog sidebar.
➡ Download the ROMs ⬅
Credits to SupahRetroooo for dumping Hǔmén Jìnyān, Pokémon 2000 and Smart Kids, to Consolethinks for dumping Super 500-in-1, superretrogamer2741 for dumping Super Mario 160-in-1 Funny Time and Y2K 76-in-1 and to GamingAlexandria for Olympic I.Q.
Mainland China may have been the country that had the largest throughput in educational titles. Let's be honest, not so many people are interested in them and while original games developed there seem to be quite hard to come by, there's quite a fair supply of unheard of, old educational cartridges showing up on auctions sites. But hey, don't think this is all boring and not worth being checked out!
小学生数学 CAI
Moving the date of the earliest known Waixing cartridge a bit further back in time, this collection of four math learning games is far less professionally made than the English 3-in-1 CAI cartridge released here some time ago. Use the Subor keyboard to enter numbers when asked to.
What's the nice touch that makes this educational cartridge unique? Possibly the fact you're greated by a flying saucer. That's some Extraterrestrial Technology after all!
Scans:
Cartridge cover
Box cover
小状元数学 (B1.0版)
A completely obscure Math-teaching cartridge made by 宏图发展公司 (Hongtu Development Company) and manufactured by 先达电子公司 (Xianda Electronics). It was released sometime in 1995. The included games are really simple and while some have interesting title screens, the games themselves are neither particularly polished nor enjoyable.
The cartridge cover suggests that there may be more cartridges. It notably reads Ｂ版 (B Version). May we suspect that an A版 may exist with a different set of games? And before we forget this last fact, it appears to use a font last seen in Supergun 3-in-1, developed by Tai Jing Da Dong and released by TXC around 1993.
Cartridge scans:
Cartridge front cover Cartridge back sticker
铁甲突击 (KT-1025)
星河战队 (KT-1026)
Two Jncota title screen hacks of the same game, namely, Waixing's Chinese translation of Bandai's third entry into the SD Gundam Gachapon series, the original Japanese title being "SD Gundam Gachapon Senshi 3: Eiyuu Senki".
Scans:
KT1025-1026 (1)
KT1025-1026 (2)
KT1025-1026 (3)
KT1025-1026 (4)
KT1025-1026 (5)
4-in-1 HQ 高品質合卡꞉ 金牌可選關 - 影像淸晰穩定
This four-in-one multicart has both Super Mario Bros. and the Japanese disk-only Super Mario Bros. 2 on the same cart, but with the graphics swapped!
The Chinese tagline ("off-image is clear and stable") seems to imply that the status bar at the top of the screen not scrolling along with the rest of the image, which it did in Whirlwind Manu's LE10 conversion of SMB2j.
Super 1998 6-in-1 (VT-856)
It's your run-of-the-mill late 1990's non-repeating multicart, with one 512 KiB game (China Rabbit Baby), one 256 KiB game (Eliminator Boat Duel), and four CNROM-sized games (Gradius, Hokuto no Ken, Dr. Mario, Battletank).
少林武者 (Chinese Kungfu)
We'resorry happy to bring this game again into the spotlight. A redump of a redump! It turns out that our previous copy had a single bit flipped from its intended state, either due to age or a manufacturing error. We redumped it to ensure that it was not a processing mistake and it definitely wasn't. Now, this matter should be settled, finally.
三国志 II꞉ 覇王の大陸 (Subor 0102)
Namco's second Three Kingdoms game seems to be insanely popular in China, going by the sheer number of both fan and official translations in existence. This bootleg version from Subor was most likely the most common version of the game until Chinese translations came along. Waixing's translation in turn is based on this bootleg version.
Batman꞉ The Video Game (Fine Studio)
Bootleg copy on a custom mapper with a level select cheat. Take sarcastic note of the "easy-to-follow" instructions on the disk label! The game's circuit board for some reason has the words "HAPPY NEW YEARS 1990" etched on it. Well, thank you nearly 30 or so years later.
Cheats sheet (back cover)
The latest version of NintendulatorNRS (binary and source) can be downloaded from its dedicated page in the blog sidebar.
➡ Download ⬅
Special thanks to NewRisingSun for the emulation, Consolethinks for the VT-856 and famiac for Batman and the 4-in-1.
小学生数学 CAI
Moving the date of the earliest known Waixing cartridge a bit further back in time, this collection of four math learning games is far less professionally made than the English 3-in-1 CAI cartridge released here some time ago. Use the Subor keyboard to enter numbers when asked to.
What's the nice touch that makes this educational cartridge unique? Possibly the fact you're greated by a flying saucer. That's some Extraterrestrial Technology after all!
Scans:
Cartridge cover
Box cover
小状元数学 (B1.0版)
A completely obscure Math-teaching cartridge made by 宏图发展公司 (Hongtu Development Company) and manufactured by 先达电子公司 (Xianda Electronics). It was released sometime in 1995. The included games are really simple and while some have interesting title screens, the games themselves are neither particularly polished nor enjoyable.
The cartridge cover suggests that there may be more cartridges. It notably reads Ｂ版 (B Version). May we suspect that an A版 may exist with a different set of games? And before we forget this last fact, it appears to use a font last seen in Supergun 3-in-1, developed by Tai Jing Da Dong and released by TXC around 1993.
Cartridge scans:
Cartridge front cover Cartridge back sticker
铁甲突击 (KT-1025)
星河战队 (KT-1026)
Two Jncota title screen hacks of the same game, namely, Waixing's Chinese translation of Bandai's third entry into the SD Gundam Gachapon series, the original Japanese title being "SD Gundam Gachapon Senshi 3: Eiyuu Senki".
Scans:
KT1025-1026 (1)
KT1025-1026 (2)
KT1025-1026 (3)
KT1025-1026 (4)
KT1025-1026 (5)
4-in-1 HQ 高品質合卡꞉ 金牌可選關 - 影像淸晰穩定
This four-in-one multicart has both Super Mario Bros. and the Japanese disk-only Super Mario Bros. 2 on the same cart, but with the graphics swapped!
The Chinese tagline ("off-image is clear and stable") seems to imply that the status bar at the top of the screen not scrolling along with the rest of the image, which it did in Whirlwind Manu's LE10 conversion of SMB2j.
Super 1998 6-in-1 (VT-856)
It's your run-of-the-mill late 1990's non-repeating multicart, with one 512 KiB game (China Rabbit Baby), one 256 KiB game (Eliminator Boat Duel), and four CNROM-sized games (Gradius, Hokuto no Ken, Dr. Mario, Battletank).
少林武者 (Chinese Kungfu)
We're
三国志 II꞉ 覇王の大陸 (Subor 0102)
Namco's second Three Kingdoms game seems to be insanely popular in China, going by the sheer number of both fan and official translations in existence. This bootleg version from Subor was most likely the most common version of the game until Chinese translations came along. Waixing's translation in turn is based on this bootleg version.
Batman꞉ The Video Game (Fine Studio)
Bootleg copy on a custom mapper with a level select cheat. Take sarcastic note of the "easy-to-follow" instructions on the disk label! The game's circuit board for some reason has the words "HAPPY NEW YEARS 1990" etched on it. Well, thank you nearly 30 or so years later.
Cheats sheet (back cover)
The latest version of NintendulatorNRS (binary and source) can be downloaded from its dedicated page in the blog sidebar.
➡ Download ⬅
Special thanks to NewRisingSun for the emulation, Consolethinks for the VT-856 and famiac for Batman and the 4-in-1.
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