[Question] Reproduction Carts, how hard to make?

Well we all know that there are some games that are just impossible to come by, and im not one of those colectors that is willing to spent 200€ or 150€ for a megadrive/genesis game,so that got me wondering in those reproduction carts, yeah i know that isnt the same has having an original cart but for games, like megaman wily wars and Probotector, they are almost impossible to have, so i ask here how can i do a repro cart, and how hard it is, i have some knowledge on electronics but is there any kind of tutorial, not just for megadrive/genesis games, but also for the 32x games.

Thank you for your help.

EDIT: 12/06/2010

Sorry guys in bumping this old post, but sinse i opened this one i might as well use it, here is the thing in the last weeks, i have been looking for various places to burn my Epprom chips, i even asked here in the forum, and on stores, other forums etc, so i could find the cheapest place, i have decided to go with the site that "0x15e" recomended Hobbyroms.com, 10$ with shiping seems a good deal, at least was the best i could find, but before i ordered, i got a question, i have downloaded some roms, for my repros namly, MegaMan, sonic megamix and Darxide, now each one of these games comes in 3 diferent file formats .gen, .bin and .32x, and as i dont want the guys on the store to burn me a bad chip, i ask here, if i have to convert these files to a specific file, and if so how can i do that.
One last thing, in the future i would like to burn games that are region locked, is there a way to change the region of roms so that they can become region free, or change them to the region of my mega drive?

Also i wanted to thank all the guys on the forum that have helped me out on this quest.

PS: FFantasy6 you are the king of repros XD.

The biggest difficulty is in the making of the boxart and cart label. All else is quite easy if you got some soldering skill and equipment for memory burning.

why does everyone say burning when talking about writing memory to a rom/ram ?

Burning is the official term since the invention of PROM chips

really? learn somin new everyday cheers for clearing that up :D

Lets all go BURN some memory chips ^^

Burning applies more to storing info in a chip that retains its data, like PROM, EPROM, Flash... for RAMs and seemingly EEPROMs, word "write" is used instead, probably since its a "free" action requiring no meaningful preparation.

In my experience with attempting things like this, there isn't a tutorial to teach you how to "burn" roms. If you're completely new to this you'd be better off buying a flash cart.

Burning roms consists of you buy yourself a EPROM programmer and then using its software to burn a ROM on the EPROM chip you bought earlier... you need 16bit wide chips for MD, like 27C100, 27C200, 27C400, 27C800, 27C160, 27C322...

The label and box art is the least of the problems, with some patience it goes ok, now my real problem is the buring the chip, has i dont have an epprom programer, if i could by the chip already burned, that would be great, because i have soldering skills.

some sellers do sell the chips preprogrammed, and ask little extra for that...

I really don't see the point of making reproduction cartridges. If you want to play a game that bad, emulation is always an option. It's actually a fair bit less illegal (depending on where you live, not illegal at all) than making a reproduction cart.

If you demand to play the game on the original hardware, a flash cart is a much better option. If you care about authenticity, the real deal is the only way to go. Reproductions serve only one logical purpose as far as I'm concerned; scamming. It's fairly easy to make a quick buck by selling fake copies of extremely rare games as the real thing. I don't think anyone here condones this, myself included.

I have to ask, why do you want to make reproductions as opposed to using a flash cart?

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Originally Posted by XeroShinobi

It's fairly easy to make a quick buck by selling fake copies of extremely rare games as the real thing.

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Ding ding ding ding.

I'm not against people creating reproduction games, in principle - but what I would do would be to place a small, transparent 'REPRODUCTION' mark somewhere on the cartridge label and box. You know, so there's no niggling little temptation to offload it onto some eBay schmuck when you get bored of the thing and get a cheaper flash cartridge :)

I was actually going to do this for darxide. I found someone who owned the game and could scan everything for me, and I was going to use a Doom cart as a donor cart. The only problem is I can't find a 16bit memory chip that can support darxide's 3mb compasity.

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Originally Posted by XeroShinobi

I really don't see the point of making reproduction cartridges. If you want to play a game that bad, emulation is always an option. It's actually a fair bit less illegal (depending on where you live, not illegal at all) than making a reproduction cart.

If you demand to play the game on the original hardware, a flash cart is a much better option. If you care about authenticity, the real deal is the only way to go. Reproductions serve only one logical purpose as far as I'm concerned; scamming. It's fairly easy to make a quick buck by selling fake copies of extremely rare games as the real thing. I don't think anyone here condones this, myself included.

I have to ask, why do you want to make reproductions as opposed to using a flash cart?

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its not about authenticity, its more like collecting, if you cant have the real deal, but if you want the clossest you can get, repros are the way to go. thats my opinion

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Originally Posted by konio38

its not about authenticity, its more like collecting, if you cant have the real deal, but if you want the clossest you can get, repros are the way to go. thats my opinion

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A homemade repro has 0 collectors value; it's not like a bootleg. I don't know, the reasoning behind legitimate reproduction "collecting" doesn't make sense to me. The only exceptions are reproductions that translate text in a game originally only available in Japanese or something. But even then, an emulator or flash cart is still a better option.

In my opinion, the less fakes out there, the better. If you do make some reproductions, I highly suggest you take the advice mentioned by Elusive and mark them as such.

Or if you want to play rare/expensive games on real hardware, or unreleased games, etc. Not so much about collecting as having a "real" experience...

I'd like to see panorama cotton or Star Fox 2 on real hardware. (I know homebrew carts are available for the latter) I might try my hand at a SF 2 cart some day, probably with a Doom donor (cheaper than Yoshi's Island and SFX-1 carts are too slow); my dad's got at least 1 PROM burner and we've certainly got PCs with parallel ports.... Though I think it might involve padding the 1 MB SF2 game to 2 MB -rather than dealing with using alternate ROM sizes. (or going with a 1MB SFX1 game -and 1/2 clock speed)

Sorry for the Up, but I'm interested in making these.
Especially for Sonic 3 & Knuckles, Knuckles in Sonic 2, and Blues Spheres.

The reason is that the Lock-On is not supported by the Gen Mobile, so if could make an original card for those games, it should probably work.

I just don't know how to do the burning process.
Can you basicly tell me how, from a ROM, put it in a cartridge, please?

Which type of equipment do I need?

Thanks!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by XeroShinobi

A homemade repro has 0 collectors value; it's not like a bootleg. I don't know, the reasoning behind legitimate reproduction "collecting" doesn't make sense to me. The only exceptions are reproductions that translate text in a game originally only available in Japanese or something. But even then, an emulator or flash cart is still a better option.

In my opinion, the less fakes out there, the better. If you do make some reproductions, I highly suggest you take the advice mentioned by Elusive and mark them as such.

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I have to disagree to a point. If we are talking monetary value, then I guess it is "worthless." Still, for those games that were never localized where you live, and for those that cost an arm and a leg, a repro. is sometimes appealing, especially if it's something like a translated RPG.

But yes, anybody who gets a slew of repros. as an investment is only wasting their time and money. Otherwise, it is a matter of personal preference.

Well, you could get something like the Everdrive for the same price or cheaper than many of these reproductions, and it would work just as well if not better, since you can change the game it in as much as you want without lots of mess or having to buy another $60+ cart.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by XeroShinobi

A homemade repro has 0 collectors value; it's not like a bootleg. I don't know, the reasoning behind legitimate reproduction "collecting" doesn't make sense to me. The only exceptions are reproductions that translate text in a game originally only available in Japanese or something. But even then, an emulator or flash cart is still a better option.

In my opinion, the less fakes out there, the better. If you do make some reproductions, I highly suggest you take the advice mentioned by Elusive and mark them as such.

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I wholeheartedly agree. I'm glad you voiced your opinion on the matter. Reproductions represent a worrisome issue for the typical collector. One can only predict that as more reproductions flood the market, the game collector connoisseur will scrutinize the print circuit board (PCB), the proms, solder points, etc.

I don't really care about getting a Repro's..I just wanna play the game on the Real thing. But the Price they ask for selling Repro's

I know the Chip's, Labor & the time that puts in making a Repro's

I wanna play BK3 US version, I just don't wanna pay like $40 for a Repro

The Last game I bought that was $40+ was the Black Label SOTN for $43

Where have you found them for $40? Everywhere that I see making Genesis repro's are charging $60 or more.

I only charge 25€ :P

when you making more?

And how do you make them?

Edit: Sonic 3 & Knuckles is a 34 Meg game, according to the box. I know that the 32 megs games works (Toy Story for example), but 34, I hope.

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Originally Posted by Nick16

In my experience with attempting things like this, there isn't a tutorial to teach you how to "burn" roms. If you're completely new to this you'd be better off buying a flash cart.

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It's worth getting over the learning curve, IMO. So many doors have opened since I got my EPROM equipment it's not even funny. Things like modified / translated Genesis games, unreleased games, alternate BIOSes, etc. If I'd had this back when I was dealing with my Final Fight PCB problem, I would've saved so much time, money, and effort.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by konio38

The label and box art is the least of the problems, with some patience it goes ok, now my real problem is the buring the chip, has i dont have an epprom programer, if i could by the chip already burned, that would be great, because i have soldering skills.

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Hobbyroms.com will sell them to you like that if you supply the rom file, but if you intend to do a lot, or plan to experiment, you should get your own equipment. It really isn't that expensive. Once you have that, label and box art are the real limitations if you're looking to make something really nice.

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Originally Posted by XeroShinobi

I have to ask, why do you want to make reproductions as opposed to using a flash cart?

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It depends on the extent of "repro" you want. In my case, I wanted a way to make more permanent 1-offs of some games so they don't take up a lot of space on my flash carts (a Mega Cart and a 64M MD-pro, so very space limited). In one case, I actually had a very small (2M) game and it was inconvenient to put on a flash cart because it was really hard to optimally fill the cart due to the oddball rom size. One thing I never bothered with was making them look pretty. They're copies. No need to glamorize them with art.

I also like this way better than emulation because I have an arcade cabinet to which I can connect my Genesis. I'd much rather play on that than a PC.

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Originally Posted by 64k

when you making more?

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In some days, now I'm working on the next cover art.

http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/6914/gleysample.jpg

And some of my repros.

http://img94.imageshack.us/img94/9250/41340359.jpg

Sorry guys in bumping this old post, but sinse i opened this one i might as well use it, here is the thing in the last weeks, i have been looking for various places to burn my Epprom chips, i even asked here in the forum, and on stores, other forums etc, so i could find the cheapest place, i have decided to go with the site that "0x15e" recomended Hobbyroms.com, 10$ with shiping seems a good deal, at least was the best i could find, but before i ordered, i got a question, i have downloaded some roms, for my repros namly, MegaMan, sonic megamix and Darxide, now each one of these games comes in 3 diferent file formats .gen, .bin and .32x, and as i dont want the guys on the store to burn me a bad chip, i ask here, if i have to convert these files to a specific file, and if so how can i do that.
One last thing, in the future i would like to burn games that are region locked, is there a way to change the region of roms so that they can become region free, or change them to the region of my mega drive?

Also i wanted to thank all the guys on the forum that have helped me out on this quest.

PS: FFantasy6 you are the king of repros XD.

Come on guys help me out please.

You can inject action replay codes in to the rom to make it region free, there's a topic in this forum about codes.

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Originally Posted by FFantasy6

You can inject action replay codes in to the rom to make it region free, there's a topic in this forum about codes.

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Now thats a bit out of my legue, i dont know any programing. But il google about it.

About the 3 diferent files, anyone has any info?

Just registered to the forums for this very topic. I've read through the above topic and am still wondering where to start. From what I can tell you need an eeprom programmer. I don't want to hijack this thread I would like to make an American Mega Man Wily Wars cartridge similar to what this schmuck has done on ebay.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Mega-Man-Wily-Wa...item335f316a76

I have done some research for this specific topic and found info here.
http://nesdev.com/bbs/viewtopic.php?...3db7cf5bbf412b

http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/514/

That's some back ground info in what I'm trying to do. I will say that I don't want to just be told how it's done but would like to learn what's going on. Mainly looking for some links to learn from or someone with a lot of experience to help point me in the right direction.

Thanks

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Originally Posted by Teancum

Just registered to the forums for this very topic. I've read through the above topic and am still wondering where to start. From what I can tell you need an eeprom programmer. I don't want to hijack this thread I would like to make an American Mega Man Wily Wars cartridge similar to what this schmuck has done on ebay.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Mega-Man-Wily-Wa...item335f316a76

I have done some research for this specific topic and found info here.
http://nesdev.com/bbs/viewtopic.php?...3db7cf5bbf412b

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Yeah, thats a repro. It says two sold at that price.:daze: Interesting how the seller doesn't mention its a repro. The wording is done nicely for future possible liabilities. Offcourse most members here would know that it is a repro. The general public I'm not so sure. I'm sure it's a good product but it can be had for half of that price.

Being an Avid Mega Man collector I knew it couldn't be real, but was curious as to what "patching" process he had gone through. I've been researching and it looks like with NES games that it's been done a lot. But I've been having a harder time finding info on doing it with a sega cartridge.

I'm currently working on a Flash cart for the Genesis. I just completed one for the Gameboy. My Background is in Electronics and Robotics. I'm still having some issues with the FLash interface, but I'm making progress which is motivating. I'm also working on one for the Sega GameGear.

I find the main problem I'm having is getting the proper ROM chip pinout connections. Allot of the available connection diagrams found online, are put together by other hobbyists and are not always 100% accurate.
But regardless, I'll be getting it functioning soon.

Anyone else an avid Electronics Hobbyist? I would love to trade research if anyone is interested.

Here is a 5 part Instructional Video I just put together to show how to build a Standard GameBoy Flash cart. It also covers Flash Programming procedures using a Willem Programmer and an ATMEL AT49F040 4Mbit Flash Chip
or (512Kb of memory storage).

I will be putting another video together for the Genesis Flash Cart version as soon as I finish.

This is PART 1 of 5:
http://www.youtube.com/user/NLEproGUY#p/u/4/08sBZSciXWk


Talk to you folks later.
-Gerry