Community Dump! 3 Famicom Prototypes!

[L___E___T]

If there are interesting differences in Holy Diver I'll help out.  I think pre-release games are overrated though, they're never 'better' versions, they just offer some insights.

In turn, that insight is overrated if you work in the industry, as you see it every day.  I do think these should be documented though, in an ideal world.

[famiac]

I see. I wish i had the time to play through all of this... Maybe during the weekend. Saturday should be good.

[jpx72]

I just wanted to add that if you have had there for example a Rockman proto, you would  have had my money on your account by now...
(damn I really think this sentence is grammar-killer )

[lkermel]

Ah ah ! I remember these protos, they were sold on Ebay by gametimevault, right ? I remember bidding on these guys, but the final price went too high for my budget (especially as a few of them were described as 'unknown', so it was a bit of a gamble) - but it was worth it in the end, Holy Diver is a neat find. Good luck with the fundraising

[famiac]

Holy diver was not from gametimevault

[lkermel]

By the way, I'm curious. What do you use to dump your Famicom prototypes ? I have a few myself and I would love to dump the roms...

[tonev]

Maybe he is using copynes? When i have the money i will buy a copynes and start dumping

[famiac]

Yup CopyNES and a converter.

[lkermel]

I looked into CopyNES at some point but the installation is quite difficult... I mean, you have to desolder the NES's CPU, and solder a socket in its place (among other things)... did you build yours ? I wished there was a version of the Retrode that would also read NES/FC cartridges

[famiac]

Yes i built mine.

[Bramsworth]

So uh.. any news?

[famiac]

I have been too busy with school to post on assembler or nintendoage. I will try to some time. Im going to a music festival this weekend, but ill try to find some time to post.

[Yelir]

After the ROM dump, will you be holding on to these protos?

[famiac]

Yeah unless i get offers.

[Epic_Lotus]

Well, everyone else is throwing their two cents in, so I might as well have a go.  I think trying to argue that protos don't lose value after they're dumped is a bad argument to make.  Talk to any proto collector, and they'll tell you that's a hard fact of their niche.  Once a title has been dumped, there's a significant drop in value for the actual cart, unless it's a big name title to begin with (Zelda, Mario, Megaman, etc.).  If I collected protos still (my collection only got as high as 2), I certainly wouldn't be offering to reduce the value of my carts by releasing them to the public.

That said, I also don't think it's exactly kosher to be dumping ROMs onto the net without the IP holder's permission.  Dumping it for your personal use is one thing, but I don't personally support community dumps now that I've done some research into how copyright works and all that.  I think if you're truly interested in preservation, the only "right" course of action is to dump it for personal storage.  You can't really claim to care about posterity if money is changing hands for something that isn't yours to begin with.  It's bad joojoo.  You might own the physical cart, but you don't own the rights to the code inside.