OOPS! ...this "real-existing" arcade game was from the TWILIGHT ZONE?!?? ;-) ======================================================================== O = \____/ From: CYBERYOGI =CO= Windler Newsgroups: rec.games.video.arcade.collecting,comp.emulators.misc,rec.games.video.classic,alt.games.video.classic Subject: OOPS! ...this "real-existing" arcade game was from the TWILIGHT ZONE?!?? ;-) Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2000 18:22:12 +0200 [quoted from VGN MAME message-board:] >IPost number: 4780 > Host: 154.11.238.214 > Posted by: The Dog > Date: April 03, 2000 at 13:33:09 > Browser: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows NT; msnca) > Subject: Re: SENSATION:"Phoenix" arcade game version from GERMAN > DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC found!!! [ROMs are intact!] > >In Reply to: Re: SENSATION:"Phoenix" arcade game version from GERMAN >DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC found!!! [ROMs are intact!] posted by Zsolt Vasvari >on April 03, 2000 at 10:45:36: > >: : with the numbers "#41.50.52.49.4C". > >: That spells APRIL > >: : with the numbers "#46.4F.4F.4C.21". > >: and that one is FOOL! > >Wow. That is the most elaborate April Fools gag I have seen in some time, >given that this guy has posted pages of technical info on this supposed >discovery, and has been leading up to this for about a month now. I totally >fell for it. I guess the fact that the "screenshots" were posted on the 1st, >and the spelling on the splash screen doesn't match the text should've >tipped me off... > >Damn, and I thought the idea of an East-German video game was really >cool! You unlocked this door with the key of imagination... (or a hackz editor?!?) Wellcome to the Twilight Zone - the domain of the unexpected... = 0 \____/ MAY THE SOFTWARE BE WITH YOU! *============================================================================* I CYBERYOGI Christian Oliver(=CO=) Windler I I (teachmaster of LOGOLOGIE - the first cyberage-religion!) I I ! I *=============================ABANDON=THE=BRUTALITY==========================* {http://www.informatik.fh-hamburg.de/~windle_c/e_index.html} The Hack - or how I faked the "real-existing" PHOENIX game from DDR... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I got the idea of making a counterfeit DDR arcade game for 1st April 2000 when I remembered the scandal of the counterfeit Adolf Hitler diaries those ap- peared in Germany many years ago. To understand how a pirated "Phoenix" arcade PCB made in DDR could have looked like,I downloaded the original schematics/emulation informations + some infos about various DDR computers.I also found a very bad webcam picture of a real Phoenix board,but it was not that easy to get the story and description con- sistent and model the melody chip in a way that it would really work in a nor- mal Phoenix PCB instead of the MM65221AA or AB,which would have been necces- sary to emulate it.Though I had to post newsgroup questions about this thing and look into the MAME source code to understand what the bit combinations ex- actly do and how more than 2 melodies could be added.Unfortunately the MAME team(first Jürgen Buchmüller,then Zsolt Vasvari) found out the hoax too quick- ly.(By the way,the strange diode array on my "PCB" was intended to be the re- verse-engineered DDR replacement version of the 2 colour PROMs on the normal Phoenix board.) At the beginning I had intended only to give out samples and the melody IC in- formations and leave the rest to be found out by emulator programmers.After I examined the "Phoenix" ROMs,due to the non-ASCII character set and the copy protection I soon didn't seriously expect that I would get my modified ROMs working,but in the last moment I fortunately also got the game running quite stabile on MAME.(All together the hack with coding,composing and article wri- ting took me about 10 days.) The melodies in the sample set 1 are: 1. DDR anthem. 2. "Die Internationale" 3. "Die Partei,die Partei,die hat immer recht!" (means "The Party is always right!" - doubtlessly one the most stupid texts ever heared in communist history.) 4. "Barcarole" (no DDR melody,but a nice one) They were intended to be played in a sequence;in the 1st wave of the 1st level the DDR anthem would have played,and in every further appearance of the 1st wave the next melody of the sequence would have been started.(In 2 player mode both players would have needed to pass the 1st level to hear later melodies due to the way the chip is accessed,but depite it would have played all 4 me- lodies sooner or later.) The following is a correspondence I had with Alan Jackson about how I created this hack... Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2000 12:27:52 +0200 (MET DST) From: =CO= Windler To: Alan Jackson Subject: Re: Phoenix roms and April fools On Mon, 10 Apr 2000, Alan Jackson wrote: > > I just checked the vintagegaming message board and it would appear that your > roms are in fact a hoax. From Zsolt Vasvari's post: > " with the numbers "#41.50.52.49.4C". > > That spells APRIL > > : with the numbers "#46.4F.4F.4C.21". > > and that one is FOOL!" > > I totally fell for it, this is one of the best pranks I've ever seen. I was >sceptical at first but the huge amount of detailed documentation that you >provided was what convinced me that the roms were real. I only became >suspicious when the new romset did not appear in mame 37 beta1. All I can >say is very well done! > > Two questions: you obviously hacked the roms yourself, did you use the > "Turaco" program for this and was it easy to do? Turaco can only edit character sets.I wrote a driver file for UniROM to edit the texts,but Phoenix contains nasty piracy protections those e.g. crash the game during game-over,or make appear rubbish after bird explosions, fire/shield buttons suddenly stop working etc. when copyright line 1 or 2 get changed. I had to compare all MAME versions with a HEX editor and null-out all segments those were different/looked like code(other values than the texts game graphic patterns) but leave the return jumps intact(really not easy without a disassembler and without knowing 8080/Z80 machine code.) I know 68000k assembler from my technical college,but the last time I read about Z80 programming was in the time of my ZX81,and I never coded any serious m-code programm.Though I could only crack the ROM IC48(contains all texts + game graphics),but due to there seem to be also checks within other ROMs,I could not completely freely choose the 2nd line message to avoid bird explosion garbage.I found out that " RFT " was a working combination for the first chars,though I had to begin the message with it. > Secondly, are the samples a hoax? a MOD file made with Amiga "ProTracker".(I cared very detailedly about exactly simulating the 2 voiced squarewave style of such melody chips,the count of volume steps etc.) > > Regards > Alan Look at my homepage,there is now more about historical videogames and also some texts about squarewave musics. http://www.informatik.fh-hamburg.de/~windle_c/e_index.html MAY THE SOFTWARE BE WITH YOU! *============================================================================* I CYBERYOGI Christian Oliver(=CO=) Windler I I (teachmaster of LOGOLOGIE - the first cyberage-religion!) I I ! I *=============================ABANDON=THE=BRUTALITY==========================* {http://www.informatik.fh-hamburg.de/~windle_c/e_index.html} Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2000 13:45:15 +0200 (MET DST) From: =CO= Windler To: Alan Jackson Subject: Re: Phoenix roms and April fools On Wed, 12 Apr 2000, Alan Jackson wrote: > > Thanks that's interesting about the piracy protection. One final > question: did you intentionally change the graphics of the mothership > (the $ symbols etc)? Maybe when you hacked the roms the graphics somehow > became corrupted? I know very little about programming so forgive my > lack of knowledge if this sounds stupid. No,this was a gag to paint a hatet symbol onto the enemy spaceship in a communist arcade game. > BTW maybe you could check out the MAME action replay page, I have > several recordings of Phoenix over 320k. There are also a few tricks > shown by myself and others (for instance doing the 200k cheat on a > "yellow bird" stage) > http://marp.retrogames.com/ I didn't notice the 200k bug in this release;was it only in the Amstar one? (I used mixtures of TNP and Taito,because they seem to have less copy protections.(The bird explosion mess is triggered in none of these 2 copyright messages,though possibly the others were also tweaked bootlegs.) I often got 200k in old MAME/ROM releases,but I never got it in the newer versions as far I remember. > I also have other recordings of tricks/strange occurances in Phoenix > which I haven't uploaded. If you're interested mail me and I'll send > you > them. I guess,the messed up score display line is also an(amok running?) copyright protection.I often got various characters shitted into the highscore number when the protection was intact(all characters,symptoms strictly dependant on the change of the message,although they appear pseudo-randomly),though I guess that the wrong checksum itself is copied into various ram locations dependant of its properties(devidable by 2,by 3 etc.?). Did you ever read about how the "Tempest" bug came into being when the programmer slightly changed the position of the copyright label? (There is somewhere a site explaining this,but I don't remeber the URL.) > Regards > Alan Jackson (marp username Jacko) MAY THE SOFTWARE BE WITH YOU! *============================================================================* I CYBERYOGI Christian Oliver(=CO=) Windler I I (teachmaster of LOGOLOGIE - the first cyberage-religion!) I I ! I *=============================ABANDON=THE=BRUTALITY==========================* {http://www.informatik.fh-hamburg.de/~windle_c/e_index.html} Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2000 14:23:55 +0100 From: Alan Jackson To: =CO= Windler Subject: Re: Phoenix roms and April fools > I didn't notice the 200k bug in this release;was it only in the Amstar > one? (I used mixtures of TNP and Taito,because they seem to have less > copy protections.(The bird explosion mess is triggered in none of > these 2 copyright messages,though possibly the others were also tweaked > bootlegs.) I often got 200k in old MAME/ROM releases,but I never got it > in the newer versions as far I remember. The 200k cheat works in all versions (I have done this many times myself). These are Amstar, Centuri,(the most recently added mame version aka "phoenixa"), IRECSA, TPN and Taito. I also have seen it in newly downloaded roms and the old ones. I don't know exactly what you mean by the "bird ex- plosion mess" but I have not seen anything like this in any of these versions > I guess,the messed up score display line is also an(amok running?) > copyright protection.I often got various characters shitted into the > highscore number when the protection was intact(all characters,symptoms > strictly dependant on the change of the message,although they appear > pseudo-randomly),though I guess that the wrong checksum itself is > copied into various ram locations dependant of its properties(devidable > by 2,by 3 etc.?). I haven't seen messed up characters in the high score display, but sometimes some of the text disappears (sometimes this happens when a lot of birds fly below the screen and fly back up again) I have seen this in all versions. I think the messed up character problem is unique to your hacked version. Maybe you could try to hack the IRECSA version. This romset has an easter egg which allows 207k to be scored on the very first stage (different to the usual 200k cheat see the mame history.dat for details on how to do this) but you lose two lives doing this. Maybe this is the "least official" romset as you cant do this in any of the other sets maybe this set has less piracy protec- tion? Strange occurances in Phoenix that I have observed include: - the game sometimes crashes on level 3 stage 2 when you do the 200k cheat. Often the game just resets, another time the background continued to scroll but there were no birds and there was a "0" in the playfield. - Birds which fly UPWARDS through the top of the screen and re-emerge at the bottom (also level 3 stage 2) - The 200k bug twice on the same stage (level 3 stage 2) - The 200k bug on level 1 stage 1 Regards, Alan From windle_c@informatik.fh-hamburg.de Wed Apr 12 15:33:50 2000 Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2000 15:33:29 +0200 (MET DST) From: =CO= Windler To: Alan Jackson Subject: Re: Phoenix roms and April fools On Wed, 12 Apr 2000, Alan Jackson wrote: > > > I guess,the messed up score display line is also an(amok running?) > > copyright protection.I often got various characters shitted into the > > highscore number when the protection was intact(all characters,symptoms > > strictly dependant on the change of the message,although they appear > > pseudo-randomly),though I guess that the wrong checksum itself is > > copied into various ram locations dependant of its properties(devidable > > by 2,by 3 etc.?). > > I haven't seen messed up characters in the high score display, but sometimes some of the text disappears (sometimes this happens when a lot of birds fly below the screen and fly back up again) I have seen this in all versions. I think the messed up character problem is unique to your hacked version. Yes,these bugs only appear as soon the copyright message (line 2 and less likely 1) get changed.The bird mess shows blocks of characters instead of black after a bird has exploded,and the block must not be touched to avoid crashing into it. MAY THE SOFTWARE BE WITH YOU! *============================================================================* I CYBERYOGI Christian Oliver(=CO=) Windler I I (teachmaster of LOGOLOGIE - the first cyberage-religion!) I I ! I *=============================ABANDON=THE=BRUTALITY==========================* {http://www.informatik.fh-hamburg.de/~windle_c/e_index.html} Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2000 17:43:10 +0200 (MET DST) From: =CO= Windler To: Alan Jackson Subject: Re: Phoenix roms and April fools On Wed, 12 Apr 2000, Alan Jackson wrote: > > > > > Yes,these bugs only appear as soon the copyright message (line 2 and less > > likely 1) get changed.The bird mess shows blocks of characters instead of > > black after a bird has exploded,and the block must not be touched to avoid > > crashing into it. > > > OK I understand now, this only occurs in your version and is dependant on how you change the copyright message. It definitely does not occur on the other bootlegs (TPN,IRECSA and possibly Taito) Have you tried a very short copyright message to see it occurs e.g "phonix © =CO= 2000" :) As far I remember,even an empty line of spaces made the bird explosion garbage.Also shifting the message left one space makes garbage,though I guess that different checksums test different areas of the line,and when it is wrong,then the wrong value is either treated as an assembler command or a jump distance instruction or something similar to mess up the game(often after multiple rounds or only 2 player mode etc.).My IC48 version has the checksum tests in it nulled out,but there are apparently a few more such tests hidden in other ROMs(especially the characters displayed after ex- plosions(normally blank) likely are determine using the checksum as a lookup table or similar.There are many places where the game can make mess;e.g. after game-over or when the bird in the demo materializes,the game can crash/ reset when the checksum routines(?) in IC48 are not nulled out. MOEGE DIE SOFTWARE MIT EUCH SEIN! *============================================================================* I CYBERYOGI Christian Oliver(=CO=) Windler I I (Lehrmeister der LOGOLOGIE - der ersten Religion des Cyberzeitalters!) I I ! I *===========================AECHTET=DIE=BRUTALITAET==========================* {http://www.informatik.fh-hamburg.de/~windle_c/index.html}