From: "david shadoff" <david.shadoff@canrem.com>
Newsgroups: rec.games.video
Subject: stripped down game co
Date: 17 Aug 92 00:45:08 EST
Reply-To: "david shadoff" <david.shadoff@canrem.com>
Distribution: rec
Organization: Canada Remote Systems

In message <etxansk.713698030#garbod20>, etxansk@garbo.ericsson.se
writes:

> I discussed what's in the Super Magicom (video game copier)
>yesterday with a Swedish dealer, and he told me there's an
>Intel CPU in it and (more obvious) a floppy drive controller.

Ummm... I don't know about the Intel CPU - I know that at least one
similar device uses a 6502 - don't ask why (or how), but the disks are
still compatible with the IBM PC format.

> I would prefer a device that can be connected to my PC
>computer with some hardware in it providing
>access to cartridge data, and 8/16 megabits of RAM
>memory, backed up with a battery like in all the copiers.

> Wouldn't such a device be much cheaper than a copier
>with its own CPU and FDD? I've been asking a similar
>question before, but I didn't know there was a CPU in
>the Magicom at that time.

Yes, it would.  But, not everyone who has a game system also has a
computer.  If I was designing one, I'd try to use an 8088-based
motherboard.  As a computer add-on, you should really only need a
battery-backed RAM pack (with pinout converters), a simple
parallel-port-based device to pass streamed data bytes (of course,
normal control lines could indicate direction of data flow, and/or
set starting addresses, etc.), and control software.  Should be
do-able for <$25 in parts (plus RAM pack, and connectors).  Then
again, I'm not enough of a hardware hobbyist to design this thing
just for fun.

> Also, is there a lock-out chip in the Magicom that
>makes the SNES believe a real cartridge is inserted? If
>so, how did they figure out how the Nintendo lock-out
>technique works?

Most lock-out chips simply respond in a set protocol, rather than
perform a necessary function.  For example, an excellent lock-out
chip COULD be a complete video controller - but two problems occur;
(1) People can build emulator chips without infringing copyrights,
and (2) darn, this is expensive.

It will often be a chip which produces certain chip-level timing
effects, or CPU wait states, or even BIOS functions in a copyrighted
EPROM.  Again, all of these can easily be detected, and emulated (or
copied - though it could be difficult to successfully prosecute
people who choose to copy these, for various reasons).

The thing is, in electronics and computers, anything that can be
done, can be detected and duplicated - identically within regular
tolerances.  Nintendo's challenge would then be to make such a
process expensive enough to deter people from emulating it, but
cheap enough that mass-production costs of the mechanism are not
a singularly large component of their own unit costs.

 - Dave
 
 /===================================================================\
|    David Shadoff       |  Usenet:  david.shadoff@canrem.com         |
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