"Earth Bound" eBay Catchall Thread

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>mfw cut down Zelda cart

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>>4118124
wtf? the windows on the EPROMs are visible. you erase bits on EPROMs with UV light, and the sun is a good source of UV.

This shit looks Nigerian-prince-tier levels of scammy.

I can sell you my shitty EPROM cart for 5000 gil if you want one that bad. I'll even download a copy of a game that I did a quick graphics hack and text hack on to make it a "beta" version if you want. christ.

>stickers ripped off the UV-sensitive chips
>yeah, NOA totally reused Zelda carts and oddly shaped cutouts

The board MIGHT be real(if completely worthless now), but why fuck up that Zelda cart case?

>>4118151
Because that is what they had available - other legit protos have been found in similar casing as well as SMB/DH shells. There is certainly a high chance that this is legitimate, but unfortunately it is apparently attracting Earthbound collectors and/or investors who know fuck all about the prototype market.

I just hope it won't make people who have legit, $150-$200 NES prototypes turn their protos into fake Earthbound prototypes so they can transform it from a couple hundred dollar item into a several thousand dollar item. With the way prototypes work, it would be nearly impossible to differentiate an *adequately* forged prototype from a legitimate one, as long as an authentic development PCB is used in conjunction with EPROMs with manufacturing dates prior to the date of the game.

>>4118192
>certainly a high chance that this is legitimate
stupid people actually believe this

>>4118192
>authentic development PCB
these things aren't mystical relics whose forging lore has been forgotten in time. For the plebs you can get a board house to manufacture custom PCBs for a reasonable price, for patricians you can go down to the lab and manufacture one in an hour no prob. The EPROMs are standard chink-shit, and the solder job is trivial.

the distinction between legit and not is all in your head. Sure you can point to something that was manufactured 30 years ago and say it's "legit", but if you produce a modern facsimile identical to an original design, it's just a more recent run of the same thing.

is this "Earthbound Zero" ie Mother 1?

>chips visible
>nearly over 5000$
what the fuck?

>>4118124
Don't prototype carts usually have removable chips?

>>4118354
Uhhh, I dunno about you but it has sockets? Are you blind?

>>4118124
>Item Location: Portland, Oregon
And of course it's a hipster.

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people are actually bidding on this

>>4118419
I'm assuming they might be trolls who will put bids then at the last second say some bullshit.

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>>4118432
More likely sock puppet bidders in cahoots with the seller to push the price up and whip "genuine" buyers into a frenzy.

It's fucking hilarious to watch really.

>>4118124
The pcb and eproms might be legit but that cart cut job has certainly been made for this auction.

If the guy was selling it as a $50 nes repro, I'd say okay. $4500 is lol tier though.

>holy grail for collectors

needs a few more buzzwords. Does the description say he knows what he's got too?

I remember somebody trying to sell Tetris (Genesis) for a million dollars on ebay. Good times.

>>4118354
Depends. Some prototypes have EPROMs that are soldered directly to the PCB.

>>4118268
The far more likely answer to someone faking a prototype is someone who had nothing to do with the game's developing/programming/marketing/reviewing/publishing/etc using vintage EPROMs on an actual legitimate PCB, which has indeed happened, with some going so far as to even forge labels. Heck, some professional companies even used 3rd party flashcarts during development. See the recent sale of Shantae development builds and documents. In all, yes, prototypes are difficult to authenticate, especially when they contain data that is same as the final game or contain otherwise previously shared data. You generally have to rely on the source, the content, and the apparent authenticity of parts.

Legitimate or otherwise is beyond the point in this case - no one in their right mind would value the most legit of legit EB protos at the current bid. If these bids are legit, I would bet that the bidders are at best only vaguely aware of what they are bidding on beyond that fact that it is R@RE HOLY GRAIL and bears the EB name.

>>4118489
you have some very valid points about faking protos, I have 3 undumped protos myself and wont dump them for this very reason, once the roms are out there, it casts doubt on my carts.

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>>4118489
(correction: Shantae build, I think there was only one. Also, pictured is an instance of forged Contra III prototypes on official development boards, and someone even faked a label for the one on the left: https://contrapedia.word*ress.com/prototypes/ scroll down to see them)

>>4118526
i'm not even going to pretend to understand any of this

>>4118489
>See the recent sale of Shantae development builds and documents.

fucking what? I missed that. Details?

>>4118526
I'd strongly suggest dumping them at some point even if you don't share. EPROMs aren't the best for long term data storage, and if you have them backed up, you can rewrite the EPROMs yourself with the original data if they ever become corrupted.

>>4118549
http://www.e*ay.com/itm/201890548279

>>4118551
it doesn't matter if the program is intact or not. it's not like hoarders actually use their stuff.

>>4118551
yeah, I know I need to dump them for archival purpose but don't own the hardware myself, and don't wanna send it out in case that person feels like being an ass and uploading the roms down the road.

>>4118558
tha*k y*u

>>4118124
AHAHA
>uses EPROM
>Zelda cartrage
>probably fake
>EPROM windows exposed to light

>>4118585
Sure. I don't keep up with what all gets caught by link filters so I *'d it to be safe.

>>4118576

hell, I'm autistic enough to want to send you the hardware and have you do it yourself. then you could dump it, pgp encrypt the rom and release the key sometime down the road.

>>4118363
>Uhhh, I dunno about you but it has sockets? Are you blind?
Apparently because all I see is a bunch of chips clearly soldered to the board.

>>4118526
I doubt you actually do but in case you do I want you to know that you're an autistic piece of garbage.

>>4119157
pretty much

>>4119157
Someone else, but I actually do have many prototypes and have released a handful so far. I can see why people don't, though. You get nothing out of it, and if you're unlucky, you'll get a jerk or two who will actually bitch about you being too slow with releasing it. The internet has made some people act entitled as fuck.

>>4119158
What do you have?

>>4119170
i made my own prototype cart to run my shitty homebrew on my console

I attach no special value to it. digital memory is trivial to read, copy, and write. that would be like valuing a flash drive over other flash drives because it has a file on it.

i have no idea why you would value something whose whole self-perceived worth is derived by not sharing it with others. it's pretty much like >>4119157 describes

granted, i do find it hilarious how bad some people want Socks Rocks the Hill, but >>4118576 isn't even trolling anyone.

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>>4119170
>>4119170
Ever since I got these games people have bitched about how I should release them, or in the case of some of them how I shouldn't because it will drive down the rarity of other non dumped games, Iv had people try to buy the games, as well as reproduction rights on the roms. I've only had them a few months and not sure what my long term plans on them are, but for now they remain undumped, being played on a hdtv in widescreen format.
Licensed tengen tetris.
Wurm: Journey to the Center of the Earth which has massive dialog changes and title screen date predates Japanese release for some reason.
Conquest of the Crystal Palace with a different start screen and massive dialog changes.
a few other nes, sega, and snes protos, but nothing crazy.

Earthbound fans might be the dumbest rocks people out there and they always seem to have the most disposable income.

You can blame them for inflating the price of the game to outrageous fucking amounts. Fuck them, I hope whoever pays for this shit gets a good wake up call.

>>4119607
Oh, I recognize you from NintendoAge. As for Wurm, were there any differences beyond the translation? It looks as though someone who worked on the game story (www.interq.or.jp/mars/lucky3/_English/subhtm/work/vzr/index.html), including translation, was employed on the project in the early 90s, which combined with the fact that both the US and JP versions came out at around the same time, makes me wonder if the game was perhaps mostly finished by the mid 90s but had the actual release delayed until '91.

>>4119650
Seriously. I've picked up unreleased games and protos of popular games for a fraction of this one's starting bid.

>>4118528
>read that link
>all those filthy liars
>all those people claiming things but not being able to provide pictures or more details

Holy shit, is this what those "My Dad Works For Nintendo" kids grew into?

>>4119673
I'm not sure what all is changed in it, with wife, kids, and work I don't honestly get a lot of time to sit down and game, I played around 15 mins while watching a lets play of it to see what differences I might notice, I have a friend who's a fan of the series and has beaten the release recently I'm going to have come over and play it for me and let me know the differences then.
This would be another case of being able to dump to compare being a benefit but my stubbornness getting in the way.

>>4119686
For a lot of prototypes you pretty much have to sit down and play them to find differences. A hex compare against retail will tell you if it is different at all as well as potentially revealing text changes, and a run through a tile viewer like tilemolester or whatever will help you find graphical differences (assuming they aren't compressed). Discovering actual gameplay/level differences will generally require playing it.

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Prototype cartridges belong in museums and their dumped ROMs in the public domain.

>but I am an IMPORTANT individual and want to collect them for my PERSONAL-
fuck off

>>4118124
Even if this was legitimate what in the hell is a prototype of one game doing inside the shell of a totally different game?

>>4118761
the site will tell you when the filter is activated on your link

>>4119806

could have had a defect on it for some reason, and they just recycled it for prototype boards.

>>4119607
>buys proto carts
>has no interest in finding out what is on proto carts
>but also has no interest in anybody else having access to cart

and then this

>I have a friend who's a fan of the series and has beaten the release recently I'm going to have come over and play it for me and let me know the differences then.

coupled with >>4119607 recognizing poster >>4119607 from another board, presumably based on the same proto carts

these are some of the saddest posts I've ever read on /vr/. i couldn't care less about the proto carts or what half-finished programs are on them. on the other hand the way you need other people to recognize that you have something that you are unwilling to share with them is strange. do you think you should be congratulated?

you guys sound like grown up versions of >>4111934 but worse

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>>4119806
other games have used that exact games shell cut the same way, this is a megaman 3 proto, maybe that's just the shell/style nintendo went with back then, gold carts stand out and no less likely to get lost on someones desk maybe.

I remember seeing a video of this on youtube from a guy named John Hancock. It says in the description his name is Jacob Christopher and the seller is jchri24 so he must be the one selling it. He says he found it at a yard sale...
Here's the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEbOLbx99jE

>>4120979
Always a shame when this stuff seems to be found by people who don't give a shit about them beyond $$$.

>>4120992
In all fairness, they are the autistics going out and knocking on doors for yard sales at 5AM on saturday.

On the one hand, yeah we are losing neat stuff because these hoarder mentality "If I dump it I lose value, so fuck everyone else I'm getting MINE!" shit, but on the other hand it's just prototypes. Other than StarFox 2 and the uncensored NES Maniac Mansion, I can't think of any prototypes that were worth playing or in some way improved from the final game. It's more interesting from a historical perspective than anything else.

>>4118124
there's a market for prototype cartridges. the guy who will buy this owns all the prototypes, hes already paid hundreds of thousands for his game collection.

>>4120992
Anyone who gave a shit about this cart wouldn't let it be put into a fucking $40 NES knock off.

Asshole didn't care. John Hancock I liked you but after this...

>>4121213
Certainly there's a market, but generally they sell for much less than this because outside of a relatively small group of people, most don't care enough to spend money on them. And if you explore the prototype market enough, you'll find that a large number of prototypes wind up being either very close to final versions if not byte-for-byte identical to the final release. I can't give a hard answer as to why this is the case, beyond speculating that a lot of prototypes were probably review or late preview copies sent to magazines and that the reusable nature of EPROMs and development boards likely meant that many were overwritten with progressively newer builds as development carried on. You either for to hope that the developer kept good archives of development stages or sent out early preview copies to the press that were never returned. Collecting prototypes can be a downer when you wind up putting down $150 for what turns out to be an identical to final version of a $5 game.

The guy who scooped up a lot of prototypes in the past (and who I assume is the guy you're referring to) is DreamTR and, as best as I can tell, these days he only cares about selling them.

>>4118124
That is a surprisingly well cut out hole.

>>4120624
Why do they have fucking zelda stickers on them

>>4121575
Because they were emptied out Zelda carts. Nintendo probably had a bunch of those shells and reused them instead of producing new shells.

>>4121590
That's dumb. You're dumb.

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>>4121593
Not at all, you buffoon.

Look at this pic from Nintendo Power. An unreleased NES SimCity in, what's that, a cut up Zelda cart? Oh, but I'm sure that's a counterfeit, too!

>>4121643
Shit like this, where the game was never released to market, are the only instances where I give a fuck.

those EEPROM chips have been erased because someone took the stickers off the windows

>>4121952
>not sure if 0/troll or 10/summer

>>4122045
https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/34607/erasing-eproms-with-sunlight
9001/BTFO

>>4122242
if you bother to read the auction he says he covered the eproms immediately and in the videos he posted of playing the game, you can see them covered.

>>4121643
Well there's a most likely finished game we will never see.

>By 1990, Zelda 2 had sold so poorly compared to Zelda in the US, NOA was reusing the shells for devcarts
I think NOA was really banking on Zelda 2 being as crazy popular as the first one was. It sold 2.19 million units here on the name alone, which is a hefty drop from the 3.74 million units the first game sold. If they were planning on matching the first game, they had over a million gold carts laying around.

At least they finally bothered to make clean cutouts rather than just taking a hacksaw to it.

>>4122549
Yeah it'd be interesting to know how many excess carts they had that they were willing to gut them even during the console's life. In the days of the Super Famicom they actually made unique blue and white labels for dev/sample cartridges, though I can only recall them on Euro and SFC carts, not entirely sure if they had a US variant or not. These carts tended to have standard philips head screws instead of the game security screws.

In any event, some of these kinds of things would be neat to have formally documented instead of just left as tidbits of info passed along in preservationist and collector communities. Some companies even manufactured their own development boards, I know I have a Sunsoft Famicom prototype that comes on a dev board that I can find no mention of anywhere.

>>4119797
This Indy is right.

>>4122242
>^fEEPROM
>Phrase not found
Confirmed 9001/summer + 9001/underage

Yeah, EPROM is not the same as EEPROM. And while it is certainly a good idea to cover EPROMs, it isn't like the second you uncover them they corrupt. Indoor light certainly won't be enough to instantly do anything. Just don't set them on a windowsill or something since after a few days the sunlight will corrupt them.

>>4118124
Just under two hours to go, get your guesses in for final selling price.

I'm going with $5011.

>>4121952
You're openly showing everyone how retarded you are.

EEPROMs do not even have windows.
This http://msxvillage.fr/upload/am29f040120pc.jpg is an EEPROM
This https://i.ebayimg.com/thumbs/images/g/IAYAAMXQgyZSCVDb/s-l225.jpg is an EPROM
Learn the difference.

>>4121643
This is my holy grail right here. I hope it will get dumped someday...

>>4123401
It doesn't exist anymore, so good luck with that fantasy.

>>4123413
Why, was it burnt in a fire or something? If it's still sitting around somewhere, there's always a chance.

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These people disgust me.

>>4118135
It would take weeks of sunlight to erase an eprom

>>4124453
Or a few hours of fluorescent...

What's about Earthbound that it attracts autists like Sonic?

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RELISTED
RELISTED

>>4124485
It's a game about kids and pink noses that speak it was bound to be autistic from the beginning

>>4124453
>>4124453
to fully erase, yes. but if just one but gets erased it could potentially break the program. I have a EPROM cart I made to test homebrew on, and I leave the windows uncovered but within the dark shell of the cart. I have no fear of taking it out to show people. That being said, I have never had my games bug up because of erased bits, but I know that if I left it outside for a few minutes some of those bits would change. I treat my cart like this because I can reprogram it at any time, unlike an undumped rom.

>>4124485
true. i at least get the furries loving sonic

Why the fuck hasn't he put it in a super famicom or Snes to prove it? Like you think that would be something he would do to validate it.

>>4125271
How would that work?

A fool and his money.

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>>4118124
>Exposed EP ROM

>>4124826
Well if stored in a dark shell they'd be fine, covered windows or not.

>>4118124
I thinks we're ignoring the real benefit of winning this auction

>Youll earn 44.50 eBay bucks!

Niiice

>>4118268

> the distinction between legit and not is all in your head. Sure you can point to something that was manufactured 30 years ago and say it's "legit", but if you produce a modern facsimile identical to an original design, it's just a more recent run of the same thing.


lmao. Found the guy who buys modern "retro" shit at Hot Topic.

>>4124498
So he let the auction run nearly to completion, ended it early and put it back up for $11k? What a faggot

>>4127682
I know right

Someone with $11k in the bank should buy this and scam the fucker HARD.

>>4127598
In all fairness prototypes can be moderately easy to forge if you know what you're doing (as in, if you have a legit dev board and date-accurate EPROMs, you can make a passable forgery). On the other hand, his claim of making fake development boards "no problem" is completely unsubstantiated. Or, at the very least, there is no documentation of that having happened. Are there even schematics available for NES development boards? I know there are some for Super NES/Super Famicom. A much more likely scenario is someone already having a legitimate PCB and just writing the EPROMs with already dumped prototype data or putting a full retail game on the EPROMs and passing it on as unknown differences from retail.

>>4127704
>Or, at the very least, there is no documentation of that having happened
I'd say with the ludicrous price people are willing to pay for these things, there is plenty of incentive to make a quick buck.

The PCBs are utterly trivial to reproduce. You could probably backwards engineer them with pictures like OPs alone, with some knowledge of the mapper chip and cart pinout of course. They are incredibly low tech, it's just that most people are tech illiterate.

>date-accurate EPROMs
i don't even know what this means. it's not like EPROMs have gone through massive changes in manufacture during their existence that let's you date them by how they look.

>>4119607
Dump them for personal use, since EEPROMs degrade over time.

You can delete the files if you want to later, but better to have them now than lose them forever when a bit flips.

If you know someone with the hardware, you might consider dumping them, erasing, and re-flashing them.

They'll last another 20 years that way.

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>>4127720
>date-accurate EPROMs
>i don't even know what this means.

Many (most?) EPROMs have a manufacturing year and week printed right on them. If you have an EPROM dated 9415 for a game released in 1992 with no later revisions or localizations, you're dealing with a forgery.

The Toshiba EPROM in the photo was manufactured during the 45th week of 1990.

>>4127792
getting old EPROMs is easy.
China is overflowing with them.

If I had the energy and time, and were so inclined, I'd but huge batches of EPROMs, sort them by date, and reproduce some NES/SNES PCBs and churn out questionable "prototypes" while altering minor details in the code to make them seem like different revisions.

>>4121643
>Never released because of bad timing.

I love this explanation, they were keeping it simple, even though it's not the case.

Pun intended.

>>4127795
K.. KEEP ME POSTED

>>4127792
interesting. i didn't know about the date code. One of my EPROMs is from 1995, 48th week. That gives me some perspective on how long the history of my device is, because I got mine the good-ole chink way like >>4127795 suggests. Other than that my chips look an awful lot like OPs, even the silkscreening.

>>4119607
Are you crazy??? You have undeniable proof you own the originals with the dates of your posts on the internet that anyone can verify quickly. If you released them it could drive the demand/value up

>>4127843
That's a bit of a stretch. Dumped prototypes repel both people who want to preserve the data as well as people who want prototypes because they are truly unique items. And, I hate to say it, but I doubt a ROM dump any of the prototypes he pictured would attract any mainstream attention.

>>4127704
>no one ever forged a prototype
There are many ways to prove you're young an inexperienced. Making this claim is one of the best.

>>4127795
I have a lot of EPROMs. I had a quick look through and I have enough 1mbits with 88 or earlier date codes to fill a few boards. I have enough with no date codes to fill a buttload.
I see someone on ebay is selling EPROMs with "vintage date codes". Going forward I'm going to start sorting by date. I'll use newer parts for my own stuff and sell the "vintage" shit to scammers for a premium.

>>4127885
>Dumped prototypes repel both people who want to preserve the data
>preserving the data repels people who want to preserve the data
Shut up and eat your Wheaties, son.

>>4128283
>no one ever forged a prototype

Fuck, dude, are you literally braindead? That is not what I said at all.

>>4128308
>preserving the data repels people who want to preserve the data

Yeah, because people who want to preserve data will pay a premium for... data that has already been preserved? Perhaps I should've been more specific and said publicly shared ROM dumps.

>>4120624
Oh that's really neat.

>>4127885
Niche markets don't need mainstream attention. Retro collecting is not mainstream and I don't know a single other person who does it.