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Post by desfeek on May 27, 2013 16:48:11 GMT -5
While I DO NOT recommend replicating these videos, at least they exist to show off what can happen if you incorrectly insert a Vectrex cartridge: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xv2M8W665jQwww.youtube.com/watch?v=zbppx7aRiqoOf particular note is the "SPACE" splash screen - I almost want to play around and see if I can replicate it (the video doesn't show the full process), but there's no way in hell I'm risking damaging my cart slot for a silly glitch. I think the youtube comments contain a reasonable explanation of this phenomenon: Well the games SPACE WARS and SPIKE are both made by GCE as is that splash screen of SPACE. So this could be some sort of data on the rom cart. Also however, MINESTORM by GCE was pre built into the Vectrex and it takes place in space, perhaps this is an old splash screen for MINESTORM when the devs had it named SPACE and instead of deleting the data and having to change around a bunch of data positions on the old rom, they just hid the data, much like Cubone becoming MissingNo in Pokemon Red. |
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Post by VectorX on May 27, 2013 17:09:01 GMT -5
Yeah, I remember thinking that a few weeks ago when I had seen those as well. The "Space" one is pretty interesting though, you have to admit!
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Post by desfeek on May 30, 2013 0:21:59 GMT -5
It is QUITE interesting...I wonder if it could be a fake. Maybe this is is like the 3D Pole Position prank, or the Tron prank; somebody's 'hello world' program meant to troll people into messing with their Vectrex with a cart plugged in. (Conspiracy rant over)
I still like the idea that maybe Minestorm was originally programmed SPACE, and hidden-away broken code can still be accessed with 'alternative' means.
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Post by VectorX on May 30, 2013 7:31:08 GMT -5
It's probably the latter. A lot of games have hidden messages in them, even though most of us, in general, aren't going to see them via deliberately trying to get them to work and/or by using a dissassembler to look at the code for them.
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Post by vectrexmad on May 30, 2013 20:24:24 GMT -5
It's probably the latter. A lot of games have hidden messages in them, even though most of us, in general, aren't going to see them via deliberately trying to get them to work and/or by using a dissassembler to look at the code for them. I was also intrigued about this "SPACE" text and splash screen. However, I am convinced it is not because of any of the suggestions previously made. The "SPACE" text is as a result of missing data rather than some old code or secret code added by the game author. A detailed explanation is given in the Friday 31st May news entry on my website. |
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Post by hcmffm on Jun 3, 2013 14:18:16 GMT -5
A long and reasonalbe explanation for the "SPACE" phenonemon on your webpage, VectrexMad! Especially the numbers "1013" proof your theory of "SPIKE" with missing bit #3. Though I'm not 100% sure whether this really does harm to the Vectrex or not.
BTW, this Vectrex glitch reminds me of what friends and I did with the Atari 2600 when we were young:
We switched the Atari 2600 on and then very quickly off and on, again. The effects for Space Invaders where quite intersting. And I remember a friend who did this and thus disabled the randomn number generation of Asteriods: All asteroids where blue and asteroids and ufos emerged always at the same positions. We were little afraid of damaging the Atari 2600 and nothing ever happened, but perhaps we were just lucky. In opposite to the Vectrex, the Atari 2600 has no control of the raster beam of the TV, this might be a big difference when talking about possible damage.
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Post by vectrexmad on Jun 4, 2013 20:39:02 GMT -5
I got my hex editor out again and this time examined the RipOff binary.
I found some text data in this ROM I think not intended for the public.
At address 0xF006, it says "THIS SPACE AVAILABLE...WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU LOOKING AT ? ? ?"
More info in the 5th June News entry on my website.
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Post by VectorX on Jun 4, 2013 20:50:17 GMT -5
At address 0xF006, it says "THIS SPACE AVAILABLE...WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU LOOKING AT ? ? ?" Holy crap, that's funny! Rip Off AND Flip Off, if you ask me! |
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Post by desfeek on Jun 5, 2013 13:02:56 GMT -5
I got my hex editor out again and this time examined the RipOff binary. I found some text data in this ROM I think not intended for the public. At address 0xF006, it says "THIS SPACE AVAILABLE...WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU LOOKING AT ? ? ?" More info in the 5th June News entry on my website. So awesome, nice find! |
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Post by vectrexmad on Jun 5, 2013 16:52:11 GMT -5
Look at the text I found at the end of WebWars ROM binary. It looks like some kind of an advertisement: ![]() ![]()  With WebWars when you press a combination of buttons (hold buttons 1, 2, and 4 before the title screen music finishes playing) to get to see the text showing the three game authors. That text can be seen in the hex editor too. But what with this advertisement text? When or (if at all) does that message get displayed? Otherwise what's the point of putting that message there. |
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Post by VectorX on Jun 5, 2013 17:29:00 GMT -5
For us to scratch our heads over it over 30 years later?  |
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