Source Code for Art of Fighting discovered on the PC Engine release

[Duo_R]

Not sure if anyone saw this, but the source code of Art of Fighting was found on the PC Engine release. I don't know if any of that helps with further development insight to PC Engine, but thought I would post.


http://www.mameworld.info/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Number=320783

I don't have the real hard drive, the neogeo source code was hidden in the PC-engine CDROM conversion source code of this game.

The tools i found only work for PC-engine, and most are PC-DOS based (some are not compatible with our western PCs!)
none are related to the neogeo, i'm sorry guys.

To clarify:

The CD mastering software they used to make the PC-Engine version of Art of Fighting didn't zero out the CD image prior to writing data, and as a result big chunks of unused space from the hard drive of the computer being used were included in the CD image. The data consists of files that had been deleted in the past including many archives of backed-up source code from various projects.

The data files and an extraction program somebody wrote have been around for a few years, but I think nobody found the archive that had the AOF code grouped together specifically until now. Data from AOF and other CD games can be found on this page on the top link, which includes extraction tools to pull out the fragmented LZH and ZIP files:

http://gilgalad.arc-nova.org/vgscr/nectg16.html

Or, you can obtain the ISO for the PC-Engine version of AOF and extract the data directly from there.

The developer of port had the AOF source code as it was a literal line by line port of the original game, the Hu6280 source has the 68000 code in comments and the corresponding 6280 code beneath it.     
   

[WoodyXP]

Not sure if anyone saw this

We did.

[Bonknuts]

A small group of us have known about this, for about 4+ years now. The person that discovered the AOF one specifically, didn't want it made public - out of respect for the producer/programmer who still worked in the field at the time (didn't want to make him look bad, even if it was old stuff. I guess the Japanese are weird that way).

 Side note, I thought for sure that trap15 knew about it (he hung out in the main irc channel for pce dev at the time, where we talked about it from time to time).

 Part of my WIP Arcade card doc, actually comes from this source code pack. It had some previously undocumented features. Also nice, is the break down of the SCSI type protocol for the CDROM and such (it's buried in there).

[Duo_R]

OK was there a thread on this? Didn't see one so sorry if it's duplicate

[Bonknuts]

Not that I know of.

[Punch]

I've heard about it in vague terms some time ago, I'm glad I found this again with links. Thanks.

[esteban]

...

 Part of my WIP Arcade card doc, actually comes from this source code pack. It had some previously undocumented features. Also nice, is the break down of the SCSI type protocol for the CDROM and such (it's buried in there).

Does that mean you could fashion your own Intelligent Link cable?    Thank you.

[Trenton_net]

Part of my WIP Arcade card doc, actually comes from this source code pack. It had some previously undocumented features. Also nice, is the break down of the SCSI type protocol for the CDROM and such (it's buried in there).

Does that mean with the right people, a USB CD-ROM <--> PCE adapter could be produced? It would make it way more cheaper to upgrade a PCE instead of fixing all these old CD-ROM drives.

[Bonknuts]

There's already enough knowledge to build such a device, to interface with a virtual drive (SD card) or even a real drive - or both. It's more about finding someone that wants to take on such a project.

[bishopcruz]

There's already enough knowledge to build such a device, to interface with a virtual drive (SD card) or even a real drive - or both. It's more about finding someone that wants to take on such a project.

Wait what? A SD virtual drive for the PCE would be amazing.

[Punch]

Wait what? A SD virtual drive for the PCE would be amazing.

ly hard to design, create and produce.

[Bonknuts]

I was looking at those new MIPS mcu's a couple of months ago. They're fast enough to interface with an SD card, playback CDDA (or wave files), and emulate the ADPCM stuff and addon ports. And the best part, write it in C/C++. Use emulation source code as a template. Voilà, new CD drive/drive emulator for PCE systems.

[Trenton_net]

I was looking at those new MIPS mcu's a couple of months ago. They're fast enough to interface with an SD card, playback CDDA (or wave files), and emulate the ADPCM stuff and addon ports. And the best part, write it in C/C++. Use emulation source code as a template. Voilà, new CD drive/drive emulator for PCE systems.

SD card is nice, but it would make much more sense to start out with a USB CD-ROM adapter. Reason being, many people have 100s of PCE CD-ROM disks, and most want to play them directly and not have to rip to SD card. SD card is more for people who pirate games I suspect, unless your so troubled by getting out your disks you want to consolidate your collection on a single media. Of course, this is only my humble opinion.

[megatron-uk]

When you have many hundreds of carts and cds, flash devices are incredibly useful both in terms of reducing wear from physical parts and from the ease of use.

It also makes the development of homebrew games and utilities many times easier.

They also bring additional advantages along the lines of the Everdrive (use it as a general purpose drive accessible from homebrew code) or the sd reader for the Dreamcast (Dreamshell has a desktop, image/movie viewer run from the SD card, etc).

[Trenton_net]

When you have many hundreds of carts and cds, flash devices are incredibly useful both in terms of reducing wear from physical parts and from the ease of use.

It also makes the development of homebrew games and utilities many times easier.

They also bring additional advantages along the lines of the Everdrive (use it as a general purpose drive accessible from homebrew code) or the sd reader for the Dreamcast (Dreamshell has a desktop, image/movie viewer run from the SD card, etc).

Ah, that's kind of a good point. Well, I can understand wear on cartridges, which is why I own an Everdrive for the PCE, but for CDs? As long as your not careless handling them, there is no wear. The only wear you would experience is in the CD-ROM drive, which would be moot since you could just use any old CD-ROM drive to play games (If such an adapter was produced). Unless I'm missing something :-)