| casm |
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Cinematronics > *
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Hidden messages for emulator devs?
#245268 - 02/01/11 01:48 AM
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For no good reason, I've been wondering over the past few days if anyone has ever run across messages from arcade game authors to emulator developers in the games themselves.
This doesn't really mean hidden game settings or Easter eggs as such, but something more along the lines of the one that Peter Adams left in Blue Max for pirates. Software checks for things like unfeasibly large amounts of lives or weapons might also count, but unless the results of those checks somehow specifically addressed a dev or group of devs, they'd probably just be considered anti-piracy measures.
Odd question, I know - but in the 15 years or so that arcade emulation has been around, it seems not inconceivable that in that time someone at a game company may have left a present or two in there for the day when the game is running in emulation.
Edited by casm (02/01/11 01:48 AM)
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italie |
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MAME owes italie many thank yous, hah
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Re: Hidden messages for emulator devs?
[Re: casm]
#245273 - 02/01/11 02:37 AM
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> For no good reason, I've been wondering over the past few days if anyone has ever run
> across messages from arcade game authors to emulator developers in the games
> themselves.
>
> This doesn't really mean hidden game settings or Easter eggs as such, but something
> more along the lines of the one that Peter Adams left in Blue Max for pirates.
> Software checks for things like unfeasibly large amounts of lives or weapons might
> also count, but unless the results of those checks somehow specifically addressed a
> dev or group of devs, they'd probably just be considered anti-piracy measures.
>
> Odd question, I know - but in the 15 years or so that arcade emulation has been
> around, it seems not inconceivable that in that time someone at a game company may
> have left a present or two in there for the day when the game is running in
> emulation.
You find a lot of that inside actual component dies and on PCBs, pretty interesting stories on a few...
http://hackaday.com/2009/10/12/easter-egg-challenge/
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| Moose |
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Don't make me assume my ultimate form!
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Re: Hidden messages for emulator devs?
[Re: casm]
#245293 - 02/01/11 04:03 AM
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> For no good reason, I've been wondering over the past few days if anyone has ever run
> across messages from arcade game authors to emulator developers in the games
> themselves.
>
> This doesn't really mean hidden game settings or Easter eggs as such, but something
> more along the lines of the one that Peter Adams left in Blue Max for pirates.
LOL, that reads almost exactly like some of the messages I've been hiding in my Moose Valley software for the last 10 years. Here are some of my messages:
1. Greetings Hacker - so you
2. have chosen to dissassemble
3. my code ! Hmmm ...
4. I hope you do not intend
5. to rip off my hard work or
6. allow others to rip off my
7. work ! How dare you !!!
8. I hope you think before you
9. abuse your knowledge !
A. Stealing is not a nice
B. thing to do !!!
C. Why don't you use your
D. skills for good than evil?
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Moose
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Re: Hidden messages for emulator devs?
[Re: casm]
#245305 - 02/01/11 05:20 AM
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Probably the fire power related to protection in Giga Wing 2 and the extremely offense Warez Tournament in NeoGeo Battle Coliseum.
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| R. Belmont |
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Cuckoo for IGAvania
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Re: Hidden messages for emulator devs?
[Re: Smitdogg]
#245309 - 02/01/11 05:47 AM
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> Probably the fire power related to protection in Giga Wing 2 and the extremely
> offense Warez Tournament in NeoGeo Battle Coliseum.
Gigawing 2 fell pretty quickly to Andreas. Boobs or Alive is better-protected, as is Sega Tetris oddly. It's always Tetris with the drama.
Regarding the original question I haven't seen anything like that, and I'm sure if anyone else had it'd be well-known.
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| H@P |
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Lurker in perpetuity
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I always liked the silkscreen on the Amiga 500 motherboard. Mixed with component numbers you'll find "B52 ROCK LOBSTER".
And not really a message to hackers, but when you unswap an original Ms. Pac-Man ROM (u6), you'll find "Hello, Nakamura!", a message from GCC to Namco's big boss at the time. It's in the bootleg too, already unscrambled (boot6?), but what's the fun in that?
H@P
[ATTACHED IMAGE]
Edited by H@P (02/01/11 08:32 AM)
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| redk9258 |
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Regular
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Re: Hidden messages for emulator devs?
[Re: H@P]
#245319 - 02/01/11 07:56 AM
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| Tomu Breidah |
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No Problems, Only Solutions
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Re: Hidden messages for emulator devs?
[Re: casm]
#245320 - 02/01/11 07:59 AM
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I've wondered if there were redundant code (just like a message of this sort) on individual boards of the same game... kind of like a serial number. That's probably a silly thing to think. :-/
What I mean to say is (if it weren't obvious) - if a dump were to be made of a board, then you dump another board of the same game - but this one area or lines of the game code is different from the other board that was dumped.
Edited by T0M (02/01/11 08:02 AM)
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LEVEL-4
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Re: Hidden messages for emulator devs?
[Re: Moose]
#245321 - 02/01/11 08:09 AM
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So it seems the Brisbane river didn't wash you away after all.
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| italie |
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MAME owes italie many thank yous, hah
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Re: Hidden messages for emulator devs?
[Re: Tomu Breidah]
#245326 - 02/01/11 08:38 AM
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> I've wondered if there were redundant code (just like a message of this sort) on
> individual boards of the same game... kind of like a serial number. That's probably a
> silly thing to think. :-/
>
> What I mean to say is (if it weren't obvious) - if a dump were to be made of a board,
> then you dump another board of the same game - but this one area or lines of the game
> code is different from the other board that was dumped.
Slots and bill validators have such a serial, but I think the closest in arcade terms to that would be some of the newer golden tee / ss bowl equipment. They each have unique CID's, but I'm not quite sure they count as they are external and more of a "dongle".
IIRC some of the older fore boards had some form of serial tracking as well, but I can't remember if it was an actual programmed serial or just a paper trail.
I'd be curious if anyone else has a more to the point example as well.
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Re: Hidden messages for emulator devs?
[Re: H@P]
#245336 - 02/01/11 12:17 PM
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As far as I remember, the message pops up when the debug/test mode is enabled on machine boot.
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Try checking the MAME manual at http://docs.mamedev.org
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| Moose |
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Don't make me assume my ultimate form!
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Re: Hidden messages for emulator devs?
[Re: Matty_]
#245339 - 02/01/11 01:43 PM
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> So it seems the Brisbane river didn't wash you away after all.
Thanks. 
Actually, I'm about 7 hours drive north of Brissie.
Still lots of flooding around here recently, but only in the lowest lying areas. People build on flood plains and then wonder why they are flooded when the river's do what they've been doing for millions of years. 
Floods ended, now cyclones. 1 cyclone has just passed, and another is bearing down. Going to be a nasty fucker. Good luck anyone living further north. e.g. near Cairns. 150+ mph winds. Good luck all MAMERS living in FNQ. 
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Moose
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| R. Belmont |
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Cuckoo for IGAvania
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Re: Hidden messages for emulator devs?
[Re: italie]
#245361 - 02/01/11 07:36 PM
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> IIRC some of the older fore boards had some form of serial tracking as well, but I
> can't remember if it was an actual programmed serial or just a paper trail.
The serial on the Fore! boards (and most of the IT Eagle system games in general) is from the PIC, as far as I know. So essentially another dongle.
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Re: Hidden messages for emulator devs?
[Re: casm]
#245403 - 02/02/11 12:44 AM
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Not really arcade related, but the English Amiga Board has collected a large number of hidden messages to crackers: http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=5040
Some of them are really hilarious: "CRACK THIS GAME AND YOU DIE!!!!!!! I AM NOT KIDDING!! I KNOW WHO YOU ALL ARE!! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!!"
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| Moose |
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Don't make me assume my ultimate form!
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Re: Hidden messages for emulator devs?
[Re: startaq]
#245409 - 02/02/11 01:26 AM
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> Not really arcade related, but the English Amiga Board has collected a large number
> of hidden messages to crackers: http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=5040
>
> Some of them are really hilarious: "CRACK THIS GAME AND YOU DIE!!!!!!! I AM NOT
> KIDDING!! I KNOW WHO YOU ALL ARE!! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!!"
Quote: "making loads of money like me (you too could afford a 16V Astra GTE)".
 Priceless !!
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Moose
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| casm |
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Cinematronics > *
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Re: Hidden messages for emulator devs?
[Re: Moose]
#245414 - 02/02/11 02:44 AM
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> Quote: "making loads of money like me (you too could afford a 16V Astra GTE)".
Translated: "(you too could afford Vauxhall's not-as-well-built version of a middle-of-the-range Opel, albeit one that isn't quite as slow as the others)" 
Love the hidden comments, though. Think I may have seen one or two of those way back when.
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| casm |
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Cinematronics > *
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Re: Hidden messages for emulator devs?
[Re: Smitdogg]
#245415 - 02/02/11 02:48 AM
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> Warez Tournament in NeoGeo Battle Coliseum.
OK, that's kinda cool. Didn't know about that one, but then I generally don't pay a lot of attention to NeoGeo stuff. Thanks for that!
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| casm |
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Cinematronics > *
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Re: Hidden messages for emulator devs?
[Re: R. Belmont]
#245416 - 02/02/11 02:51 AM
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> Regarding the original question I haven't seen anything like that, and I'm sure if
> anyone else had it'd be well-known.
That's pretty much what I'd figured, but thought I'd ask the question anyway. Kinda looking forward to the day when the, "if you're reading this you're either a) hard at work in Shenzhen five minutes after this game hit the market; b) trying to get this to run properly in MAME; or c) both" message pops up in something; it'd make for a hell of an Easter egg.
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| Andrew |
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Girl Watcher
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Re: Hidden messages for emulator devs?
[Re: H@P]
#245424 - 02/02/11 04:52 AM
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> ...a message from GCC
From what I understand, the message was longer but was shortened when they ran out of room. Also, I haven't seen it for myself but they supposedly put their initials on the circuit board of the Atari 7800 game system.
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A story of one man and his obsession with the female anatomy.
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| H@P |
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Lurker in perpetuity
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Re: Hidden messages for emulator devs?
[Re: Firehawke]
#245597 - 02/03/11 05:42 PM
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> As far as I remember, the message pops up when the debug/test mode is
> enabled on machine boot.
I believe you're thinking of this (from src/mame/drivers/pacman.c):
- Pacman, Ms Pacman, Piranha and similar display "MADE BY NAMCO" sideways in power pellets. Hold start 1 and 2 and
toggle the test switch to get to the convergence grid. 4xUp, 4xL, 4xR, 4xD.
right after that comment is this:
- Ms. Pac-Man has a hidden message at the very end of ROM memory 0x97d0-0x97ff:
000097d0: 4745 4e45 5241 4c20 434f 4d50 5554 4552 GENERAL COMPUTER
000097e0: 2020 434f 5250 4f52 4154 494f 4e20 2020 CORPORATION
000097f0: 4865 6c6c 6f2c 204e 616b 616d 7572 6121 Hello, Nakamura!
H@P
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Priceless !! 
