Ibara emulated (read first!)

[Ex-Cyber]

His PC is also rather on the poor side, why don't these guys test it with more updated PCs?

I don't see what difference it makes. It's running an order of magnitude too slow (CPUs advance quickly, but not that quickly). Besides, it doesn't sound like many people are going to be running this driver anytime soon.

[sikraiken]

It's no where near being in danger of disappearing off the face of the planet.

Those NAND flash chips are only specified for 10 years of retention. How long do you think Cave will be repairing them now that they've abandoned the platform?

I'll give you $10,000 if there are no working Ibara boards left when 2020 rolls around, unrepaired. That's 15 years. Would you be willing to do the same if there are still working boards around?

10 years of retention for NAND flash memory assumes a certain amount of usage. Majority of people will only care about "preservation" when the game disappears; not before. Most only care about playing it right now.

[bcass]

Donating a thousand dollar arcade board so somebody can merely dump doesn't sound right either.

What doesn't sound right about it?

[Ex-Cyber]

It's no where near being in danger of disappearing off the face of the planet.

Those NAND flash chips are only specified for 10 years of retention. How long do you think Cave will be repairing them now that they've abandoned the platform?

I'll give you $10,000 if there are no working Ibara boards left when 2020 rolls around, unrepaired. That's 15 years. Would you be willing to do the same if there are still working boards around?

That's irrelevant; I'm not claiming that there will be no working boards, just that they're going to start dying sooner than you seem to think. It's better to dump it while there are still plenty of them around, in part precisely because a dump could be useful in fixing boards that lose their flash contents.

10 years of retention for NAND flash memory assumes a certain amount of usage.

Not really. If the data's not rewritten regularly, it'll eventually be lost. It seems like you're thinking of write/erase tolerance, which is a different (though related) phenomenon.

Majority of people will only care about "preservation" when the game disappears; not before.

Then it's a good thing that there's a concerned minority, otherwise nothing would actually be preserved.

[sikraiken]

That's irrelevant; I'm not claiming that there will be no working boards, just that they're going to start dying sooner than you seem to think. It's better to dump it while there are still plenty of them around, in part precisely because a dump could be useful in fixing boards that lose their flash contents.

It's still pretty much a non-issue at the moment, and for quite a decent amount of time. My point is, it doesn't need to be emulated now. Roms are dumped, good.

Not really. If the data's not rewritten regularly, it'll eventually be lost. It seems like you're thinking of write/erase tolerance, which is a different (though related) phenomenon.

Of course there's possible data loss when they're in storage for extended periods. I'm unsure how it's different, as based on everything I've read, their lifetime is almost entirely related to their erase/write cycles. Leaving the game on 24/7 will cause a shorter lifespan than if the game is periodically booted up. Can you point me toward any good articles/documentation that show what you mean?

Then it's a good thing that there's a concerned minority, otherwise nothing would actually be preserved.

Of course it's good that some people care. I don't see the priority in having it emulated right now besides people wanting to play it. For now, hey, the roms are dumped; it's preserved! \O/

[Ex-Cyber]

Not really. If the data's not rewritten regularly, it'll eventually be lost. It seems like you're thinking of write/erase tolerance, which is a different (though related) phenomenon.

Of course there's possible data loss when they're in storage for extended periods. I'm unsure how it's different, as based on everything I've read, their lifetime is almost entirely related to their erase/write cycles. Leaving the game on 24/7 will cause a shorter lifespan than if the game is periodically booted up. Can you point me toward any good articles/documentation that show what you mean?

The best freely accessible reference I can find without tons of digging is here. It's a little old and doesn't address the difference directly, but the fundamental principles are there. The short version is:

EEPROM (including Flash EEPROM) works by tunneling electrons (Fowler-Nordheim, IIRC) to put a charge on an insulated MOSFET gate ("floating gate"). The gate isn't actually perfectly insulated, and the charge is not refreshed during normal (non-write) operation, so the charge will eventually leak into the substrate, returning the cell to its unprogrammed state. After many writes, the structure is altered such that this happens much more quickly (hence the idea of write cycle tolerance).

[Keade]

-deosn't really relate, but I've moved to MAME and other emulation love mostly because I've had PCB's die. I guess I could really imagine a world where some game never got emulated or a home port, and actually dissapeared.

I wonder if that's ever happened? An extinct game?

I'm pretty sure some games (not necessarily arcade, nor shmups, of course) stored on floppy disks or audio tapes games have been lost forever. As far as I know, PCBs are supposed to be more reliable, though (and not wear out THAT much each time you use it).

[elvis]

I'll give you $10,000 if there are no working Ibara boards left when 2020 rolls around, unrepaired.

And that $10,000 might just pay for a fifth-hand PCB off eBay as people hoard them and artificially inflate the price, and with 0% of those profits going to the people who put in the hard work to create the games.

I'm pretty sure some games (not necessarily arcade, nor shmups, of course) stored on floppy disks or audio tapes games have been lost forever. As far as I know, PCBs are supposed to be more reliable, though (and not wear out THAT much each time you use it).

Arcade PCBs sitting on shelves or in people's cabinets/superguns certainly don't suffer as much damage.

Arcade PCBs butchered by cowboy home users and schlock repair guys attempting frankensteins of other PCBs is the biggest killer. I've lost count of the amount of times I've seen someone take 3 fully repairable boards and mash them into one poorly repaired working board, throwing the remainder into the bin. The alternative of course is to put the effort into finding similar or valid alternative components and repairing that way. People who put that sort of effort in are the minority, which is a great tragedy.

[neorichieb1971]

Its the required effort that is the problem. You have to be a geek to even know anything about it, the parts are not available in your electronic spare part store, the original parts are probably Japanese.

I've never had a PCB die on me. My oldest (Galaga 88) plays great. Although this talk on NAND memory scares me a little. I try to stay away from PCB's with issues, especially since Ibara is one of those games that i've not even played yet (stays in a cupboard awaiting its ketsui price hike j/k).

[Ex-Cyber]

Although this talk on NAND memory scares me a little.

It's not NAND flash specifically (it's EPROM/EEPROM/Flash in general), and the retention varies among different types of chips. The retention spec is an estimate based on baking the chips to see how long the charge stays on at a higher temperature (and thus accelerated leakage). 10 years is a common spec for high-density NAND chips. The data might last 20 or 30 years, but you'd have to be an idiot to design a system based on the assumption that it will last that long.

[sikraiken]

The best freely accessible reference I can find without tons of digging is here. It's a little old and doesn't address the difference directly, but the fundamental principles are there. The short version is:

EEPROM (including Flash EEPROM) works by tunneling electrons (Fowler-Nordheim, IIRC) to put a charge on an insulated MOSFET gate ("floating gate"). The gate isn't actually perfectly insulated, and the charge is not refreshed during normal (non-write) operation, so the charge will eventually leak into the substrate, returning the cell to its unprogrammed state. After many writes, the structure is altered such that this happens much more quickly (hence the idea of write cycle tolerance).

Thanks a lot, I'll take a look. : )

And that $10,000 might just pay for a fifth-hand PCB off eBay as people hoard them and artificially inflate the price, and with 0% of those profits going to the people who put in the hard work to create the games.

Haha...

[Battlesmurf]

http://www.mameworld.info/ubbthreads/sh ... ber=210180

Anyway, the game is really crappy. Its just another stupid Cave shooter that becomes unplayable because there's a billion bullets on screen and you just die real fast.

I know the guy does some wonderful work- but damn. I don't like how much flak he gives Cave and makes it sound as if it's fact and not an opinion.

Anyways- random- did the people who all chipped in for that Ketsui to give to the guy ever find out what happened with that board?

[spl]

I really don't know why those mamedev/emulation people care what Cave think. I mean Cave cares nothing for the western gamers so why should they care about them?

There is not a single Cave game in any arcade in my entire country, and besides Mushihimesama Futari on 360, I can't play any of their ported games on my PAL consoles.

Not too sure what the arcade situation is like in Japan but Ibara is a bit old now and is it really still in alot of arcades in Japan? I thought most would have upgraded to Black Label or Pink Sweets or whatever the new version is. What are they going to lose really? All the players there would be playing the newer released games such as Deathsmiles II, DDP daifukkatsu, etc right????

[Ex-Cyber]

I really don't know why those mamedev/emulation people care what Cave think. I mean Cave cares nothing for the western gamers so why should they care about them?

If memory serves, the official reasoning is "we don't shit where we eat" (pretty sure that's an exact quote), and that philosophy is not applied on a company-by-company basis, except to the extent that they seem to be more wary of more litigious companies. They know that commercial bootleggers use MAME (they've even cracked and emulated one of the bootleg MAME boards in MAME ), and don't want to help them any more than necessary. This is one reason that work on the CPS3 driver has stagnated somewhat (Haze apparently had pretty convincing evidence that bootleggers wanted bugfixes more than regular users did). Even neglecting console ports, Death Smiles and DDP DFK are on the same hardware, and it is often not very difficult to add a game to an existing MAME driver provided that someone dumps the ROMs, so it's not really good enough to merely omit newer games from the driver (as they learned with Neo Geo especially).

[Elixir]

Donating a thousand dollar arcade board so somebody can merely dump doesn't sound right either.

What doesn't sound right about it?

lol.

hmmm
See Cave are really quite stupid. They make something that many people want but price it too high and then don't make enough, which blows the price out so no one can afford it, or at least justify the high price.
high price and lack of items to buy is EXACTLY how piracy gets started because everyone has just had enough of this kind of bullshit.
if someone did it, it can't be that hard to do. get me a board and I'll figure it out and make the info public.....

He writes and acts like a troll. I can't believe this is the guy people support.

I'll be blunt. Guru should not be in this industry. Guru isn't a credit to the MAME community. Half of his time is spent arguing on forums about trivial technicalities and etiquette over the process of his work instead of making progress in itself. I feel sorry for the people who donated towards his "projects". Actually, I wouldn't recommend anyone donating anything to him at all, since it's a needless cry for attention.

It's a bit hard to feel sympathetic with someone who doesn't even like the work he does. He should quit or at least hand his material over to capable hands (where results might actually be shown).

[bcass]

Donating a thousand dollar arcade board so somebody can merely dump doesn't sound right either.

What doesn't sound right about it?

lol.

Care to answer the question instead of being a dick about it?

[Elixir]

If you have to question it, you already think it's acceptable to donate a thousand dollar arcade board (to a guy who dislikes Cave's methods along with their games). Therefore, lol.

[bcass]

Guru should not be in this industry.

What on earth are you talking about? What "industry"? The emulation community is in no way an "industry". It's a group of highly talented individuals spending thousands of dollars of their own money, dedicating thousands of man hours (for free) so that the great unwashed can play arcade games on their PCs for free.

Guru isn't a credit to the MAME community. Half of his time is spent arguing on forums about trivial technicalities and etiquette over the process of his work instead of making progress in itself. I feel sorry for the people who donated towards his "projects". Actually, I wouldn't recommend anyone donating anything to him at all, since it's a needless cry for attention.

What a load of ill-informed twaddle. Guru has dumped hundreds of boards over the course of 10 years or so. If that isn't a credit to the emulation community, then I don't know what is. You might not like the way the guy comes accross on a personal level, but to deny his significant contributions to the community over the last decade is just pig ignorance.

[bcass]

If you have to question it, you already think it's acceptable to donate a thousand dollar arcade board (to a guy who dislikes Cave's methods along with their games). Therefore, lol.

Guru has dumped loads of games he doesn't like. You're not making any sense.

[clp]

without getting to much into it i have to say regardless of what he may or may not have done guru comes across as a total prick .

[bcass]

It's very very easy to become very jaded when you're spending so much of your own money and time to provide people with something for free only to be on the receiving end of ungrateful sorts who don't have the first idea about what's involved.

[Elixir]

If you have to question it, you already think it's acceptable to donate a thousand dollar arcade board (to a guy who dislikes Cave's methods along with their games). Therefore, lol.

Guru has dumped loads of games he doesn't like. You're not making any sense.

Are you confused that easily? I feel sorry for you. And with all that Guru backing you just did, you didn't even address my point. Oh well.

[DC906270]

so that the great unwashed can play arcade games on their PCs for free.

i dont think that is the entire point of MAME devs work, as theyve said themselves, this is a side effect of the work they do emulating the hardware. they could care less if people can play games for "free".

[clp]

It's very very easy to become very jaded when you're spending so much of your own money and time to provide people with something for free only to be on the receiving end of ungrateful sorts who don't have the first idea about what's involved.

so why the hell does he even do it? whats in it for him?

[bcass]

so that the great unwashed can play arcade games on their PCs for free.

i dont think that is the entire point of MAME devs work, as theyve said themselves, this is a side effect of the work they do emulating the hardware. they could care less if people can play games for "free".

"Preservation" is the official line, but most of the people invovled do it so they can play the games. It goes hand in hand with preservation, they're not mutually exclusive.

[bcass]

Are you confused that easily? I feel sorry for you. And with all that Guru backing you just did, you didn't even address my point. Oh well.

You were making a point? Must have got lost in all that drivel you continually spout.

It's very very easy to become very jaded when you're spending so much of your own money and time to provide people with something for free only to be on the receiving end of ungrateful sorts who don't have the first idea about what's involved.

so why the hell does he even do it? whats in it for him?

Probably not much more than grim determination these days. I guess he doesn't expend anywhere near the same amount of energy to the cause as he used to. Totally understandable if Elixir's brainless ignorance is anything to go by.

[DC906270]

so why the hell does he even do it? whats in it for him?

dunno, if they had wanted to, they could have made shitloads from MAME over the years, but they decided to basically give it away for free. i bet that guy who made the pc engine emulator Magicengine made a fair bit..

[Elixir]

Are you confused that easily? I feel sorry for you. And with all that Guru backing you just did, you didn't even address my point. Oh well.

You were making a point? Must have got lost in all that drivel you continually spout.

Why, yes. I was making the point that if you believe in sending a person a one thousand dollar arcade board for it to be dumped, only for no further progress to be made afterwards, you are beyond stupid and should leave this hobby.

It's difficult to filter through your multiple personalities (I have to do this on a similar shmup forum, it's quite tiring) but once you actually read the thread I linked and understand that no progress is going to be made on a project that Guru doesn't even want to work on or support, and only current progress of Ketsui exists due to him being spoonfed in the first place, call me, okay?

[bcass]

The official word from guru (to the people who actually paid for the PCB) was that it was in his long "to do" list, but that he would be doing it at some point. It doesn't matter what you've read elsewhere, that is exactly what guru told the contributors directly.

[Dave_K.]

Why, yes. I was making the point that if you believe in sending a person a one thousand dollar arcade board for it to be dumped, only for no further progress to be made afterwards, you are beyond stupid and should leave this hobby.

So I guess the 30 or so people on the forum here who donated for the Ketsui dump should GTFO?