ESPgaluda PGM cart conversion

[w-ring]

I've just ordered a cart conversion of ESPgaluda. Has anyone else got one? I've got a question about it.

Wikipedia says "Arcade board operators can also enable the D button for autofire". Is this easy to do? I have a consolized PGM system.

[rancor]

Unknown since it's a boot. Why dont you ask the person who made it?

[emphatic]

I've just ordered a cart conversion of ESPgaluda. Has anyone else got one? I've got a question about it.

Wikipedia says "Arcade board operators can also enable the D button for autofire". Is this easy to do? I have a consolized PGM system.

On the PGM PCB (original), the full auto is always on for button D. If this is missing in the cart conversion or not, I don't know. Holding buttons C & D while starting a credit switches position so full auto is on C and Barrier is on D.

[w-ring]

Thanks very much!

I'll try that. I'm hoping to get the cart in the next week or so. I am pretty excited, because it'll be my first tate shooter on a cart

[trap15]

Bootleg supporter.

[antron]

MAME piracy dev

[trap15]

I assumed everyone knew that my biggest interest in emulation is in understanding and education, rather than playing games for free.

[w-ring]

I guess everyone has different views on these things. Personally I don't use emulators, and always prefer something on a cart rather than on a disc. Plus I have no setup to play a PCB.

And I'm looking forward to playing ESPgaluda, because the only CAVE game I've played is Dodonpachi on the Saturn.

[antron]

I assumed everyone knew that my biggest interest in emulation is in understanding and education, rather than playing games for free.

I get that, and I appreciate your work. I guess I'm peeved at the disparity of attitudes people have towards one form of piracy over another. The STG tournaments would not be possible if everyone refused to hit OK on the MAME boot screen for ROMs they are not legally entitled to play.

[IseeThings]

major difference is nobody involved in MAME is trying to take money of people for hacked up stuff, or butchering batches of original games in order to do so.

we do things our of a genuine interest / want to understand things / desire to document things to future generations etc. that's a world apart from the people doing it to make gross amounts of per-unit profit on minimal investment hack jobs. The MAME work is selfless, mostly unrewarding work designed to benefit others with a very long-term view of things, the arcade bootleggers are mostly selfish and couldn't give a damn about what they're doing beyond the next pay check.

who knows how many IGS game revisions etc. are now lost because the carts have more value to bootleggers being hacked to run these things.

sure if one of these gets dumped we'll probably end up documenting it in MAME as well, but don't take that as meaning we approve of them, more as it being important to have them marked as bootlegs so people aren't fooled as easily.

[antron]

it's good argument, but it does not universally apply. if someone has a game that no one wants should it go in the trash? it's not their responsibility to preserve every arcade cart ever made.

[IseeThings]

it's good argument, but it does not universally apply. if someone has a game that no one wants should it go in the trash? it's not their responsibility to preserve every arcade cart ever made.

Unfortunately this is one reason we have to do what we do, too much unpopular stuff was simply produced in small numbers, then trashed / converted and is in grave danger of being forgotten / lost to time. We didn't know about several of the regular PGM carts we found until they turned up and that stuff is relatively recent.

Again you only really highlight the huge difference between what we do and what the bootleggers do. We care about everything we can care about, regardless of it's value, we care because we think it matters, and that it's important to document these things for the future.

Bootleggers only care what has the highest value and will scrap anything of lower value to make it, thus destroying things in the process, and working against the overall goal of having a complete picture of everything properly documented.

So it should be kinda obvious why we're not too fond of them. MAME has far greater value than a simple 'game piracy tool' some try to see it as.

[system11]

There's a reason these are banned from the trading section, they just exist to line one persons pockets at the expense of other games. By buying them, you are supporting this destructive (and overpriced) practise.

[antron]

this reminds me of George W Bush's embryonic stem cell policy. don't use those leftover IVF cells because they are humans. throw them in the trash instead.

but I understand the ban here, there is no way to know an individual cart's true circumstances.

[trap15]

How are they similar at all? Using them for bootleg conversions is destroying the originals (which have merit in various fields) and making some jackass a bunch of money that he doesn't deserve.

[w-ring]

On a lighter note, can someone explain to me how to pronounce Espgaluda?

[antron]

Well I'm only saying it can be better than throwing the original in the trash, which will also destroy it. And by that I mean it's a positive thing when a gamer gets to play a game on real hardware that they might not otherwise be able to afford.

I realize this creates a big problem when high bootleg prices lead to the destruction of history. There could be a list of known/dumped games that could be sacrificed for profit, along with a bounty for anything not on the list. People will do the wrong thing even if we do the right; it's got to be made worth their while. As long as ebay is allowing this (and they seem to be) our ban here will do nothing to stop this.

[trap15]

Yes, but as far as I know it's not too common for games to be thrown away because they couldn't be converted. Another issue is that oftentimes people don't know they have something that's not dumped. Stuff like alternate revisions, early releases, things like that; they're not always obvious that they're different from another more common version. It's the chance of losing these things that's most worrying about bootleg conversions.

There's no real way to legitimize bootleg conversions, especially ones sold for obscene prices (such as the Osman conversions that have been popping up everywhere), other than "it lets people play the games for cheaper than normally", which isn't really legitimate anyways.

[trap15]

On a lighter note, can someone explain to me how to pronounce Espgaluda?

As it's written Esp gah loo da

[moh]

the pgm cart conversion costs just as much as the original pcb.

i'm just gonna leave that little bit of information here.

[system11]

And you can get one of those all without giving money to someone banned from most reputable forums!

[rancor]

Not only all of the above, but the boots are poorly made as well. You'll be getting graphical errors in ~6 months. Take a look at the guys handiwork on a Cyvern Super Nova he made:



edit: not an STV cart.

[chempop]

I really love that my cyvern boot gets so much attention.

[BIL]

It's a masterpiece. ^_~

the guy that made that really liked cyvern

[antron]

the pgm cart conversion costs just as much as the original pcb.

i'm just gonna leave that little bit of information here.

well that's just crazy. I meant more like turning a MVS World Heroes into a Aero Fighters 3 or something. Save you mad cash!

[Casey120]

He's a bit careless with the hot glue but it's the soldering that's important there right ?



I'm not saying conversions are a good thing but I feel a lot of hate comes from actually knowing which guy makes them and how much he pockets .
So many other conversions out there people buy and sell if it's a CPS2 kill for a Progear, multiboard, GnG or AES, well someone actually made money of those .

[emphatic]

The flaky nature of DOJ PCB's (great thinking with that metal cage, CAVE) has made me want a DOJ BL (apparently you can't play vanilla DOJ on the conversion ) cart, but other than that I can't see anything positive coming from this bootlegging.

[system11]

There's always Tamashii on the PGM2, then you get original and easy modes, brand new for $400 including motherboard.

[IseeThings]

I'm not saying conversions are a good thing but I feel a lot of hate comes from actually knowing which guy makes them and how much he pockets .
So many other conversions out there people buy and sell if it's a CPS2 kill for a Progear, multiboard, GnG or AES, well someone actually made money of those .

Don't worry, I feel an equal amount of hate towards the people doing that, and the people making multi-game boards (most of them are using MAME without permission as well as the roms, it kinda makes you want to scream, to be doing something for a good cause and have it abused by people selling it)

The legitimate (new game) conversions are more interesting (things like Dark Tower on Double Dragon boards, Diamond Run on GnG) at least they're not bootlegs, but instead somebody trying to put a newer game of their own on the market. They can still be a little destructive, but are at least sold on the merits of an original product (which, if it's no good, isn't going to sell, unlike a bootleg of a popular game) Also they were typically sold as kits not PCBs, so the operator still had the original game and could easily just pop the chips in when the conversion proved to be unpopular. In kit cases like this it can actually be harder to find the conversion kits these days, because a good number weren't very good and simply got converted back.

The worst part is it's not even always about the value of the game to the bootleggers, it's about how fast they can ship them out. I'm sure if bootleggers had got hold of the ultra-rare 'Ganbare! Marine Kun' (CPS1) that was recently found and dumped they'd have simply converted it to a guaranteed quick seller that they already had demand for rather than waiting for interest / waiting for a bidding war to star / deal explaining to customers that it's a redemption game and needs special extra hardware. (even in this case it sold quickly anyway, it would have just been an unknown undesirable gambling game wasting a perfectly good CPS1 board to a bootlegger)

You can see why behaviour like this puts people off dumping (for example) their rare NeoGeo prototypes, the second they do, regardless of if it's a good dump, hacked dump etc. you'll see eBay flooded with bootlegs using that dump, and the sellers trying to pass them off as original. It's a slap in the face to them, just as it's a slap in the face to us devs when people start selling MAME based boards etc.

So while it might sound odd to some there are clear reasons why the emulation devs really don't like seeing this kind of thing, we have very different goals and reasons for our work.

[cools]

I'm not saying conversions are a good thing but I feel a lot of hate comes from actually knowing which guy makes them and how much he pockets .
So many other conversions out there people buy and sell if it's a CPS2 kill for a Progear, multiboard, GnG or AES, well someone actually made money of those .

I bought a Naomi CF kit from Joerg recently. I also enquired at the time about how much he'd charge for some carts - Border Down and Psyvariar 2. For a brief moment I thought getting carts made was a good idea, but this was mainly fuelled by the cost of the official Sega CF kit.

He sold me a 512MB NetDIMM (modified with a single jumper wire to supply power to the CF reader), one of his CF readers (which is a really well made bit of kit), and a 512MB card.

Sega wouldn't have got any money out of me if I'd bought the originals as I'd play them via GDROM - which I'd have bought from the community or auction sites. They would maybe have made a few quid if I bought their CF reader, but could I even buy this direct?

No games have been killed, Joerg's made some money, I'm happy with the end result. Morally I don't even see that I should buy the originals - they aren't for sale from Sega as far as I know! The completely pure way would be to buy the originals (from a collector or such) AND send money (the price the game was originally sold for) to Sega directly... Which seems a little ridiculous.

I disagree massively with SACing games, but would actively encourage genuine bootlegging of obselete hardware. Produce a run of PROPER boots of rarer titles (make your own PCBs, stick a signature on them), sell them as such - everyone's happy.