Sounds like a location test. I've occasionally seen stuff marked as "Show Version" on prototypes, looks like you've stumbled on such a board. Others who actually own/frequently deal with PCBs probably would know more on this than I though.
As I recall there's no ROM in MAME that has anything like that on it. If you have the skills and are MAME-friendly get that dumped before it breaks, valuable piece of history there.
That could be awesome... Licensee Tuning as in it's kind of region free? I wonder if we can learn something from this. And I wonder if the mobo is different.
Tuning were just the main arcade distributor in Germany, most Seibu games went through them, many other manufacturers used them too. All 'Tuning' licensed Seibu game are the Germany region ones.
There's no real saying if it's an earlier version of the game (a real prototype) or just a board they had over from Japan after the game had already been released to test the waters here. Given the number of people hacking regions etc. on Seibu boards it might even just be somebody has hacked the byte that contains the licensee / region etc. to make the game display the 'show version' string too.
Having the ROMs dumped would certainly be interesting and tell us if it is or isn't based on the same codebase as an already dumped revision, so if somebody capable of doing that gets hold of the board it would be appreciated, but I wouldn't take too much at surface value right now.
well let's have a look at the strings in the ROM of every set..
SAMPLE VERSION...$..îïòóö÷úû.%..U.S. LICENSEEìíðñôõøù...%..EXPLORER SYSTEM CORP....%..ilmxy|}.&..svw‚ƒ†‡.'..qtu€.„….%..TAIWAN LICENSEE ...%..THE METROTAINMENT NETWORK...%..DREAM ISLAND CO.,LTD....%..TUNING ELECTRONIC...%..USE IN JAPAN ONLY...%..AUSTRIA...%..BELGIUM...%..DENMARK...%..FINLAND...%..FRANCE...%..GREAT_BRITAIN...%..GREECE...%..HOLLAND...%..ITALY...%..NORWAY...%..PORTUGAL...%..SPAIN...%..SWEDEN...%..SWITZERLAND...%..EVALUATION SOFTWARE FOR SHOW.&..LICENSEE TUNING - GERMANY...%..NEW_ZEALAND...%..COUNTRY CODE IS NOT DEFINED...."..@1996 SEIBU KAIHATSU INC..#..ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
so yeah, in terms of code code the 'evaluation software' string for Germany seems to be in there as an alt region code.. this wasn't some temporary string only found in early builds of the game.
they probably sent that version to tuning using a custom region code so that tuning could decide if they wanted to license the game in Germany or not (as per the usual agreement) You can hack any existing set to display the same message, so I wouldn't read too much into it being a real prototype (ie something that came before the actual Japan release)
I would still definitely prefer to see this dumped of course, and if I had to bet I'd bet on the label being original and not-messed-with, which is enough for my purposes. I never thought this was likely to be a "prototype" in the usual sense of being significantly different from the finished game. It's probably just a neat and somewhat unusual RF board.
I'm not too keen on selling the board at the moment Ed Oscuro (but thank you for the offer). Looking at the pcb doesn't really offer me any clues but the serial number on the cart is 0001502. I don't have access to a camera right now but I'll see if I can get some better pics up tomorrow and let you guys go over them.
I would still definitely prefer to see this dumped of course, and if I had to bet I'd bet on the label being original and not-messed-with, which is enough for my purposes. I never thought this was likely to be a "prototype" in the usual sense of being significantly different from the finished game. It's probably just a neat and somewhat unusual RF board.
Yeah, would still be interesting to see if it's different code or not, as with every SPI board. I still actively encourage people to dump what they have, it's the only way we're going to build a more complete picture.
I just thought it best people didn't start speculating that it might be something radically different like some of the Taito prototypes dumped recently.
@ kathy: I apologize for the out-of-the-blue offer; I must've been seeing things last night because I thought there was a question about what it was worth. I see you didn't ask that so I apologize for the apparent vulturism. (Offer still stands though!)
So a region-edit then, interesting. Can't say I've seen one before but then again my memory claims it's seen a Raiden Fighters 2 board marked "Raiden Fighters 2000" without the stupid OKI chip back on the millenium.
I managed to take some really bad photos (with an even worse camera!)
Unfortunately im not even close to being savvy enough to dump roms.. the images don't really tell me anything but maybe there's something you guys might pick up on.
The ROMs in question are (unless there is some difference on the motherboard itself - doubtful) within the black cartridge, with the white labels, as seen in the pictures, like "SEIBU 3." These look right for production RF ROMs. The ROMs are in the same positions (and seem to have the same labels - certainly ROMs 3 and 4 are in the same place) as they would be found in a US Fabtek RF board.
I see I was wrong about there not being a serial # on this board.
Also, SXX2C-MAIN V2.0 continues to be full of little surprises. I didn't see whether this board has the strange wire additions that my Fabtek board has (I think those are hidden under the cartridge) but I did notice that some boards have potentiometers (here they are near the black heatsink, in circles marked L and R) with black tops, but at least one has yellow pots. Maybe just whatever parts were in stock on a particular day in the factory.
More Raiden history documented, the better! Kudos to all involved. Haze already has put it in seibuspi.c for next release.
I'm curious to know if there's any other changes like gameplay difficulty or other tweaks, but considering the personal experience I had recently with my own undumped copy of a game I somehow doubt it.
It would be easy to write it off as some kind of hoax / hack, but the actual codebase is clearly a different revision than any of the previously supported sets at least, so it’s definietly not a cheap hack of a set we already know about
Regardless, I hope it ends up being helpful in some way.
If anyone knows anything else about this version please let us know
So somebody - it's not clear that it really is the OP here - is trying to sell this on fleaBay now. The photo shown earlier in this thread is the same as the first photo in the auction:
BIN is totally outrageous and the first bid isn't too far behind. But more troubling is that the cartridge is shown sat on what looks like regular bubble wrap, and in their second image they (still?) aren't showing the numbers on the label.
Ed Oscuro wrote:So somebody - it's not clear that it really is the OP here - is trying to sell this on fleaBay now.
Shipping from Australia, so unless there are a bunch of these knocking about in Oz it's kind of indicative that it's likely to be the OP.
Good luck though I suppose, it's a rare thing and you can reach for the stars if you see fit - but the chances of it selling for $599 are hella slim, $999 a veritable impossibility.
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