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The HK Floppies

 
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Mystic_Merlin



Joined: 15 Oct 2007
Posts: 496
Location: Bangkok

PostPosted: Wed Jan 26, 2022 12:33 pm    Post subject: The HK Floppies Reply with quote

Here's another interesting thread about copier archeology: pirate floppy disks.
Most people in the West were getting their roms from swapping, BBS or dumping cartridge roms. In South East Asia, stores were actually selling floppy disks along with copiers and I believe the majority was coming from HK.

I have acquired a few of those out of curiosity. Only a few survived the test of time as they're usually of cheap quality. Some are bi-colors, some have MGH or Game Partners logos, some have cheap "kodak" labels, some have professional ones, some have a plastic SFC case...

I am mostly interested in dumping these floppies for the file format and hacks, in order to corroborate my findings with all the mods and bios evolution in different copiers.
The vast majority of the ones that are still functioning are Lorom games. I guess the vendors wanted to save themselves the trouble of customers coming back and complaining about games not working on their copier.

Early games usually are in SMC format, some later ones in FIG format but all of them follow a SFMMXXX naming convention where M is the file size in Mb and XXX a random number. This way the games will usually work on SMC, FIG, MGH and GDSF regardless of the header, as long as they're Lorom games...

Then I found something interesting when I dumped the Seiken Densetsu 2 floppy. This game was released '93 and considered one of the early Hirom games, it appears to be in IC2 format, confirming there were indeed a couple of games distributed in this format.
http://www.tototek.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=7111

I also found a copy of Aladdin with a long list of protection hacks titled "FIX BY JAMES TSANG". Capcom implemented multiple checks (around 25 if I recall correctly!) in this game with nefarious consequences if you just missed one.

I'll keep digging and report here if I find anything else interesting but I'm welcoming any information related to these floppy disks, especially if you know James Tsang Wink



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mrforever



Joined: 19 Nov 2007
Posts: 75

PostPosted: Thu Jan 27, 2022 3:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

nice thread!! Very Happy Very Happy Very Happy thank you mate!
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NorQue



Joined: 08 Jul 2006
Posts: 62

PostPosted: Sat Jan 29, 2022 8:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Interesting, I recently got a box full of these myself together with a Special Partner (I think it's a Supercom Partner clone). You think dumping them has merit?


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Mystic_Merlin



Joined: 15 Oct 2007
Posts: 496
Location: Bangkok

PostPosted: Tue Feb 01, 2022 12:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

mrforever wrote:
nice thread!! Very Happy Very Happy Very Happy thank you mate!

My pleasure Laughing


NorQue wrote:
Interesting, I recently got a box full of these myself together with a Special Partner (I think it's a Supercom Partner clone). You think dumping them has merit?

Sweet! Yes dumping them can teach us a few things such as:
- When did the vendors switch from SMC to FIG?
- Is it a known release?
- Is there something odd in the header?
- Were they hacked?
- Were they distributed by a specific company?

As you may have noticed on my pics, the SF2, SOM2 and Civilization labels differ from the "kodak"* labels, they're much more professional and were distributed by a company named Apple...Rolling Eyes
They even read "The disket is high quality control product. Made by apple production group, the company that made only high quality product, and the one who have many games in stock. If anyone want to buy or want to be member"

I've seen some labels with the CCL logo and still have to get my hands on those, I'm curious as to see how many IC2 games I can come across.

A quick analysis with uCON64 shall be at least interesting and will probably reveal a bad header.

As for your Special Partner, it's a Supercom Partner Special alternative. I have a few of those that I upgraded to 64M. Unfortunately I only have the BIOS 5.0 which causes the memory slots to loop out of boundaries. I believe BIOS 7.0 is needed.


*I called them Kodak because those labels are printed on Kodak photo paper which was cheaper than regular inkjet printing back then.
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MottZilla



Joined: 08 Sep 2004
Posts: 765

PostPosted: Tue Apr 19, 2022 7:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Very cool historical stuff. Back in the early 2000s I thought about printing nice color labels for my disks for my Game Doctor SF3.
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CZroe



Joined: 29 Aug 2021
Posts: 18

PostPosted: Thu Dec 15, 2022 5:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I’ve wanted one of these clamshell disks since getting my GDSF7… just something to demonstrate how these things were often used in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Of course, I’d want it to be an iconic title everyone familiar with the SNES recognizes… like Super Mario World.

Obviously I’m not going to find these on eBay. Anyone willing to part with one? Hit me up! Thanks. Heck, even just a clamshell would be awesome since I could make my own disk/label but I’d rather have an authentic bootleg from the period, as contradictory as that sounds. Wink
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Mystic_Merlin



Joined: 15 Oct 2007
Posts: 496
Location: Bangkok

PostPosted: Sat Dec 17, 2022 7:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

CZroe wrote:
I’ve wanted one of these clamshell disks since getting my GDSF7… just something to demonstrate how these things were often used in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Of course, I’d want it to be an iconic title everyone familiar with the SNES recognizes… like Super Mario World.

Obviously I’m not going to find these on eBay. Anyone willing to part with one? Hit me up! Thanks. Heck, even just a clamshell would be awesome since I could make my own disk/label but I’d rather have an authentic bootleg from the period, as contradictory as that sounds. Wink



Hit me up via pm, I may be able to sort you out Wink
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