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More Sega Channel prototypes dumped.

Discussion in 'General Sega Discussion' started by Kiddo Cabbusses, Jul 20, 2011.

  1. Pirate Dragon

    Pirate Dragon

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    I 've been thinking exactly the same thing about both, although the recent discovery of "Breakthru!" being on there along with supposedly "Iron Hammer" means that maybe there was a "Gotron". Still, we should probably remove it. We can always add it back in later if any proof is found.
     
  2. ndiddy

    ndiddy

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    It looks like you added the game list to the wiki in 2010. Do you remember where you got it from?
     
  3. Pirate Dragon

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    It was listed on Sega's website, someone at Sega probably just typed Championship instead of Playoff by mistake.
     
  4. Black Squirrel

    Black Squirrel

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    It's been too long, sorry. Though the 2010 date would explain why there's no references - it pre-dates our reference system!


    One thing that's not difficult to spot is that these 1995 menus are a lot more... "refined" than those seen Sega Channel (Demo Cartridge 4). And fair enough, I had always assumed it was more about pitching or demonstrating the Sega Channel concept rather than being the final product (and if that February 1994 build date is to be believed, then it would be quite early). I don't think anyone's going to deny that the later intro is better than the demo one.

    [​IMG] -> [​IMG]

    As such, parts of the internet have classed the former as a "prototype" that was improved before launch. And it was... just not the launch you're thinking of.

    https://archive.org/details/Sega_Visions_1994-06_Sega_US/page/n15/mode/2up

    Because Sega Visions' coverage of the first month has the old-style intro and the old-style menus. They're not the same as Demo 4's - the contents seem to match the schedule and the title screen has copyright text:

    [​IMG]

    What this suggests is that the "less good" intro and menus made it to air, and that Demo 4 is more representitive of the final product than perhaps we thought. So when you see questionable fan vinyl albums retailing for $350 and think "the Sega Channel didn't even look like that, what are you doing?", you can counter yourself with "actually yes it did", before following it up with "1995 was better, and more representitive of the service... so what are you doing?".


    This would also explain why we've only got December 1994-January 1996 - it's the "middle phase" of US Sega Channel menus, when Sega of America had stopped testing, and were happy to make new, monthly assets in house. The first six months (which probably use these old-style menus) are missing, as is the latter "Foley Hi-Tech" phase from February 1996 onwards (bar September which we do have now).
     
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  5. Asagoth

    Asagoth

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    I wonder if this is authentic (I doubt that)... or if it's just "bait for fools"... because if it is authentic, it'll look good on our page...
     
  6. Poderoso Joe

    Poderoso Joe

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    Hello everyone.

    I'm new here and first of all I would like to thank you immensely for all the work that has been done so far. For me, the 16-bit generation is the best console generation ever made and you are responsible for keeping all of this alive and available for future generations.

    The stupendous work that you do here is amazing and impressive. I understand absolutely nothing about this programming juggling act, so I have no idea how you managed it. If I ever come to acquire any similar material, I will make it available here immediately, if it is useful.

    I have a question here regarding the DEV CD 1996.

    There is a ROM of the game "World Series Baseball '96" that you made available. Opening this ROM I noticed that there are differences between the ROM of the regular game with the absence of some parts, such as NEW LEAGUE, NEW PLAYOFFS, STATISTICS.

    Could this be the L.E. version of the game that was released on the Sega Channel or is it some other version?

    I might be completely lost, but I haven't heard of any other version of this game being made available on this service.

    Again THANK YOU VERY MUCH
     
  7. Asagoth

    Asagoth

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  8. Pirate Dragon

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    Yes, it's the Limited Edition;

    It was initially released in the Test Drive section, so the adapter also restricted it to 30 minutes play. It was later released as a normal game, so the time restriction wouldn't apply then.

    Edit: There was a World Series Baseball '96 contest in October 1996, so it's possible that they also released a special contest version then.
     
    Last edited: Nov 17, 2024
  9. Pirate Dragon

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    Isn't the intro in the bios though? I guess it's possible that the early test markets got adapters with older bioses on them, or maybe they were just using a prototype bios on a test cartridge.
     
  10. Black Squirrel

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    It was after this post that I remembered that there are a few Sega Channel infomercials on YouTube - do any of them show footage of the old menus??



    ...not really!

    Early advertising didn't dwell on it; they were just happy to point out games existed, and as a lot of them feature footage from Earthworm Jim, I think (other than the one above) we're looking at Autumn 1994 at the earliest. And again fair play, when you're only broadcasting in test markets, you're probably not going to throw heaps of cash at the screen.

    But thanks to these dumps we now know the majority of ads online actually debuted after May 1995, because they show this menu:

    [​IMG]

    aka they're not very interesting. There was also a stand at Innoventions at Epcot, so maybe if you scour some family holiday footage you can find Sega Channel running.


    It also means many of the adverts on YouTube are mislabeled, but tbh we didn't need dumps to prove that. "Stop just watching TV" was a slogan until mid-1995, then Sega switched to "get hooked in".
     
  11. Asagoth

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  12. ndiddy

    ndiddy

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    Just to clarify - The intros we have are from Foley Hi-Tech, they come from a lot of floppies and CDs that tdijital bought at a flea market (the "SEGA Disk Backups.zip" file. Everything in that lot came from Foley Hi-Tech. I was baselessly speculating that Foley stopped working on Sega Channel because of the difference in art style right at where the backups ended, but the February 1996 menu has the same pre-rendered art style as the later menus so now I think they probably just decided to change the art style.

    That may be the case. the BIOS images we have have build dates of April 27, 1995 for the Scientific Atlanta version and September 12, 1995 for the General Instrument version.
     
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  13. Pirate Dragon

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    You can see it here (SA) and here (GI). Not sure if any emulators support it though.
     
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  14. Asagoth

    Asagoth

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    Oh... Okay... I stand corrected...

    https://www.bop.gov/inmateloc/ (enter this number: 13141-111)

    What if you tried to contact him?
     
    Last edited: Nov 17, 2024
  15. Black Squirrel

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    I've never seen the dumped versions working, but a quick trip to YouTube:

    SA:

    GI:


    These models have the "new" intro (although given supposedly GI didn't start making these until late 95, I guess you'd expect that). We'd be looking for a Scientific Atlanta cartridge from before December 1994 to find the "old style" intro.

    https://picclick.com/?q="sega+channel"
    And every one on ebay right now claims to be model number "D-9593".

    That being said:
    https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/sega-channel-working-tv-tuner-1789721609
    Here's a "D-9591". No guarantees it's any different under the hood, but it wouldn't hurt to check.
     
  16. Pirate Dragon

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  17. cartridgeculture

    cartridgeculture

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    Screenshot 2024-11-17 at 5.37.28 PM.png
    I did even more looking into Iron Hammer. Looks like it was released on the Sega Channel after all. Thank you @rganders
     
  18. ndiddy

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    I figured out how to use the menu editor software to build the menus. If anyone wants to follow along:
    1. Get a Windows XP computer/virtual machine (doesn't have to be XP, but it runs better than 9x in modern VM software).
    2. Copy the SIERRA folder to the root of your C drive. Add C:\SIERRA\BIN to your PATH.
    3. Make a new folder to hold the output data. It needs to be a fairly short filename due to the DOS tools. I made it C:\OUT.
    4. Copy the contents of P__\SCTOOLS\MENUTEST to C:\OUT.
    5. Copy C:\SIERRA\LIB\SLDR.SPC to C:\OUT.
    6. Copy Microsoft NMAKE.EXE (I used the one from Visual C++ 6.0) to C:\OUT.
    7. Open the menu file you want in MENUMAKR.EXE. Click Dump->Dump SI Menu. It'll ask you for a bunch of paths, select C:\OUT for all of them. After that, a command prompt window will open and it will build the menu .BIN file (SCMENU.BIN). If something comes up during the build process, you can re-run it with "nmake -f menutest.mak".
    8. Copy bytes 0-1003ff from one of the demo ROM files to a new binary file, then append the contents of SCMENU.BIN to the end. It should now open in an emulator.

    Note that the menu music isn't embedded into the .MNU file, it uses a bunch of assembly source files (DBANKn/MBANKn/PBANKn/SBANKn). The music files from the MENUTEST directory are intended for the February 1996 menu, so if you build an earlier menu file it may have incorrect or missing music.

    I did this process for all the menus I could find for February 1996 (ROM files here). They all seem less or equally complete compared to the menu in the MENUTEST directory. Judging by the dates on the ticker files and the completed menu files, I think they just worked on the menus until the last minute. I guess the satellite distribution gave them that flexibility.
     
  19. cartridgeculture

    cartridgeculture

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    @ndiddy when you have some time, could you provide more info on these programs and help me expand these new Sega Channel Menu Maker and Sega Channel Game File Editor pages? Things like dates, production credits, About windows, big clear screenshots, any factual stuff we don't already have documented.
     
  20. Pirate Dragon

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    @ndiddy That's brilliant, you've been a massive help! You're right, the other ones aren't really any more complete.

    Don't currently have a newspaper archive subscription, so I had to stitch some search snippets together for a pair of ads from March 1996. This seems to be the first month that Waterworld was available, presumably as a Test Drive (as it was still a Test Drive in May). Looking inside 03GI96.MNU shows the file "WATRWRLD" listed as one of the games, although it's not yet implemented in the menus for the rom compiled by ndiddy. Unsurprisingly, as the name suggests, this seems to be a very early build of March 1996. There was only 25 games listed, many of which were for the previous month, along with the previous month's Game Guide. As many were possibly placeholders it's not much use for the schedules though.

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]
     
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