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February 13, 2012 Haze Categories: General News. 19 Comments on Ready Steady Deco

Charles MacDonald has recently been posting information about the DECO Cassette system in order to get some more tapes dumped because there hasn’t really been any activity on them since way back when the initial batch was added.

This is good news because these things (being magnetic media and custom dongles) are extremely fragile, and the remaining ones REALLY need sourcing and dumping before it’s too late. Of course, all that work isn’t much good if there’s nothing to show for it, but luckily there is. Here is ‘The Grand Sumo’ one of the previously undumped DECO Cassettes. In the end it was a simple slot-in to the driver (Type 4 dongle, BIOS Type A) so I can’t really take credit for anything, but Charles’ fantastic work, and the contributors who have helped buy the game and equipment needed deserve a shout out here.


The Grand Sumo The Grand Sumo

AFAIK the Dumping Union *don’t* currently have access to the other rare games, and if they show up they’re bound to be pricey, so please consider donating to them if you want to help source these rare and fragile pieces of history.

One of the most important things to note about Charles’ work is it means the dumping is now a NON-DESTRUCTIVE process. The dongles are dumped without even opening them, so it’s risk free compared to older methods. This is good news for people who own the cassettes if they’re considering loaning them out.

Credit this time round goes to Charles MacDonald, Dr. Spankenstein, Kevin Eshbach, T. Huff, SteveS, E. Page-Hanify, Hikari, ArcadeDude, F. Bukor, N. Francfort, jmurjr, arcade-history.com, ThumB, Hurray Banana, Paratech, Xiaou2, Cornishdavey, A. Costin, M. Ponweiser, Tormod, Rambo, Smitdogg, The Dumping Union

19 Comments

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thats shit, where is zero team or star wars arcade update

I did put it over about, giving the Tapes/hardware ONCE DUMPED to a horder in Japan, to mearly BORROW ones we dont have.

Seem like a cunning plan to prize a few more tapes, while the hoarder gains another original and doesnt lose his stash either.

I collect ZX stuff, and i know i would be super keen to add stuff i wanted on the no lose system above.

Top effort from Charles btw !!

Love your work Haze, and BOUT time mameworld got over there issues with your goodself. Esp. As they were on a begging quest the other day, which the money could of been put towards new dumps.

Onwards with a smile.

Cornishdavey out….

> thats shit, where is zero team or star wars arcade update

Fuck you, you ungrateful shitheel. I may not get along with Haze every so often, but do you know what’s shit? People like you, people like you who contribute not a goddamn thing to emulation, when people like Haze or like me break our virtual backs for assholes like you. Fuck your Zero Team, fuck your Star Wars Arcade.

Hello Haze,

Will you continue to make the combined source available or are we supposed to hack it together ourselves from now on? :)

Great to hear about FLAC and 7Zip support.

Keep up the excellent work.

How lovely ,how great work!
Thank you,even if the games i am looking are really rare,and maybe will never show up!
But the import is your hard work,and the memories you give us back,and the hope that some day maybe a miracle could be true!
Does anyone have pictures for games like Decokid/flash boy ?
Just one in gameplay,just to remember!
THANK YOU from the deepest of my heart for all until now!
Btw what happen to tomazs slanina?His page is down among others about MAME stuff!

I’ll probably offer a combined build one day soon.

I was still hoping for maybe something official in the .145 cycle, but if u1 comes out and there is still no movement towards an official combined build option I’ll most likely throw something together.

great job, indeed!

old tapes are probably the most fragile items we target for emulation, and therefore it’s always astounding when another one of them gets saved from oblivion!

thanks to all involved

concerning UM: at this point, Haze, yeah please release another build. possibly also a source overlay consisting of only the mak, driver and device lists (the latter can simply include the mame & mess ones), showing how easy is to combine stuff even while the repositories are separate.

I don’t know why such a target haven’t got released for the anniversary (as it was mentioned at some point), but please update it from time to time…

I don’t have any images of the remaining Deco games.

There are at least 22 known games undumped (many of which weren’t released on a ROM board) 2 dumped but need dongles dumping, and 1 which I’d like to see a redump on because the behavior is a bit suspicious…

there are also minor variations of a number of games which are dumped. The Cluster Buster / Graplop shown on Starcade is different to either of the 2 sets in MAME.

worse still they virtually never show up in working condition.

Thanks anyway Haze for the reply!
I wish someone have them ,and send for the dumping!
I have played this and some others like manhattan,burger time etc..,on 1980 in my country,but its impossible to find a trace,of them!

BTW, cassette tapes can be ruined by playing them if the oxide sheds badly enough, so not necessarily 100% safe. Maybe no cassettes used for video games have this problem?

There is a temporary cure…tapes can be baked at low temp to dehydrate the binding layer.

If you tape is already in such bad condition that merely playing it ruins it completely, then it’s effectively already ruined because you can’t use it ;-)

about the combined sources….
latest mess svn compiles smoothly with just ONLY the diff posted on Dec 29th, and a lil fix on bullet.c (adding “wm” on the main rom and its clone.. where’s needed) and in the mess.lst file
the other diff with all the conflicts fixes is not needed anymore ;)
all works great

Not so, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tape_baking

It’s not the tape that breaks…the hygroscopic layer that holds the oxide to the tape absorbs water and swells and gets gummy. If the tape is transferred at that point the oxide will come off, ruining the tape. If the tape is baked first then you can get a clean transfer for posterity.

Some tape formulations are affected much worse than others.

Though presumably the mame archivist / dumping guy already knows this.

lord_muad_dib I just tried to compile and was missing complete.c.

you need ultimateMAME0144u4.diff placed on the root of the sourcetree.and a… patch -p0 < ultimateMAME0144u4.diff
will do.
at least it's how it works on sdl builds, i'm not skilled on windows, so i don't know

yeah.. hold on with the Ultimate thing guys, gonna post something in a little bit.

As said above, the only current conflict is with the ‘bullet’ (Wave Mate Bullet) in MESS vs. ‘bullet’ (Sega’s Bullet) in MAME.

There is however a cleaner build solution which I’ll post shortly.

Haze, dont let trolls like the first poster bug you. DECO Cassette emulation has been right at the top of my want list for a decade. One of the last remaining games I saw as a kid that isnt emulated is the ‘Manhattan’ DECO game, neither version is dumped. Many of the other games, such as Angler Dangler, look interesting as well. Look forward to further progress!

Great work, guys. Keep collecting the rare and soonish-decomposing stuff– things like this and Bubble System Gradius are well worth the effort in the end!

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