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Enjoyed the presentation about
preserving arcade games,
basically a talk about
the future of the past,
I would say, um, so
enjoy and please give a warm welcome
to our Bettini.
Hey, this is work.
Can you hear me? Yeah, it's OK.
So thanks for coming,
all of you. And hi to the streamers
and welcome to my toxo preserving arcade
games. So I present these
because gaming is cool, retro gaming
is trendy, and more importantly, arcade
games are fun. So I made a really funny
picture.
But.
But this is not very stylish.
That's a better way to speak about
these modern bullet
points and Meems.
So not everybody understands hardware,
not everybody understands software,
but everybody understands that it's a
game, it's a good one.
That's the cool part, that's the cool
part with emulation, you do some hacking,
but it brings games to everybody,
OK?
Today I'll I'll speak about arcade games,
those games where you had to put up a
coin to play with in a bar or in arcade
room, this money would go only
to the operator, not to the actual
manufacturer. So to be successful, those
games had to be awesome.
Different in a way, in a way or another.
And the key for that, it was that this
was the whole game, the screen, the
controls, the cabinets, the electronics,
the software. Everything was
usually controlled by the original
designer and it was really dedicated.
So here you have the controls for
directions, no buttons, no diagonals,
unlike a console that is more or less
ready with a controller to do everything,
all kinds of game arcade games where
dedicated. Let's look at it in history.
This is not driver from 76.
It's based on the first racing game,
which is a German game, Nürburgring,
and it was made of 28 PCBs.
The first racing game was made of 28
PTB in 1975.
As far as I know, it was not preserved
by like a robot at
an alert intruder alert.
This guy had human
hair and
Berserk was one of the first game with
digitized speech.
It has 16 words of vocabulary
at a time. It cost one thousand dollars
per word to be digitized.
So just to be awesome in sound was really
important arcade room.
So it was attracting people who didn't
even see the game.
But like, oh, what's that sound coming
flair and very nice for
you.
I mean, and
I
don't I don't I don't
think he's been asking
since.
I mean, they made a German version
and the story doesn't save German words
are more expensive to be digitized
because they tend to be longer.
Battlezone was the first FPS in
1980 and it was originally
designed to be a military trainer.
So it was not even thought to be a game
Dragonslayer.
It was at the time where games you were
like Forclose and Hudis were 10 megabytes
was using the very recent technology
laserdisc based.
It was one year old.
So it was really groundbreaking in the
hardware it was using.
Outturn had a special
dedicated chipset for the sprites and
it was using a secondary sope you only to
draw the roads.
The CPU was ten megahertz.
The both of you were 10 megahertz while
an Amiga only has one CPU of seven
megahertz. So imagine the like.
Oh, let's put an extra chip for this
price chipset for the sprites and an
extra sebu for the roads just to make a
ground breaking game.
How driving is way before
GPU even existed
and how driving was crazy
hardware. Basically the original
hard driving was three PCBs.
The sequel was for PCBs and then they
made this extreme version made of triple
screen, which was emulated last month.
And it's six PCBs,
four CPU's nightspots.
And they even made it possible to add up
to up to 25 monitors in 1991.
So that gives you an idea of
how crazy the hardware of arcade games
could be.
And when the electric was not crazy,
then the cabinets had something
unusual, like all kinds of sports.
And this is a Korean game of us
poking. And here you have it.
Yeah. And this is the controller and
that hand with a finger extended.
Yeah. You wear whatever.
Afterburner was really awesome,
the sequel was not so that after
Boehner had the moving seats, the sequel.
Well, they made it something even
crazier.
And this is after 60 where it could
rotate the player even upside down on all
degrees.
Or sometimes it was not the seat,
but the screen that was also on.
So here you have some house, almost house
prophetical screen where you cannot see
everything at once or here double
wide screen for four players.
So that's like two players
to a wide screen LCD put together.
And they even did that at the time of CRT
screens with using mirrors so that
you had a triple screen
just with the bureau.
Also, that there is no limits between the
screens just to have an extra view for
multiplayer action.
Of course, even though the
hardware was like, really crazy
sometimes. Then came a crazy
piracy. And as soon as the electronic
was not too crazy, then
basically a game would have would end up
with bootleg bootlegs of the
first bootleg in Mamie's like in 77.
And basically any game,
not too crazy, not a crazy hardware
would end up with a bootleg.
So here are some games that ended up
having a bit more than usual creative
bootlegs. So for example, metals
like three, the bootleg is a metal called
metals like sticks or space
invader. The bootleg is called Darth
Vader. Why not?
And the king of Phyto 2001
becomes a Crouching Tiger, Hidden
Dragon 2003 surplus.
So usually bootlegs were just defeating
protection, duplicating the hardware, but
sometimes they were a bit more creative.
Sometimes they would even get a step
further. You probably didn't hear about
this game. Dragon Ball.
It looks nice, but it's actually just
a graphic and some of Ninja Garden
are here. This is number three at
the time of the World Cup, but it's
actually just a hack of snowballs.
One.
And here, a bubble bubble with the
girls, I don't understand.
OK, so because
the designers had control
over everything, then with crazy piracy
came crazy protections.
This one is still not completely defeated
now in 2014.
This one is interesting.
It's so it's not a
cheap a bit like the Nintendo and yes,
chip protection chip.
And it was implementing
a virtual CPU in hardware in 1982.
So when you have someone complaining, a
virtual machine. Yeah, this is a virtual
machine in hardware in 92 for the
protection. And typically this
the most advanced protections were when
the protection was deeply integrated into
the game mechanics.
So for example, the Apache
has a dedicated CPU for the protection
and if it's absent, the game is running.
But the on
the enemy's don't shoot.
If in super houngan, if
the protection protected Sebu is absent,
then the game works, but the
roads are straight.
And typical of Konami, the collision
is handled by the production, so here
the game is working, and without the
protection you cannot be hit and you
cannot you cannot hit the enemies
and it cannot hit you.
And they went one step further to
create and they added what's called
suicide battery. So basically, the
protection detail was on a
battery powered. From the moment the
battery dies, the protection is out
and the game is unplayable for good
and even made it so paranoid that
sometimes if the chip detects something
is going wrong, it kills its own memory
on purpose.
So that's where you see that preservation
is important because this even if you
bought the hardware, you are not allowed
to open it without voiding the guarantee.
Now, support technical support is gone
for those games for a long time and
those games will end up being lost
even if it was their best version ever.
So that's a problem because here
you have a battery that leaked and killed
the PCB and you're not supposed to
open and touch the hardware.
But on the other hand, all the copies of
the game are going to die even if you
bought them a expensive
price usually.
And now if you actually had
to protection and get the game preserve,
then you have those new generation sports
that are based on emulation and on the
hucking that was made to to
remove the protection, to kill the
protection.
So just as a summary for this first
part, arcade games where awesome
but usually running on dedicated
hardware, they were heavily pirated,
they were heavily protected as a
consequence, and they were so protected
that it made them vulnerable,
not in terms of exploitation, but like
vulnerable to time because the game died
on purpose for the sake of their
protection.
So now let's look at the hardware in
particular, the cheapest one cup complex
system known mostly
for this.
The original Fighter two in
1991 saw the Street Fighter two.
This champion edition with the same
characters and the most playable.
Hypercube or whatever,
and some shooters, 1941.
This one is interesting because it's a
bit of a new Japanese mercenary.
The sequel, it's a la it's a tank with
three legs. Yeah, whatever we
sepia with CPS one, you can
run in pants in the forest,
you can jump on walls.
You can punch T.
Rex.
Fight flying dragons with open hearts.
We are standing
dragons.
Flying Dragons.
Flying kingpin's.
Attack Russia.
This is supposed to be the Duma or
something, attacked China
and some more peaceful games.
See, this one was really good.
Particular notice for this one.
You probably don't know about this.
It was just emulated and preserved six
month ago, so you probably
don't know about it.
It looks like a street fighter two, but
it's not really a street fighter.
Two, it's based on three fighter
jets. Consumer grade is actually a more
hitting game based on street fighter two.
It's extremely rare and it was preserved
and emulated for good six months ago.
So S.P.C.A.
was protected, but it was completely
Hartsell streetfighter to
were very widespread
or this is a final VITAC.
So you have in the original version, you
have three players in the bootleg.
They even let you control more
characters, which is nice, even
more options than the original version.
This is a serious one
game. So with the three PCBs
and this is a bootleg so completely
different hardware. So even the
manufacturer would not get any money from
the hardware itself.
It's not just about defeating the
protection, it's just about making
physical copy of an arcade game.
And even the last version of the CPS, one
had a suicide battery and a custom
chip with integrated encryption.
So like everything that should be right.
But data was encrypted with code
and the algorithm was weak.
So basically it was possible
to determine the encryption and all those
games had their bootlegs, even though it
had the suicide battery and everything
that sounded perfectly or the
most advanced protection at the time.
So CPS won.
It was great.
It was protected like suicide battery
and everything, but it was completely
hacked.
The answer from Capcom
for that was the CPU is too severe with
the it gives you an idea of the size.
It's not related just to give you an idea
of the size and space
to start in 93 with this.
So from this original Super Street
fighter to to the High
Street Fighter to 10 years later,
not very original, but that's
Capcom. So the Super Street fighter,
the super turbo.
The hyper version with the different
modes of characters.
The adversaries.
Unter.
And three with the two of us is one
player mode, which was really good.
The parody, which I really like, Pocket
Fighter, which is quite crazy.
And then the Crossover's with Marvel and
X-Men.
So it was a streetfighter.
Barbara, Superheros.
This this is a special
character based on Japanese comedian.
The very good moral of this is Capcom.
And then the Darkstalkers series.
It's crazy stuff, we
regret getting some action games,
the very good alien versus Predator.
Dungeons and Dragons.
And some shooters, because
a lot of shooters.
1944.
You know who?
Seagoing.
And the best maybe for the last
years,
and that's stage two.
And that's the issue of the first
pass, it's harder, the second pass.
And some more peaceful games,
punk.
There's a loop.
Those fighter played by of
muscle here.
So CBSA was really, really
good, CPUSA
was clearly the good successor of CBS,
once you have the timeline of CPS, one
CPS to CPS free was too
complex to too protected,
like it would kill itself on purpose.
So CPS, too, was probably the like
the last successful hardware made by
CPS, who was really good,
very good games.
And this is all the CPS to Hochstetter
that existed.
Bootlegs, regions, swap,
whatever. Nothing, absolutely
nothing.
They were so desperate that they couldn't
hack the CPS to version
of the game that they just
did. They took the make a diversion
and they turned it into arcade version
and even made a typo for the insert coin
message.
So let's look at the hardware, so,
too, is made of a sandwich of two PCBs
and one PCB has the
game and the protection together.
So basically this is the game PCB
and everything that is in green is
unencrypted. So no problem.
The graphics and sound where it's
like the cheapest one, the problem and
code and data are together.
Data is not encrypted, code is encrypted
and the decryption is done on the fly.
But inside the CPU and
the decryption key is stored
on this round battery that is battery
powered.
So usually when you say that people
understand it wrong and you think, OK,
let's just tweak the CPU into thinking
that code is data and let's
just get code decrypted.
But this is done at C.P.U level at the
moment to fetch memory and a pin
to control that behavior was not
accessible from the outside of the
package of C++ decryption.
So there is a reason it wasn't defeated.
Decryption was done on the fly for
execution and when you read memory, it
comes in clear.
So basically, you patch some of coats
blindly, you get a black
screen of it crushed, you have no idea
what happened and back to zero even
better. Even so, all your codes are
encrypted and even the initial stack
pointer and PC are encrypted.
So you don't know where executions start.
You the actual
sebu was even unknown at the time.
So basically, CPUSA
was awesome.
It was really well protected and it was
absolutely scouted for like six years.
And even if it was surprise one, I was
completely shocked. Everybody wanted to
emulate it and absolutely nothing for six
years.
So luckily Capcom
is going to do anything because of this
thing.
New is known for the Fatal Fury series
or for many games, but including
the art fighting.
Somewhere I show down.
Nuccio was awesome,
a lot of good games, newsier
was open to third parties, so, for
example, Nuytten stock was not done by
SMK originally, but so
there are some games that were quite
crowded. But still it was a lot of games,
a very long success, like many
years, and even more importantly, a
success in Arcade, but also as an
expensive console.
And also the hardware is a bit similar to
CBSA. The games were a bit similar
to so Capcom tried the same thing
and managed to release something that it
managed to make.
The New Year looks cheap and small.
The CBS chinja was a console version, but
it was much too expensive and
the games were really all because the CBS
Change games were actually the CBS won
games that were already very old while
the new show was getting games that were
released in arcades a few weeks before.
So CBS chinja was a
commercial failure and as a last try
did just back ported one of the
first two games on the CBS chinja.
So they took one CBS
to game that is encrypted and
they put it on the CBS chinja
system. So they had to downgrade the
audio system.
But it's more or less the same system.
But this one is encrypted.
This one is not.
So you see it coming, right?
What happened that day?
Nothing for some reason.
I mean, the prediction is not that easy,
but for some reason, even after that was
out, nothing happened.
The dragon was still undefeated.
And to defeat Dragon, you need a team of
heroes.
So basically.
So here's the story is just
so one
guy called Rasoulof started
analyzing the dumps of this game.
So it was an encrypted
68000 code and just made
assumption, just
exploring the disaster itself.
And then luckily, he could buy the
Japanese version of the exact version of
this game in a working state.
So with the battery, the system working,
the protection of life, Araz
Rasoulof was
needed help on the PC side.
So I work with him.
Rasuli was on the front end.
I was on the backend helping him with
software that we would when we needed
to communicate together.
So the first breakthrough of Rossella
was to enable the debugger
that was integrated in that game.
So until now, like for six years, there
was absolutely no hack of CPSU.
And then eventually he enabled
the integrated debugger, which was an
awesome advantage because suddenly we
were not blind anymore.
We had no idea about the decryption,
we had no idea about the keys
or whatever, but at least suddenly we
could see the registers modifying
blindly and get some progress
then. So that was we started this.
It was in November ninety nine.
So yeah, fifteen years ago.
And
the second breakthrough was to
accidentally find that some higher
memory. We are not using encryption for
unknown reason.
So that's a big face fall from Capcom
because they had a working.
Because they had a working description
that was undefeated for many years, and
yet for some unknown reason, it was not
used by any game, did just disable this
encryption for a
memory ranges.
So then that was in
spring 2000, I think.
Then we were unable to have Chalco
execution on CBS to
only a split second of execution because
something was killing the execution.
We didn't know what yet and we were
theoretically unable to get code
decrypted.
Luckily, another mistake of
of Capcom is that one of the addressing
mode of the 68000
is relative to the PC.
So basically in modern terms, relative
to IP and at best level, that means
you read code or you
read data, but relative to PC, which
means you just read it as
code. So you read data and it's decrypted
on the fly.
Big mistake by Capcom.
It's not even clear in the specs,
but at a low level this is what happens
and this is a big mistake by Capcom
because Sega knew about it and in their
own protected software hardware,
they prevented that to happen.
So suddenly we had
the ability to decrypt one word at a time
of CPUSA.
So I flew and visited Raas
for the first time and Ruhs was
turning on the switch of the CPS to
displaying one word on the screen.
I was writing down in Excel table
flipping of the switch, going to the next
and then writing down and so on.
And we believed, we thought
because that was the first known
description of CP2, we thought, OK,
we are going to defeat that in not no,
no time.
Well, we were wrong, but at least we were
trying.
This is a shorter version of my talk.
So, of course, in the meantime, over
those years, we did extra
research and subprojects related,
you know, like subquestion RPG to keep
the faith, to keep your mind fresh, etc.
But sometimes we didn't know if we are
building in the right direction by
looking this up on the on
the screen.
But still, it was making things progress.
But at least we had some data,
decryption, some code decryption, but
we couldn't exploited yet.
The second the next
mistake of Capcom was that in
the decrypted version of Streetfighter
Zero, they actually let this weird,
weird up code.
They deliberately left it.
And this word of code is actually what
keeps the execution running.
It's to watch the key and if it's
executed regularly, then the
decryption stays alive.
So suddenly we went from unlimited
reshot execution time to
unlimited decryption time.
That was in December 2000.
So then we could automate
decryption and start dumping.
How do you dump when you like
Surgut hardware?
This is what this is for.
I'll give you this is a hint.
So we just saw that there
were a news report on the CBS two
that are the same voltage as a joystick
port on the PC.
So the CPUSA was sending data
to the joystick port.
So that was programed sending data
to the Joystick. Potami program
was getting beats
three beats at the time, including check
some integrity, not
more than 30 times
a second because Joystick Port is
unreliable at the speed.
Then my program would check the checksum
and upload a data version of
the counter inside ROM image that
was monitored by his EPROM emulator
that was updating the counter on the
final two.
And then we would send the next byte this
way.
That's a bit crazy, but it worked.
So we ended up having the first decrypted
dump of CPUs to at the end of 2000
for the first time, CPUs to decrypted
and emulated.
So that was the first screens that
made the news.
The made the news.
Got it wrong. As usual, the encryption
was not smashed. We just ask nicely for
the CPU is due to decrypt itself and send
information to joystick port.
But still, that was really good because
at least in relation to preservation
and emulation became a reality.
So now people could send us their
PCBs that games in working state
and we could end up dumping
them and getting them preserved.
Of course, not really game over for
CBS two, because we needed the game
in working states, the encryption was
still absolutely unknown, but still
a very good progress.
In the meantime, now, people who are
sending us to games and so on new the
recent news, your games also had
protections like Guto
and we with the same
joystick dumping abilities
we got to decrypted done quickly.
But this time the algorithm was weak and
we could that game get the game
decrypted, the protection defeated for
these unusual games.
Another important things thing is
that now we got
decryption not defeated, but
we could decrypt the game, preserve the
game, but that would resurrect the
hardware. People who didn't care about
emulation, but the hardware at home
didn't know what to do with it.
And especially there were plenty
of rumors about how the CPSU
really dies.
So someone actually sent to
the working state to run, to be
sacrificed, to be killed a correct
way so that he could experiment
on the way. It would really die in what
could be possible with the currently dead
Sebesta, I mean, just with the protection
removed by the battery being
cut.
And the problem was that if
you just decrypt the code and put it back
on the back
on the hardware, it doesn't work.
Capcom didn't want people to reuse
the heart, the dead hardware without
their permission and without them
collecting extra money,
because that's what's that's what
happened with the protected CPS one.
Then it is here.
The battery is missing and.
The game is still is booting,
the trick was that actually the internal
registers for video and audio were
changed. So basically the game
was not just playing and not anything
and not doing any sound, but the game was
actually running when it was correctly
dead.
So the thing the good thing was that
the assault took.
So in order to resurrect CPS's
CPS to you had to determine exactly
what is code and data decrypt code
in place. Put it back.
On the run and then modify all
the then
these are the values of these registries
and make sure these ranges of memory are
not cleared, so then that would make
the CBSA that never dies because he
doesn't need a battery anymore.
He also made a universal
run that people could just burn on a prom
and test if their hardware
was had a chance of resurrecting
or if it was dead for another reason,
which was really cool.
And although he made
versions of CBS to that would never die
following this process.
So then people could just cut their
battery and have a game
that will never die and never
take care of the battery leaking.
And everything Capcom goes
to was preserved in a hardware state
that enabled bootlegs.
So here, instead of Rottman
Megaman, you have Sugarmann.
That's not very nice.
And here the drums have been
replaced by other components.
Some bootlegs are a bit better.
This one is with extra
rock, a bar to hook the controls.
It's all in one.
So basically you have one
game, a secret menu and you have
basically all the games running on the
actual hardware.
Actually, NCsoft, which I
will introduce later, is actually making
a new CBS to All-In-One.
So if you're interested, you have one
once. When you want to play all the
original CPUSA games or with one version
of the hardware, he's doing that again.
That's really cool. That's a very nice,
constructive way of making
a bootleg and to preserve
with just to preserve all the games in
their original state with just
one physical copy of the hardware.
We also had this little problem,
this is alien versus predator,
capcom had lost the license, the IP
rights for this game shortly after
the release of this game. So it was never
ported to any hardware and then this game
happened.
They don't seem to have anything in
common except the name.
And just for that reason, because IP
don't care about what the actual game is,
but just about the name.
We had a nice takedown letter
from a lawyer because we were making this
game a playable
I mean, we didn't provide the game, but
just we made it possible to be playable
and one lawyer had too much time and just
send us a letter for this one
unobligated.
The hosting was cut instantly
and so on, but none.
So not a problem.
Not try on everything, but it's in this
moment that, you know, who are your real
friends and not, you know.
So, yeah, just it's an
interaction with lawyers.
It's always to remind you it's real
stuff, you know, it's really real life
stuff.
But we couldn't get everything
decrypted.
It would take us two thousand years, two
hundred years to get all the values of
CBS to decrypted.
And if you cannot defeat your enemy, then
you call your friends to give them a good
beating.
And that's where Charles MacDonell comes
in. Charles MacDonell is I
call him the Captain America of emulation
because he analyze hardware, he documents
hardware. He creates his own device to
defeat the protections.
And sometimes he even makes simulator.
Respect, and this is
about black boxer.
So basically you extract tables
of truth of a pal that you are not
supposed to read anymore.
So instead you write, you try all the
combinations. Now, you can do that with
the Arduino, but this is his own device
to do that.
Then he started having more controls on
the memory mapping of the CPSU
and with the information that we gave
him and with, of course, his own extra
experiments. And he designed his own
device dedicated to CPS to
dumping directly via
the expansion part of the CPS due to USB.
So what would take us 200
years to dump all the eight gigabytes of
all the combinations of the encryption
took him 17 hours,
so he did the complete
eight gigabyte dump for two games.
I received a lot of kids that
were kids at the time containing all
this data that look completely random,
that couldn't compress at all.
I had no idea we needed someone
else to continue again.
And this is where Andrew's knife
and Nicholas camera
started playing a role into CBS, too.
And they basically they
started making assumptions of the
structure of the encryption algorithm.
It was a custom, but strong
I mean, strong depends on everybody's
interpretation. But, yes,
strong enough to resist the six years
of emulation.
So it was a star network and that he
designed some attacks and eventually
reduced the dumps
to a 64 bit key.
So they got the algorithm and now they
got the key. And with all the decrypted
dumps that were already that we had
already made, then they made it possible
to determine the key.
And then not only the decrypted dump
doesn't need to be there because the
algorithm is known in the keys known.
But it also worked for all the versions,
the different versions of the of the
game, the same game.
The thing is, this game that you make
technology is a Japanese version of a
game that was common in European
version, but very rare in Japanese
version. And the European
version was already dumped and decrypted.
And then the key was extracted and that
game was emulated.
There was really good because now all the
possible clones and subversions
of these games just
needed one decrypted dump
determine the key.
All the same version of the game
decrypted. That was really good.
That was a huge progress.
And the last nail in the coffin was for
that game because this is a CBS
one version.
This CBS two version is like
extremely rare.
I, I only heard about
one physical version of that game
in the game.
And the owner of this
game would, of course, never send it
because it's incredibly rare collector.
But he did an encrypted dump
and the last attack on CBS to decryption
was done
by Hayes, David Dave Haywood.
And basically with just an encrypted
dump, he could do an attack that would
determine the key.
So now and so the games was
ended up being emulated and preserved
only with the decrypted dump.
So not even CBS to that had its battery
dead as long as the program
runs are still encrypted but
valid, then the key could be
determined and the game could be
preserved.
That was the last
step to defeat, completely disappears
to protection.
So as a conclusion,
I don't know if I still have some time.
I don't know the only way.
I have almost twice as much
as bonus as the the talk itself.
Don't worry.
So the mistakes of Capcom
was that first to provide an encrypted
encrypted version of the same game,
the game, the original encrypted game
still has debugger enabled
present. While the original CBSA game
didn't have any debugger,
all the CBS two games had an
unencrypted range of memories, so you
could easily Patricelli code without
any brute forcing.
Then they they didn't
prevent the PC related addressing mode
of 68 K to be
working.
So basically you could get the code
decrypted and then the key lock,
the key link in the actual code of
the decrypted game.
That was yeah.
It was a leak in the original, an
encrypted version.
Another mistake.
From our outside, it was.
A lot of clumsy hacks, sometimes
rejoicing, dumping and everything,
it was a joint effort by people with
various profiles,
but probably more importantly,
it was not just us who were able to
to defeat the CPSU.
It was also thanks to a lot of
contribution financially,
sometimes just morally and everything,
because that was an
adventure that spanned over many years.
But overall, it was a great success.
That's how I see it.
We clearly got it good, that
was clearly an awesome victory.
This killer instinct for the youngest,
you.
Now, a bit of a preservation itself,
this is the verbal memory system, it
was using a new kind of memory at the
time, which ended up being very fragile.
And these games are really, really
difficult to get in working states.
And it did need a financial effort and
contribution to get to be preserved.
And when you put this game, it
needs to warm up to a certain
temperature.
It apparently takes six minutes in
winter, and for
me, this come down means all these
games are going to die if no one
contributes.
So the hackers, Huck and the other people
donate or contribute so that these games
are preserved because some of them are
really good and they will be lost.
A very nice one this game.
Nice name for a last survivor.
It was a game that also had the suicide
battery and everything.
Encryption it was.
And it was only dumped.
Someone still had a working version of it
a few years ago and it was dumped after
like 25 years.
So, so incredibly far to
preserve the game. And this game is
actually interesting because it's one of
the first multi splitscreen AFPs
way before Wolfenstein and everything so
interesting historically, this game well
thought to be lost. And it was it ended
up being preserved or.
Yeah, not so long ago.
So for these games,
for this crazy hardware, hacking
is the only way to preserve them and
that should be done before it's too late,
before all the copies of this game were
lost, because in the case of CPUSA,
we could decrypt the game only with
the if the battery was even if the
battery is already dead.
But some of these hardware like a lost
forever. And I think the origin
of the first racing game that we saw
earlier is not preserved, as far as I
know.
Some links on the topic.
And do you have any question?
So thank you very much.
This was very interesting
and worth the Q&A, I think
we'll start with the Internet.
So, uh, where are those guys sitting
is just a screensaver.
Um, do you have
any questions for us?
He.
OK, at the moment, there are no questions
from the Internet.
OK, thank you.
So, um, if you would line
up behind the microphones.
So if you have questions, of course.
I still have the bonus.
And the Sunderbans.
It's five gigabyte
and to
one question.
So where can you contribute
to the links you supplied there?
Can can I get the source
code that
the dumps or something?
Because I don't have access to the to
the hardware, to the actual hardware yet.
I'd like to contribute.
Yeah, well, now the Meimi is
quite open and it's like open projects,
so you can still try and see what
you can contribute.
You mean technically right now, plenty of
bugs to fix.
OK, there are some videos where there
was actually a bug and I manually
fixed the frames each of the frames so
that the bug doesn't appear.
It don't do that on the 60 frames per
second game. That's my advice.
Yeah. I mean, just for the bugs,
it's already a good way to start.
And we are
mailing list and everything now.
It's more or less open.
Thank you.
OK, we have another one on Mike three.
Well, thanks for the awesome talk.
I would love to know how how much
nights you spend on this stuff.
Too long.
Yeah, I probably don't want to know
myself, but
it was rejected a lot and I kept
improving it every time it was rejected.
So that's why I blame my
style for making the
I heard you say inspiring me to
make it better.
You can start to show he's asleep,
OK.
Some more Internet questions.
Yeah. Somebody wants to know
if you could, like,
tell us something more about the warming
up thing that you showed
us.
I don't I don't I don't know,
really.
It's just because it was a special
kind of the memory itself.
And I needed to know.
I don't know, to be honest.
I just knew it was warmer.
But I don't know the magnetic
or physical reasons for that.
Sorry.
Yeah, but Almería.
Not the answer if you didn't hear it's
complicated.
Thanks.
OK. On.
Another Internet question.
Yeah, another Internet question is
somebody wants to know which platforms
are unbroken as of now.
Um, actually, I can,
um, do
if we go to the.
Oh, yeah. That's a bonus in my
introduction from a bonus stage,
the right.
This is right on to and it was only
simulated correctly a few months ago.
And it's using one of the chip that I
showed earlier.
And this chip is it's not a CPUSA
doesn't have a how
do you say a to the cup and read
bits permits and it's still undefeated at
the moment. So disable games.
So Legionnaire their wings
are still not and are still not
preserved, the protection is still not
defeated. And the other game using an
earlier version of that protection, this
was the first game using that protection
was only simulated five months ago.
OK,
Mike, is there
any hope of the companies
releasing the software on themselves,
like Microsoft Windows one?
It's extremely rare.
Typically a first year
wrong idea, but those games are usually
you cannot download the wrong.
It's not because they're all that you can
download them. The iPod is
not free. And usually when you do a
report on us or whatever,
you still have to pay your fee to the
original company
or the IP owner.
And typically they don't do that.
The only a very
few companies like two or three did that
actually, just because
maybe they were the deal,
they agreed that they didn't have
probably a bigger a big enough marketing
department commercially.
So the
next question is, again, from the
Internet, you know, somebody on Twitter
asks if there if
any of the economy, Panasonic M-2
hardware, if there are any plans,
they ask for games like Better Thrust
and Eventide.
I don't know what anything
I don't know.
I don't know about the end to hardware.
I mean, it's probably not, as far as
I know, stimulated.
And I don't I'm not aware of someone
working on it. But, yeah,
it's also need a motivation
to get them working.
So I don't know, really.
It's complicated.
OK, you have a question again
on my three.
I want to know if like Capcom
contact you lack of if some love letter
from lawyers are telling
you good job guy or something like that.
So if they contacted us with lawyers and
then you said are are they telling
you a good job for breaking the
encryption?
Neither. But usually,
yeah, we were careful because when we
started breaking CPS, there were still
games developed on it.
So we were really cautious about not
reacting to recent games.
And that was people hated us for
that. I could give us all the games for
free now with insults usually.
And they didn't really
care because now they can use they can
get to the IP back into
control and get their money again from
that from the recent sports.
But yeah, no thank you or whatever.
Of course not. That's that's well
I think. But we had a kind of
there was one company that was interested
in having the exclusivity of space to
emulation, and we said no, because
we thought as soon as we release even a
protected emulator for CBS to people
would extract the data from it.
So we said no and it was released
for free. I mean, like in Maine and
everything.
But we had such an offer.
OK, do we have Internet
questions? Yes.
Yeah, we have one
more question.
Somebody asks if you attack
the two network
cipha thing directly.
I don't know
really the details of the attack, but in
the links I gave, Underactive
published his blogs in Spanish
about how he broke apart of
it. But yeah, I, I don't understand
much about crypto, so I don't know.
OK, thank you.
Yeah, but the slides are available
anyway, but you.
Yeah,
um, OK.
Oh, OK, impacter.
Yeah, thanks for the talk.
I got a question.
What's the current state of arcade
gaming? What about other
new releases?
Because last year I went to China, went
into arcade gaming home.
There were all these games I never saw.
And what amazing is there a
Chinese industry for arcade gaming or.
I don't know, it's Chinese, but at least
from a hardware perspective, not all the
games, our PCs and
our new games, but they are a bit into
the, uh, multiplayer
side. So, like, you have a lot of
cabinets connected together and even
connected online in Japan.
So but standart, it's evolved
a bit. But I'm stuck in time
and I only care about a sixteen bit
stuff, so I don't know.
But now the hardware is like PCs
with the security dongle.
OK, thanks.
OK, do we have O on
Micron.
Thanks very much for the talk.
I really enjoyed it.
One question.
I've seen that lately over the last two
years, a lot of sites that were concerned
about the preservation and the cataloging
of all the old ROMs
have been taken down.
And for example, underground gamer
went offline.
Well, and since
sorry, but since only three
or four IP holders
released their games legally,
all of them are all the others are
illegal.
So so my question would be,
I'm very much for what you're doing, but
where can we preserve software like that?
And I think the archive is
trying to do that at the moment
because it's good that you preserve the
software. But since there is no legal way
to save it somewhere, I think
we're still in peril of losing that
software.
Well, I think it's a fake question,
because when you see all the services
into the blue res
being a torrent on torrent and those
games were like a few megabytes, I
don't see the problem really.
Just put them in the torrents with
Game of Thrones and then everything will
be OK.
The whole I think the complete name
Rumsfeld's six thousand
games is like such a gigabyte, how
big is a Blu ray?
Yeah, with the I think with the all the
hard disk rooms and
the laser disc, it's it's something three
hundred gigabytes at the moment, 300
gigabytes with all the laser disc rips.
Oh, it's so big
now. But my question would be, are you
aware of any efforts currently to catalog
the software that's that are the
games.
They are probably. But I know I'm not
aware because I'm not really interested.
Interesting. Defeating the protections
and getting the games preserved.
OK, thanks.
OK, have free Internet
questions.
We have physical I'm not sure
if it's a question from a speaker, but
somebody asks if you just can't
life ram and then rewrite
it after replacing the battery.
So you just dump the
game and everything.
So and then you replace the battery and
put it back in.
And somebody asks if
you can't dump the game
while it's running, then replace
the battery. So stuff get lost and then
you put it back in.
Or I assume it's technically physically
possible. But you see what we
how we done something.
I don't think we can decrypt something
on the fly with our knowledge.
I mean, maybe it's physically possible we
we are not able to do this.
We have a question mark for just
an annotation to the question
before there is the Software
Preservation Society, which
catalogs old home PC
games and
Atari games, see 64
games and they developed special hardware
to dump floppy drives
was copy protection.
So there are always private
archives of of such
ROMs and floppies.
It was an answer to, OK,
I'm on my four
three, yeah, also
not really a question, but one answer to
the thing about preservation of
the archive archives.
It is indeed working on that.
I know a few people who work on that
as well.
They are working on it, but they do
sometimes run into legal issues, of
course, with IP ownership and such.
But if they have to remove something,
then they do keep a private copy of
the game in question so that it does
actually get archived until it can be
released out of copyright.
OK. There are efforts underway.
And basically, if you're interested in
working on the preservation
itself, just making sure it
is a copy that remains available, then
the archive is probably a good place to
contact.
OK, thanks for the info.
So
since we don't have questions
left over here,
I will ask you some
Internet questions, OK?
No, none at the moment.
Then you might want to
ask them. But in the efforts of
preserving the actual hardware, so
has all the information about the
hardware itself gone with the companies.
I'm just asking this because, well, I'm a
pinball antiracist and they all the
actual print for the
old tables are pretty much gone,
although the software saved.
Yes. In the software.
Does the real or the hardware
just don't disappear or.
Yes, someone asked me if the cabinet
art and everything was preserved, but I'm
not following that. So I don't know.
OK, are there any questions
left?
OK, thanks for your attention
and thanks for this call.