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Hi,

I have a 171-5587 board that is compatible with my Sega Master System. It has Alex Kidd in High Tech World on it. Can someone tell me more about it and if it is rare or valuable? Thanks for any information.

Alex

20181206_030008.jpg (260.94 KB)

Can you read the checksum on the sticker? It'll be more valuable if it's a prototype.

Nice find! Do you have a story leading to finding it?

It would be super nice to get the EPROM dumped, to confirm is AKHTH is a final build or a pre-release build. Do you have access to an EPROM dumper by any chance?

Maxim wrote

Can you read the checksum on the sticker? It'll be more valuable if it's a prototype.

The white sticker on the chip? It just says A K H T W. I am assuming that stands for Alex Kidd: High-Tech World.

Bock wrote

Nice find! Do you have a story leading to finding it?

It would be super nice to get the EPROM dumped, to confirm is AKHTH is a final build or a pre-release build. Do you have access to an EPROM dumper by any chance?

It was given to me by my mother-in-law, she worked for Tonka Toys in the 80s and early 90s. She referred to it as a prototype, but I am not sure if it actually is so I am trying to gather some more evidence, however I don't know what to look for.

I do not have access to an EPROM dumper at the moment.

She also gave me some, "Display-Working Unit only, not for sale" Sega Master System games as well.

All of those would sell on eBay.

I am not up with prices but I think most the "Display-Working Unit only, not for sale" carts would probably sell around $40-$60. A few of them are a bit less common. That's assuming you are talking about the cart inside the regular black cartridge mold with no front label and a white label behing saying "Display-Working Unit only, not for sale". They are samples and quite uncommon but they are also common enough that many people decided to snatch them in their collection.

The AKHTW prototype it would depend whether the EPROM contents is the same or not.

(Mind you - traditionally I have been the person buying 95% of the SMS prototypes sold anywhere and I would happily offer to buy it from you directly, or if you put it on eBay I'll try to buy it there.)

When buying prototypes without evidence of the contents it is a bet, the value for me is much less if the EPROM dump is confirmed to be identical to the final release, more otherwise. This is because my/our goal on SmsPower is to get the games contents archived and made available to the community (for free) and I already have a few 171-5587 boards. The likehood of a game like that from US/Tonka being a prototype ROM I would say would be 1 out of 3.

For many regular collectors both extreme are a little bit attenuated: they'd pay more than me for an already dumped game because they fancy the hardware board more, and they won't pay much more for an undumped variation of a released game, the reason being that they rarely tell the difference either way.

*EDIT*
For this _particular game_ the odds are particularly stacked against it being a prototype EPROM, for the reason that AKHTW is a reskin of Anmitsu Hime released in Japan, and so required little amount of work on Sega part. Therefore it's practically impossible that this a "super early" build of AKHTW. At best it could be a hybrid with left-over art from the original, or an earlier build with faulty localization (which itself would be fun to study).

Does anyone know what the DIP switches on the board are for? Is that a multi-cart? Or do the switches connect/disconnect high address lines to adjust addressable ROM size?

I suspect not all 8 dipswitches are used.
On the equivalent Game Gear boards it uses four:
ROM mode, BUP mode, RAM select, GG/MS mode

I tested the 171-5587 a while ago but I forgot what they do exactly, I suspect one is to select EPROM type and one may be disabling the SRAM and/or Battery (they appears to be separate setting on the Game Gear, so the SRAM chip can be used during dev even without draining the battery).

I have purchased this board and dumped the EPROM today.
Good news, it doesn't appear to be a final build but it is somehow near final. There are only 10 different bytes in the code section and about 10KB worth of change in the later bank, mostly consisting of large data move, suggesting some of the game data have been edited (level layout? graphics?).
If someone would like to reverse engineer the change prior to releasing the dump, let me know.

Nice!!

Author	Message
Alex_W Joined: 06 Dec 2018 Posts: 3	171-5587 Board Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2018 9:08 am
Alex_W Joined: 06 Dec 2018 Posts: 3	Hi, I have a 171-5587 board that is compatible with my Sega Master System. It has Alex Kidd in High Tech World on it. Can someone tell me more about it and if it is rare or valuable? Thanks for any information. Alex 20181206_030008.jpg (260.94 KB)

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14744 Location: London	Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2018 1:07 pm
	Can you read the checksum on the sticker? It'll be more valuable if it's a prototype.

Bock Site Admin Joined: 08 Jul 2001 Posts: 8651 Location: Paris, France	Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2018 7:20 pm
	Nice find! Do you have a story leading to finding it? It would be super nice to get the EPROM dumped, to confirm is AKHTH is a final build or a pre-release build. Do you have access to an EPROM dumper by any chance?

Alex_W Joined: 06 Dec 2018 Posts: 3	Posted: Fri Dec 07, 2018 12:43 am Last edited by Alex_W on Fri Dec 07, 2018 12:51 am; edited 1 time in total
Alex_W Joined: 06 Dec 2018 Posts: 3	Maxim wrote Can you read the checksum on the sticker? It'll be more valuable if it's a prototype. The white sticker on the chip? It just says A K H T W. I am assuming that stands for Alex Kidd: High-Tech World.

Alex_W Joined: 06 Dec 2018 Posts: 3	Posted: Fri Dec 07, 2018 12:46 am
Alex_W Joined: 06 Dec 2018 Posts: 3	Bock wrote Nice find! Do you have a story leading to finding it? It would be super nice to get the EPROM dumped, to confirm is AKHTH is a final build or a pre-release build. Do you have access to an EPROM dumper by any chance? It was given to me by my mother-in-law, she worked for Tonka Toys in the 80s and early 90s. She referred to it as a prototype, but I am not sure if it actually is so I am trying to gather some more evidence, however I don't know what to look for. I do not have access to an EPROM dumper at the moment. She also gave me some, "Display-Working Unit only, not for sale" Sega Master System games as well.

Bock Site Admin Joined: 08 Jul 2001 Posts: 8651 Location: Paris, France	Posted: Fri Dec 07, 2018 11:27 am
	All of those would sell on eBay. I am not up with prices but I think most the "Display-Working Unit only, not for sale" carts would probably sell around $40-$60. A few of them are a bit less common. That's assuming you are talking about the cart inside the regular black cartridge mold with no front label and a white label behing saying "Display-Working Unit only, not for sale". They are samples and quite uncommon but they are also common enough that many people decided to snatch them in their collection. The AKHTW prototype it would depend whether the EPROM contents is the same or not. (Mind you - traditionally I have been the person buying 95% of the SMS prototypes sold anywhere and I would happily offer to buy it from you directly, or if you put it on eBay I'll try to buy it there.) When buying prototypes without evidence of the contents it is a bet, the value for me is much less if the EPROM dump is confirmed to be identical to the final release, more otherwise. This is because my/our goal on SmsPower is to get the games contents archived and made available to the community (for free) and I already have a few 171-5587 boards. The likehood of a game like that from US/Tonka being a prototype ROM I would say would be 1 out of 3. For many regular collectors both extreme are a little bit attenuated: they'd pay more than me for an already dumped game because they fancy the hardware board more, and they won't pay much more for an undumped variation of a released game, the reason being that they rarely tell the difference either way. EDIT For this _particular game_ the odds are particularly stacked against it being a prototype EPROM, for the reason that AKHTW is a reskin of Anmitsu Hime released in Japan, and so required little amount of work on Sega part. Therefore it's practically impossible that this a "super early" build of AKHTW. At best it could be a hybrid with left-over art from the original, or an earlier build with faulty localization (which itself would be fun to study).

bsittler Joined: 22 Apr 2018 Posts: 530	Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2018 3:52 pm
bsittler Joined: 22 Apr 2018 Posts: 530	Does anyone know what the DIP switches on the board are for? Is that a multi-cart? Or do the switches connect/disconnect high address lines to adjust addressable ROM size?

Bock Site Admin Joined: 08 Jul 2001 Posts: 8651 Location: Paris, France	Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2018 8:13 pm
	I suspect not all 8 dipswitches are used. On the equivalent Game Gear boards it uses four: ROM mode, BUP mode, RAM select, GG/MS mode I tested the 171-5587 a while ago but I forgot what they do exactly, I suspect one is to select EPROM type and one may be disabling the SRAM and/or Battery (they appears to be separate setting on the Game Gear, so the SRAM chip can be used during dev even without draining the battery).

Bock Site Admin Joined: 08 Jul 2001 Posts: 8651 Location: Paris, France	Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2019 9:27 pm
	I have purchased this board and dumped the EPROM today. Good news, it doesn't appear to be a final build but it is somehow near final. There are only 10 different bytes in the code section and about 10KB worth of change in the later bank, mostly consisting of large data move, suggesting some of the game data have been edited (level layout? graphics?). If someone would like to reverse engineer the change prior to releasing the dump, let me know.

dink Joined: 09 Dec 2013 Posts: 228 Location: detroit	Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2019 12:15 am
dink Joined: 09 Dec 2013 Posts: 228 Location: detroit	Nice!!

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