This is an old revision of the document!
Todo
General improvements
- Add pictures, and a video guide, to each page
- Add instructions on how to dump save files
- Document common ROM chip serials. E.g. 6th, 7th and 8th character of the “MX” line on MX (Macronix) ROM chips seems to be the ROM size.
- Nintendo cart pages: add info on “front of cart”/box serials (and non-standard carts if relevant)
- Split dumping hardware table into individual tables for each console, and put them on the respective dumping guide pages
- General Disc Dumping guide: add more information on advantages of certain disc drives (e.g. Plextors)
- GB/C: update the tool overview table and then move back to actual page
- GBA: update the tool overview table and then move back to actual page
- Document using 7-Zip for hashing
- DS: Add info on box serials (and non-standard carts if relevant)
- Add notes about what to do with your ROM image and dump metadata if you don't want to submit it to a cataloguing organisation
- Add relevant DS images from that exist under carts:nintendo:ds to the page
- Add note about checking No-Intro/Redump to see what is highest priority for verifications etc
- https://gist.github.com/xprism1/fe92c3e6b7973825b49766be3fb3624e Dumping 3DS PANDA NAND
- GB/C: The joey jr drag-and-drop firmware is no longer being worked on, but BennVennFlashGBX now has its own [todo: double check this]
- 3DS: Document GodMode9's “last byte in .txt file” feature for 4GB ROMs: https://github.com/d0k3/GodMode9/issues/780
- GB/C: this can be used to detect (to some degree) which bootrom your GB/C has https://github.com/nitro2k01/whichboot.gb
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- Add something to about importance of Gathering and Submitting Dump Info
- Add something here about checking ROMs using emulators/flashcarts and ROM checking tools (like ctrtool signature check for 3DS carts),
- Document how to dump DS/DSi/3DS ntrboot carts. https://web.archive.org/web/20250426115128/https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1297537099641393173/1365652515407794308/GM9_ntrboot_TWL.firm?ex=680e1684&is=680cc504&hm=dda28e2f63659bd8ae0d9553dbb86674a851bbaef4e3efb9835808c9263ee957& https://web.archive.org/web/20250426115129/https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1297537099641393173/1365652514971844699/GM9_ntrboot_CTRDEV.firm?ex=680e1684&is=680cc504&hm=c046d9981e874e43977a4a8f5e29d6c2d0e35f15632998d2ebb072992939917c& https://web.archive.org/web/20250426115038/https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1297537099641393173/1365652514627780658/GM9_ntrboot_CTR.firm?ex=680e1684&is=680cc504&hm=2ddae66b8eb9f546f3657e8c48411d59e432ab6ac582c39526780ccc42263aa9&
Add new systems
- Create Atari Cartridge dumping guide.
- Atari 2600 - dumpable with custom OSCR adapter or Custom adapter for Retrode 2
- Atari Lynx - Joeylynx or lynx pi hat
- Atari Jaguar carts - either desolder ROMs and use ROM programmer, or use a BJL-modded jaguar and the bjl_dump homebrew
- Create GBA e-Reader guide
- Create guide for Bandai Wonderswan. OSCR adapter requires harvesting cartridge slot from a real Wonderswan. There's also a Tengu cart reader. A flash cart in the early 2000s named WonderMagic could also dump carts, but it's now extremely difficult to find. Carts are secured with two T6 Torx screws. Make sure to not include save data in dumps.
- This blog post could be useful for decoding game IDs
- Sega Pico (ask Team Europe for help?)
- All the other systems supported by custom OSCR adapters, like ColecoVision.
New method research
- GB: Document this GB dumping homebrew for GBA https://github.com/Lorenzooone/gba-dump-gb
- GBA: Document gbaxxdumper
- DS: add guide for DSi dev cart dumping https://archive.org/details/godmode9-dsi-dev-cart-version-2019-11-01-203045
- MD: Flashkit Programmer MD
- 3DS: SkyDock usb cart reader
- Virtual Boy: Open Source Cartridge Reader
- Famicom Disk System: FDSKey
Method development
- General: more “TapeDump”-like homebrew for different systems could be useful. Especially if paired with cheap hardware to allow easy and safe cart swapping.
- General: Look into clone consoles that have external storage + cart slot, if they exist
- General: Look into if using tasbot/ACE could be more affordable than flashcarts, for running homebrew
- GB/C: Dumper for GameCube via Game Boy Player or Game Boy Link Cable. There are GBA methods, but do they work for GB/GBC?
Unsorted
- Is it worth dumping each chip individually for some carts? Examples of carts where this would be useful: different parts of ROM exposed depending on PCB configuration, some kind of circuitry for byte-swapping the ROM output (2)? Maybe just looking at the PCB is enough to find special cases like these.
- Add explanations of why the different pieces of info are useful to record to Gathering and Submitting Dump Info (Detailed).
- It may be a good idea to overdump (dump past the maximum known capacity) from some carts on some systems, to make sure all the ROM is dumped (even if the capacity is written on the ROM chip), and then analyse the overdump to find the actual size. Maybe this is something that could be done by the dumping hardware itself - maybe make suggestion on OSCR github discussions.
- Hardware: integrate Lesserkuma's cart_reader_dumping_compatibility_chart.xlsx
- Some carts may have DLC in the save data. Add a note to the dumping guide pages about this.
- Rewritable Hard Disks and Flash Media: add instructions on how to censor personal information without altering the surrounding data structure (e.g. FF/00-out file contents without modifying the filesystem metadata or shifting data)
- Full PCB documentation/disassembly guide?