Newly discovered Dick Smith Tennis variant

[MADrigal]

I was very surprised to discover yet another variation of the Tennis game ROM right 2 days ago.

AFAIK the Tennis ROM was released in 3 formats only

- with Coca Cola/Sprite logo: very early version, probably sold in China and UK only in limited run

- with Wimbledon Championship (white font on red-blue background): the common version sold worldwide as a replacement to the one with Coca Cola/Sprite brand

- with Dick Smith Championship (white font on red-blue background): sold in Australia only

Well this is what I got today: a very early revision of the Dick Smith-branded ROM, with black font on yellow-cyan background.

It comes in a very early PCB (revision 700306), and EPROMs were produced in "8223", that is June 1982. This must be the time when VTech started to produce cartridges for Dick Smith Electronics.

So I suppose that this graphics was the first version of the customised ROM made by VTech for D.S. for the Australian market.

The layout is pretty close to the "fake screenshot" that appears on the Tennis games boxes sold in Italy, Australia (earlier copies) and worldwide (later copies). The one on the boxes reads "Wimbleton" and there are 2 rackets in the middle. But beside this, the colour layout is the same as appearing on this newly discovered ROM.

Needless to say, I will do my best to have the ROM dumped and released as soon as possible!

Comments welcome!

[MADrigal]

FYI this is the "common" D.S.-branded ROM

[MADrigal]

And this is the "fake screenshot" appearing on

- later international (VTech) boxes
- early Dick Smith boxes
- all Italian (Zanussi) boxes

[MADrigal]

We have a dump!

Thanks to my good friend Herman Hermitage for providing precious assistance with the EPROM dumping

I will release the ROM in a couple of days, together with the updated creatiVe-UI interface for the FunnyMu emulator.

The file will be available for public download at the usual page:

https://www.madrigaldesign.it/creativemu/roms.php

Quick screenshot taken with FunnyMu emulator attached below.

[MADrigal]

Here is a photo of the PCB

TEA is 2Kbytes, containing the same program as the other dumps
TNB is 4KBytes, containing the graphic hack

The EPROMs manufacturing date are 8223 and 8227. This means that the cartridge was produced (soon?) after July 1982.

[Scouter3d]

A nice little project would be a CreatiVision Cart dumper in Hardware...
Insert Cart, hit key => Image written to SD Card or to PC via USB or Bluetooth serial...
No need to desolder the precious Eproms...
TOM:0)

[@username@]

PC parallel would be cheap and easy, if it's possible to get a cart connector. Minimal software, few chips.

[Scouter3d]

Hi @username@! Yes, PC parallel would be easy! Cart connectors are available... (mobsie has a few... and old ISA slots work fine also)
PS: Reminds me a bit of the "Laser to PC BIOS printing hack" we built!
Greetings, TOM:0)

[MADrigal]

Tom: if you dont want to unsolder the eproms, you can still build an adaptor for the EPROM programmer to read the CreatiVision cartridge "as a whole ROM". i have done this in the past, my first dumps were done this way (around 2001). i also built adaptors to dump my PAL cartridges for A2600 and VideoPac.

[Mobsie]

Hi, i have a lot of these cart connector! More the 300!
Don`t ask why.
If somebody need, i send for free.