Chase HQ 2 appears again

[roudoudou]

I think it's pretty clear it exists:

https://youtu.be/r7fmHpbl85k?si=PTYG0-OApjsdsUae

The trouble is getting someone who actually owns a copy of the cartridge and is prepared to dump it in touch with someone who has the capability to safely do so.

My guess is that they were pre-production copies produced ready for sign off or for magazines or something, but the release was scrapped before it went ahead. The few copies now floating around presumably came from places like Trading Post that were just flogging off whatever had been dumped on them.

it's safe to read a ROM...

the risk IS to not dump it and lose forever the game

[andycadley]

I think it's pretty clear it exists:

https://youtu.be/r7fmHpbl85k?si=PTYG0-OApjsdsUae

The trouble is getting someone who actually owns a copy of the cartridge and is prepared to dump it in touch with someone who has the capability to safely do so.

My guess is that they were pre-production copies produced ready for sign off or for magazines or something, but the release was scrapped before it went ahead. The few copies now floating around presumably came from places like Trading Post that were just flogging off whatever had been dumped on them.

it's safe to read a ROM...

the risk IS to not dump it and lose forever the game

Sure. But if you owned one of the only copies in existence, I can understand why you might be dubious about plugging it in to someone's homebrew cart reader project without at least seeing it used on other carts without negative effects.

[roudoudou]

I think it's pretty clear it exists:

https://youtu.be/r7fmHpbl85k?si=PTYG0-OApjsdsUae

The trouble is getting someone who actually owns a copy of the cartridge and is prepared to dump it in touch with someone who has the capability to safely do so.

My guess is that they were pre-production copies produced ready for sign off or for magazines or something, but the release was scrapped before it went ahead. The few copies now floating around presumably came from places like Trading Post that were just flogging off whatever had been dumped on them.

it's safe to read a ROM...

the risk IS to not dump it and lose forever the game

Sure. But if you owned one of the only copies in existence, I can understand why you might be dubious about plugging it in to someone's homebrew cart reader project without at least seeing it used on other carts without negative effects.

so lets put that basic cartridge and make a dump of it before that sci dump

or maybe people don't really have this cartridge?

[chinnyhill10]

Sadly, people owning **RARE** games are afraid to lose something, while there is no risk at all to dump a ROM.

25+ years ago I sent some of my carts away to be dumped by someone on csa8. Pang, Navy Seals, Klax, World Of Sports and Switchblade*. For a long time my carts were the only ones avaliable online! I think there's newer transfers now.

I was warned that there was a risk of damage to the ROM and that the carts would need to be broken open and then superglued shut again.

That was fine with me. But if I had a very rare valuable cartridge I'd think twice! The breaking open alone is going to reduce the value.


* It may not have been every one of these. But the majority depending on what was needed.

[andycadley]

so lets put that basic cartridge and make a dump of it before that sci dump

or maybe people don't really have this cartridge?

If I had one, that'd convince me. As far as I'm aware, of the two known copies one was held by someone who didn't want it copied because it would devalue their purchase, the other by someone who had seemed open to it but had concerns about potential damage (as well as not wanting to send it to some randomer for obvious reasons) and eventually such discussions just tailed off (though that video did surface as well as a Retro Gamer article).

We can only hope a third copy show up at some point and ends up in the hands of someone generous. I still keep my eyes open any time I'm in an antique shop/boot fair. You never know...

[chinnyhill10]

In brief - Amstrad demanded that publishers place a minimum order up front of 20,000 copies of each game, which went through them. 

Trojan a relatively small firm really, struggled to produce that number quickly on demand too. Remember you've also got those special cases to produce too, and manuals, and have them all shipped and delivered.

The extra double whammy being the poor sales of the GX4000 after Xmas led to publishers starting to pull out not willing to place such high orders - case in point it's believed Empire cancelled Gazza II because of that. Also it's written in New Computer Express Ocean had completed games like "Pang" & "Plotting" and threatened to cancel them, until Amstrad relented on the minimum order number - which is why they're relatively rare to find (because released in smaller numbers).

The weird thing about Pang was it WAS available before Christmas.

Mine came from Dixons in Guildford either the 7th or 14th of December 1990 with my GX4000. With the lead time involved in getting it into the shops for that date, would Ocean really have had enough data to want to pull back? We would be talking carts made in November.

But as I said earlier, it was hit and miss what Dixons had. And even when I went to buy a game on New Years Day in Southampton, the only games they had in stock there I didn't already have was Klax or Barbarian 2. And I had Barbarian 2 already on tape!

[Egg Master]

@chinnyhill10 Thank you for your involvement to the GX4000 games preservation.
I feel sorry for you, but I think these people were just plain stupid...

Because it was much easier to make a cartridge to socket adapter by using a ribbon cable or a small homemade PCB to read the cartridges directly "pin to pin" from their PC or whatever hardware they used, through the edge connector than to break the cartridges to access the circuit, desolder them, dump the ROM ICs, resolder them and glue the shells.

[dragon]

Really things to complicate the Life.

Just a 6128 with m4 or so attached at the bus expansión.

Boot a custom rom that read each  16k cartridge Page to a  disk 0.bin 1.bin 2.bin  etc etc.

Then just read the  dsk in the pc paste the Pages in to one rom and you have the cart dumped without touch It.

[andycadley]

@chinnyhill10 Thank you for your involvement to the GX4000 games preservation.
I feel sorry for you, but I think these people were just plain stupid...

Because it was much easier to make a cartridge to socket adapter by using a ribbon cable or a small homemade PCB to read the cartridges directly "pin to pin" from their PC or whatever hardware they used, through the edge connector than to break the cartridges to access the circuit, desolder them, dump the ROM ICs, resolder them and glue the shells.

You have to look at things in the context of the time. It was a handful of people doing something even most CPC fans said wasn't worth bothering with, using whatever tools and skills they had available. And there wasn't a lot of knowledge on how exactly the carts worked (was the ROM encrypted etc).

[arnoldemu]

@chinnyhill10 Thank you for your involvement to the GX4000 games preservation.
I feel sorry for you, but I think these people were just plain stupid...

Because it was much easier to make a cartridge to socket adapter by using a ribbon cable or a small homemade PCB to read the cartridges directly "pin to pin" from their PC or whatever hardware they used, through the edge connector than to break the cartridges to access the circuit, desolder them, dump the ROM ICs, resolder them and glue the shells.

This is what I did in the beginning 25+ years ago in the early years of Amstrad plus emulation development  I had a socket, a couple of counter chips and it all connected to the amiga's parallel port. I stepped through the entire 512KB cartridge address range and read the bytes. I also didn't want to open the case because at the time there were no replacements, opening it often broke the plastic pin and made the cartridge wobble and I didn't have the kit to desolder the roms and read them.

Plus there was no hardware for the cpc which I could plug the cart into and dump it via software. The closest was RAM7's Cartridge device but I never had access to that.  

The only disadvantage with dumping using this method, and it's really not that bad, is because we don't know the actual ROM sized used without opening the cartridge case the entire 512KB should be read then guess the size based on if the rom data repeats every 4, 8, 16 etc. Better to have an oversized dump than no dump.

[roudoudou]

we have the play2cpc peripheral which can easily dump this cart (without modifications/opening/alter...)

[chinnyhill10]

@chinnyhill10 Thank you for your involvement to the GX4000 games preservation.
I feel sorry for you, but I think these people were just plain stupid...

Because it was much easier to make a cartridge to socket adapter by using a ribbon cable or a small homemade PCB to read the cartridges directly "pin to pin" from their PC or whatever hardware they used, through the edge connector than to break the cartridges to access the circuit, desolder them, dump the ROM ICs, resolder them and glue the shells.

This was 25 years ago. We were all huddled together on Usenet. It wasn't the scene it is today with resources and knowledge. People did what they could with the tools they had to preserve games. My only involvement was offering up the carts.

It was different times. In fact, the only way to play the games on a PC was on a bit of software called Multi Machine which was one of the first Windows based emulators. It worked but my recollection was at first it wasn't quite full speed and had incorrect audio. But wow, it did work!

[Egg Master]

Well... In 2000, it was not complicated to open the Burnin' Rubber cartridge to check the pinout and build an adapter to connect any cartridges to the ROM dumper hardware, when you know there are 20+ games to process. This was the right way to do 25 years ago.

[andycadley]

Well... In 2000, it was not complicated to open the Burnin' Rubber cartridge to check the pinout and build an adapter to connect any cartridges to the ROM dumper hardware, when you know there are 20+ games to process. This was the right way to do 25 years ago.

People did what they did. Also GX4000 carts were going for £5 on eBay if you waited long enough. For the most part they weren't that rare, it's just people couldn't be bothered selling them as they were perceived as having no value.

[Egg Master]

Just a 6128 with m4 or so attached at the bus expansión.

25 years ago...

[Egg Master]

People did what they did. Also GX4000 carts were going for £5 on eBay if you waited long enough. For the most part they weren't that rare, it's just people couldn't be bothered selling them as they were perceived as having no value.

This is out of context, I'm responding to that:

"I was warned that there was a risk of damage to the ROM and that the carts would need to be broken open and then superglued shut again.
That was fine with me. But if I had a very rare valuable cartridge I'd think twice! The breaking open alone is going to reduce the value."

[Anthony Flack]

It looks less bad than I was expecting actually. I'd probably rather play that than a lot of the games that were released on the GX, including every other driving game that's not Burnin' Rubber.

[kawickboy]

In France Pang and Plotting were reviewed as Christmas hits but weren't available until spring 1991.

And what about the box and booklet owner ? Is there anyway to scan them ?

[amijim]

Hello there , considering money and value is the reason these two owners so not allow to dump their cartridges I would suggest to make a list of owners who are willing to donate a aum of money , so as to buy the dumping process.It ia not about loosing  the 20euros everyone of us can donate for the  cause but the I want to see the myth before i die kind of thing here.So , can we gather 100peoplw to make 2000euros tomgive for the cause? Another reason can be the fame of the owners ,owning the myth , the rarest of them all , so can a coder add the name of the owner to the game so every one loading the game can see him game on the screen? I guess now , it is time for the owners to reconsider.Howndonyounfind the idea?

[Anthony Flack]

Who knows, I can't fathom the mindset of people who hoard these things. 

[overange]

Hello there , considering money and value is the reason these two owners so not allow to dump their cartridges I would suggest to make a list of owners who are willing to donate a aum of money , so as to buy the dumping process.It ia not about loosing  the 20euros everyone of us can donate for the  cause but the I want to see the myth before i die kind of thing here.So , can we gather 100peoplw to make 2000euros tomgive for the cause? Another reason can be the fame of the owners ,owning the myth , the rarest of them all , so can a coder add the name of the owner to the game so every one loading the game can see him game on the screen? I guess now , it is time for the owners to reconsider.Howndonyounfind the idea?

Thank you for sharing your idea—it's creative and well-meaning! However, there are a few practical issues that may make it difficult to implement:

• Ownership and Control: The decision to dump cartridges often rests solely with the owners. Even if 100 people donated money, the owners might still refuse, as some prefer to preserve the exclusivity and rarity of their cartridges rather than share the content.
• Legal and Ethical Concerns: Some rare games or prototypes are subject to licensing or intellectual property laws. Even if we raised funds, the legal risks of distributing copyrighted content could deter the owners from releasing it publicly.
• Privacy and Recognition: Adding names to the game is an interesting idea, but not all owners would want that kind of attention. They may value their privacy and prefer to remain anonymous, especially if they're known collectors.
• Sentimental and Personal Value: Many collectors see their rare games as prized possessions with personal value, beyond monetary worth or fame. It's hard to change such deeply held sentiments.

While it's an admirable goal to preserve gaming history, the decision ultimately lies with the owners, and persuasion may not always be enough. Still, I appreciate your passion for this cause—it's always worth discussing new ideas!

[eto]

Hello there , considering money and value is the reason these two owners so not allow to dump their cartridges I would suggest to make a list of owners who are willing to donate a aum of money , so as to buy the dumping process.It ia not about loosing  the 20euros everyone of us can donate for the  cause but the I want to see the myth before i die kind of thing here.So , can we gather 100peoplw to make 2000euros tomgive for the cause? Another reason can be the fame of the owners ,owning the myth , the rarest of them all , so can a coder add the name of the owner to the game so every one loading the game can see him game on the screen? I guess now , it is time for the owners to reconsider.Howndonyounfind the idea?

I first thought "I am in" but honestly I think it's better if it remains a mystery.

It would be a surprise if this game is better then the average GX4000 game. I guess we would see a port of the Speccy version with limited adaptions to the CPC/Plus. And the Speccy version is already ... well ... not very good.

The whole topic is only fascinating BECAUSE it is not available. Once the ROM had been dumped, there will be a 2 week hype around it, several Youtube videos will be made - and all of them will say the same "finally discovered - blabla - thanks to XYZ for dumping it - blabla - Let's play it - blabla - OMG what a shit game".

After that 2 weeks of hype we will just have another shit GX4000 game that nobody wants to play - and we also lost the "saga" around it. Every now and then it will be mentioned as a side note - but all the fascination will be gone.

[overange]

and all of them will say the same "finally discovered - blabla - thanks to XYZ for dumping it - blabla - Let's play it - blabla - OMG what a shit game"

 I can definitely see that happening as well.

If the rumours are true that Retrogames (the makers of The C64, The A500, and The Spectrum) are working on a GX4000 recreation — possibly called 'The GX' — as they would be collaborating closely with the Sky Group for the Amstrad licensing, it's plausible they could acquire the original source code from what remains of Ocean, Then they would include Chase HQ 2 as part of the consoles carousel, potentially alongside other rare, unreleased GX4000/PLUS title... Gazza 2.
 Then make that part of the sales pitch to sell more Retro Games consoles.

[eto]

as they would be collaborating closely with the Sky Group for the Amstrad licensing

The Amstrad brand is owned by Sugar again, so I guess that's off the table anyway. Not sure how much further licensing is required for a GX4000 as afaik the firmware is usually the part that requires licensing- and exactly that is not needed for a GX4000 emulation. Maybe the GX4000 design itself?

are working on a GX4000 recreation — possibly called 'The GX'

I'd love to see that - at least if it can run CPR from a stick and if it provides wireless controllers. From the original GX4000 games I would be interested in maybe 2 or 3.

[dragon]

One thing its the marketing name "amstrad", and a other thing was the intelectual property of the amstrad computers design. Included the design if the asic and the gate array. Alan sugar have recovered de first thing, but i don't have read he have recovery the second thing.


And the guys of retrogames only works With the licenses of summit software that was the old "alternativa games" back in the 80. So their catalog are the only can be published with the console.