FDS Spray

Summary of features:

• HTML Documentation, readable by normal humans!
• Examines all sides of a two-sided or two-disk (four sided) game, previous version used just the first side to rename.
• Zeroes unused bytes safely for cleaner games and better compression when archiving.
• Removes Save-game Info (not perfect)
• Renames games to their real, actual names
• Resizes games, saving 127k to 191k of useless crap per file
• Removes some stamps by converters like "hCon by hal9999"
• Converts .FAM version 4.0 files to .FDS (a better format for your Famicom games)
• Child proof safety seal for your protection.
• Hypo-allergenic, dermatologist tested.

Okay, I had written an ass load of information, but I seem to have deleted the document. So...

First, this is a fully functional BETA program. It's not finished yet, but it does the least it needs to do in order to be useful. Do not use it on your collection and then delete all the files in ".\bak" or ".\dupes". I have taken many precautions, but I make no guarantees. If you have a public access archive, please do not use SPRAY in case it does something bad. The final release will be safe, but we don't want to lose information just yet.

SPRAY *
	-does the whole directory, FAM and FDS files -> FDS   
	(features are not optional this release)
disabled this release:
SPRAY [filename]
	-does the file only.                                  

FDS *
	-dumps block info for whole directory (FDS only, I think)
FDS [filename]
	-dumps block info for file.                           

It is similar to the "2fds.exe" program included with "fwNes" except that it will auto-detect sizes, and rename your games, and clean out some problem areas.

160+ games identified, all of the info is in "ingredients.dat" so you can change whatever you don't like *g*

SPRAY uses CRC to identify and rename games. Once the game is identified, it checks various things:

• Any information outside of file blocks are zeroed. for example, when copying from FDS disk to PC, extra or random bytes in memory might be saved to fill out the 65500 bytes of a FDS disk side. Also, save games are not usually zeroed out. When the block shrinks, the additional data is left there.
• The FDS header should have "FDS followed by hex 1A, followed by the number of disk sides the game has. Spray fixes this if necessary.
• It also truncates games which only take up one or two disk sides so that they are not twice as big (or four times as big) as needed.
• It also removes the "hCon by HAL9999" crap from the header.
• If it finds two games within one disk image, like Donkey Kong Jr. and the Goonies, it splits them up. The final version of SPRAY will not do that, if the games were originally sold on the same disk. Cookies to anyone who can confirm this!

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Messages you might get:

Error: XX [followed by text] means something bad happened.

"Unable to create backup" - it couldn't move the file to the backup directory. Access permissions or an existing file are the cause. It will not molest the file.

"Error loading datfile, record too long:" - you have added a game with a filename longer than 60 characters. Either change this or let me know how big you need it to be.

"Save detected side %u offset %u named XXXXXXXX" - the file block used to save game information is probably that one. It will be deleted.

"Extra block on side %u offset %u block %u of %u" - The FDS disk says it has fewer sides than it actually has. For now I am not sure what to do when this happens: delete the block or change the number of blocks. For now, these are left alone to avoid deleting important data.

"Too many ingredients: XX", memory access is limited to 350 lines (currently has 300+).

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FDSdat.exe This program creates the .dat file from games in your dir.

	FDS * >info.dat


will save this info, to be added to the bottom of "ingredients.dat" and shared with others.

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How you can help

If there are any unrecognised games or "possible save block" messages, send me the "FDSdat.exe [game] > info.txt" output

Any filenames you think need to be changed, need to be changed, so let me know "ATTN: Webulator" in ABEN or ABEND. If you have changes to suggest, please include the following information at least. I ask for this now because I have been sent a long list of game titles which I consider now to be definitive.

• SPRAY's title for the game, so I know which one to change.
• If the box title is different from what is on the screen. I will try to use whichever contains more information. Ex: the box says "Koneko Monogatari" but the screen has the subtitle "The Adventures of Chatran" as well, you get "Koneko Monogatari - The Adventures of Chatran".
• A brief explanation of the reason. I have studied etymology of the Romance languages and some of others, back to the "proto-indo-eurpean" common language roots, and I will select the reading which I think is best if I can determine that.
  If the root word is an adoption from another language please indicate that as well.
  Ex: Kanji for "sword" can be read "Ken" or "Tsurugi".
  Ex: "Zelda" is a coined phrase or made-up name.

If you play games which save games (Zelda, Metroid, Section Z, etc), and you get "Possible save slot" messages, please send me your output from FDSdat.exe above. Please run it on the renamed game, but the backup. That way I can have better info for removing save games. SPRAY will not remove save games which are the same as the ones I tested, which are usually the most easily available ones. If you have saved a game, Spray should fix it. Otherwise, SPRAY will not know the difference.

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Thanks to those who have helped so far. I would not have started this without the several requests I have had recently and the response to my own requests for info. (Bert Sapmson, Inflict, Kurt Reonis, and Dr. Winston)

Some anonymous dude sent me a buttload of corrections, many to games which were not in the SPRAY database to begin with! Many thanks, also to the guy that sent *him* corrections. I would like to thank you both personally if I could.

Also thanks to Dutch at Retrogames for the heads up to the general Net-surfin' Rom-collectin' peepz at home, and to rOni for posting the heads up at EmuViews. Or EmuCamp.

And a final note: I could give a crap about your collection being complete or not, since if you dump your own carts like you're supposed to you won't have these problems, but it does bother me that so much HD space is being wasted on all those extra disk sides *g*. Not everyone can (or should have to) afford their own backup unit for the Famicom, and not everyone gets a good dump from their old dusty cartridge or disks. There is not an option to list a "missing" list, although you might get by with "dir *.fds > myfds.txt" or something similar to have a "have" list.

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Problems:

Not all .FAM files are converted. I have seen the following games in an earlier .FAM format (maybe 2.0) which is more difficult to convert to FDS:

• Atlantis [atlantis no nazo?]
• Balloon Fight
• Baseball [Nintendo]
• Something about Battle or something
• Bomberman
• Super Mario hack "darksmb"
• Dig Dug
• Dragon Quest?
• Galaga
• Kage something
These look like ass in Famtasia, so you will know them. The first bytes of the file are (hex):

       02 00 0D 81 00 01 00 00-00 FF FF 00 00 00 00 00

It won't scan files it rescues from other games always. If Volleyball is created and Tennis is written as a temp file, Volleyball will be processed and moved to ".\ren" but Tennis will be written as "tmpxxxx.fds" and possibly processed, possibly not depending on how "clean" your directory is. Just run it again.

Sailor Fuku 4 has a "bad dump" version in which the second side is placed first, and the first side second. If you can load the disk image, set the disk side to "b" and play it, that's the problem. SPRAY does not fix this (yet?)

thanks, tW

the balzano50 guy at the hotmail.com place