That's cool. I always figured the WQV-3 and WQV-10 sent identical packets & protocol. There's otherwise no incompatibility between them, is there?

The Super UFO Pro (8) SD

Also, if someone wants to donate a Super UFO Pro SD to me, I can start working on getting at least LFN display working on it... 😁

Now remember the floppy version is also called the Super UFO Pro 8... do you mean the Super UFO Pro SD? No firmwares beyond v 9.3, as far as I know. There is a private Facebook group, but I don't think they have /made/ any actual releases.

Help menu describing controls for my modded UFO BIOS

A snippet of ASM code/bytes describing AR/X-T cheat codes

Been busy but have found some time to keep modifying & enhancing the Super UFO 8 floppy SFC copier. I made a help screen for all the added controls, plus I've converted the built-in Action Replay cheat codes to an .asm include file, in order to trim/add more codes.

UFO Bios 7.2 Naniwa on left showing some Kansai dialect; English UFO 7.3 BIOS on the right

The UFO 7.2 J なにわ "Naniwa" version is in Japanese only. And the name なにわ refers to the area in Osaka; as such, messages in this copier are written in the Kansai dialect: Game save? おまへん(Ain't here!); How's the checksum? あかん(No way!); Disk in drive? いれてんか？ディスクガナイデ！(D'jya put one in? Ain't seein' it!)

The Super UFO Pro 7 SFC floppy copier

Cool UFO "High Technology Product" hologram sticker

The instruction manual cover for the *7.3* Naniwa version, distributed by GameTech around 1994? ~ 1996?

A Super UFO 7 SFC copier just fell into my lap this week, and it's a kinda rare Japanese 7.2 なにわ "Naniwa" version. This one came with a protective hologram over one screwhole, so: pics! The BIOS is on a 32KB EPROM, whereas the 7.3 version adds built-in X-T cheat codes and is on a 64KB EPROM. Neat!

I thought it was a Washington Wizards reference...

A photo of two Doritos packages. On the left is the "old" package with a weight of 170 grams. On the right is the new one replacing it on shelves, with a weight of 160 grams. Same price.

Shrinkflation captured in realtime
リアルタイムで捉えたシュリンクフレーション

Well, this is SNES-native code, which is a 16-bit 65816. However, if you switch the Acc and X/Y registers into 8-bit mode, then, yeah the source will look just like 6502. (The UFO line of copiers runs all the time with 16-bit X/Y regs and switches 8/16 Acc mode when needed, for example.)

"Pro Fighter X" SNES copier

It's displaying the volume name first, "CHRIS" then overlaying invalid entries into the file list. Also tries to load invisible files...

My disk fix code. Done through a bit of searching and trial-and-error, since these BIOSes don't run on emulators, and no SNES emu emulates floppies anyway...

Pro Fighter X file display fixed up! Also with a new tilde glyph added into the font, as well as a new custom SFC background

The "Pro Fighter X" series of SNES copiers has kinda stupid disk handling code: it doesn't filter out FAT entries on floppy disk that should never be displayed, like the Volume name ("CHRIS"), directories, and long filename chunks. This causes errors during display & loading. So I RE'd and fixed it.

Not much more, as I got sidetracked. The enemy ambushes on several screens are a bit unfair. I think maybe I gave up because of slight frustration. Perhaps see what other reviews say about the game.

Yes, that would be a pretty large undertaking, requiring even more reverse-engineering, and then a big rewrite. Some copiers look into the 512-byte copier header to determine size/multipart loads; others might look into the SNES internal header. The GDSF uses the filename to determine most of this..

The Super UFO 8 copier displaying long file names

I did what the UFO guys never bothered to do: about a week ago, I read up on how Long File Names (LFN) work on FAT12 floppy storage, and programmed in a display routine for LFNs on my Super UFO8 FDD copier. Much more useful now!

Memorably, I had a chicken sandwich at the concession at Universal Studios California as a teen, around 1993, and it's still memorable to me to this day how dry everything was & without a hint of sauces.

4 snapshots of the Japan map screen in SFC Ganbare Goemon rotating in Mode7, using my hacked program in the Super UFO

The UFO 8 (FDD) Super Famicom copier has a realtime savestate feature which also lets you examine PPU backgrounds and sprites from the savestate. You also can view the Mode7 BG, but only *view*. I've added my own routines in the UFO BIOS to let you scroll, scale, and rotate around the Mode7 BG.

Great shots! They probably all thought you were simply impatient with them...

Digital mockup image of the UFO 6 Jp version BIOS screen

Digital mockup image of the UFO 6 3.1 (English) version BIOS screen

The BIOSes for the "UFO Super Drive Pro-6 Hyper Version" come in a 27256 EPROM, but only have the upper 16KB used. In addition, the copier uses an 8K bankswitching method, so these will probably never run in an emulator. So, using the 1bpp CHR graphics in the BIOS, I've made digital reconstructions.

A UFO 6 pic with box taken off the Web. Thanks!

My UFO 6 came with the Japanese "TOKIO" v3.0 BIOS, which I changed for the English 3.1 one. Both versions load disk games in normal or "hyper" mode w/ cheats on. The [*] star modes do the same as the top options, and I have no idea how they are different...

Aha, so this is what the 512-byte SFC copier header is for! Golden Finger (ROM patch) codes saved in the UFO header of games stored on disk.

I found a UFO Pro6 SFC copier for cheap recently. The UFO line of copiers is great, and this one is a... primitive step along the way. While the UFO 7 & 8 had built-in cheat codes for games, the 6 didn't, so it let you store AR and Goldfinger codes directly in the 512-byte copier header of each game

And it's probably also well known the graffiti in Street Fighter 1 literally is him!

Aging test v 1.00. Mosaic pixel size is left at 0 (1x1 pixels for 256-pixel modes) which shows up a bug seen only in 512-pixel modes! Not all SNES emulators emulate this...

Aging test v 1.02. Mosaic pixel size is disabled after test, fixing the bug seen only in 512-pixel modes.

I had a look at early SFC aging tests. The earliest 1.00 version is interesting. It has different sprites & BG examples from the 1.02 version, and also had a bug: when the 1.00 version goes from its mosaic test to the 512-pixel test, they forget to turn off mosaic (fine for 256-mode but not 512)!

Startup screen of hacked Super UFO 8

I had a couple extra days off this week, and I continued apace on fixing up/hacking/improving the Super UFO (SFC floppy copier) 8.3j BIOS. Highres interlaced modes work and I've added in a mosaic screen transition during logo fade-in/out

The name never was easy to say. I'd want to name the device "Wacky-Vee".
Oh, and the WQV3/10 use a totally different protocol, similar to what IrDA devices on Windows computers use: "IrDA:IrCOMM / IrDA:TinyTP / LsapSel" etc.

Yup, I pulled my Zelda FDS (and Game & Watch clock) out and played with it too last night. :D

Was that my "Old is Beautiful" demo, or turboxray's highres streaming graphics (the ones with a lot of cyberpunk & robot scenes), or something else?

The Super UFO startup screen running at 239p instead of the default 224p

Some of my code (rather than just byte editing in a hex editor)

BMP loading and displaying of 240 pixel tall images working!

VRAM view in Mode 5, 512x478

I moved my hacks of the UFO Pro 8 (old floppy disk SFC copier) from hex editing to the 64tass assembler. So now I'm working on the BMP display of 240p images, and full highres interlaced (512x478) pixels in the VRAM viewer feature of the UFO. Also, no music, English and no floppy autoload...

Yes, it is a great soundtrack. One of the best on the early PC-Engine CD-ROM for a long time...

Photos taken with a Casio WQV3 watch

Photos taken with a Casio WQV3 watch

Photos taken with a Casio WQV2 watch

Photos taken with a Casio WQV2 watch

I posted them on the old social media site, but here are some:

Very cool! I wear either a WQV-2 or WQV-3 every day and enjoy the pictures they take. (By the way, the old Casio IR software does still work on Windows 7... not sure about newer Wins.)

Has anyone ever noticed this? If you return to the SPECIAL zone in Super Mario World by pausing and exiting a stage (particularly 2nd from bottom-left), the bass guitar sample is much louder than entering the zone via the star or by completing a level...

You can just tell some artist's poor 11-year-old son had to pose in blue leotards for the first painting...