Prototype USA 64DD UPDATE - The Adventure Continues!!

Mel Jesus here and I am back with an update to the discovery of my let's see if I get this right the US version of the n64 disk drive yes it's just a touch of a mouthful I know and I'm here with Tony and he has a youtube channel called hard for game hello so tell people why you're here okay so what you found nobody thought actually existed like we didn't realize it was even a thing right so I came here with some software some hardware a lot of people in the community got together as well to figure out what made your disc drive tick and to try to dump and figure out what is on your blue disk that's right this has been way more complicated than I ever imagined and so Tony came from all the way from Detroit actually and brought a bunch of knowledge and skill to this so we're going to share that with you today so let's take a look [Music] so one of the big challenges for me is that when I first discovered this I did not know what I had and so I really needed to reach out to people in the community who maybe knew more about it than me because I knew nothing so yeah thankfully you were out there in you actually reach out to me to did yeah yeah I went on your website yeah that's right that's right and and a lot of people also in the comments recommend that I reach out to you too and that is because you are a collector and a fan of the Japanese version yes right and so you have a bunch of yeah absolutely yeah I have a development version and I have a retail version okay so basically what you have here is an American n64 disc drive but what makes that special isn't really the big question right so the disk drive was released in Japan late in the n64 lifecycle right and a theorized 10,000 to 20,000 units were released which is like nothing right nothing at all never was released in the u.s. period and no retail version no NTSC version of the disk drive has ever been known to exist right until you found yours right so that's what makes it special it's it's truly a one-of-a-kind disc drive no other disk drive exists with the same region as this what a shock to me by the way cuz I didn't know what I had so you know what I was looking for information online I was coming up blank like I literally it was so tough to find anything so thankfully you know people like you knew way more about this sort of thing than I did and also some other people who helped out so so really we had a couple challenges here we had okay I have the drive itself but I also have this mysterious blue disc came with it and so each one of these had its own little challenges because initially I thought that blue disc cuz I didn't know any better I was like oh well maybe there's a game on there or something that I can pop in the drive but all it does is click like I was like what's going on here right it is it just defective I didn't know yeah yeah so basically a a blue disc is a little bit different than a grade SK has mechanical differences so it cannot be read on a retail drive period because of the way that the disc actually spins I just won't physically allow it so that's why you're getting that click click grind yeah sound because your disc drive can only play American disk drive games that don't exist it's so frustrating basically right so so that's why so you needed a development system to be able to read it yeah right and the nice thing about the development system is that development is its own region so if you have a development system you should be able to read it but here's the catch is that n64dd development systems need additional hardware right that little partner disk right yeah and there's also a cartridge for fonts and sounds you actually need multiple pieces of hardware to plug in to even be able to boot mmm that my drive cannot read the blue disk it just can't yeah so it's weird that it came with that but that's just a separate issue that was very bizarre I still kind of question how that happens but cool nonetheless I mean hey you got a blue disk out of it yeah you don't I can't complain right um so I needed to reach up to you because you have a developer system you can read blue disks yeah so the weird thing about my development system is that it doesn't require the additional hardware so I didn't realize that it would require additional hardware ID on it so I bought it booted up I'm like okay cool right then people reached out to me and they're like hey you're DD is one-of-a-kind it's the only one known to not need these additional pieces so this is a really important point here so I have a very unique one I have the US version but he has also a one-of-a-kind development drive that does not need that partner discs exactly it it boots up by itself and is able to show it's made on them so lucky us yes we didn't have to go buy a bunch of obscure parts we probably couldn't find anyway right to be able to read your disc yes right I know it was like oh my god like did it is it happening again this is great get that chopping back yeah and so you sent me your drive actually which is a pretty funny story because we were going back and forth and he's like I know who you are on the internet but I still don't want to send you this one-of-a-kind drive mail which I did not blame you sir yeah but you did thankfully and I got it here and we were able to read the the contents of that but there's a little bit more to that story but but it got complicated after that so I was like please come out and sort of help me with this because and this is the other part of the story so my video gets released a lot of people see it and another collector in the Seattle area comes comes forward he's like hey I happen to have three more blue disks yeah Wow yeah when I started this journey hmm I did not know much about this at all sure and how rare are these disks you know I wouldn't be able to put like a number on it but they are incredibly rare like this weekend is the first time I've actually physically touched any blue disc oh yeah and I own development dry okay huh so that's how rare they truly are okay so you know everybody wants to find that lost game right now everybody wants that earthbound 64 everyone's still waiting for or Zelda right I know I am too like I really want to play those games like really really bad but the fact of the matter is is that finding one of those games it's possible but it's incredibly unlikely unfortunately so there was content on your disc right right but there wasn't content when we check on those other three so even three out of the four rare each one being incredibly rare blue discs that we found didn't even have anything on I know it was so like we I was so excited like when we were you know cuz I mean I'm thinking the chances of something being on those three discs was like okay it's there's gotta be something right but there wasn't I was like oh man it's disappointing about you know and it's tricky too for anybody out there that owns a blue disc because the way that they they're written and rewritten there can be remnant data you know even if it doesn't boot there could still be something some beta of a game on there and you may not even know what just happened in the past yes it has happened in the past yeah so we scanned these discs thoroughly right and there was just nothing on those three which really sucked yeah but that happens though so that was that was good for me to sort of see them like okay do you think to to be honest I mean they're magnetic floppy discs and so you know it's no different than a lot of floppy discs I have Mac behind me here that they are very susceptible to you know deteriorating over time or you know just getting next to a speaker or you know sort of magnet who knows yeah that happen so so let me just ask for the comments section below here how many of you 80s and 90s kids it would like save homework on a floppy drive and then get to school and it just wasn't there right this is the sort of medium that we're working with yeah it's not the most reliable sound like it's burned onto a CD yeah or like flashed onto a cartridge it's a magnetic disc yeah so get into my discs everyone wants to know so here's here's the the thing I would love to tell you that we found some sort of amazing game on there I wanted to find some sort of amazing game yes that was my honestly I was dreaming about it I was like you know it was crazy the Eurozone oh my god I was like it must be like what a treasure hunter feels like it was really I was very excited about it him and so when I finally put in your Drive something very unusual came up that I wasn't expecting and you are seeing it on the screen here it's this screen that basically has these balls that are kind of get you know bouncing off of the front of your television and just I was like what is this right then then I basically hit the a button and it takes you to this developer tool that again I was like what is this and you know I've worked in software enough to know okay this appears to be some sort of tool that helps you determine if the drive is correct if maybe the floppy drives are correct and spiked and I've done some research and so that's that's what it seems like it is right yes basically it's the test test the disk test the drive right a development tool isn't what we found yeah so not a game knob to tell you that it's but it's still cool nonetheless I mean I don't has anyone seen this or I mean it it's still fairly unusual extremely unusual I've actually never seen this menu online period whatsoever it may exist yeah I've never seen it so this is the person I've seen it first time in person right so although we didn't find this amazing beta of a game there's some really good news here we were able to use a 64 drive and some software co-authored by Luigi blood I was a gentle assembler games are you very helpful technically these are technical consultants early for the disk drive and basically he co-developed the software to allow us to rip the firmware off of your drive my drive and dump the data from your blue disk right and the reason why this is important is twofold really one is historical preservation you know we didn't know that this existed so if something happened to one of our drives right kind of still have it yes right guys still out there but secondly is that he's gonna be releasing these yep so if people want to develop against it they can yeah you will have access to the firmware yeah which is really cool so again now that that we are going to be releasing the firmware of this people can develop games for them and run them via emulators from the first time ever yes pretty cool yeah never been done before because like I said we didn't know that that yeah C version even existed and that's the reason why you're here because it's fairly involved process but can you start people kind of like how this works like what you do sure so again Luigi blood really helped me out with an identical side of it but basically you need a 64 drive which is a development tool run for debugging and game development on the n64 he developed some software and basically what you do is you throw it on an SD card you need the proper development system thankfully you have yes to be able to read it go through some menus here and either dump the IPL or or dump the disk and a really funny story here too by the way that he got here late last night we rushed down here my game right out I know like and uh it didn't work oh my god were like oh my god you traveled all this way he paid for my plane ticket okay so I'm like I have just wasted this man's money yeah like oh my god I was likes when you're sleeping outside but yeah exactly in the dog house spot no we got it to work everything worked at just fine luigi blood helped us a little bit but but I mean while that's how complicated this was is that you know he had written software himself he's not a Nintendo employee not written the software and of course it it it came across my drive and it didn't know what to do it basically err doubt no thankfully we messaged him and he got back to us like 4:00 in the morning yeah with a brand new version of the software to do it yes exactly so thank goodness for that because I nearly had a heart attack oh my god it was a little bit disappointing but you know it's like well this is I mean this is kind of what it what it is we're in uncharted territory so we can call Nintendo and say hey you know help us with this no I mean this was never designed to be in somebody's game collection now or to capture the stuff and so we're definitely an uncharted territory but thankfully he did that so yes so what did you do you pulled off a bunch of stuff right yeah so we pulled off the I peel of your dry which is the firmware firmware is our technical speed the firmware of my drive which again is is unique in the sense that it kind of has its own code and sewn like version basically which is cool and dump your disk and basically we were able to take a look at it and say okay well are all the sectors written to like what is the other data is there anything else on this disk or is the remnants of a potential game basically yeah and there was extra data on there which again was like oh okay like you mention that that sometimes that can happen although in my case it doesn't appear to be anything sort of value them so the real meat of it is that sort of tool but still basically it's now there it's on the internet and people can check it out see how it was made and potentially use it yeah you know another great thing about this too is that it really opens a door we really get together and figure out how to do all this so now we have the technology and know-how so a lot of these blue disks yeah honestly and they're just deteriorating in someone's collection that's right this is a huge call to action yes so now is the time if you get a blue disc to contact us yes yes please because we can figure out what is on this blue yes we can we can preserve it yet for you and for the community right because otherwise again school analogy you save your Word document to your floppy disk you bring it to school it's gone these things get demagnetized like all sorts stuff happens absolutely so now is the time to do that we're ready we're able to do that you know and again I keep dreaming that we'll find some beta version of a game it could be out there could be in somebody's drawer in their office yeah who knows or in some some box they didn't know what it was it be be cool yeah just think about the the Sony or the Nintendo PlayStation I know yeah nobody thought that really existed I never did I know yeah that's really cool so I have to admit that you already have a bunch of videos on your channel already about the district yeah yeah well has definitely been a passion for me and my team honestly we've reviewed every retail game for the DD every piece of hardware came with like you could get a keyboard and a mouse and a modem and a capture card like that's really cool weird stuff and so we've covered it all and it really gone into some good detail on it where can they find you on the Internet my youtube channel name is hard for games so just type that in numeral four that's right videos will pop up awesome dude well thank you so much for coming out here inhale thank you you are a lifesaver there were so many people like Luigi blood who also helped us as well and yeah so the adventure continues so again we have a blue disc let us not let us know let us know all right guys thanks very much for watching my channel thank you for subscribing and take care some of you may have noticed that my video capture of the n64 was a little bit sharper than you would normally see and so at the end here I want to do a big shout out to a local collector his name's Michael Smith he let us borrow his modded n64 to do this video so he he adds a mod that does HDMI out on the n64 and it looks amazing so thanks again to everyone who helped with this

Channel: MetalJesusRocks

Views: 1,053,803

Rating: 4.8854198 out of 5

Keywords: metal jesus rocks, metaljesusrocks, metal, jesus, console, system, review, gameplay, video, game, cartridge, reviews, history, retro, retrospective, gaming, collection, collector, Update, Nintendo, 64DD, N64DD, Disk Drive, blue disk, firmware, IPL, data dump, Hard4Games, N64, Nintendo 64, prototype, Rare

Id: Pe-fs1COgr0

Length: 16min 4sec (964 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 02 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/eggy32]

It's so cool to see people coming together to find out more about this mysterious console. It's a shame nothing major was found on the disks but really cool that people will be able to download the firmware and develop their own games for it. Now here's hoping some people with blue disks will send them to MetalJesus and see if there's anything interesting on them.

[u/Y-Ookami]

I was checking the comments of the video and saw this:

Bob Jones - 2 Hours ago

My bro has three 64DD disks, two blue and one of them is RED. No labels, picked up from an industry friend years ago. Never tried plugging them into anything, he doesn't prize them, thinks they're cool junk, Nintendo oddities. I have just googled red disks and not found evidence of any others existing?

LuigiBlood (KiiroBomber) was there trying to contact that user, and the user responded saying he would try to talk with Luigi.

I mean... I know it is only a comment without proof, but if it is really true... Damn, that would be really intriguing! Haha!

That was an awesome video! Hope we can get more information about all this situation! ^-^

[u/PKCrash]

So great to see MetalJesus getting some more attention, he has a ridiculous game room and continually cranks out great videos week to week

[u/callan752]

Important thread to read: http://assemblergames.com/l/threads/us-version-of-n64-64dd-has-been-found.62294/