Tecmo Super NBA Basketball

This prototype of Tecmo Super NBA Basketball is presently owned by i2a2n2. It is a nearly finished version of the game. Thanks to i2a2n2 for the ROM image! Also thanks to Nach for some technical discussions. By: Evan G Last updated: August 1, 2010

I have been able to determine a little bit of history about this prototype of Tecmo Super NBA Basketball. It appears to have been owned by "nesman85", who was selling it on Ebay in 2004. I have no idea if it actually sold there and for how much. In early 2010, a thread started on Digital Press by user "porksoda", where he showed pictures and video of the game. The current owner is i2a2n2, who purchased the game off porksoda. He released the ROM in March 2010 on a thread on Nintendo Age.

This prototype appears to have been sent to Tecmo's US office, probably for evaluation. The date on the prototype is October 25, 1992, and was addressed to Larry Hutcherson. The game itself is identical to the final version of the Japanese game, save for three memory addresses located in the header:

Comparing files Tecmo Super NBA Basketball (prototype).sfc and Tecmo Super NBA Basketball (J).SFC:
00007FD5: 30 20
00007FDC: 97 A7
00007FDE: 68 58
End of both files.

Since the SNES does not actually read the information in the ROM header, these values will have no affect on game-play. The address 7FD5 represents the ROM speed used for the game. In the prototype it has the value "30", indicating fastrom, while the final version has "20" indicating 20. The ROM speed will change how fast the memory can be accessed by the SNES, and I surmise that it would affect the type of mask ROM chip used. In all likelihood, this was simply an oversight of the person who created the header, or they possibly could save money by using a chip with slower access (without affecting the game-play). The address 7FDE are the low bytes for checksum (obviously 10h higher in the prototype due to the higher value of address 7FD5). The address 7FDC is a compliment test 10h lower than the final version (the sum of the checksum and compliment test is supposed to add up to FFFF).

The following images were taken by "porksoda".

Front of the cart

Back of the cart

PCB board

Download ROM image here.