# Super Mario 64 DD Edition Discovered on Disk



## Gahars (Jun 25, 2014)

In an attempt to compete with newcomer Sony's Playstation, Nintendo released a little add on called the 64DD. No, it wasn't a Super Smash Bros. Bra, but rather a disc drive, which was meant to allow for different games to come to the console. Unfortunately for Nintendo, the thing failed to sell, and it ultimately never left Japan before being discontinued (disk-continued?). The fact that there were so few games for it probably didn't help.

Well, don't worry 64DD owners, because it seems that you have another game after all... sort of.



> At SpaceWorld 1996, Nintendo demonstrated a disk version of Super Mario 64 to attendees to showcase the new hardware, although that would supposedly be the last time gamers would see this version of the game - at least until now.
> 
> As of recent the dedicated French Nintendo 64 collector and blogger jimmy130 has been revealling his latest purchase online - the unreleased 64DD version of Super Mario 64. As the hit platformer was never released on disk format, many retro gamers were doubting the existence of this obscurity, while many others wanted to know more.
> 
> This doubt, however, soon waned once videos of the disk in action were posted to YouTube. While appearing to be near identical to the cartridge version of Super Mario 64, this unreleased 64DD version presents several differences such as its title screen appearance and quicker load times, along with some game breaking bugs.


Retro Collect
[prebreak]Continue reading[/prebreak]
I hope it was worth the wait, guys.

If you want to see the game in action, there are two Youtube videos demonstrating the disk version in action.

I know that this doesn't mean much for most people, including myself, but I figured some of you guys might enjoy this news. If you've got peripheral vision, then this must be out of sight.


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## ForteGospel (Jun 25, 2014)

Quicker load times for a CD based release than a cartridge one? yeah not buying


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## duffmmann (Jun 25, 2014)

Is it just me, or does the music sound a little richer when Mario is in the castle?


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## finkmac (Jun 25, 2014)

Wow, quite an interesting find… I wonder if this will be an incentive to develop a 64DD emulator?

Oh yeah, it's also not a "disc" drive, it's a "disk" drive… "discs" are round, while "disks" aren't.


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## Foxi4 (Jun 25, 2014)

By the time the N64 was released it was already dead for a year. It wasn't competition, I'd sooner call it decomposition. 


ForteGospel said:


> Quicker load times for a CD based release than a cartridge one? yeah not buying


It's absolutely possible in the case of the N64. Access time to storage does not equal loading times - N64 cartridges had low capacity and a lot of content had to be heavily compressed - the DD offered larger capacity and thus assets could be practically raw, requiring less decompressing and by proxy also time to actually load. The width of the bus also plays a huge role, not to mention that DD disks are not exactly CD's, they're magneto-optical disks, more akin to these: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magneto-optical_drive


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## Vappy (Jun 25, 2014)

ForteGospel said:


> Quicker load times for a CD based release than a cartridge one? yeah not buying


 
Zip disk, not CD. Magnetic media.



duffmmann said:


> Is it just me, or does the music sound a little richer when Mario is in the castle?


 
The music in this version is the same as that in the Japanese retail release of SM64, which is slightly different to the western release. 



finkmac said:


> Wow, quite an interesting find… I wonder if this will be an incentive to develop a 64DD emulator?


 
Doubt it. Who's going to go through all that trouble just for a very slightly different version of Mario 64?


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## FAST6191 (Jun 25, 2014)

ForteGospel said:


> Quicker load times for a CD based release than a cartridge one? yeah not buying



Raw speeds may not have been faster but the 64DD came with the memory pak if memory serves. You increase the memory (in this case literally doubling it) and do the right things in the right way and that is not so far fetched an idea. Not to mention Mario 64 was a launch title so it is unlikely they had fully optimised code.


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## CathyRina (Jun 25, 2014)

finkmac said:


> Wow, quite an interesting find… I wonder if this will be an incentive to develop a 64DD emulator?
> 
> Oh yeah, it's also not a "disc" drive, it's a "disk" drive… "discs" are round, while "disks" aren't.


 
maybe the "Disc" is in the "Disk" so that kids wont break it as easily as they can be broken.


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## rizzod (Jun 25, 2014)

wow.. welcome to the next generation people.


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## Foxi4 (Jun 25, 2014)

Vappy said:


> Zip disk, not CD. Magnetic media.


Zip diskettes are high capacity magnetic storage, they're floppies. This is an MO disk, it's quite different and optical.


> Doubt it. Who's going to go through all that trouble just for a very slightly different version of Mario 64?


It wouldn't be a lot of trouble, other than alternative storage the device did not add much to the system. As for the "who would do it", the answer is "die-hard fans" or devs who are crazy about the completeness of their emulator, see BSNES.


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## ForteGospel (Jun 25, 2014)

Foxi4 said:


> By the time the N64 was released it was already dead for a year. It wasn't competition, I'd sooner call it decomposition.
> It's absolutely possible in the case of the N64. Access time to storage does not equal loading times - N64 cartridges had low capacity and a lot of content had to be heavily compressed - the DD offered larger capacity and thus assets could be practically raw, requiring less decompressing and by proxy also time to actually load. The width of the bus also plays a huge role, not to mention that DD disks are not exactly CD's, they're magneto-optical disks, more akin to these: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magneto-optical_drive


both the cartridge and the magneto optical disks offered up to the same limit - 64 MB.

from wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_64DD#Hardware

the cartridges were faster, the DD did had 4 additional MB ram and some more polished code would make the difference, yet many games got around that problem in spite of the low ram through smart use of the cartridges


> *IGN64: What strengths and weaknesses did the N64 have when porting this game over from the PC?*
> *Factor 5*: The big strength was the N64 cartridge. We use the cartridge almost like normal RAM and are streaming all level data, textures, animations, music, sound and even program code while the game is running. With the final size of the levels and the amount of textures, the RAM of the N64 never would have been even remotely enough to fit any individual level. So the cartridge technology really saved the day.
> In terms of weaknesses we fought hard against the fill-rate limitations of the N64. We loved Hi-Res on Rogue because of its crisp look, but the framerate was questionable. So when starting the engines for both Indy and Naboo, the main goal was to get a high framerate in Hi-Res. This meant not using the Z-Buffer, because it alone uses quite a bit of the N64's fillrate.


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## oddMLan (Jun 25, 2014)

The loading times are actually _slower_ in the videos (compared to the original cartridge release). Also, the castle music _indeed_ sounds a little bit different,


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## Foxi4 (Jun 25, 2014)

ForteGospel Nice, never saw that table before, thanks for the clarification - it's nice to know the access time and transfer rate of such oddities. Perhaps it was a matter of the integrated RAM or the code.


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## Taleweaver (Jun 25, 2014)

A super smash bros bra would've been more interesting. Alas...


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## marcus134 (Jun 25, 2014)

Foxi4 said:


> Perhaps it was a matter of the integrated RAM or the code.


Nope, it's just a case of people not being able to read french cause the blogger state the opposite


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## grossaffe (Jun 25, 2014)

Taleweaver said:


> A super smash bros bra would've been more interesting. Alas...


"I'd hit it"


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## Mario92 (Jun 25, 2014)

duffmmann said:


> Is it just me, or does the music sound a little richer when Mario is in the castle?


 
I wouldn't say. It's more like notes are just longer than usual which for me makes it sound worse. As music is closer to midi than mp3 I would assume there's just bug which makes those notes play longer than they should. 

It seems just like Super Mario 64 played with super expensive peripheral. Of course it's nice to see some rare things popping up but there doesn't seem to be much at all to it.


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## Taleweaver (Jun 25, 2014)

grossaffe said:


> "I'd hit it"









Ah...the internet. Is there anything sexual that it _doesn't_ have?


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## TyBlood13 (Jun 25, 2014)

Pretty cool find

Now if those rumored Mother 3 disks would surface and be legit, now that would be awesome


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## matpower (Jun 25, 2014)

The holy grain of a N64DD collection, huh 
(I wonder if the N64DD works on an USA console...)
Now I wish that more N64DD beta stuff leaked, I would love to see Mother 3 and Pokémon RPG.


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## DinohScene (Jun 25, 2014)

Sweet!

Shame the DD never took off.
Lots of good games been released n announced.


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## WiiCube_2013 (Jun 25, 2014)

I would have loved if Nintendo released 64DD here in Europe but sadly they never did, not even for US.

Bummer, but oh well, that dude's got an awesome gem in his possession!


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## Sheimi (Jun 25, 2014)

Seeing this gives me a glimmer of hope of Mother 3 being found in it's original form.


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## Clarky (Jun 26, 2014)

matpower said:


> The holy grain of a N64DD collection, huh
> *(I wonder if the N64DD works on an USA console...)*
> Now I wish that more N64DD beta stuff leaked, I would love to see Mother 3 and Pokémon RPG.


 
you should have a look at the blog where this story comes from, the guy has done all kinds of tests with the 64DD including getting a NTSC copy of F Zero to find the F Zero X Expansion Kit. He even goes as far as to prove that in PAL copies F Zero X the hooks for the 64DD were removed proving that Nintendo already had no plans to bring the 64DD to Europe


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## UltraHurricane (Jun 26, 2014)

so this is just basically regular old Mario 64, on a disk... huh

this doesn't seem like a very impressive find at first but maybe once this is dumped we can dig inside the rom and find some neat un-used stuff like finding the beta Windy Valley level in that one Sonic Adventures demo


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## GHANMI (Jun 26, 2014)

UltraHurricane said:


> so this is just basically regular old Mario 64, on a disk... huh
> 
> this doesn't seem like a very impressive find at first but maybe once this is dumped we can dig inside the rom and find some neat un-used stuff like finding the beta Windy Valley level in that one Sonic Adventures demo


 

Nah. It's notable for being one of the only 64DD games.
Before the hardware was cancelled, lots of games were announced for that platform first, notably Dragon Quest VII, Fire Emblem 6, Cubivore, Seaman, Resident Evil Zero, Zelda Ocarina of Time as well as two expansion packs (one was released as Majora Mask, the other was cancelled but the idea was revisited in a much smaller scope than the original concept with Master Quest), a sequel for Super Mario 64 with the same graphics but split screen multiplayer and new levels...

and most importantly, the original iteration of Mother 3. Like this demo was actually the SpaceWorld 96 demo, Mother 3 actually had a partial build (at least the first chapter is done) that was shown in playable form in SpaceWorld 1999 for the 64DD.
Would be exciting if that one was finally leaked


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## UltraHurricane (Jun 26, 2014)

GHANMI said:


> Nah. It's notable for being one of the only 64DD games.
> Before the hardware was cancelled, lots of games were announced for that platform first, notably Dragon Quest VII, Fire Emblem 6, Cubivore, Seaman, Resident Evil Zero, Zelda Ocarina of Time as well as two expansion packs (one was released as Majora Mask, the other was cancelled but the idea was revisited in a much smaller scope than the original concept with Master Quest), a sequel for Super Mario 64 with the same graphics but split screen multiplayer and new levels...
> 
> and most importantly, the original iteration of Mother 3. Like this demo was actually the SpaceWorld 96 demo, Mother 3 actually had a partial build (at least the first chapter is done) that was shown in playable form in SpaceWorld 1999 for the 64DD.
> Would be exciting if that one was finally leaked


 

though i have to wonder why they made a disk version that (as far as we know) is almost identical to the retail version,
what were they trying to demonstrate with the 64DD with the Mario 64 disk? thats what i'm curious about


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## Tom Bombadildo (Jun 26, 2014)

UltraHurricane said:


> though i have to wonder why they made a disk version that (as far as we know) is almost identical to the retail version,
> what were they trying to demonstrate with the 64DD with the Mario 64 disk? thats what i'm curious about


 
The original design for the 64DD was to have a high-capacity disk based system for the N64, as at the time it was being developed (like...1996, around when the N64 was being released) the cartridges only supported something like 4MB of space. With the additional space, Super Mario 64 could include more features as GHANMI pointed out like multiplayer and other such improvements.

But by the time they actually released the 64DD, the N64 Game-paks could already have 64MB storage sizes so the pros of the thing were slim to none.

Regarding what they were going to do with Super Mario 64 on the DD, we really don't know. Rumor was they were going to release an improved version along with adding various features. Technically this was never commercially released at all (hence it's rarity, that's probably the only copy in existence save other beta versions by Nin10doh), it was canned along with all the other DD games in development. There's no reason for this thing to even exist outside of Nin10doh headquarters.


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## stanleyopar2000 (Jun 26, 2014)

holy shit! I eat this old obscure classic gaming like sweet tarts.. and I fucking love sweet tarts..now for Earthbound DD. even just a alpha or beta...!!

and the DD wasn't just a crappy piece of shit. In fact,..the DD version of legend of zelda (both 64) games was to be highly superior then the cartridge version...It's too much to display and talk about here..


If you don't know what the N64 Disk Drive was or if you want to see more detailed info about it, my VG series talks about the DD and Ura zelda and the expansive zelda 64 game we never got to play. I'll put it in spoiler tags so it doesn't look like i'm shoving it in your face 




Spoiler






if you're wondering. The N64DD is covered at 8:27


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## JackSakamoto (Jun 26, 2014)

clarky said:


> Nintendo already had no plans to bring the 64DD to Europe


I do not agree. Mario Party 1 PAL has actually *correct* error messages with a 64DD. http://jimmy130.free.fr/?Mario-Party ,


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## WiiCube_2013 (Jun 26, 2014)

stanleyopar2000 said:


> Spoiler
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Yes the N64 cartridge was limited but in terms of loading times it's still better than discs' nowadays, then again NDS/3DS and Vita all use cards rather than discs which makes them have faster loading times whereas the home consoles use Blu-ray Discs, sure they can store up to 50GB but it takes some time to load.

I don't have any issues with loading times unless they take 30s-1m or more.


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## cdoty (Jun 26, 2014)

ForteGospel said:


> Quicker load times for a CD based release than a cartridge one? yeah not buying


 

There's a difference between say a SNES or Genesis, where the rom is mapped into memory, and the N64 or DS, where it's more like an SD card. Although, I'm not sure that would be slower than reading from some sort of magnetic spinning media.


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## Yepi69 (Jun 27, 2014)

ForteGospel said:


> Quicker load times for a CD based release than a cartridge one? yeah not buying


 
Its a disk, not a disc.

And if you see the load times from a cartridge based version to the disk one, you'll see its a bit tad faster.


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## GHANMI (Jun 27, 2014)

JackSakamoto said:


> I do not agree. Mario Party 1 PAL has actually *correct* error messages with a 64DD.


 

Reminds me how the PAL versions of Super Mario Advance 4, despite not having the option available normally (outside save corruption), nor the e-Reader software itself not even having proper region codes for PAL cards, the e-Reader content was fully translated in five different languages, and even functions... with US-region cards.
My guess is that's loose ends left from the JP/US Mario Party 1 (well, we know 64DD was at one point planned for the US but also that they bothered removing it specifically in PAL versions of games) that they didn't bother to remove in the PAL versions.

I think "Super Mario 64 Disk Version" is nothing more than a tech demo.
Much like how "Yoshi Story GBA" was.


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## Clarky (Jun 27, 2014)

JackSakamoto said:


> I do not agree. Mario Party 1 PAL has actually *correct* error messages with a 64DD. http://jimmy130.free.fr/?Mario-Party ,



To quote the guy who found this mario 64dd disc

Mario Party is special as you know. Indeed, it works with Japanese 64DD, it reads the disk, and displays error messages in English, French and German. Before I thought that zoning was a choice of the developer. Except now I can say that the game goes into the function of Japanese test. Hence my conclusion, Mario Party PAL is actually a translation of Mario Party JPN. This explains the good recognition of Japanese 64DD. Finally, big disappointment for Zelda OOT who does not see the 64DD. To believe that the feature is disabled 64DD recognition in Europe. This leads us to think beyond that. Nintendo never intended to market the 64DD in Europe. because without the ability to get Expansion Kit or Ura Zelda, since their combos cartridges do not see the 64DD. 64DD how could they sell in Europe?...

http://www.gamekult.com/blog/Jimmy130/


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## JackSakamoto (Jun 27, 2014)

GHANMI said:


> Reminds me how the PAL versions of Super Mario Advance 4, despite not having the option available normally (outside save corruption), nor the e-Reader software itself not even having proper region codes for PAL cards, the e-Reader content was fully translated in five different languages, and even functions... with US-region cards.


 
Well,sure,but it was locked up in Europe. But I got your point there. This game is more a tech demo than anything else.



clarky said:


> Nintendo never intended to market the 64DD in Europe. because without the ability to get Expansion Kit or Ura Zelda, since their combos cartridges do not see the 64DD.


 

Then why they didn't bothered to lock up this too ? I mean,it is actually *translated badly in languages other than english. *If everything was locked up for europe,why this thing in particular does exist ?


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## GHANMI (Jun 27, 2014)

http://www.gamekult.com/blog/jimmy1...4dd-f-zero-x-usa-boot-avec-expansion-kit.html
http://www.gamekult.com/blog/jimmy130/202338/zonage-usa-du-64dd-code-assembleur.html

Rough English translation from French
(really awesome blog, researchs on Beta versions of Zelda 64 and the various dumps including the undumped iQue version -and an iQue Chinese version of Majora Mask was planned but cancelled-, what resolutions did the GC use to render at internally, etc)

Nintendo planned two regions for the 64DD: Japan and US. The regional lock works by reading the value in an address (0x9FF00) in the IPLRom (the 3D animation with Mario's head that loads when the 64DD is booted without a disk). Japanese combo games (a term he uses to refer to Zelda OOT, F-Zero X, and Mario Party 1) expect that value to be 0xC3, US ones expect it to be 0x04. Otherwise it jumps to an infinite loop and the game enters a soft-lock.
The region lock makes it so that US combo games can't boot with a JP 64DD drive, and also JP combo games wouldn't boot either on the unreleased US 64DD drive.

To make F-Zero X US work with 64DD, he tried to kill the infinite loop (that triggers once the region check fails), then he found out there are TWO region tests in the ROM, one for the JP version and one for US one. He repointed to the JP test and the game... worked.

F-Zero X USA, ROM address 0x83ED0
replace : 1000 FFFF with 1000 FF5E

Began by inserting a wrong/corrupt disk in the 64DD
> Error message "bad disk"
Inserted the Expansion Kit disk



The missing menu graphics, and the game crashing when attempting to begin a race or load the track editor, are due to the Expansion Kit trying to load the data from the addresses used in the JP F-Zero X.

Zelda OOT 1.0 USA, rom uncompressed 64Mo
adresse rom : 0xB96B0A
replace : 1000FFFF by 1000FDBF



Mario Party USA
adresse rom : 0x82A98
replace : 1000FFFF with 1000 FF73

What about PAL games?

Trying to do the same process in F-Zero X PAL:
Doesn't boot with the 64DD and Ram Pack.
Doing the region lock bypass method as above: no error messages, no disk reading. Has the US region coding: hinting at it being a modified version based on the US rom.

Mario Party is a special case.
The PAL version was directly translated from the JP one and no 64DD options were stripped out, meaning it behaves exactly like the Japanese copy, being compatible with the Japanese 64DD, reading the disk, displaying error messages (in English, French and German). Internally, it has a Japanese 64DD regional code.

Ocarina of Time PAL though: Doesn't recognize the 64DD at all. All of its functionality was removed from PAL versions.

The technical details about the 64DD region locking, and the functionnality being removed from Zelda OoT PAL (Ura Zelda, unreleased) and F-Zero X PAL (Expansion Kit, released in Japan) leads the author to the conclusion that Nintendo NEVER intended to sell the 64DD in Europe.

He also shared stuff from Zoinkity (of Animal Crossing N64 and Wonder Project J2's English projects fame):

Pocket Monsters Stadium (64DD support=
One really neat one is in a 1-time only test to see if a retail 64DD is attached. It does a couple error tests for drive status and the like, and then does an anti-piracy check! If you don't have a retail IPL it will likely fail.
It reads 0x9FF00 from the IPL, which in the retail will read C3DBFE61. Of that, it tests if the upper byte is 0xC3. If so, it then 'detects' the 64DD and will, from that point onward, look for it, read its status, etc. Otherwise, it acts like it isn't there.

Via GS codes you can force it to believe the 64DD passed that test. This sort of thing works with Nemu, but others might die when doing the register access and others might not allow codes to change ASM.
8104CB64 1000 passes first error test
8104CC50 5000 passes second error test
8104CCAA 0000 device detected
8104CCEA 0000 kill inf. loop when 9FF00 from IPL isn't C3------
8104CCFC 0321 mult against 0xC3, not invalid value; result should be DFB807A9; 5FAF995D at 80086E00

Zoinkity
/end quote


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## ReigningSemtex (Jun 29, 2014)

I wonder how the guy came across Mario 64 dd and how much he paid for it. Looks interesting wish I owned a dd


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## EarthBound 2 (Jun 29, 2014)

Well is it Super Mario 64 2?http://gimmegimmegames.com/2013/08/nintendo-earthbound-64-was-60-complete-when-cancelled/ I found MOTHER 3 N64 Edition anyways.


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## tbb043 (Jun 29, 2014)

finkmac said:


> Wow, quite an interesting find… I wonder if this will be an incentive to develop a 64DD emulator?
> 
> Oh yeah, it's also not a "disc" drive, it's a "disk" drive… "discs" are round, while "disks" aren't.


 

Right conclusion, wrong reasoning. The convention is to use disc with a C for optical, disk with a K for magnetic, nothing to do with whether the "round" thing is in a casing or not. PSP games are in  a case, but still optical, so "discs". Why the distinction? Dunno, just one of those things. Outside of the media storage realm the two spellings are interchangeable.

Also, the title of the thread's a bit silly. "Super Mario 64 DD Edition Discovered on Disk"? Where else would a DD game be found besides a disk?


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## Tom Bombadildo (Jun 29, 2014)

tbb043 said:


> Also, the title of the thread's a bit silly. "Super Mario 64 DD Edition Discovered on Disk"? Where else would a DD game be found besides a disk?


 
As in, discovered on a retail/demo disk. Super Mario 64 DD was supposedly never supposed to have left Nin10doh hands, which is why this is such a big deal.


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## smf (Jun 30, 2014)

tbb043 said:


> Right conclusion, wrong reasoning. The convention is to use disc with a C for optical, disk with a K for magnetic, nothing to do with whether the "round" thing is in a casing or not.


 
It's a convention based on who picked the name. IBM liked it to be spelt with a k, Philips/Sony liked to use c. DVD and bluray carried on the same spelling as CD to avoid confusion, but most people don't even know what DVD stands for so the point is moot. Whatever spelling Nintendo used is correct for the DD.

I doubt they spent as much time picking the name as people have spent making up reasons for why they did (or as long as I spent writing this post).


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## popeel1 (Jul 1, 2014)

do you guys think there is any hidden content or unused content on the rom that we haven't seen before?


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## avengedZC (Jul 23, 2014)

Call me when someone finds Zelda 64DD.


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