NesToy32 is a program I developed between May of 2000 and July of 2000. As of today, it is almost 23 years old. It is written in Borland Delphi and is a successor to my NesToy application which was written in Turbo Pascal and was an MS-DOS application.
NesToy32 predates ROM managers such as Clrmamepro and Romcenter and, as far as I know, is one of the first of its kind.
I recently discovered the source code for NesToy32 on an old floppy disk and decided to upload it here for preservation. I kept every revision of NesToy so I committed each revision as I would have if Github was a thing back then.
Below is an excerpt from the documentation included with the latest public release of NesToy32 (v1.1) from May 15, 2000 which is also available under Releases. Many thanks to Zophar's Domain (https://www.zophar.net/) for keeping the archive online for all these years.
NesToy is a NES ROM management utility for your .NES Nintendo/Famicom ROMs. This program started out as a header information utility, but now, using a database, can identify your NES ROMs and optionally repair any bad headers it finds and rename the ROMs to full descriptive long file names.
** DO NOT DISTRIBUTE PRE-PATCHED ROMs unless they are your own work and you chose to distribute them that way. A lot of work and effort is put into translating these games and all the author asks in return is that you distribute only the IPS patch in the original .zip with all documentation intact. By distibuting pre-patched ROMs, the author is not getting the credit he or she deserves, and the person downloading the patch may not be aware of any issues concerning the patch that were detailed in the documentation. NesToy will no longer display ANY translations or custom game hacks in the nesmiss.txt file to deter people from doing just this. I would like to continue documenting these types of ROMs in NesToy so you can assure that you have applied the IPS patch to a good dump and the resulting ROM is correct.
It has been pointed out to me that since NesToy has been released, the distribution of PRE-PATCHED ROMs on web sites, ftp sites, and in newsgroups has increased. I WILL NOT HESITATE to remove any and all translations and game hacks from the database if this continues to be a problem. It does not take any effort at all to distribute the original .zip's containing the IPS patches nor does it take any effort to apply them. Plus, as an added bonus, it is completely legal to distribute the IPS patches and they are much smaller than the actual ROMs.
usage: NesToy.exe [parameters] pathname1 [pathname2] [pathname3] ...
Filenames can include wildcards (,?) anywhere inside the filename. Long file names are allowed and if no filename is specified, (.nes) is assumed.
-b Displays PRG and CHR information by # of blocks instead of kB. (Example: Instead of 128kB, you would see 8x16kB)
-c Calculate Checksums (CRC-32). All database operations require this option and currently turn it on when used. Additionally, one of the following will appear next to the filename when -c is used. * - ROM is identified and good. ? - Unknown ROM x - ROM is identified, but something is wrong with it. Use -i for more information. d - ROM is a duplicate n - Name does not match ROM name in database b - ROM is a bad dump
-i Outputs extended info if header or name are not correct.
If the information in a ROM's header does not match that
in the database, a second line of data will be displayed
illustrating the differences. You will also see one of
the following.
Bad [] - There is something wrong with the ROM. Refer
to the codes inside the brackets for details.
Rep [] - The ROM has been repaired.
Ren [] - The ROM has been renamed.
Inside the brackets will contain one or more of the
following codes.
N - Name does not match that in database.
H - Header contains incorrect mapper info.
G - Header contains garbage.
T - There is trailing garbage at the end of the ROM.
If you see Can't Rename or Can't Repair, it means for
some reason, NesToy was unable to rename or repair the
ROM.
-o[file] Sends output to file. (DOS 8.3 filenames) If no filename is specified, it defaults to output.txt. If the file exists, NesToy will append data to the end of the file.
-ren[uscltp] Renames ROMs to names stored in database (enables -c) u- Replace spaces with underscores s- Remove spaces completely from filename c- Attach country codes to end of filenames l- Convert ROMs to all lowercase names t- Places the word "The" at the beginning of ROM names instead of at the end. p- Use periods in appropriate ROM names (Warning: Nesticle will not load ROMs with extra periods in them. Example: Dr Mario.nes would be named as Dr. Mario.nes
-rep,-repair Repairs ROM headers with those found in database (enables -c) File is backed up before repair is made.
-res,-resize Automatically resizes ROMs if they contain duplicate or unused banks of data. (enables -c).
-ips Patches a ROM if an appropriate IPS patch is found in the fixfiles directory (Defined in nestoy.cfg.) IPS patches are named by the checksum of the ROM they are meant to patch. -m# Filter listing by mapper #. Example: if -m1 is used, only ROMs with a mapper of 1 will be displayed.
-f[hvbt4] Filter listing by mapper data h- Horizontal Mirroring t- Trainer Present v- Vertical Mirroring 4- 4 Screen Buffer b- Contains SRAM (Battery backup)
-u Only display unknown ROMs (enables -c) Only ROMs that are not found in the database will be displayed. If you have a ROM that you know is good, but it is not in my database, please let me know so I can add it to the database.
-sub Process all subdirectories under directories specified on the path. Scans up to six directories deep.
NesToy will alway skip over the duplicates directory in a
scan unless you directly specify it on the command line.
-nobackup Don't make backups before repairing or resizing ROMs.
-log Log to NESTOY.LOG any problems NesToy encounters while sorting, renaming, or repairing ROMs.
-missing[cbn] Create a listing of missing ROMs. If listing exists, it will be updated. Filename is defined in NESTOY.CFG. c- Sort missing list by country b- Bare listing (Name, country codes, and checksum only) n- Force NesToy to create a new missing list, even if one already exists (It will be overwritten.)
If a missing list already exists, NesToy will update the
list by removing any ROMs from the list that now exist.
NesToy will never add ROMs to the missing file, so when a
new release comes out with a database update, it is probably
a good idea to delete the missing file and have NesToy
create a new one to reflect the changes in the database.
You can adjust whether or not pirates, hacks, or bad dumps
are included in the output in the NESTOY.CFG file.
-sort[mb] Sorts ROMs into directories by region or type. m- Sorts ROMs by mapper # as well. b- Sorts "Bad CHR" dumps into a CHR directory in the Bad Dump directory.
North America Japan Europe Asia
U (USA) J (Japan) E (Europe) Asi (Asia)
Can (Canada) Fra (France)
Ger (Germany)
Spa (Spain)
Swe (Sweden)
Ita (Italy)
Aus (Australia)
The following don't fall under any region
VS - VS Unisystem\
P10 - Playchoice 10\
PD - PD\
TR - Translated\
GH - Game Hacks\
Region codes are in order of priority. In other words,
If a ROM is both U and J, it will go into USA\.
Bad dumps will go into Bad\, Hacked ROMs will go into
Hacked\ or Mapper Hacks\ depending on the type of hack.
Pirates will go into Pirate\. You can also have these go
into their corresponding region directory instead. Just
change the MOVE_BAD, MOVE_PIRATE, or MOVE_HACKED in the
NESTOY.CFG from TRUE to FALSE.
These are the default directories. These can be changed
in the NESTOY.CFG (created the first time you run
NesToy.)
-q[o] Suppresses output to the screen (for those of you who would prefer not to see what NesToy is up to.) o- Suppresses output to the output file as well.
-doall Enables -c,-i,-ren,-repair,-resize,-sort, and -missing.
-h,-?,-help Displays the help screen
Paramters in brackets are optional. Do not include the brackets when using these paramaters. Example: You would use -missingc, not -missing[c].
All pathnames will be processed in the order they are entered on the command line. you may abort the program at any time by pressing ESC. NesToy will stop on the ROM it is at and then quit. You can add command line parameters, including pathnames, to the NESTOY.CFG file.
You can assign the directories NesToy will sort your ROMs into if the -sort command line option is used with the following entries. Default entries are shown.
DIR_BASE = DIR_MAPHACKS = Mapper Hacks
DIR_ASIA = Asia\ DIR_NORTHAMERICA = North America
DIR_BACKUP = Backup\ DIR_OTHER = Other
DIR_BAD = Bad\ DIR_PC10 = Playchoice 10
DIR_DUPLICATES = Dupes\ DIR_PD = PD
DIR_EUROPE = Europe\ DIR_PIRATE = Pirate
DIR_GAMEHACKS = Game Hacks\ DIR_TRANS = Translated
DIR_HACKED = Hacked\ DIR_UNKNOWN = Unknown
DIR_JAPAN = Japan\ DIR_VS = VS Unisystem\
DIR_BASE sets the base directory all the other directories will fall under. If DIR_BASE is left empty, the base directory will default to the current directory you run NesToy from. DIR_BASE will only affect relative pathnames. For example, if DIR_BASE is set to C:\ROMS\ and DIR_USA is set to USA, then DIR_USA will be expanded to C:\ROMS\USA. However, if DIR_USA is set to something similar to C:\ROMS2\USA, it will not be affected by DIR_BASE.
DIR_FIXFILES = fixfiles
DIR_SAVESTATES =
DIR_PATCHES =
DIR_FIXFILES should be set to the directory where the FixFiles (in .ips format) are located. These are available in a separate archive on the NesToy website. FixFiles are used by NesToy to automatically repair the majority of the bad dumps in the NesToy database.
DIR_SAVESTATES should be set to your battery backup/savestate directory. When renaming ROMs, NesToy will automatically rename any matching .SAV and .ST* files it finds in this directory. Leaving this entry empty will disable this feature.
DIR_PATCHES should be set to your patches directory. This works the same as the DIR_SAVESTATES option, except NesToy will rename any matching .PAT files in this directory.
MOVE_BAD = TRUE Determine where NesToy will move bad dumps, pirates, MOVE_HACKED = TRUE and hacks when the -sort command line option is used. MOVE_PIRATE = TRUE If set to TRUE, bad dumps will be moved into the DIR_BAD directory, pirates will be moved into the DIR_PIRATE directory, and hacks will be moved into the appropriate hack directory (DIR_GAMEHACKS, DIR_HACKED, or DIR_MAPHACKS.) If set to FALSE, ROMs will be moved into their corresponding region directory instead.
SORT_TRANS = TRUE Determines whether translations will be sorted into sub directories by language in the translations directory.
SORT_UNLICENSED = TRUE Determines whether unlicensed ROMs will be sorted into a sub directory called "Unlicensed" in the appropriate region directory.
MISSING_BAD = FALSE Determine what NesToy will include in the nesmiss.txt MISSING_HACKED = TRUE file when the -missing command line option is used. MISSING_PIRATE = TRUE A setting of TRUE means ROMs of that type will be included in the missing list. If set to FALSE, ROMs of that type will not be included.
PARAM_MISSING = [cbn] Default parameters can be assigned to be used with PARAM_REN = [uscltp] the -missing and -ren command line options with these settings. Valid parameters are shown in brackets. These parameters are described in the "parameters" section of these docs.
SHORT_NAMES = FALSE Determines whether shorter names will be used for some game titles. (Example: if set to TRUE, instead of "Zelda 2 - The Adventure of Link.nes", the ROM will just be named "Zelda 2.nes")
JOLIET = FALSE When set to TRUE, game titles over 64 characters in length will automatically use their short name. Use this option when burning ROMs to a CD because the joliet standard limits files to 64 characters in length.
TAG_UNLICENSED = FALSE Determines whether unlicensed ROMs will have (Unl) attached to the end of the ROM name.
NO_BACKUP = FALSE When set to TRUE, has the same effect as the -nobackup command line parameter
- Zelda 2 - The Adventure of Link.nes 1 HB.. 128kB 128kB U ba322865 | | | |||| | | | | 1 2 3 4567 8 9 10 11
1 - ROM Status * - ROM is identified and good. ? - Unknown ROM x - ROM is identified, but something is wrong with it. Use -i for more information. d - ROM is a duplicate n - Name does not match ROM name in database b - ROM is a bad dump 2 - File Name 3 - Mapper # 4 - Mirroring (H- Horizontal, V- Vertical) 5 - Battery (SRAM) 6 - Trainer Present 7 - 4-Screen Buffer 8 - Size of Program ROM (PRG) 9 - Size of Character ROM (CHR) 10 - Country Code or ROM Type North America Japan Europe Asia U (USA) J (Japan) E (Europe) Asi (Asia) Can (Canada) Fra (France) Ger (Germany) Spa (Spain) Swe (Sweden) Ita (Italy) Aus (Australia)
ROM Types: P10 - Playchoice-10 TR - Translation
VS - VS. Unisystem GH - Game Hack
PD - Public Domain
A '@' next to the country code means its an unlicensed ROM.
11 - Checksum (CRC-32)
If (-c) is not used, 1, 10, and 11 will not be displayed.
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When NesToy is resizing (Wrong Size) ROMs, sometimes the result will still be marked with (Wrong Size). Just run NesToy again on this ROM. There are a handful of ROMs that need to be resized multiple times before they are reduced to their correct size.
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If you do not create a new missing file with each new release, any database additions made will not show up on the list.
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Bad dumps are not included by default in the missing ROMs listing. You must set the appropriate options in the NESTOY.CFG to TRUE and then create a new missing list for these to show up. Translations and Game Hacks will never show up in the nesmiss.txt file.
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Bad Dumps automatically detected by NesToy that are not in the database will never show up on the missing list. NesToy uses several methods to identify corrupt ROMs, even if they are unknown to NesToy.
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Game Hacks not in NesToy's database may be flagged as (Bad CHR). Please submit these to digitoxin@mindspring.com so that I may add them to NesToy's database.
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When NesToy is moving and/or renaming a ROM, sometimes it encounters a ROM already there with the same name. NesToy will first try to attach a country code to the ROM it is moving to differentiate it. If that fails, NesToy will be unable to move/rename the ROM. You will usually encounter this if you are using the same directory to store Japanese and USA ROMs or if you have unknown or misplaced ROMs in the destination directory.
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Remember, even though NesToy -doall invokes the default settings for -missing and -ren, you can still specify your own settings for these options on the command line or in the nestoy.cfg file. Example: NesToy -doall -renc will rename all your ROMs with country codes attached while still performing all the other options invoked by (-doall) normally.
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NesToy has an internal limit of 4000 files per directory. If you have more than 4000 files in a directory, NesToy will only process up to the 4000th file. If you have NesToy set to sort the ROMs it processes into different directories, you can just run NesToy again to process the remaining ROMs.
A pirated ROM is a ROM where the title and/or copyright information has been altered, defaced, or removed. Multi-Carts (ROMs containing multiple games) are also considered pirates. If anything else has modified in the ROM, then it is considered a hack. NesToy defines 3 different types of hacks.
Mapper Hack - The ROM has been hacked to run under a different mapper. Game Hack - The games graphics and/or program code has been significantly modified to change the look and gameplay of the game. Examples are the countless Super Mario Bros. hacks that exist on the web. Other Hacks - Any other type of hack that is not a pirate and does not fit in one of the above categories. Trained ROMs fall into this category.
There are several games set to mapper 118 that were previously set to mapper 4. Mapper 118 seems to be similar to mapper 4, and although these games never worked right under mapper 4 in any emulator, they do work when set to mapper 118 in Famstasia which seems to emulate this mapper the best. FwNES also emulates mapper 118 partially. Mapper 118 may not be the correct mapper for these games, but currently they work best under this mapper. These games are listed below.
Alien Syndrome (U) Arumajiro (J) Goal! Two (U) Goal! Two (E) NES Play Action Football (U) Pro Sport Hockey (U) Ys 3 - Wanderers From Ys (J)
Valid PRG sizes: 16,32,64,128,256,512,640,1024,1536,2048 Valid CHR sizes: 8,16,32,64,128,256,512,1024
If you have a ROM with values other than those listed above, it is a bad dump. Check the ROM list distributed with NesToy to see what the correct size for the ROM is. NesToy will detect these ROMs and mark them as bad.
Dragon Warrior 4 (Wrong Size) 1 HB.. 1024kB ----- U 41413b06
This ROM is the wrong size. The correct Dragon Warrior 4 ROM is 512kb, but you may want to hold onto this one because Nesticle won't run the correct ROM, but it plays this one fine. NesToy cannot resize the 1024kb version of this ROM to 512kb because of the unusual way data is duplicated in the ROM.