Konami's hidden mark
It was uncovered by Manuel Pazos (@ManuelPazosMSX) in September 2021. Thanks to him we know to look there.
Konami hid the catalogue number and the katakana title inside many of its MSX cartridges. Read forwards, the block goes:
[the title, N bytes, in reverse order] · [N] · [the two RC digits in BCD] · [0xAA]
The sweep runs over all fifty-one binaries, including the ones that are not Konami's. That is the control: if the tracer found the mark on a game that is not Konami's, it would be swallowing coincidences. It finds none.
| catalogue | game | bytes | closes at | the title, syllable by syllable |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RC-701 | Antarctic Adventure | 20 | 0x7FFF | KE tsu KI yo KU NA N KI yo KU TA " I HO " U KE N |
| RC-718 | Hyper Rally | 8 | 0x7FFF | HA I HA o - RA RI - |
| RC-724 | Konami's Baseball | 4 | 0x7FFF | YA KI yu U |
| RC-727 | King's Valley | 6 | 0x7FFF | O U KE NO TA NI |
| RC-728 | Mopi Ranger | 9 | 0x7FFF | MO HI o RE N SI " ya - |
| RC-729 | Pippols | 6 | 0x7FFF | HI o HO o RU SU |
| RC-730 | Road Fighter | 10 | 0x7FFF | RO - TO " HU a I TA - |
| RC-731 | Konami's Ping Pong | 12 | 0x7FFF | KO NA MI NO HI o N HO o N |
| RC-732 | Konami’s Soccer | 10 | 0xBFFF | KO NA MI NO SA tsu KA - |
| RC-733 | Hyper Sports 3 | 13 | 0xBFFF | HA I HA o - SU HO o - TU 3 |
| RC-734 | The Goonies | 7 | 0xBFFF | KU " - NI - SU " |
| RC-735 | Konami’s Game Master | 19 | 0x7FFF | 1 0 HA " I TA NO SI MU KA - TO RI tsu SI " |
| RC-736 | Konami's Boxing | 13 | 0xBFFF | KO NA MI NO HO " KU SI N KU " |
| RC-737 | Yie Ar Kung-Fu II | 12 | 0xBFFF | I - . A RU . KA N HU - 2 |
| RC-739 | Knightmare | 10 | 0xBFFF | MA SI " yo U TE " N SE TU |
| RC-740 | Twin Bee | 6 | 0xBFFF | TU I N HI " - |
| RC-742 | Nemesis / Gradius | 8 | 0xBFFF | KU " RA TE " i U SU |
The syllables are the house codes, one per byte, with the " and
o diacritics kept apart. That is how the tracer gives it and how it
is stored; reading it back as kana is the reader's doing, not the binary's.
Two independent paths to the same fact: what Konami left inside the cartridge and what the series publishes outside. They agree on all seventeen, and a test watches it.
These are Konami's and do not carry it: Time Pilot, Frogger, Super Cobra, Athletic Land, Monkey Academy, Konami’s Billiards, Konami’s Mahjong Dojo, Hyper Olympic 1, Hyper Olympic 2, Sky Jaguar, Konami's Golf, Yie Ar Kung-Fu, Konami's Tennis, Hyper Sports 1, Hyper Sports 2, Cabbage Patch Kids, F-1 Spirit — The Way to Formula 1. That absence is a fact about the series, not a measurement failure.