No, neither un on real hardware.

I understand the importance of preservation better than most, so no need to explain to me why dumping it soon is important.  Of the various tools I have at my disposal, I have been unsuccessful at dumping these two EPROMs and in turn creating workable .NES files.  I have attempted to several times and have been unsuccessful.  It is what it is.

Ah, that's too bad. Maybe it would be possible to combine the data from the partially dumped ROM with the modified ROM from Ian Bell's site (http://www.iancgbell.clara.net/el...) to get a working ROM. Although it wouldn't be possible to verify whether it would be correct.

Has anybody tried contacting Ian Bell about the prototype? It's possible he might be holding the original files, still.

I have NTSC Prototypes of
Crackout
Corvette ZR1 Challenge
Noah's Ark (2 Different NTSC Builds plus a PAL Build)
Road Fighter
Super Turrican
Trolls N CrazyLand

and Coming soon... New Ghostbusters II

Can you do me a big favor and see if Crackout and Road Fighter still say Palcom on the title screens?

I think they may say Palcom. I will check tonight. Mike over at Nintendo Player gave me a tip to test NTSC vs PAL. I had tried them in a NTSC toaster that has the lockout chip enabled and they did boot with out reseting.

Thanks! Whether they're actually running in NTSC is only half the mystery to me. The other half is seeing if there's any evidence that they might have considered releasing these in the U.S., which there would be if they (for example) said Ultra instead of Palcom.

Another necro-bump but this thread clearly needed the correction!

Both questions are answered here by the author himself:
http://www.elitehomepage.org/nes/...

It's a really old post and I assume that's where the ROM most people have came from. He specifically states that it was never released because no publisher ever attached themselves to it, which makes me think it was tested and complete and functions on a real NTSC NES. I was previously led to believe that it was PAL exclusive because it was impossible on the NES (something about not having enough time during the shorter VBlank interval at 60hz vs. 50hz). I don't know what to believe anymore. He freely gives it away, which is pretty cool.

He also says that the provided ROM is "a modification of the unpublished NTSC version", and indeed, it doesn't work on an NTSC NES properly. Which is why dump of the actual prototype would be nice to have.
 

The prototype that Mark mentioned above has been dumped and does indeed play on an NTSC NES via the powerpak. Lincoln helped us out and got a number of our undumpable games dumped.

Playable NTSC Elite?! Awesome! June 14th 2005 he said the original proto-cart didn't even work, so I'm impressed. Why wasn't it dumping correctly?

They were loose '301 eproms. I had to rig an adapter to handle the different pin arrangement.

You da man! I'd absolutely love to play that game. Too bad the author's attempt to release it doesn't work. I actually came across this thread while googling because I wanted to make a repro of the ROM Ian released before I was told that it doesn't work.

I should probably mail you a package one of these days.

I'm happy to help if I can. Shoot me a pm if you have ideas on something.

There's a Probotector II NTSC.

Mark and I have dumped maybe 300 or so prototypes as of now, but this was one of maybe 12 that we were unable to get dumped.  It needed someone like Lincoln with an advanced understanding to get it done.  He took care of this, our Ufouria NTSC, and our Super Turrican NTSC.  Dude is a stud.

Now I think we're down to just two that we've never been able to get dumped.  Kartoon Kombat for the Genesis (which has since been sold), and Eurit for the SNES.  Eurit plays perfectly on real hardward, but even Lincoln couldn't get that one to dump.  

I haven't downloaded the Elite rom that was made available via the afformentioned link, but I will say that our copy is quite different than the PAL release.  It has a different menu and layout.  Can someone that's downloaded the rom confirm if these differences are present?
  
Elite is probably the best unreleased NES game we have left, with Robin Hood coming in a close second.  I would love to release the game, but given that's still an active title, I don't think I'd be able too unfortunately.
 

Edit:  Double post

Does the NTSC Ufouria fix the wonky audio? (The bass channel when playing the PAL release on an NTSC console is 1/2 step off pitch.)

The U.S. Version of Ufouria is basically an Alpha build. It's extremely early. I'm not even sure if it has audio offhand.

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but what do you mean by an active title?
 

Have you considered collecting for Famicom? Most of the PAL Exclusive games that aren't sports related were released in Japan and are much cheaper to score secondhand. Many of the early Famicom games have English menus, and the even the later ones don't need to be able to read as long as you stay away from adventure / JRPGs. A lot of repro guys selling Famicom repros in NES shells for $40 when you can import the originals for like $10-$15 with free shipping.

One noteworthy PAL exclusive game a lot of people forget about is the 1993 Scandinavian reissue of Mario Bros "Classic Serie" with additional animations from the arcade game and improved physics. The audio pitch is a little sharp on an NTSC NES but otherwise it runs great and is a vast improvement over the original.

I mean that the game creators are still producing games in the series and that they're both still invloved in game development.  I wouldn't want to risk a lawsuit in releasing their stuff.

...even when one creator did release it and the other said publicly that he was OK with it? Remember: it's the working NES NTSC prototype that they both seem to think is available on their page right now! Maybe, send it to him and ask him to update the site with the working ROM? Maybe do a diff compare, see what's different, and make an IPS patch for the one that is released?

... And maybe you can just buy it off me and do all that shit?  

Elite is not high on my priority list and I didn't exactly get it for free. If you want to put in the time and money, shoot me a PM. 
 

Just checked video of Ian's rom, and it has a different HUD than my prototype.

Snapped a quick pic of mine (please excuse the condition of my office, we're renovating):