by EricGoldstein
Tadpole is a device management tool for rthe SF2000 / Datafrog. It currently provides the following main features:
- Rebuilding of the console specific rom lists
- Merging ROM zips and jpg files with the same name to the relevant Zxx fileformat for each console
- Changing the four in menu game shortcuts for each console
- Changing the boot logo
- Changing the background music
- Changing the Console logos
- Automating the GBA bios fix
Tadpole started as a project to provide an easy to use GUI for tzlion's frogtool. However it has since added additional features.
Tadpole allows you to rebuild the preset game lists on the SF2000 / Datafrog emulator handheld, so you can add (or remove) ROMs in the proper system categories instead of only being able to add them in the user folder.
This program is experimental and you should use with caution!
It is not developed or authorised by any company or individual connected with the SF2000 handheld and is based on public reverse engineering of SF2000 file formats.
Although it will back up the files it modifies, you should make your own backup of the Resources folder and ideally your whole SD card so you can restore the original state of your device if anything goes wrong.
Download the latest release from https://github.com/EricGoldsteinNz/tadpole/releases
Download the latest .exe file if you are on windows, or the python source folder if you are on Linux/Mac.
You should be able to run the source using: python tadpole.py Note that you may need to install the required libraries if you do not have them already using: python -m pip install -r requirements.txt
- Insert the SF2000 SD card in a card reader connected to your computer
- Drag and drop your desired ROMs into the respective system folders (ARCADE, FC, GB, GBA, GBC, MD, SFC)
- Run tadpole (double-click tadpole.exe or run the python from source)
- Select the drive letter and the system you want to rebuild the game list for. Selecting ALL will rebuild all game lists.
- Click "Update!"
This tool has been tested & confirmed to work on the following SF2000 firmware/SD card image versions:
- Launch version (with English & Chinese languages only)
- 2023-04-20 update (with 17 languages)
- 2023-05-12 update (adds keymapping, favourites, history) - This works but can mess up the favourites and history sections as they're based on position in the list rather than filename. For the time being, if you have problems, delete Resources/Favorites.bin and Resources/History.bin from the SD card. This won't stop the features from working but will remove any existing favourites or history you have.
Use on any later versions is at your own risk!
On first run, this program will automatically create backups of all game list files for the selected system(s). These will be placed alongside the originals and have "_orig" appended to their name.
So, if something goes wrong or you just want to roll back your device to its original state, you can delete the files created by this program, and rename the "_orig" ones back to their original names.
(See "List file reference" section to see which files are which)
The SF2000 OS will load the following file extensions:
| Type | Extensions |
|---|---|
| Zipped | bkp, zip |
| Thumbnailed | zfc, zsf, zmd, zgb, zfb (see "Thumbnails & .zxx files" section) |
| SFC/SNES | smc, fig, sfc, gd3, gd7, dx2, bsx, swc |
| FC/NES | nes, nfc, fds, unf |
| GB/GBC | gbc, gb, sgb |
| GBA | gba, agb, gbz |
| MD/GEN/SMS | bin, md, smd, gen, sms |
It doesn't generally care if you put the wrong system's roms in the wrong folder, it will load them in the correct emulator according to their file extension.
Master System games are "secretly" supported by the Mega Drive emulator, it recognises the .sms extension but will actually run these games with any of the Mega Drive file extensions too. Game Gear games don't work properly.
Both .bkp and .zip extensions seem to function as normal ZIP files, I think .bkp was used for obfuscated zip files on
another system. Any supported ROM inside a ZIP file will be treated the same as an uncompressed ROM, and loaded in the
appropriate emulator.
(Arcade game ZIP files are weird, see the "Arcade games" section below.)
In the launch firmware version, filenames may contain Chinese and Japanese characters and these will be correctly displayed in the list even when English is selected. In the 2023-04-20 update, supported characters depend on the selected language, as it uses different fonts per language.
Arcade ROMs work differently from any others, since they consist of multiple ROM dumps inside a ZIP file, and emulators typically recognise them by their filename and the contained files' checksums. This means they usually can't be renamed.
For the SF2000 OS's purposes, in order to display the full names of the games in the menu instead of the shortened
emulator-standard filenames (eg. "Metal Slug X -Super Vehicle-001" instead of mslugx) their approach is to use .zfb
files named with the full name, these files contain a thumbnail image plus the actual filename, which refers in turn to
the actual rom zip file which is found in the ARCADE/bin subfolder.
(See the "Thumbnails & .zxx files" section for more info on this format)
The OS will still recognise arcade ROM ZIP files placed directly in the ROM folders with their emulator-standard filenames, but I don't know which ROM set it expects; even the manufacturers don't seem to know, they preloaded three Sonic Wings ROMs in the user "ROMS" folder and only one of them loads! Internal strings suggest the emulator is some version of Final Burn Alpha if that helps.
Many preloaded arcade games also have ".skp" files in the ARCADE/skp folder, these appear to be savestates which are automatically loaded when booting a game, to skip its boot sequence and bring you straight to the title screen with a coin already inserted. However it seems these only function correctly when the ROM is loaded using a .zfb file; if you place an arcade ROM ZIP directly in the ARCADE folder and index it using this tool, and there is a corresponding .skp file in the skp folder, the game will crash after loading the ROM. Personally I prefer to delete these files anyway as I'd rather see the original attract mode instead of jumping straight to the title screen.
The following file formats: zfc, zsf, zmd, zgb, zfb are a custom format created for this and similar devices, containing both a thumbnail image used in the menu and a either a zipped ROM or a pointer to one. Collectively I will refer to them as .zxx files for now.
They correspond to the following systems:
- .zfc = FC
- .zsf = SFC
- .zmd = MD
- .zgb = GB, GBC, GBA
- .zfb = ARCADE
This tool now supports generating these files, so you can use your own custom thumbnails! (Except arcade games for now.)
Just drop a zipped rom and an image (png, jpg, gif) with the same filename in the same folder, run frogtool and it will automatically combine the two into an appropriate .zxx file. (The source image and zip file will be deleted.)
Example: "Bubsy.zip" and "Bubsy.jpg" would be combined to "Bubsy.zsf" if placed in the "SFC" folder.
Thumbnails in this system are 144 x 208 pixels, your image will be resized to those dimensions if necessary.
All .zxx files except .zfb are laid out as follows:
- First 0xEA00 bytes: Thumbnail image, RGB565 RAW format, 144x208px
- Rest of the file: A zipped rom in "WQW" format
"WQW" is an obfuscated zip file format found on several emulation devices, with filenames scrambled and headers modified to inhibit use by ordinary zip software. However, you can actually use a normal unmodified zip inside a .zxx file and the OS will load it just fine. (That's what this tool does when generating these files.)
So, if you want to manually create a .zxx file you can do so by creating a thumbnail in the specified RAW format, and then appending a zipped ROM to it.
.zfb files for arcade games are different: they contain the same kind of image, but don't contain the actual game ROM. Instead the image is followed by four 00 bytes, then the actual filename of the ROM in the "bin" folder, then two further 00 bytes.
The game list files are found in the Resources folder alongside graphical and audio assets and other resources used by the OS. However, the files in this folder are all given meaningless or misleading names. For the game lists this is as follows:
| System | Filenames | Chinese | Pinyin |
|---|---|---|---|
| ARCADE | mswb7.tax | msdtc.nec | mfpmp.bvs |
| FC | rdbui.tax | fhcfg.nec | nethn.bvs |
| GB | vdsdc.tax | umboa.nec | qdvd6.bvs |
| GBA | vfnet.tax | htuiw.nec | sppnp.bvs |
| GBC | pnpui.tax | wjere.nec | mgdel.bvs |
| MD | scksp.tax | setxa.nec | wmiui.bvs |
| SFC | urefs.tax | adsnt.nec | xvb6c.bvs |
Explanation of the list types:
- Filenames = The names of each ROM file. These are also used for the English menus, with file extensions stripped off.
- Chinese = Chinese translations of each game name, UTF-8 encoded, used for the Chinese menus
- Pinyin = Pinyin initials of each Chinese game name, used for the Chinese search function
As mentioned above, this tool does not currently support generating the Chinese game lists, and will replace them with duplicate English lists. This means the console will still work in Chinese mode, but all game titles and search functionality will be in English.
If you are manually restoring these files from a backup, you should ensure that each set of three files is kept in sync: for example, if you want to restore a backup for GB, you should restore vdsdc.tax, umboa.nec and qdvd6.bvs.
Frogtool was developed by taizou and Evan Clements
RGB565 conversion code based on PNG-to-RGB565 (c) 2019 jpfwong https://github.com/jimmywong2003/PNG-to-RGB565
Frog icon from public domain photo by LiquidGhoul https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Australia_green_tree_frog_(Litoria_caerulea)_crop.jpg
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Special thanks to the firmware devs