Tadashi Fukuzawa (NES Driver)

Tadashi Fukuzawa

Released 1988-02-10 Programmers Tadashi Fukuzawa Language 6502 Assembly

Tadashi Fukuzawa is an unofficial name of the sound driver that was programmed by Tadashi Fukuzawa for Enix and Chunsoft. It was originally only used in their title Dragon Warrior III, but when KID started developing games, they used this driver, possibly either licensing it from Enix/Chunsoft, or reverse engineering it. Music was entered in a custom form of Music Macro Language.

Though Nobuyuki Shioda and Norio Nakagata (composers for KID) used this driver, they weren't sure who programmed it, but Shioda surmised it was the programmer of Burai Fighter. However, a code comparison reveals that both Dragon Warriors 3 and the KID games that use this driver share identical code, particularly the bootstrap and pitch table code.

Release History

The driver was first used in Dragon Warrior 3. After that, Tadashi Fukuzawa and Masumi Takimoto created a new sound driver. When KID started making NES games, they had originally used this driver, but their later NES titles use another sound driver by Kunihito Hiramatsu.

Ouotput

The driver outputs to the 2A03 and 2A07 of NTSC and PAL NES consoles respectively. It is one of the few drivers with optimized PAL playback; even though it suffers from the music being tuned down a half-step, it plays at a mostly identical tempo in comparison with its NTSC counterpart.

Games

Released	Title	Sample
1988-02-10	Dragon Warrior III (NES) (ドラゴンクエストⅢ そして伝説へ…)
1990-03-??	Burai Fighter (NES) (無頼戦士 ブライファイター)
1990-09-??	Low G Man: The Low Gravity Man (NES)
1991-01-??	G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero (NES)
1991-02-15	Isolated Warrior (NES) (マックス・ウォーリアー 〜惑星戒厳令〜)
1991-12-20	Banana Prince (NES) (バナナン王子の大冒険)
1992-03-??	G.I. Joe: The Atlantis Factor (NES)

Technical

Frequency Registers

B-6 = 1B
A#6 = 1D
A-6 = 1F
G#6 = 21
G-6 = 23
F#6 = 25
F-6 = 27
E-6 = 29
D#6 = 2C
D-6 = 2F
C#6 = 31
C-6 = 34
B-5 = 38
A#5 = 3B
A-5 = 3F
G#5 = 42
G-5 = 46
F#5 = 4B
F-5 = 4F
E-5 = 54
D#5 = 59
D-5 = 5E
C#5 = 64
C-5 = 6A
B-4 = 70
A#4 = 77
A-4 = 7E
G#4 = 86
G-4 = 8E
F#4 = 96
F-4 = 9F
E-4 = A9
D#4 = B3
D-4 = BD
C#4 = C9
C-4 = D5
B-3 = E1
A#3 = EF
A-3 = FD
G#3 = 10C
G-3 = 11C
F#3 = 12D
F-3 = 13F
E-3 = 152
D#3 = 167
D-3 = 17C
C#3 = 193
C-3 = 1AB
B-2 = 1C4
A#2 = 1DF
A-2 = 1FB
G#2 = 21A
G-2 = 23A
F#2 = 25C
F-2 = 280
E-2 = 2A6
D#2 = 2CE
D-2 = 2F9
C#2 = 326
C-2 = 356
B-1 = 389
A#1 = 3BF
A-1 = 3F8
G#1 = 434
G-1 = 474
F#1 = 4B8
F-1 = 500
E-1 = 54C
D#1 = 59D
D-1 = 5F3
C#1 = 643
C-1 = 6AD

Memory Locations

• Banana Prince: $1C295-$1C324
• Burai Fighter: $126A-$12F9 (J)
• Dragon Warrior III: $7B9D7-$7BA66
• G.I. Joe A Real American Hero: $193A7-$19436
• G.I. Joe The Atlantis Factor: $1997F-$19A0E
• Isolated Warrior: $162D7-$16366
• Low G Man: $02D0-$035F