There's many prototypes that I would consider holy grails, but Sonic 1's TTS demo is the only one I can think of that's for a Sega console (other than a Sonic 3 build early or later enough to feature all the Sonic & Knuckles zones in their original pre-3C states). Every other sought-after prototype I can think of is for Nintendo, and also a few PS1 stuff.
Can we just appreciate the sheer amount of effort that goes into each and every one of this guy's videos? Like, really, he tests these things dozens of times to get the most accurate results... that must take ages. It's absolutely brilliant. Keep up the good work, redhotsonic.
Honestly, it's super awesome to see that redhotsonic is still part of the Sonic community after all these years. I remember your content from the 2000s, and the dedication after almost 20 years is truly admirable. Cheers to you, friend!
4:36 If I'm understanding what I saw in the object layout correctly, that's actually object $19, set to be loaded into the respawn table, and with two different subtypes (subtype $14 at X:1B60 Y:0388, and subtype $7A at X:1BD8 Y:0180). Object $19 is the same object as the GHZ ball
im still baffled how anyone got stuck here, like, it got this game when it came out and literally on my fist try i worked out how to do the barrel. it wasnt fucking rocket science!
Honestly finding the Tokyo Toy Show demo would be insane at this point Sega couldn't even find it themselves to put in Mega Collection nearly two decades ago
@@MirrorHall_Clay the fact they couldn't find it 2 decades ago means it is probably more harder to find it now. So if someone does find it, that would be very insane
8:43 In this case, I'd consider it more like "unhacking" the ROM. The test gave an inaccurate result because your flashcart was the wrong size; all that your edit did was compensate for this and make it behave like the original cart would have.
That is correct. On a real hardware, a 1Mb ROM chip is connected to one extra address line (i.e. one extra copper wire) than a 512kb chip. This means the higher bit(s) are ignored on smaller ROM chips, which means they essentially loop over and are available many times through the adress space.
Funny mention at 1:43. Idk if someone’s said it yet, but this glitch occurs if you take damage, then land on a spring. It causes the rings to become uncollectable, and makes invincibility last for a while. You can also pull it off in spring yard where the spike-bouncer thing is next to the spring at the beginning.
Basically The Sonic 1 Prototype: GREEN HILL has a boulder. MARBLE can't be properly beat requiring Debug Mode to beat and Act 3 doesn't have a boss. SPARKLING sends you to Star Light after Act 1, Act 2 is partially complete and Act 3 is on drugs. STAR LIGHT doesn't have it's gimmicks from the final game. LABYRINTH has no water or enemies and the background is better than the final game's. CLOCK ORK is missing the (W), the background is from a piece of Act 2 and the layout for Act 1 is broken. Special Stages lack Emeralds, UP and DOWN reverse rotation of the stage, the A and B buttons increase and decrease speed respectively, and red circles end the stage, freeze the game, then reset the special stage. Debug mode has some interesting quirks. Track 92 in Sound Test crashes the game because it has an invalid pointer or something. On rare occasions the Percussion (beats) won't load forcing you to hard-reset the game
Actually, act 3 of Marble has another route that doesn't lock the screen so it's possible to pass without debug but watching my video again, I see why you got that impression. My bad!
Theres no real reason they wouldn't. The dev hardware back then plugged into a standard console, so if an intact ROM was found there is good chance it will run on hardware.
As a people, for whom english isn't native language, thanks for subtitles and clear pronunciation. Very interesting video and information,a big work was done to do this content. Thanks!
That's just a theory that I made up from looking at the Labyrinth maps on TCRF's Discord server; About whether or not they _were_ meant to be air pockets, someone should ask whoever designed the game's levels.
If you press START during the Special Stage, it will stop the maze's rotation, apart from pressing A for clockwise rotation or B for counter-clockwise rotation. As this build predates the Reverse posts, it makes sense they needed a way to make navigating the maze easier as well as test the maze rotation.
0:14 unintentionally summarizes the difference in Japanese and Western work culture - the Japanese rarely back their games up, and the moment the game is released, they toss out the source code. Westerners on the other hand back up their games frequently, and keep their source code indefinitely. That's why you always find source codes for 'Disney's Direct To Video Pinball Sequel for the game boy color' being released, or lost prototypes of 'Barbie's horse racing adventure for the Genesis' finally surfacing, but all the canceled Japanese games like "The Amazing Journey" for the NES or "Super Booby" for the Famicom are lost forever.
I didn't attach the S&K cart to it in my video, but I did play it on my modded 68010 model 1. It didn't affect the physics slow down, however my vanilla model 2 froze playing the proto. Glad to see you also rode the Indiana Jones Boulder. 😂
4:22 I think this is unused background is what Sega and paramount used in the Sonic The Hedgehog 2 movie above the labyrinth that Knuckles, Robotnik, and Sonic traverse through to get to the Master Emerald.
Probably the longest 24 hour wait ever XD I've been waiting impatiently for this one, but I've no doubt that this is gonna be amazing! Edit: it was. Great video!
I pretty much assumed this *would* work on real hardware (and it truly did), but this man went over the top adding the & Knuckles segment. I have nothing to say about the proto itself other than I was *very* surprised when I found out about Hidden Palace streaming it. The Sonic & Knuckles attachment segment really surprised me, though. While the "No Way" screen appeared in mostly a tint of blue, that special stage shown does look rather interesting but challenging. PS: I don't know why it says S3 has 5 protos and S&K has 7, but with the Sonic 3C/Special Edition (3C does not refer to the hack, just Special Edition) protos, the S&K 0525 proto and the November 20, 1993 build, I assume those would count towards each game's total count due to the fact 3C was supposed to be both games put together, one was an early S&K locked onto Sonic 3, and the later 1993 build was an altered final game.
I honestly didn't think this was going to be your next video, I thought ''Sonic 2 Anniversary'' was more in line for the next release or maybe something more obscure, I mean nearly every second comment on your last video was from loud mouths demanding you to upload this which I thought was quite rude, but anyway it's done now. I enjoyed your video although there was not much that I didn't know already about this proto. Keep up the great work RHS.
Well, it's a proto of the very first game so I can see why everyone was excited but yeah. I knew I had to get this out fast. Two BDIWORH videos within 6 days has made me exhausted. This week, time with my family!
The prototypes are totally real. Perhaps we'll get one for every Sonic entry as time goes by. This prototype wasn't too bad for what it had to offer with a few hit and miss moments, but that's expected. Would have been nice to see splats make an appearance in the final version. At least they did in Mania. Superb job on the technicality of Sonic 1 Prototype (& Knuckles). You made the almost impossible, possible.
I just have to say that the Sonic fan base has to be one of the most passionate of the video game realm. I just love Sonic, waaaaay back since the first one was released in Mega Drive, and I still play and collect Sonic games, I have now 2 sons and they love it too and we play together. The only other video-game series that did the same is Mario. The 2 most powerful brands.
Already seen it, haha! But as you can see in the video, I just spent an awful lot of money on the BVM. Buying the proto now on top, and the wife will end me 😝 Best of luck with the sale! And thanks again for giving us the opportunity on letting us experience this beta 😊
its incredible that a sonic 1 prototype has been found after a long time. Now we can hope that some day, in the future, we will find a tokyo toy show demo rom and rest
Fun Fact: Act 2 of Marble Zone is the same as in the 2013 remake. I don't know if it's true, i just found it in the chat of someone playing the prototype.
Prototypes don't usually work on the hardware itself, as they're developed on a computer with them trying to optimise it for a console, meaning it will run better on computers than the hardware itself.
Do we have any idea of the date of this build of the game? As it looks about 70% complete compared to the finished game and with all of the general themes of the zones in place too.
Probably in early 1991, just some months before Sonic 1's final release was released. This build is just one of these of the Mid-Prereleases Builds, after the WCES Builds (months after Sonic 1's 1990 Tokyo Toy Show Build)
To be honest i never thought people would ever find a Sonic 1 prototype build! Edit: fun fact - someone who was working on the genesis rearangements of Masato Nakamura's demo songs he composed in this game accidently made the snare sample higher pitch, which is what we all hear today instead of what we can hear on the prototype.
Just for some people who wondered why there is no W in CLOCK WORK ZONE's title card, it's simple. There is no W sprite in that font style in the files. There are some Sonic ROM hackers who had the initiative to use the M in MARBLE ZONE as a W by simply flipping the letter itself!
Ooh, thanks for bringing that to my attention. I actually wasn't missing an end bracket but UA-cam was totally ignoring it. Changing that end bracket to a %29 has now fixed the issue.
A mix. What's happening is that Sonic & Knuckles generates reads the second game's header and, if it finds the word "SEGA" where it expects it to be, it'll create a semi-unique stage built out of 4 sections of which there are 128 to chose from.
I'm really hoping that that "holy grail" build gets found someday, it looks really interesting!
Hello I'm first to commet here, lol
I call it the J90 demo "prototype", since it is part of a bigger Toy Show ROM.
There's many prototypes that I would consider holy grails, but Sonic 1's TTS demo is the only one I can think of that's for a Sega console (other than a Sonic 3 build early or later enough to feature all the Sonic & Knuckles zones in their original pre-3C states). Every other sought-after prototype I can think of is for Nintendo, and also a few PS1 stuff.
It would be great to see a fully working "holy grail" build in our hands some day
@@NathatheBizarreFox What's so special about it?
Can we just appreciate the sheer amount of effort that goes into each and every one of this guy's videos? Like, really, he tests these things dozens of times to get the most accurate results... that must take ages. It's absolutely brilliant. Keep up the good work, redhotsonic.
Spicy Peppers
And the editing + style of the videos feel so professional yet he has such a low amount of subscribers...Man, I love this channel!
@@mark030a He'll be at 100k by the end of the year, I bet you
@@andknuckles101 I sure hope so! RedHotSonic deserves it!
Sonic @@andknuckles101.
The Madlad Did It... He Attached Sonic & Knuckles To Sonic 1 Prototype
Yep
He did something that Sega cant
@@YoshiLikesFate But they can...
@@evdestroy5304 no i mean the fact that he used the prototype which if im not mistaken, could not be read by the Sonic and Knuckles.
...& KNUCKLES
Honestly, it's super awesome to see that redhotsonic is still part of the Sonic community after all these years. I remember your content from the 2000s, and the dedication after almost 20 years is truly admirable. Cheers to you, friend!
Honoka
4:36 If I'm understanding what I saw in the object layout correctly, that's actually object $19, set to be loaded into the respawn table, and with two different subtypes (subtype $14 at X:1B60 Y:0388, and subtype $7A at X:1BD8 Y:0180). Object $19 is the same object as the GHZ ball
2:22 We almost had another barrel of doom situation here, it's a good thing that it was changed to function with a button in the final.
im still baffled how anyone got stuck here, like, it got this game when it came out and literally on my fist try i worked out how to do the barrel. it wasnt fucking rocket science!
There are many barrels like why you never try those
@@Renegade666tails jumps
landing seems to push it down a bit
no crouching sprite (unless ur in origins) to communicate that up and down do anything
No, all you have to do is to jump on it.
Finally, a prototype that we thought was lost is here!!
Maybe one day we’ll get the toy store prototype
now to that first prototype that has the mountains and stuff
i know it's probably lost but... a man can dream...
Honestly finding the Tokyo Toy Show demo would be insane at this point
Sega couldn't even find it themselves to put in Mega Collection nearly two decades ago
@@MirrorHall_Clay the fact they couldn't find it 2 decades ago means it is probably more harder to find it now. So if someone does find it, that would be very insane
New title: Sonic before he was famous: but does it work on Real Hardware?
9:53 Holy cow! I was not expecting so see my scan here. This whole video was pretty fun to watch.
Lol
I love your BDIWORH videos, they're so full of details and everything, keep up the great work!
8:43 In this case, I'd consider it more like "unhacking" the ROM. The test gave an inaccurate result because your flashcart was the wrong size; all that your edit did was compensate for this and make it behave like the original cart would have.
That is correct. On a real hardware, a 1Mb ROM chip is connected to one extra address line (i.e. one extra copper wire) than a 512kb chip. This means the higher bit(s) are ignored on smaller ROM chips, which means they essentially loop over and are available many times through the adress space.
Funny mention at 1:43. Idk if someone’s said it yet, but this glitch occurs if you take damage, then land on a spring. It causes the rings to become uncollectable, and makes invincibility last for a while. You can also pull it off in spring yard where the spike-bouncer thing is next to the spring at the beginning.
Just tried it out. The spring is indeed the cause of the problem. Interesting...
0:00 X-treme music. As an X-treme fan, I appreciate this.
The “ray of light” background of the beta may have inspired Sonic 4’s labyrinth background.
The Background of Sparking Zone was just so so busy, busy busy busy.
Poor knux had to sit on the bench as he couldn’t be in the prototype.
Press f to pay respects
F
F
F
Okay I have my keyboard
F
This is a great video, REDHOTSONIC! I hope you stay Super Sonic Always!!
RHS, you never dissapoint with your videos. Good job!
Whoever is translating your videos into polish, he's freaking speed!
He is it and it is Google translate 😅
@@redhotsonic Ohhhhhh, well now the amount of translations makes sense. For a moment I thought you might know like... 10 languages.
Big pog, Poland rules 😌
🇵🇱
I have been waiting for this video for too long, man. But glad it's finally here!
Don’t you just love Clock Ork Zone?
I think Metronome Elf Zone is better, but that’s my personal opinion.
Can’t forget about Pendulum Pixie Zone though.
What about Time Gnome Zone?
It's Clock Work Zone.
Man, you're killing it with the shots! You got so good with the camera and video editing! Love your work dude
Bro, we'll be dead by the time that Toyshow demo is found
Unless time travel is invented before that.
wait, he’s got a point
Love your dedication to these videos @RedHotSonic... You never fail us on making sure all that can be seen and done... You do. Thanks Brother
That glitch at 1:43 happened to me in an emulator a couple times. Both the long invulnerability time and not being able to pick up rings.
My guess as to why this happened in that instance was because he bounced off of spikes & onto a spring pad.
1:26 I really like those drums
Golden Axe 2 type drums.
Thanks for everything you do, RHS :)
Basically The Sonic 1 Prototype:
GREEN HILL has a boulder.
MARBLE can't be properly beat requiring Debug Mode to beat and Act 3 doesn't have a boss.
SPARKLING sends you to Star Light after Act 1, Act 2 is partially complete and Act 3 is on drugs.
STAR LIGHT doesn't have it's gimmicks from the final game.
LABYRINTH has no water or enemies and the background is better than the final game's.
CLOCK ORK is missing the (W), the background is from a piece of Act 2 and the layout for Act 1 is broken.
Special Stages lack Emeralds, UP and DOWN reverse rotation of the stage, the A and B buttons increase and decrease speed respectively, and red circles end the stage, freeze the game, then reset the special stage.
Debug mode has some interesting quirks.
Track 92 in Sound Test crashes the game because it has an invalid pointer or something.
On rare occasions the Percussion (beats) won't load forcing you to hard-reset the game
Actually, act 3 of Marble has another route that doesn't lock the screen so it's possible to pass without debug but watching my video again, I see why you got that impression. My bad!
Fun Fact: Sound #92 is the drowning sound.
Which means that of you somehow try to drown the game crashes because the drowning music crashes the game
There is no water in the prototype, also the music crashes mainly only because of invalid pointers.
I have a feeling the earliest prototype(s) wouldn’t run on stock hardware but it could be a treat if they exist and run!
Yes
Theres no real reason they wouldn't. The dev hardware back then plugged into a standard console, so if an intact ROM was found there is good chance it will run on hardware.
@@DONK8008 "Theres no real reason they wouldn't."
Sonic Crackers:
I kind of like Sparkling Zone's background, but my eyes say that changing it to Spring Yard was for the better.
I say they keep the old backround but keep the name spring yard
that prototype background in Labyrinth would have been really awesome. reminds me so strongly of Hydrocity.
As a people, for whom english isn't native language, thanks for subtitles and clear pronunciation. Very interesting video and information,a big work was done to do this content. Thanks!
I remember I was doing a bunch of research on Sonic Xtreme and then I found this channel I love this channel ever since
The glitch where you couldn’t recollect your rings and had long invincibility frames was from getting hit and then landing on a spring.
Im glad that at least 1 of the sonic 1 prototype builds has been found and i will make a video playing it
I still can't believe we finally have one!
Seems that now we literally have an blue sphere's proto...
0 views
9 likes
UA-cam's favourite thing is doing drugs.
That's no good.
Sound select 92 is just the credits theme but it appears to be a bit broken
That intro brand back memory's since I never watched in a long time
4:25 Those are actually air pockets.
That's just a theory that I made up from looking at the Labyrinth maps on TCRF's Discord server; About whether or not they _were_ meant to be air pockets, someone should ask whoever designed the game's levels.
@@NunofYerbizness Well, they *could* be just a decoration; until we ask Kodama or Ishiwatari, these domes remain a mystery.
Redhotsonic:finds a glitch
Tetra bit gaming:now this looks like a job for me
a motive,fella?
If you press START during the Special Stage, it will stop the maze's rotation, apart from pressing A for clockwise rotation or B for counter-clockwise rotation. As this build predates the Reverse posts, it makes sense they needed a way to make navigating the maze easier as well as test the maze rotation.
I remember at one point during the Hidden Palace reveal stream, spikes were hit and I found myself thinking "how long has he been invincible???".
0:14 unintentionally summarizes the difference in Japanese and Western work culture - the Japanese rarely back their games up, and the moment the game is released, they toss out the source code. Westerners on the other hand back up their games frequently, and keep their source code indefinitely. That's why you always find source codes for 'Disney's Direct To Video Pinball Sequel for the game boy color' being released, or lost prototypes of 'Barbie's horse racing adventure for the Genesis' finally surfacing, but all the canceled Japanese games like "The Amazing Journey" for the NES or "Super Booby" for the Famicom are lost forever.
What is the sega genesis high definition graphic console that is used to demonstrate the rom please? At the time 1:24
Just look at the bottom right corner of the video after clicking on the timestamp and you should see the model number
8:48 nice reference
With respect to Buckaroo: WHERE WERE YOU??
this is for all intents and purposes the Nick Arcade beta featured in the pilot episode
I absolutely LOVE the background Labyrinth Zone had in the prototype! It really beats the one we had in the later/final ROM.
3:57 Karate redhotsonic!!
I'd _kind_ of heard of this but thought it was just yet another beta recreation, had no idea it was the real thing until this video!
I didn't attach the S&K cart to it in my video, but I did play it on my modded 68010 model 1. It didn't affect the physics slow down, however my vanilla model 2 froze playing the proto. Glad to see you also rode the Indiana Jones Boulder. 😂
4:22 I think this is unused background is what Sega and paramount used in the Sonic The Hedgehog 2 movie above the labyrinth that Knuckles, Robotnik, and Sonic traverse through to get to the Master Emerald.
Probably the longest 24 hour wait ever XD
I've been waiting impatiently for this one, but I've no doubt that this is gonna be amazing!
Edit: it was. Great video!
I pretty much assumed this *would* work on real hardware (and it truly did), but this man went over the top adding the & Knuckles segment. I have nothing to say about the proto itself other than I was *very* surprised when I found out about Hidden Palace streaming it. The Sonic & Knuckles attachment segment really surprised me, though. While the "No Way" screen appeared in mostly a tint of blue, that special stage shown does look rather interesting but challenging.
PS: I don't know why it says S3 has 5 protos and S&K has 7, but with the Sonic 3C/Special Edition (3C does not refer to the hack, just Special Edition) protos, the S&K 0525 proto and the November 20, 1993 build, I assume those would count towards each game's total count due to the fact 3C was supposed to be both games put together, one was an early S&K locked onto Sonic 3, and the later 1993 build was an altered final game.
We still need to find the Tokyo toy show demo
I won’t say that would be impossible as the sonic 1 prototype was found but it’s unlikely.
I just want the real thing
I honestly didn't think this was going to be your next video, I thought ''Sonic 2 Anniversary'' was more in line for the next release or maybe something more obscure, I mean nearly every second comment on your last video was from loud mouths demanding you to upload this which I thought was quite rude, but anyway it's done now. I enjoyed your video although there was not much that I didn't know already about this proto. Keep up the great work RHS.
Well, it's a proto of the very first game so I can see why everyone was excited but yeah. I knew I had to get this out fast. Two BDIWORH videos within 6 days has made me exhausted. This week, time with my family!
Kudos, red and Buckaroo. Kudos.
Man the fact that we finally found a Sonic 1 prototype is still so cool i am glad that we finally have a prototype of all the Genesis Sonic games.
** A prototype for each Genesis Sonic game
Hello RHS, thank you very much. You are very welcome to this new video!
The prototypes are totally real. Perhaps we'll get one for every Sonic entry as time goes by.
This prototype wasn't too bad for what it had to offer with a few hit and miss moments, but that's expected. Would have been nice to see splats make an appearance in the final version. At least they did in Mania.
Superb job on the technicality of Sonic 1 Prototype (& Knuckles). You made the almost impossible, possible.
1:57 why sonic jumping like Mario there
This is actually Sonic's original victory jump when you complete a level (which was cut from the final version of Sonic 1).
Due to it being too much like Mario's jump (pointed out by op)
Excuse me but When are you gonna try the Sonic 2 prototypes you covered and the sonic 3 prototype with sonic and knuckles attached
I just have to say that the Sonic fan base has to be one of the most passionate of the video game realm. I just love Sonic, waaaaay back since the first one was released in Mega Drive, and I still play and collect Sonic games, I have now 2 sons and they love it too and we play together. The only other video-game series that did the same is Mario. The 2 most powerful brands.
A fan of Sonic AND Xeno? Finally another man of culture
Very cool video
Have you run any particular stress/corruption tests for crashes that would not happen on emulation?
Green Hill Zone is the only zone that has a working boss, so that's why there's a sign at the end of act 3 instead of the boss in marble zone.
The cartridge this prototype was taken from is now for sale on eBay.
The original cartridge works on real hardware too.
Already seen it, haha! But as you can see in the video, I just spent an awful lot of money on the BVM. Buying the proto now on top, and the wife will end me 😝 Best of luck with the sale! And thanks again for giving us the opportunity on letting us experience this beta 😊
It's been 2 years since I've watched your videos
YOUR ACCENT IS GODLIKE.
this is a really good channel
What was that outro music?? Did I hear a bit of Bridge Zone in there?
shooting lines from tv shows never gets old
did you try it on the russian sega cybershell?
He should lol
@@JavaCake he could maybe hope to borrow it from cybershell (youtube guy) when he gets one
@@mitzi856 yep
This video was amazing!
Gracias por los subtítulos amigo ✌️
It is bizarre how much the background in Marble Zone looks like the Saturn one
This dude did it. Ledgend.
Wow, what’s that outro music? I really like it!
Thanks man, I asked for this.
0:14 There’s a Sonic Bash box on the shelf! I see what you hid there!
i was actually able to recreate the bug where you had more invincibility frames by falling on spikes and then landing on a spring
its incredible that a sonic 1 prototype has been found after a long time.
Now we can hope that some day, in the future, we will find a tokyo toy show demo rom and rest
And a sonic cd prototype with r2 or whatever that level if called
Fun Fact: Act 2 of Marble Zone is the same as in the 2013 remake. I don't know if it's true, i just found it in the chat of someone playing the prototype.
Prototypes don't usually work on the hardware itself, as they're developed on a computer with them trying to optimise it for a console, meaning it will run better on computers than the hardware itself.
i wonder, what if we got ahold of an earlier build of Sonic & Knuckles that when attached to sonic 1, would it give us Sonic 1 & knuckles?
What happens if you put a Power Base Converter and a Master System cartridge on top of Sonic & Knuckles?
Do we have any idea of the date of this build of the game? As it looks about 70% complete compared to the finished game and with all of the general themes of the zones in place too.
Probably in early 1991, just some months before Sonic 1's final release was released.
This build is just one of these of the Mid-Prereleases Builds, after the WCES Builds (months after Sonic 1's 1990 Tokyo Toy Show Build)
can you make an BDIWORH video on Sonic 1: 8-Bit Overloaded?
To be honest i never thought people would ever find a Sonic 1 prototype build!
Edit: fun fact - someone who was working on the genesis rearangements of Masato Nakamura's demo songs he composed in this game accidently made the snare sample higher pitch, which is what we all hear today instead of what we can hear on the prototype.
Just for some people who wondered why there is no W in CLOCK WORK ZONE's title card, it's simple. There is no W sprite in that font style in the files. There are some Sonic ROM hackers who had the initiative to use the M in MARBLE ZONE as a W by simply flipping the letter itself!
Your link to Hidden Palace is broken; it's missing a ) at the end.
Ooh, thanks for bringing that to my attention. I actually wasn't missing an end bracket but UA-cam was totally ignoring it. Changing that end bracket to a %29 has now fixed the issue.
When's the live stream?
7:09 & Knuckles
The ball at the start was kinda cool
So is the blue spheres stage an existing stage or a unique one generated by the Prototype?
A mix. What's happening is that Sonic & Knuckles generates reads the second game's header and, if it finds the word "SEGA" where it expects it to be, it'll create a semi-unique stage built out of 4 sections of which there are 128 to chose from.
In the description of the game tcr said that they would sell a copy of the prototype on Ebay