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I'm not familiar with that header, but by the sound of it, it sounds like it would be sort of a C struct with info about the ROM, not code. Isn't it possible that, if Nintendo had written the header in the ROM they're selling, it would be exactly the same as any other ROM dump from out there?

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No. There's a string to identify the header in the file then a series of bit flags. You wouldn't create an identical header by accident

Nintendo either downloaded the ROM or used pirate tools to make it.

Or they just re-used the format because it already exists and works perfectly well. Don't forget, the "format" in question is just a 16-byte header, it's trivial enough that it would actually be more effort to come up with a brand new format (with absolutely no benefit) than to just re-use the existing 16-byte header definition.

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