Omnimaga

General Discussion => Technology and Development => Other => Topic started by: Keoni29 on April 16, 2012, 04:18:33 pm

Title: 128k multi cartridge for A2600
Post by: Keoni29 on April 16, 2012, 04:18:33 pm
I built this eprom cart to be able to play rare games on my atari2600. EP-rom stands for erasable programmable rom, so I can burn games onto it :)

(http://img.removedfromgame.com/imgs/rps20120416_182339.jpg)
(http://img.removedfromgame.com/imgs/rps20120415_173623.jpg)
(http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/7206/epromcart.png)

Edit: Now with 128k RAM instead of rom! Can hold 16 games!
Title: Re: EPROM cardridge (A2600)
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on April 16, 2012, 04:29:45 pm
This is nice. This includes homebrew, right? (assuming there are any homebrew roms)
Title: Re: EPROM cardridge (A2600)
Post by: Keoni29 on April 16, 2012, 06:30:21 pm
This is nice. This includes homebrew, right? (assuming there are any homebrew roms)
Yes, there are some cool homebrew games and demo's out there! I just have to build an eprom programmer to be able to burn rom images on it. I will also add some switches to select a game (one out of 16)
Title: Re: EPROM cardridge (A2600)
Post by: TIfanx1999 on April 17, 2012, 06:00:08 am
Hey, that's pretty damn cool! 8) +1
Title: Re: EPROM cardridge (A2600)
Post by: Keoni29 on April 17, 2012, 02:14:25 pm
I think I'll be able to make this work with my S-RAM chips too. My ram chips are 1k, but the pinouts are pretty much the same (but it has less adress pins)
Title: Re: EPROM cardridge (A2600)
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on April 25, 2012, 04:05:54 pm
Awesome. By the way this greatly reminds me of those NES cartridges that were sold years ago in which you could put a flash card and play NES roms in your real NES, along with other stuff. :)

Anybody remember that? http://www.retrousb.com/product_info.php?products_id=34
Title: Re: EPROM cardridge (A2600)
Post by: Eiyeron on April 25, 2012, 05:10:14 pm
+1ed. I like this sort of tools!
Title: Re: EPROM cardridge (A2600)
Post by: Juju on April 25, 2012, 05:13:05 pm
I want a NES... Or an Atari.

Badly.
Title: Re: EPROM cardridge (A2600)
Post by: Eiyeron on April 25, 2012, 05:23:15 pm
I have a NES :-°/me loves playing SMB3
Title: Re: EPROM cardridge (A2600)
Post by: Keoni29 on April 26, 2012, 05:50:39 am
Awesome. By the way this greatly reminds me of those NES cartridges that were sold years ago in which you could put a flash card and play NES roms in your real NES, along with other stuff. :)

Anybody remember that? http://www.retrousb.com/product_info.php?products_id=34
But... that one costs 120 gold coins. Mine cost about 1 euro and 5 hrs to make (dang wires :P)
Title: Re: EPROM cardridge (A2600)
Post by: Eiyeron on April 26, 2012, 08:03:49 am
Ouyah the PRICE!/me will stand with his own NES and his Emulator :-°
Title: Re: EPROM cardridge (A2600)
Post by: Keoni29 on April 26, 2012, 09:22:50 am
It's cheaper to buy reproduction cardridges :P
Title: Re: EPROM cardridge (A2600)
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on April 26, 2012, 04:10:17 pm
Awesome. By the way this greatly reminds me of those NES cartridges that were sold years ago in which you could put a flash card and play NES roms in your real NES, along with other stuff. :)

Anybody remember that? http://www.retrousb.com/product_info.php?products_id=34
But... that one costs 120 gold coins. Mine cost about 1 euro and 5 hrs to make (dang wires :P)
Gold coins? ???

But yeah it's quite expensive compared to yours. How did you get all the stuff for 1 euro, though? I bet here at The Source it would cost $19.99 per part O.O
Title: Re: EPROM cardridge (A2600)
Post by: Keoni29 on March 17, 2013, 09:53:27 am
Bump. I modified the cartridge so it works with a RAM chip. It's powered by a small battery when it's not plugged in the atari so it retains the data. I featured it on my website:
 http://8times8.host56.com/
Title: Re: EPROM cardridge (A2600)
Post by: utz on March 17, 2013, 11:39:15 am
Wow, another great project of yours'! No more reason to shell out 80 bucks for a harmony cart ;)
I'll definately try to build one of those. Also your new site is looking good ;)
Title: Re: EPROM cardridge (A2600)
Post by: Keoni29 on March 17, 2013, 03:55:06 pm
Thank you, utz. Do you need the cartridge labels as well? I printed mine on glossy photo paper and they look really nice :D
Title: Re: EPROM cardridge (A2600)
Post by: TIfanx1999 on March 18, 2013, 01:45:46 am
Very nice! :D
Title: Re: EPROM cardridge (A2600)
Post by: utz on March 18, 2013, 07:18:05 am
Thank you, utz. Do you need the cartridge labels as well? I printed mine on glossy photo paper and they look really nice :D

Hehe thanks, I might take you up on your offer eventually :)

At the moment, I have to take care of some other things... like, find a new space for myself and my 8bit collection (30+ machines). Once I have that, you should come over for a visit ;)
Title: Re: EPROM cardridge (A2600)
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on June 07, 2013, 11:49:53 pm
What kind of glue do you use to stick the labels on cartridges by the way? Can any kind that we use at school be used and/or do you just use sticky glossy paper or something? When making CDs and thinking about doing custom cartridge labels once, I always worried that they would just peel off with the years.
Title: Re: EPROM cardridge (A2600)
Post by: Keoni29 on June 08, 2013, 11:42:26 am
Whatever glue was in front of me. It peels off easily.
Title: Re: EPROM cardridge (A2600)
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on June 09, 2013, 01:16:41 am
Aw sorry to hear. D:

This is why I was often relunctant to buy SNES reproduction games (they're just reprogrammed NTSC cartridges with a translated ROM of a Japan-only game, but they looks really cool in your collection), because I was worried I would get one with a label that peels off or uses the wrong kind of paper.
Title: Re: EPROM cardridge (A2600)
Post by: Keoni29 on June 09, 2013, 03:49:31 pm
Yeah I am in the process of making a snes/nes reproduction cartridge myself, but I have to make this flash-rom programmer work first (just a pc motherboard with a little daughterboard).
Title: Re: EPROM cardridge (A2600)
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on June 10, 2013, 03:36:56 pm
You should post pics when it's ready. I am curious what people use to make cartridges like that :P
Title: Re: EPROM cardridge (A2600)
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on June 11, 2013, 12:32:20 pm
Bump: By the way, do you use Batari BASIC to write Atari 2600 programs and stuff? I wonder if it's any good? I heard it made development much easier since it does the graphical and other hard work for you, but is it really true? Because this is an example of game that it can do and I was surprised at how fast it ran:



Does the code look like TI-BASIC and such stuff or does it still require plenty of ASM knowledge?
Title: Re: EPROM cardridge (A2600)
Post by: TIfanx1999 on June 24, 2013, 10:28:53 am
A buddy of mine actually has the BASIC cartridge for his Atari. I'd love to fool around with it, but he doesn't have any working controllers at the moment. *edit* That's actually a pretty awesome looking mario game. A similar graphic style could easily be used on the Z80 calcs for a mario game. :D
Title: Re: EPROM cardridge (A2600)
Post by: Keoni29 on June 24, 2013, 10:34:04 am
It's only 4KB, so I could put it on my cartridge. I am not sure if there is additional hardware required for this program though.
Title: Re: EPROM cardridge (A2600)
Post by: TIfanx1999 on June 24, 2013, 10:38:11 am
I don't think there is. My friend has no additional hardware as far as I know. Entering programs without a keyboard seems like it would be a major pain in the ass though. I wonder if the 2600 even had a keyboard accessory... I kind of doubt it though.
Title: Re: EPROM cardridge (A2600)
Post by: Keoni29 on June 24, 2013, 10:57:33 am
I mean inside the cartridge: extra ram etc.
Title: Re: EPROM cardridge (A2600)
Post by: TIfanx1999 on June 24, 2013, 12:08:46 pm
Oh, right. No idea.
Bump: By the way, do you use Batari BASIC to write Atari 2600 programs and stuff? I wonder if it's any good? I heard it made development much easier since it does the graphical and other hard work for you, but is it really true? Because this is an example of game that it can do and I was surprised at how fast it ran:



Does the code look like TI-BASIC and such stuff or does it still require plenty of ASM knowledge?

I actually missed that you said Batari BASIC. Apparently the cartridge BASIC that was distrubted was super limited and only allowed 11 lines of code! <a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BASIC_Programming> Atari 2600 BASIC</a> It also seems very unlikely that Atari BASIC used any extra hardware inside the cartridge due to how limited it was.

*Edit* Also, where did you see that this was made in BASIC DJ? I'm probably overlooking it, but i don't see it listed anywhere.  ???
Title: Re: EPROM cardridge (A2600)
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on June 24, 2013, 04:56:47 pm
A buddy of mine actually has the BASIC cartridge for his Atari. I'd love to fool around with it, but he doesn't have any working controllers at the moment. *edit* That's actually a pretty awesome looking mario game. A similar graphic style could easily be used on the Z80 calcs for a mario game. :D
Or maybe Lua on the Nspire, because tiles are slow apparently there, while plain color squares are very fast.

As for the Mario game I think it was mentionned by the author in Youtube comments or a forum. I think Batari BASIC might be a different BASIC language than your cartridge, since it seems to be able to do much complex stuff (although of course it's more limited than ASM).
Title: Re: EPROM cardridge (A2600)
Post by: Keoni29 on June 25, 2013, 03:32:13 am
Batari is like VB. (the full name is visual batari basic) You can also do low level stuff with it: register writes to sprite registers, sound registers and video registers.
Title: Re: EPROM cardridge (A2600)
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on June 25, 2013, 12:14:22 pm
Ah I see, that seems nice, but I hope it's not a direct port of VB or something lol, because I did not have a very good experience with VB when it comes to language speed. >.<
Title: Re: EPROM cardridge (A2600)
Post by: Keoni29 on June 28, 2013, 09:41:33 am
It's pre-interpreted and stuff, so it's fine. I have not done anything fancy with it yet though.
Title: Re: 128k multi cartridge for A2600
Post by: Keoni29 on November 19, 2013, 05:14:28 am
Holds up to 16 games. Games can be 2,4 or 8k using the bankswitching hardware in the cartridge!

Title: Re: 128k multi cartridge for A2600
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on November 19, 2013, 12:39:33 pm
That is pretty cool. I wonder if a cartridge that is 128K but allowed bankswitching between that entire pool of memory would be possible on the 2600 or if there are code size limitations? If making such cartridges was easy, someone could have done a large adventure game with password-based saves. :P
Title: Re: 128k multi cartridge for A2600
Post by: Keoni29 on November 19, 2013, 12:55:21 pm
It is possible, but you'd need a lot of hardware for your bankswitching. You'd need a programmable logic device to house this large bankswitching circuit.