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THE!CART... New 128MB FLASH Cartridge


mega-hz

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Hello, is there a way to get the 32kb Williams CARs to work?

Wiliams 32k is not of of the emulated bank switching schemes, but Wiliams 64k is. You can see the content types that are emulated by the The!Cart in the The!Cart Studio help. They have an "The!Cart Mode" value.

 

post-17404-0-89043400-1521071525.png

 

But looking at the scheme definition I'd say padding the file with 32k of zero to be 64k should solve the problem.

+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+

| Type 8: 64 KB Williams cartridge |

+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+

The cartridge has 8 banks mapped to $A000-$BFFF. An access to $D500 selects bank 0, $D501 - bank 1, etc. An access to $D508-$D50F disables the cartridge.

+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+

| Type 22: 32 KB Williams cartridge |

+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+

The cartridge has 4 banks mapped to $A000-$BFFF. An access to $D500 selects bank 0, $D501 - bank 1, etc. An access to $D508-$D50F disables the cartridge.

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I put it into an original classic Atari Case

 

http://wolfsoft.de/wordpress/?p=2663

 

Now I need some help. Does anybody made a template for the “old classic” cartridges.

 

Needed Dimension, Fonts colors…, position ?

 

Very nice one commander! Now I can imagine how this would have looked like in 1979 - I'll add that to my site once I have a working setup again. Yet looking at the effort you've put in there I'm really happy we found a more scaleable alternative for us ;-)

 

From biobern's basement today: Good progress with the 2nd print run.

post-17404-0-46046800-1521071871.jpg

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Wiliams 32k is not of of the emulated bank switching schemes, but Wiliams 64k is.

 

But looking at the scheme definition I'd say padding the file with 32k of zero to be 64k should solve the problem.

 

I don't know how to do this. Ahhm... how can I do this? ;)

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Thanks. Today I got my the!cart too.

 

I put it into an original classic Atari Case

 

http://wolfsoft.de/wordpress/?p=2663

 

Now I need some help. Does anybody made a template for the “old classic” cartridges.

 

Needed Dimension, Fonts colors…, position ?

 

 

thecart-8.jpg

 

thecart-11.jpg

So, does THE!CART board just drop in and fit right without modification to the original Atari cart case? I'm thinking about doing this myself once I get mine. I have a couple extra BASIC's and Pac-Man's laying about. I might decide I like the 3D-printed case though...with a couple small aesthetic surface changes.

 

Duh...never mind, I just totally blanked out the link you posted. I happen to have everything required on-hand! :thumbsup:

Edited by Gunstar
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Still my PC with Atari stuff is out of order, but tonight I spent some hours at Bernhard's place. After spending several hours on fixing one of his Vetrexes (man THAT is a weird hardware), we turned towards The!Cart. We successfully performed & tested the fix for the Atari 400, so the The!Cart V1 and V2 work 100% (read & write) by exchanging 2 resistors on the board. It was the first time I had to solder something in SMD, and it turned out to be a 2 minutes job. Thumbs up for tf_hh!

 

Also yesterday Tigerduck tested The!Cart V2 on his unmodified Atari 800. The V2 PCB has a prepared location where you can cut & solder an additional wire to a 2nd cart for the right slot. You can do that in case you absolutely don't want to fix the Atari 800's left port for modern carts as described here

https://www.wudsn.com/index.php/productions-atari800/tools/thecart/atari-800-fix

I'll provide details, once I can update my site again.

 

Yet also there are some bad news: Wolfram has been sick and in bed for two weeks now. He hopes to be back on track next week, so he can proceed with the shipments.

post-17404-0-89419700-1521334265_thumb.jpg

post-17404-0-01635500-1521334285_thumb.jpg

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  • 3 weeks later...

I get more and more requests about the shippment status.

But since all the sending is done by mega_hz, I cannot answer this myself.

He has send out the first bunch an some already arrived.

So please be patient - or flood him with mails to get him going :-)

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I get more and more requests about the shippment status.

But since all the sending is done by mega_hz, I cannot answer this myself.

He has send out the first bunch an some already arrived.

So please be patient - or flood him with mails to get him going :-)

 

He answered me one line, that he did not ship yet. I know this is a hobby project, and I'm not in a rush. A slightly more detailed communication will help though.

One of the persons here on AtariAge who does this absolutely fabulous is tf_hh ... his emails about progress are simply amazing.

 

I'll wait, but I hope he will find time to complete this.

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He answered me one line, that he did not ship yet. I know this is a hobby project, and I'm not in a rush. A slightly more detailed communication will help though.

One of the persons here on AtariAge who does this absolutely fabulous is tf_hh ... his emails about progress are simply amazing.

 

I'll wait, but I hope he will find time to complete this.

Something a bit more is needed. Here I am looking everyday for my Xmas present to myself, and am starting to wonder if I will get it by Xmas...a year late...I can wait, just wondering...

Edited by Gunstar
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If I am not wrong, I can flash The Cart with Maxflash USB programmer, isn't it?

Easier and faster than ATR programming.

No you can't. When The!Cart was designed in 2011 the goal was to not require any additional hardare (other than a SIO connection) and a regular Atari. Flashing the first time with maximum speed and a 90% full ROM takes around 5h. Updates then only flash the delta (incremental flashing) within minutes. The AtariMax flash is proprietary and closed source and from a commercial vendor selling carts himself. No way he'd cooperate anyway. Also with only 100 The!Cart V1, then upfront investment would have been too high.

 

But: Now that the 2nd run is out and we have the option to provide more on request in future, I see a chance to also get an USB option. I've been in contact with somebody who did such things before. Nothing I can promise, but yes, it's on the list.

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Any news in the shipping phase? Like I write always (and again this time) I'm not in a hurry, and I understand this is hobby... so you can take my word that I'm not in a hurry.

 

But the fact that I hear almost nothing, and that the only information is coming to me when I take action, is a bad thing. Please improve this. You people get my money, I even pay an extra money as a donation because there went something wrong in assembly of the pcb's, but almost zero communication? Come on, there is no need for that.

 

As written before: please look how tf_hh does his 'business'. There is a lot of communication going on with him. Excellent. In every phase of the production/payment/shipping there is an e-mail from him. If things get delayed there is an e-mail from him.

 

I repeat it one more time: no, I'm not in a hurry, and yes I fully understand it is a hobby and that people have their own life with struggles and priorities. All fully respected by me. But the incredible long period of silence, silence, silence and more silence is something I find hard to accept. I have no idea what is going on. From the outside it looks like there is a problem, and that makes me insecure. I would like to know what is going, and when I could expect my package to arrive or when it will be shipped.

 

Thanks!

Edited by ProWizard
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Any news in the shipping phase? Like I write always (and again this time) I'm not in a hurry, and I understand this is hobby... so you can take my word that I'm not in a hurry.

 

But the fact that I hear almost nothing, and that the only information is coming to me when I take action, is a bad thing. Please improve this. You people get my money, I even pay an extra money as a donation because there went something wrong in assembly of the pcb's, but almost zero communication? Come on, there is no need for that.

 

As written before: please look how tf_hh does his 'business'. There is a lot of communication going on with him. Excellent. In every phase of the production/payment/shipping there is an e-mail from him. If things get delayed there is an e-mail from him.

 

I repeat it one more time: no, I'm not in a hurry, and yes I fully understand it is a hobby and that people have their own life with struggles and priorities. All fully respected by me. But the incredible long period of silence, silence, silence and more silence is something I find hard to accept. I have no idea what is going on. From the outside it looks like there is a problem, and that makes me insecure. I would like to know what is going, and when I could expect my package to arrive or when it will be shipped.

 

Thanks!

Ditto, can wait but updates would be nice so we don't feel like we have been forgotten.

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