mamejay Posted March 14, 2014 Share Posted March 14, 2014 Hey guys, I have been playing around with burning eproms and installing them into 4kb game boards using a hex inverter. I made up a board with a socket on it for testing. I am using a 2732 eprom. I was successful with writing a few 4kb games like Enduro. I decided to try Halo 2600. It starts with the title screen but once I hit the fire button it shows the first screen and part of my character. I cannot move and it sounds like the gun is just firing. I re-read the eprom and it loads fine in my Harmony cart as well is in an emulator. It also compares exactly to the binary file. I have tried all version inclusing the PAL PAL60 and NTSC versions as I have both PAL and NTSC Ataris. Unfortunately I only have the one 2732 eprom at the moment so for each test I need to uv erase it. Anyone got any ideas of what could be going wrong? I have also tried a different 74LS04 hex inverter in case it was that causing the issues but its not. Attached is a picture I found on here somewhere showing exactly how I have my board setup. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wickeycolumbus Posted March 14, 2014 Share Posted March 14, 2014 Very strange. The other 4K games you tried worked? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mamejay Posted March 14, 2014 Author Share Posted March 14, 2014 Sure have. I have some new EPROMs on their way so I will test with those. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wickeycolumbus Posted March 14, 2014 Share Posted March 14, 2014 Let us know how it goes. The only thing I can think of is it may be some type of copy protection, maybe the game can detect if it is being run on an emulator or Harmony somehow? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jhd Posted March 17, 2014 Share Posted March 17, 2014 The only thing I can think of is it may be some type of copy protection, maybe the game can detect if it is being run on an emulator or Harmony somehow? Some systems do use self-modifying code as a form of copy protection -- writes to a ROM will have no effect, but when the game is running in RAM, the code will be changed. I have never heard of a 2600 game using this method, but it could be the case. There was at least one primitive game copier BITD that used a tape casette and 4K of RAM to copy cartridges. It was published in Popular Electronics (or a similar magazine). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mamejay Posted March 18, 2014 Author Share Posted March 18, 2014 I did have success burning halo a few months ago using the exact same test board and EPROM type and also rom image. Have no idea what has changed since. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enthusi Posted March 18, 2014 Share Posted March 18, 2014 MIGHT be a too slow EPROM for some reason? That could be something that would cause issued for _some_ but not all games. Just an idea. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mamejay Posted March 24, 2014 Author Share Posted March 24, 2014 MIGHT be a too slow EPROM for some reason? That could be something that would cause issued for _some_ but not all games. Just an idea. Looks like you were correct. Received more nos EPROMs and tested today and all working perfectly. That was straight though as they are exactly the same EPROMs. Could be a problem with the one I was using. Anyway live and learn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wickeycolumbus Posted March 25, 2014 Share Posted March 25, 2014 Glad everything is working now! What a strange situation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iddod Posted October 31, 2014 Share Posted October 31, 2014 glad i found this thread, cos i've just built my very first eprom based board with a space invaders donor card and the Halo2600_Final.bin on the 2732 chip... and i had the exact same results... i only have PAL VCSs and i was assuming that the trouble i was having was down to the rom being NTSC (the board wouldn't even boot on one of my consoles, i ended up swapping out the chip for a socket and reburning the eprom, with the same results, it was only when i tried another console that i realised the board wasn't fubar'd... also, i wasn't even aware that there was a PAL version of the rom (i'd love to use that instead, if anyone has it) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
classiccollector Posted October 31, 2014 Share Posted October 31, 2014 PAL Versions should be here: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/166916-halo-for-the-2600-released-at-cge-download-the-game-here/?p=2157298 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mef Posted November 12, 2014 Share Posted November 12, 2014 Hi mamejay & iddod It might be a similar issue to the one I'm having with my multicart as well. http://atariage.com/forums/topic/230462-atari-2600-jr-pal-compability-issues-please-advise/ Till now I thought that it's just a shitty TIA from the last production runs made by UMC (1991!), but got the very same results with Warlords and certain Demos on my multicart -- when using an early short rainbow JR (recently purchased for the sole purpose of finding out whether its real compability issue or something else to blame). Could either of you try burning Warlords or Tom/Jones by Trilobit on those faulty setups, for comparison? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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