Setting up a 512k cart

[+Ksarul]

If you are planning to use a ZIF, the only ones with thin pins that fit the board's holes are from Aries. They fit beautifully onto the Black 128Kx4 boards (I'll actually have one of those with me at Chicago), soldered directly to the board. The same strategy does not work with the 512K Red boards due to the positioning of one of the jumpers. For that one, you just insert the Aries ZIF into the regular socket and all is good to go, as that raises it up far enough to make everything work correctly. I had two of those made, but I sold both of them this week. . .I just have to dig out the rest of my Aries sockets to make some more (once I remember which parts box I put them in). Bonus is that the Aries sockets are also just about the highest quality ZIF sockets you can find, so they will last a good while.

 

As of last count, there are eight 512K images out there--seven from Gazoo and one from Acadiel. The one from Acadiel does not require a 32K memory expansion to work, while all of the Gazoo images require it.

[+OLD CS1]

I was sitting here thinking about how I left my TurboForth cart at home and how I will have to buy a new EPROM and then sit with one that is not in a usable state without an eraser and burner (neither of which I have.)

 

Got me to thinking: how difficult would it be to build a cart which can burn EPROMs contained within? Now I realize they would have to be erased if programmed already. I also figure we would need an outside power source for the burning process.

 

Was just a curious thought.

[Gazoo]

There will be erasers and burners at the Faire, as long as you've got your code you should be good to go.

 

I left my sheets of cart labels at home. But I think there might be someone there with some duplicates.

 

Gazoo

[Tempest]

Not that I think we'll find EA files for most of these, but here are the cartridge based games that are still missing:

 

Alpiner

Beyond Space (I think this is Beyond Parsec)

Championship Baseball

Demon Attack (prototype with different voice)

Fantasy

Red Baron Flight Simulator

Robotron 2084

Return to Pirates Isle

Sorgan II

Space Patrol

Star Runner

Starship Pegasus

Super Storm

The Attack (prototype with different sounds)

Tile Breaker (same as Break Thru?)

Tris-II

 

Beyond Space may just be Beyond Parsec, in fact I'm pretty sure it is (TI didn't like them using the Parsec name) and I think is read somewhere that Tile Breaker got rereleased as Break Thru later on. If those two are dups then we can take them off the list.

[+acadiel]

How about these prototypes?

 

I have a 6MB file of RPK files I'd be willing to give you the link to if you'd like.

 

plant_genetics.rpk

germ_patrol.rpk

wd_peter_pan_space_odyssee.rpk

wd_pinocchios_great_escape.rpk

wd_von_drakes_molecular_mission.rpk

[Fritz442]

Not that I think we'll find EA files for most of these, but here are the cartridge based games that are still missing:

 

Alpiner

Beyond Space (I think this is Beyond Parsec)

Championship Baseball

Demon Attack (prototype with different voice)

Fantasy

King of the Castle

Red Baron Flight Simulator

Robotron 2084

Return to Pirates Isle

Sorgan II

Space Patrol

Star Runner

Starship Pegasus

Super Storm

The Attack (prototype with different sounds)

Tile Breaker (same as Break Thru?)

Tris-II

 

Beyond Space may just be Beyond Parsec, in fact I'm pretty sure it is (TI didn't like them using the Parsec name) and I think is read somewhere that Tile Breaker got rereleased as Break Thru later on. If those two are dups then we can take them off the list.

 

If I'm not mistaken, King of the Castle is on game cart 2...(Escape) with 2 castles instead of 1.

Edited November 2, 2014 by Fritz442

[Tempest]

Is that what Escape is? Ok knock that one off the list. I'd add Major Tom in its place then (not a cartridge game, but there are a few disk based arcade games on these now anyway and it exists on EA 3 format).

 

Those other protos could go on another educational cart but I wouldn't call them games.

 

I can't believe Alpiner doesn't exist as a EA file. That was a mega popular game.

[+Ksarul]

Tempest, it all depends on the number of ROMs and GROMs used in the original cartridge. The maximum possible was two ROMs (which actually only gave 12K of program space using the original TI version of the bank switching schema) and five GROMs (for 30K of GROM space). This exceeds the space available in the 32K card--even without adding the glue loader to make the GROM files load and operate in the RAM space. The practical limit is a cartridge with four GROMs and no ROM or with three GROMs and a ROM. I'll have to look at one of the Alpiner boards I've shelled for the Rasmus cartridges, but I'm pretty sure it exceeds those loader constraints. You could do one more GROM if you were using a Super Space or a Mini Memory cartridge though (but you would also need a new loader designed for that).

 

Note that ANY original TI GROM/ROM cartridge with the exception of the MBX cartridges and the Mini Memory could be set up and run as a pure cartridge using the UberGROM board, as could any third-party cartridge designed for the cartridge port, with the exception of the Super Cart/Super Space memory expanding cartridges. The three known Side-port cartridges (Miner 2049er, Espial, and Hamsoft) would need code modification to work here, as they were generally 24K cartridges that did not expect to be bank-switched (they could be launched from the 32K space though).

 

Also note that there was one original TI cartridge that used more than two ROM banks--TI CALC. The UberGROM can replicate it as well.

 

This is one way for anyone interested in the mega-rare proto only cartridges to have their own cartridge of the program, without needing any specialized hardware to emulate it. . .

Edited November 3, 2014 by Ksarul

[Tempest]

I can't believe that Alpiner does anything special. There's nothing out of the ordinary about the game other than some speech.

 

Is Miner on one of the game cart compilations? If not I'll have to add it to the list.

 

I believe done of the Exceltec carts were side port carts as well (Killer Caterpillar, Arcturus, etc,).

[+Ksarul]

Ack, I did miss mentioning Killer Caterpillar and Arcturus (and I have an Arcturus cartridge!). It is the number of chips in the cart that make any given cart an issue--it is a pure size thing.

[Gazoo]

I can't believe that Alpiner does anything special. There's nothing out of the ordinary about the game other than some speech.

 

Alpiner doesn't do anything special, that's not the issue. It's the size of the code. There's simply not enough room to squeeze the Grom, Rom, AND the GPL converter into the 32k Ram space.

 

Gazoo

[Tursi]

I can't believe that Alpiner does anything special. There's nothing out of the ordinary about the game other than some speech.

 

The memory size that Ksarul described is NOT anything special. 8k ROM and 30k GROM is the standard, non-bank-switched no-extra-hardware-required capacity of the cartridge port.

 

Alpiner indeed used the full size - 8k ROM and 30k GROM. Although personally I have to imagine there is data that could be stripped to make it fit. Has it really never been ported to disk? (Sounds like a challenge! )

[Gazoo]

 

The memory size that Ksarul described is NOT anything special. 8k ROM and 30k GROM is the standard, non-bank-switched no-extra-hardware-required capacity of the cartridge port.

 

Alpiner indeed used the full size - 8k ROM and 30k GROM. Although personally I have to imagine there is data that could be stripped to make it fit. Has it really never been ported to disk? (Sounds like a challenge! )

 

Well, go ahead, I dare 'ya. (only because if I double-dared 'ya I'd have to do it )

 

Gazoo

[+Torrax]

Okay here is Alpiner from my collection.

 

 

alpiner&others.zip

[Omega-TI]

Awesome! Thanks!

[Tempest]

One more down.

[+remowilliams]

Was just giving some gamecarts a spin - thanks again Gazoo!

 

 

 

[+acadiel]

 

The memory size that Ksarul described is NOT anything special. 8k ROM and 30k GROM is the standard, non-bank-switched no-extra-hardware-required capacity of the cartridge port.

 

Alpiner indeed used the full size - 8k ROM and 30k GROM. Although personally I have to imagine there is data that could be stripped to make it fit. Has it really never been ported to disk? (Sounds like a challenge! )

 

There are a few 30K GROM and or 30K GROM + 8K ROM ones...

 

This whole list ought to be challenging

 

SMA Activity Accountant - 30K

Alpiner (as mentioned) - 30K + 8K

SMA Attendance Recorder - 30K

SMA Class Recorder - 30K

SMA Course Manager - 30K

Early Reading - 30K

ET At Sea - 30K + 8K

Fantasy - 30K + 8K

Germ Patrol (above) - 30K + 8K

Key to Spanish 1, 3, 4 - 30K + 8K

Multiplan - 30K

MB Games demo cart - 30K

Moonmine - 30K + 8K

Payroll Assistant SMA - 30K

PRK German and Italian - 30K

Peter Pan - 30K + 8K

Pinnochio - 30K + 8K

Reading Adventures, Cheers, Flight, Fun, On, Power, Rainbows, Rally, Roundup, Trail, Wonders - 30K

Return to Pirate's Aisle - 30K + 8K

Scholastic Spelling 3, 4, 5, 6 - 30K + 8K

Statistics (and German Variant) - 30K

TI Logo II (Italian variant) - 30K + 8K

TOD - 30K

Von Drake - 30K + 8K

Weight Control - 30K

 

I made a list that Ksarul added to; has probably most all known carts and what they use... https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AmwB5QkfV7DbdEE5SmdDV09tdG1FNzJnUGNSOTdtbHc&usp=sharing

[+acadiel]

Ack, I did miss mentioning Killer Caterpillar and Arcturus (and I have an Arcturus cartridge!). It is the number of chips in the cart that make any given cart an issue--it is a pure size thing.

 

I think Killer Caterpillar was only 16K, if I recall. Other than bypassing the V2.2 carts, not sure why they made it a sidecar.

[+Ksarul]

I had fun working on that list too. . .although I think it may still be missing a few of my later acquisitions. I need to check it again!

[Tempest]

So Fantasy is 30K + 8K? I wonder if that's why there's no standalone EA 5 version of it?

[+Ksarul]

That's a definite yes, Tempest--it just won't fit into expansion memory (unless you did some crazy shoehorning using a Super Cart, since that gives an additional 8K of memory--but it also only leaves 2K for your loader/GROM emulation code, and that may not be enough space either).

[Tempest]

Well someone made Alpiner fit, I'm sure someone can fix Fantasy (if they are so inclined).

[+acadiel]

That's a definite yes, Tempest--it just won't fit into expansion memory (unless you did some crazy shoehorning using a Super Cart, since that gives an additional 8K of memory--but it also only leaves 2K for your loader/GROM emulation code, and that may not be enough space either).

 

Has anyone ever posted what exactly the GROM emulation code is (i.e. it's origin, who wrote it, where it fits in memory, theory of operation, the size of it, etc)? I know there are supposedly multiple versions out in the wild; the one I had with DiskIt! was a 33 sector (8K) file that executed in lower memory expansion, leaving you a maximum of 24K of GROM (4 GROM carts). There was no way that ROM could be mapped.

 

I'm curious with these Alpiner and Parsec distributions that not only had full 8K ROM, but (in the case of Alpiner), a full 30K of GROM - so 38K, and you're shoe-horning 38K of code plus the loader (4K or 8K - I have no idea) into upper and lower memory expansion, which is 32K. Something's being trimmed somewhere.

[+Ksarul]

They're probably trimming some of the speech data, Acadiel. . .and I'm not sure where the loaders came from. I suspect one of them was on the disks TI put out as gifts to the community when they pulled out of the market, as Lasso was on those disks. . .

Edited November 8, 2014 by Ksarul