Ultimate Cart (SD multicart) - Technical thread

[+orpheuswaking]

Hi Robin.

 

Thank you for the last cart.

 

Here is my case. Came out very well, except the back..Did not position right so a larger hole that I wanted.

 

But I also made a hole on the front so that I can see the LED...shown in last picture in my XEGS.

 

Works great also in my A400, if I don't close the door

 

Thanks again

Glen

 

Very cool, didn't think about making a hole for the LED, but that's a great idea. (Originally I was going to try to reroute it)

[Glen's Retro Show]

Thank you.

 

Yea I figured the LED was there, and no one who put it in a cart can see the mode its in. So I added the hole and works very well. Here are some more case pic's if it can help anyone.

 

[santosp]

Yes seeing the led out of the cart, is very cool and practical. That is why in my latest redesign PCB, I place the led on top right edge of cartridge. Someone can make a 2mm hole in face, or alternate to solder a through hole 3mm led that looks on top side.

[+orpheuswaking]

Yes seeing the led out of the cart, is very cool and practical. That is why in my latest redesign PCB, I place the led on top right edge of cartridge. Someone can make a 2mm hole in face, or alternate to solder a through hole 3mm led that looks on top side.

Don't make me regret not getting in on your second run

[Panther]

Santos just always has to make improvements, doesn't he!

[+remowilliams]

I actually drilled a hole for the LED and then found it annoying - so just placed the label over it anyway

[+S.D.W.]

Here is a pic of my completed cart.

Edited April 23, 2016 by 917k

[+eebuckeye]

Man I hope someone offers a 3d printed version for sale (or even regular cart).

[retango]

Hi, I just talked to Corei64, he makes 3D printed cases for many retro devices (www.corei64.com/store/), and he is a member here at AtariAge (COREi64). I have many of his cases and they are excellent quality - very solid and fit prefectly-. He is interested in making cases for the Ultimate Cart.. I will lend him my "version 1" of the board so he can make the design.. If someone has a "version 2" from santosSP, and also a grey Atari cart you can lend him (he is in the US), he will surely be able to make an excellent Ultimate Cart case! Regards!

[+Stephen]

Hi, I just talked to Corei64, he makes 3D printed cases for many retro devices (www.corei64.com/store/), and he is a member here at AtariAge (COREi64). I have many of his cases and they are excellent quality - very solid and fit prefectly-. He is interested in making cases for the Ultimate Cart.. I will lend him my "version 1" of the board so he can make the design.. If someone has a "version 2" from santosSP, and also a grey Atari cart you can lend him (he is in the US), he will surely be able to make an excellent Ultimate Cart case! Regards!

Awesome - does he provide the STL files for printing, or only sell the finished cases?

[David Alexander]

Hi, I just talked to Corei64, he makes 3D printed cases for many retro devices (www.corei64.com/store/), and he is a member here at AtariAge (COREi64). I have many of his cases and they are excellent quality - very solid and fit prefectly-. He is interested in making cases for the Ultimate Cart.. I will lend him my "version 1" of the board so he can make the design.. If someone has a "version 2" from santosSP, and also a grey Atari cart you can lend him (he is in the US), he will surely be able to make an excellent Ultimate Cart case! Regards!

 

Hello, is there anyway we can get a cart shell that fits the PCB board but also is slim enough that it will fit into an Atari 400/800. Glen made a video demonstrating that the Ultimate Cart will work on the older pre-XL line. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTjZSBeQyzI

[gozar]

The Ultimate works in an unexpanded 400, but it's too tall for the door to shut. The problem isn't any cases.

 

If the board had a micro sd slot it would work fine.

 

I just had an idea, I wonder if something like this would work:

Spinido MicroSd Card Adapter for Macbook Air / Pro/ Retina - Black http://www.amazon.com/Spinido-MicroSd-Adapter-Macbook-Retina/dp/B013UF7BL2/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&ref_=cm_sw_r_cp_awd_SNRhxbTQPV7N1&linkCode=ll1&tag=atariage&linkId=6ef11316cd1bedba092a11db1756df58

 

I just ordered one.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[David Alexander]

The Ultimate works in an unexpanded 400, but it's too tall for the door to shut. The problem isn't any cases.

 

If the board had a micro sd slot it would work fine.

 

I just had an idea, I wonder if something like this would work:

Spinido MicroSd Card Adapter for Macbook Air / Pro/ Retina - Black https://www.amazon.com/dp/B013UF7BL2/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awd_SNRhxbTQPV7N1

 

I just ordered one.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

Ok let us know how it works out. Thanks.

[mulcmu]

I ordered one of these right away too...

 

Looks like it would work well for the intended purpose. Enough sticks out to remove it easily on the bare PCB. With the PCB in a shell, end of the adapter should be pretty much even with top of the shell.

 

[flashjazzcat]

My spare cart, in the process of being lovingly cased up by yours truly:

 

 

I'll hopefully be putting the finished article up for sale shortly.

[seastalker]

So is this cart the latest and greatest? I wish there was a flash cart feature comparison guide.

[+MrFish]

The original design for this cart was to accommodate loading of ROM/Cartridge files, with a high degree of compatibility with the various banking schemes available -- something that had not been available in past years. The other objective was to have a simple and quick way of loading the ROM's onto the flash drive accessed by the device, something that was not the case with another more recent and similarly geared device. Having accomplished the goal, XEX binary load file compatibility was added, expanding the capability of the device. As far as I know, it does not load ATR's yet, although this was discussed at one point.

 

Yes, I think it's a good idea that some feature comparison chart for all the different ROM / XEX / ATR loading devices were available to help people decide what might be best for them. There is a lot of crossover of features between devices, a lot of devices up for consideration, and no device that currently "does it all", and/or "does it best". There are some comparisons in the thread for "Newbies" in this forum. But I don't know if some of the more recent devices have been covered there.

Edited May 15, 2016 by MrFish

[seastalker]

Already right there you've provided information that I haven't found anywhere else. Thank you! I didn't know how the creators managed to load atr files from the cartridge slot. So, even with a flash cart I'd still need a solution for loading most games, since they are in ATR format. In emulation, I never liked switching disk sides. Perhaps off topic, but has anyone made Atari file format conversion software to trick hardware into thinking an ATR is a cart? Or taking a game with multiple sides and disks and combining them into one file where in game, it auto-switches sides behind the scenes?

[+MrFish]

One thing you bring up here shows that it's also necessary to understand how the library of Atari 8-bit software is covered/distributed in terms of media. It also points to why a device such as this (Ultimate Cart) was created in the first place. Almost all ROM games have been converted to XEX files at this point. Also, a vast majority of ATR disk games have been converted to XEX (or the single binary file has just been extracted from the ATR, which was all that was necessary in many cases). So why would a device be necessary to load ROM's if they're available as XEX's already? One reason being that the larger ROM games -- such as those produced for the XEGS -- require more than the standard 64K to run when converted to XEX format, and in many cases more than the 128K available standard on a 130XE.

 

So the advantage here (with the Ultimate Cart) is that you have a device that will allow you to run these, typically more advanced games, on an unexpanded system, without owning the original cartridge. By throwing in XEX compatibility on the device, you then have the larger remaining portion of the library available. There still exist a fair amount of games that will require using ATR's though, especially in the simulation game realm. So your statement about needing a device to load ATR's because "most games" are in that (ATR) format is wrong. On the other hand, I wouldn't want to be without a device for loading disks/ATR's, for the reason stated above, and several other reasons.

Edited May 15, 2016 by MrFish

[Shawn Jefferson]

Perhaps off topic, but has anyone made Atari file format conversion software to trick hardware into thinking an ATR is a cart? Or taking a game with multiple sides and disks and combining them into one file where in game, it auto-switches sides behind the scenes?

 

You can't really "trick hardware into thinking an ATR is a cart", buy you can trick the system into thinking a cartridge is a disk, or multiple disks. That's what the AtariMax cartridge system does. First of all it patches the OS (on the XL/XE only) to make the sector read routines read a sector from the cartridge rather than the disk. This works great for single sided games (with a few caveats, see below).

 

However, for multiple disk games you need to do some disassembly and patching of the game itself. This is how multiple disk games like Summer Games and Conan were done. Basically, the code is found that wants a disk swap, and patched to load from drive #2 (or #3, or #4, etc...) and the patched OS sector read code just reads a bit further up in the cartridge for those additional disks.

 

Games that write to disk need some additional code and hacking. All the Ultima game conversions to AtariMax cartridge are an example of this. In those cases, the game code that writes sectors to disk needs to be taken out and code that writes to the flash in the cartridge inserted instead.

 

Caveats: games that implement their own I/O routines instead of going through the OS I/O would need some additional hacking. Also games that try to use the RAM under the OS themselves will also cause some problems.

 

[flashjazzcat]

Aforementioned cased cart for sale in Marketplace:

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/252968-fs-cased-ultimate-sd-cartridge-for-xlxe/

Edited May 24, 2016 by flashjazzcat

[lucifershalo]

I am interested in an Ultimate SC Cartridge if stil possible....

[Neo-Rio]

 

You can't really "trick hardware into thinking an ATR is a cart", buy you can trick the system into thinking a cartridge is a disk, or multiple disks.

 

But I gather you could trick the Atari into thinking that the cart is an SIO device if you had a SIO cable attached to the cartridge to simultaneously use it as a disk drive.

 

That's the approach the 1541U2 cart does for the Commodore 64.

...or say, the Final Exapansion 3 cart for the Vic-20

Edited May 24, 2016 by Neo-Rio

[Kyle22]

Please, we are not commies. That sounds like a very ugly device. You would have trouble in a 400/800 because of the cart door. Just get an Ultimate cart and one of the many SIO2 devices. U1M or Incognito also work well with it.

[Neo-Rio]

Please, we are not commies. That sounds like a very ugly device. You would have trouble in a 400/800 because of the cart door. Just get an Ultimate cart and one of the many SIO2 devices. U1M or Incognito also work well with it.

 

Sure, but it's probably the only way to have your Atari "all-in-one" device.

...and theoretically you don't need to have the cable to the cartridge permanently attached. An SIO socket on the cart will do if you don't use the functionality or if your 400/800 has cart bay issues.