"Remove Cartridge" Errors

[video game addict]

This is really starting to piss me off!

 

OK, I've only got an 800XL & the XEGS, I'm trying to test out some of my original disk software, damned EA games that are 400/800 only. I have the Translator disk, and I can load that fine, and then it tells me to insert the game disk and hit "Select". Now doing so brings up the stupid Remove Cartridge error!

 

So I have been trying to hold Option, which bypassed that, while hitting Select after hiting select and tapping it while hitting select, all sorts of ways for the past half hour, and everytime I get it to take off, the Remove Rom at $C000 error displays! I get the EA screen for a few seconds and then it goes black and that stupid error!

 

I don't understand why it's giving me that when I have already loaded the translator, does hitting the "option" reset the computer somehow? I need to hit that inorder to bypass the other remove error.

[Nukey Shay]

Don't you hold down option when first turning the computer on (i.e. when booting Translator), then hit select after inserting the game disk? Have you tried the software without the Translator? (IIRC, only a handful of "big name" titles won't work without it).

[Bryan]

Yeah, you have to hold option when you 1st turn on the computer. Otherwise you boot Translator with BASIC enabled (it will say [CARTRIDGE INSERTED]). You can release Option as soon as the blue boot screen appears (actually, even before that, since the test for Option is done fairly early in the init process, but I digress...wait for the screen to come up.). You do not have to press it when you press Select from within Translator.

 

What old games are complaining?

 

-Bry

[video game addict]

Thanks! That did the trick! I didn't realize you have to disable basic before you load the translator, I've never even used it before but it loaded fine on it's own, just that the game wouldn't start after I put it in. And you're right it did say something like cartridge present, but I thought that meant the translator itself.

 

But it works like a champ now! Mule was the game I was tring to get working, I also have some othger EA games I've never used, Archon I & II, Julius Erving & Larry Bird, Severn Cites of Gold, and a few others. I just know some of them need the translator and others probably don't but I haven't went threw and tested all yet. I just got a pile of disks from ebay that had the translator disk with it, and I'm finally pulling out these games to test. I'm planning on selling them, as I continue to trim down some of my Atari collections, and I much prefer carts to disks. But I hate selling stuff untested, so I've been holding on to some things for awhile waiting until I found the translator.

[Bryan]

BASIC originally was a cartridge (for the 400/800), but in the XL/XE the BASIC ROM is internal, and is enabled (as if the cartridge had been inserted) by the OS based on the status of the Option key at start-up.

 

Glad to hear you've gotten it working!

 

-Bry

[Nukey Shay]

Also, many software titles state that they are for the "400/800" simply because the XL's weren't around yet...or simply just because it referred to the Atari platform in general. Most of those will load fine without the Translator.

[video game addict]

Is there anyway to use the translator disk with 400/800 only carts? I would love to be able to play Shamus again!

[Nukey Shay]

I don't think so. Most cartridges load up without giving you the option of accessing a disk drive. But if you were to make a dump of the cartridge to a binary load file, it would probably work. The catch here is that most cartridges use a method of copy-protection...usually attempting to "write over" themselves. If the original cart is being used, this will have no effect (since the cartridge is Rom). But if it's in Ram (i.e. loaded from a disk), it can corrupt itself. There were a few backup programs made that could backup cartridges to disk files and bypass these security measures (like the Impersonator, which tricks the hardware to detect a cartridge being present...or Scanalyzer, which would flag suspect routines during the disassembly so you could edit them and remove the C/P). But your best bet is probably using an SIO2PC cable...so you can just load up an .atr file version of the game.

 

The way that the Translator works is that the XL's operating system is "swapped out", and the older OS is loaded into the underlying Ram. So when programs are calling routines within the OS (instead of using the jump vectors in the kernal), the program is jumping to the right subroutines.

[Bryan]

Wrathchild made a fixed copy of Shamus that doesn't require translator, but you'll need a way to get files to the 8-bit (such as APE).

 

-Bry

[+Mitch]

My translator cart (made by Video 61) works fine with carts.

 

Mitch

[Goochman]

Is there anyway to use the translator disk with 400/800 only carts? I would love to be able to play Shamus again!

 

I think the Sunmark Synapse Multicart includes a version of SHamus that is XE compatible????

[Callipygous]

All of the EA games should work right out of the box with BASIC disabled. The only exception is an early version of MULE that they revised pretty quickly.