tobias_project Posted July 7, 2001 Share Posted July 7, 2001 hey all. i am developing a very keen interest in making my own carts.. i'm wondering if anybody has had experience with this? I've seen a site (that guy who makes carts with modern games and sells em) but maybe i missed it, i think he charges for info on cart making. i got the gist of it, erasing a common cart and then burning a new game onto it. here's where i need help. is it possible for an average joe to do this? I have above-average electronics experience, i know the basics in wiring and soldering etc.. but for this project: 1)what tools will i actually need? I need a list or something.. 2)is it a standard, downloadable ROM file that goes onto the cart? 3)does the rom stay in the cart permanently until i erase it? or does it fade away? 4)jesus, how to i burn a rom to a cart?! i really want to do this, some games i just can't get in my area and i just want to be able to play them. thanks for the help! carl Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tobias_project Posted July 7, 2001 Author Share Posted July 7, 2001 one little side note - a friend of mine told me he found out how to do the same thing with GBA carts! i don't know the details yet.. but is this also possible? please help me with the atari cart thing first tho, thanks! [ 07-06-2001: Message edited by: tobias_project ] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted July 7, 2001 Share Posted July 7, 2001 Try here: http://www.netway.com/~hozervideo/atari/makecart.html Mitch http://atari7800.atari.org Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tobias_project Posted July 7, 2001 Author Share Posted July 7, 2001 yeah that's the guy who'll send more detailed instructions if i buy a cart from him... which i don't really want to do. but he mentions an ep-rom burner, where can i get one of those? carl Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Posted July 7, 2001 Share Posted July 7, 2001 quote: Originally posted by tobias_project: one little side note - a friend of mine told me he found out how to do the same thing with GBA carts! i don't know the details yet.. but is this also possible? Yes, you can do this with a GBA. Check out these products. This is what makes the GBA 2600 emu more interesting. I don't know how much memory the emu would take, but you could sure fit a lot of 2600 ROMs on a 64MB cart. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted July 7, 2001 Share Posted July 7, 2001 If you have $$$... http://www.logicaldevices.com/products/pro...mmers/index.htm If you have a degree in electronic fabrication... http://www.zws.com/products/epromr2/epromr_stage1.html EPROM faq... http://www.arlabs.com/help.htm Short answer...there is no easy or cheap way into this. BTW you cannot usually "erase" a common cart, because these usually just contain ROM chips...which cannot be altered in any way. [ 07-06-2001: Message edited by: Nukey Shay ] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tobias_project Posted July 7, 2001 Author Share Posted July 7, 2001 ok, over the last couple of hours i've been cramming eprom info.. i found a lot of expensive burners, but also this cheap one: cheapy eprom burner... i'm going to ask the guy to see if he can build me one - or maybe someone here knows how - i'll pay! i think it will work with the 2532 / 2732 chips the atari needs.. ??? carl Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khryssun Posted July 7, 2001 Share Posted July 7, 2001 tobias_project, I plan to build this eprom burner too (they are very expensive to buy) isn't it to you I pointed this one ? or maybe another guy.... anyway.... my problem is to get the PCB. It must very difficult to wire the circuit using a eurocard ! all, I've questions about the backswitching support for games above 4k. I read somewhere that 8k carts and above need an extra chip for bankswitching. But a guy tells me there isn't extra chip in the asteroids cartridge (8k)... it's an obscur point for me. How it works ? If others 8k>= carts have an extra chip that support F8 bankswitching method (for exemple), I think it should works to replace the original game with another one (*) using the same F8 method ? anyone confirm ? (*)Adapting the Eprom pins connections and using the inverter of course Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tobias_project Posted July 7, 2001 Author Share Posted July 7, 2001 i am going to do some shopping today - see if i can find a reasonable priced eprom burner (hah, wish me luck!) - or at least some of the chips i'll use. there's a hardcore electronics shop close to me soo i'll let you know how it goes. i had an idea tho - since i don't have many duplicate common carts for when i actually do get my burner working, i was thinking about making just one cart, wiring a ZIF socket to it so i can just easily switch chips when i want to play different games, if this works i'll make a custom case for it and have a kinda universal cart. that is, if this will work. i don't even know if i can get a sif socket of the right size. we'll see - it's a fun project to start anyway. once i get more adavnced with this i'll move to the dip switching multi-carts. carl [ 07-07-2001: Message edited by: tobias_project ] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khryssun Posted July 7, 2001 Share Posted July 7, 2001 Thanks Eckhard, it's clear for me now do you know someone who has built a homebrew card using bankswitching ? Is there any info available about how to "recreate the bankswitching logic with some standard logic chips" ? By another way... About the SECAM palette have you read my last post ? http://www.atariage.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb...c&f=16&t=000433 I confirm new colors : light grey in yars' revenge (PAL)... I'll post more infos whithin 2 weeks about that. [ 07-07-2001: Message edited by: khryssun ] [ 07-07-2001: Message edited by: khryssun ] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tobias_project Posted July 8, 2001 Author Share Posted July 8, 2001 it's tough enough to find an eprom burner that supports 2532 chips - all take 2732, a chip easier to find in stores too, but i think are harder to set up to make your own carts. does anyone know about using a 2732 eprom for atari 2600 games? once i learn how to use those chips i'm on my way. carl Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eckhard Stolberg Posted July 8, 2001 Share Posted July 8, 2001 quote: Originally posted by khryssun: I've questions about the backswitching support for games above 4k. I read somewhere that 8k carts and above need an extra chip for bankswitching. But a guy tells me there isn't extra chip in the asteroids cartridge (8k)... it's an obscur point for me. How it works ? The VCS can only address 4K of game ROM. For anything above that you'd need some special circuit that toggles the highest address line when a certain memory address is accessed for example. Since the ROM chips in the VCS games are specifically made for a certain game, it's no problem to add these logic functions to the chip as well. But if you want to create a bankswitching game from a standard EPROM chip, you need to recreate the bankswitching logic with some standard logic chips too. As for finding a cheap EPROM burner, have you tried some auction sites like ebay? Sometimes older EPROM burners that can only do smaller EPROM types can be found at a reasonable price there. And since VCS games are very small anyway, these EPROM burners might be ideal for your purpose. Ciao, Eckhard Stolberg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eckhard Stolberg Posted July 8, 2001 Share Posted July 8, 2001 Christian, Randy Criehfield from Hozervideo also does 8K and 16K games, so he must know how to do the modifications. But I think he uses newly made boards from Chris Wilkson, because putting all the extra chips on a normal Atari cart was too difficult. You probably can ask either of them for more information. They are really nice people who are willing to help others with their information. And yes, I did see your message. I was just hoping that you would send me your new SECAM information in a detailed email. BTW, if you or anyone else could help me find a cheap SECAM VCS, so that I can do some tests myself, I would really appreciate that. Ciao, Eckhard Stolberg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thelen Posted July 8, 2001 Share Posted July 8, 2001 i now something about digital technique and memmories etc well i will make a cart where i could download the .bin rom files..but it's still unfinished...it's like this: first i wrote a program in quickbasic, (might sound stupid but worked) what opened a .bin file. if you have a 4K .bin file there are 4K=4096 bytes=4096 symbols. each byte(symbol) repesents a 8 bits digital value. so there is a ASCII table with 255 standart symbols. every symbol represent a 8 bit digital code. with this program i send the 8 bits code out and a clock pulse over the parallel port a 4K cart haves 4096 8 bit codes. i will use a CD4040 counter ic which is a 12 bit counter so it can count from 0-4096. i send out the 8 bits digital code to a 4K sram memmory,and a clock pulse for the counter.with every clock pulse it counts further and send the count value to the sram wichs indicates the adress (0-4096) and the 8 bits code will be saved at that adress on the sram when i have programmed all the adresses the program will stop,and you switch the sram from write mode to read mode. when the sram is disconnected to the power supply it will lose it's data the atari 2600 has a0-a11 (12 adress lines) and a12 as ce(chip enable) and 8 data lines. my program is finished (wasn't that difficult) and when i've got time a will go further on the hardware. any questions - suggestions THELEN Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Primus Posted July 9, 2001 Share Posted July 9, 2001 Faced with the problem of a costly eprom burner, and wanting to be easily able to reprogram carts without UV, I have been working on a RAM cart/cart writer. I have constructed it and a cart, but have yet to actually get it to work. Once I get it working, I will create a site with schematics. The cart itself can hold 8 4k games, and uses an SRAM chip that is easily obtainable for free. I am using chips swiped from old 486 motherboards, and each motherboard generally has 8 chips. I will post the schematics/drivers once I get it to actually work... Has anyone else built such a project? Ian Primus ian.primus@usa.net Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cwilkson Posted July 9, 2001 Share Posted July 9, 2001 Ok, ok...this thread has finally prompted me to register. YAY ME!!! Thelen, Sounds like a pretty straight forward way of doing it. Make sure that your counter clock is slow enough for the sram to program correctly. Also to read correctly. E.g. if the SRAM is a 100ns access speed, make sure that after you increment the address, you wait for more than 100ns before trying to read from the chip. I should also point out that your method requires a bi-directional parallel port. This is pretty standard on most newer machines, but older ones are output only. There are ways to get around that, but I won't go into the details now. Good luck! -Chris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cwilkson Posted July 9, 2001 Share Posted July 9, 2001 For those who want to make ROM carts (just a regular cart) here are some thoughts/suggestions: If you want to make a 4K game, your best bet is to follow the instructions on HozerVideo's website (see the link elsewhere). They are pretty straight forward. If you want to make a 2K cartridge, first convert the ROM image to 4K...I forget the DOS syntax...help anyone? (Something like "copy combat.bin + combat.bin > combat4k.bin".) Then it's just like making a 4K cartridge. Exactly the same. If you want to make a cart that's bigger than 4k, you'll need a board that supports bankswitching. Your best bet is to contact Randy Crihfield or myself. Randy sells completed cartridges for most games. If you want to build your own cart, I can supply the circuit board and the control logic for anything that uses standard Atari bankswitching from 2K up to 32K (ROM only...no extra RAM). If you put a ZIF socket on the board, as tobias_project mentioned, you can easily reprogram it with a different ROM whenever you like. -Chris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thelen Posted July 10, 2001 Share Posted July 10, 2001 well i'm working on it..read above your reply.and i've looked at an old 486 motherboard..and yes : 8 X sram 61256 32Kb good idea. THELEN Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khryssun Posted July 16, 2001 Share Posted July 16, 2001 I'm back quote: originally posted by Eckhard Stolberg I was just hoping that you would send me your new SECAM information in a detailed email. No problem I'll email you within next week. quote: originally posted by Eckhard Stolberg if you or anyone else could help me find a cheap SECAM VCS, so that I can do some tests myself, I would really appreciate that Okay I'll look for a cheap SECAM VCS at ibazar (a kinda French ebay). How much do you want to spend at the maximum(VCS+Shipping) ? quote: originally posted by Chris Wilkson If you want to build your own cart, I can supply the circuit board and the control logic for anything that uses standard Atari bankswitching from 2K up to 32K Really good info chris !!! is it the F8 bankswithcing scheme ? Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cwilkson Posted July 17, 2001 Share Posted July 17, 2001 quote: originally posted by khryssun Really good info chris !!! is it the F8 bankswithcing scheme ? If you mean the board that I designed, then yes it supports F8/F6/F4 formats. But no extra RAM...yet. -Chris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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