e5frog

Had to make a new auction... eBay Auction -- Item Number: 230765160879

Item relisted as eBay sent out false information in the "Saved searches". Said "Shipping: Local Pickup" instead of Free Shipping - for anyone.

Added uncut prototype label prints.

Finally done. One special Pac-Man that has non-volatile memory (battery free, Fe-RAM) to hold the high score even with cartridge unplugged or system turned off. As a bonus three different early test prints of the box is included, uncut, unfolded, you also get an extra instruction booklet - go grab it. Starts at $1, ends in 10 days and shipping is free worldwide. eBay Auction -- Item Number: 230765160879

FINALLY. The very last Pac-Man cart is now for sale on eBay, it's #50 and there are three uncut and unfolded test prints of the box included, one extra instruction booklet and it's equipped with an Fe-RAM circuit to hold the highscore even when it's powered off - no battery needed. Go right ahead and make an offer: eBay Auction -- Item Number: 230764558493 Starts at $1 and shipping is free worldwide.

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

One left, I've got the new price ready but I'll wait until Monday before I end the price reduction - so save some money and pre-order before Monday. I have edited the menu tonight, new feature is that the same game stays active upon reset, you either have to shut the console off or hold 1 and reset to get back into the menu. This is something that has bothered me and kept me from making myself a Multi-Cart, I had considered having a DIP-switch system as well for my own cart - now I don't have to. The customization previously offered is now $10 extra per item, such things as: custom fast start options including custom back label 15 letter word displayed on startup picture displayed upon startup changes in colors of menu order of items in menu UPGRADE to newer software (owner pays shipping back and forth) Reason for this is that these things take a lot of extra time, it's a lot easier to simply program a finished binary and solder up stuff in advance. Current menu has fixed options (decided by popular choice from previous orders), started by pressing and holding a combination of buttons 1-4 and then reset according to this chart (all software can be reached through the menu): 4321 (buttons of console) ------------------------ 0001 Menu 0010 Pac-Man 0011 Tetris 0100 Alien Invasion 0101 Galactic Space Wars / Lunar Lander 0110 Sonar Search 0111 Video Whizball 1000 Test Controls 1001 Pinball Challenge 1010 Dodge-It 1011 Casino Poker 1100 Space War 1101 Chess 1110 Lights Out 1111 Spitfire The selection system could have been made more advanced to be able to reach all software using the buttons but I didn't want to make it too elaborate.

I thought I should throw out some ideas about boxes here and see what you that have bought these think - I was hoping for some suggestions, isn't label competitions a common thing here on AA? The back is usually some screen shots and text... but it's possible the thumbnails could fill the back up and also one with Mr Lawson. It would be really nice to have all the manuals in a single book, not sure about the cost there yet, have to look it up. So how about this then? Still two $125 carts left.

Here's another idea, old style front with stylished infinity symbol, new style side with new style rainbow. Maybe for the other side it could be the newest style... so you could choose to have it in the shelf in any direction you'd like, fit in with the old ones or the newer (18-24).

There's two, as can be seen twice on this page and in the thread starting message where the payment instructions are. You are welcome. Here are two new mockups of the box, I kind of like the rainbow as it's present on the first 17 boxes, it should almost be there. Eiither it could be a mix or perhaps some version with a picture, I added the infinity symbol on it to represent all software, this should be drawn in box #1-#17 style of course.

This would be the simplest (and most boring) box to make, a Democart rip-off just like the label: Inverted colors:

Sold a Fairchild Channel F Multi-Cart, nice guy, recommended.

TWO LEFT

I'm considering selling a kit with no shell for $110, you'll get the labels and tested working PCB with soldered components but will have to supply your own shell. When box is done that will be included as well and possibly instruction book/booklet. I guess I could also sell a complete DIY kit with components you solder yourself for less than $100 but I can't leave any guarantees other than the parts are OK when shipped. Is anyone interested in that?

Got a message a few hours ago that the PCBs have been shipped and the components I needed will arrive tomorrow. So it seems I'll have all parts a lot earlier than expected. I borrowed some of my own money to cover it since there has been a lot of interest last few months. The offer of $125 is off as soon as I have a final price, I'm guessing not more than 10 work days, new price is somewhere between $138 and $162 if my calculations are correct.

Does anyone have this one, seems a bit odd? http://www.saratogahigh75.com/000/5/6/5/17565/userfiles/image/8_track_Foghat.jpg

Due to increased postage costs and also material costs I have decided to take on five pre-payments to cover the most immediate costs, some parts are in shipping for about 6 weeks to save on shipping so I want to be clear that it will take at least two months until any deliveries may occur. Price for these five will be $125, I'll update the price as soon as everything is in place. PayPal as "Personal" payment and make sure you pay the fees. I will update the first message as pre-paid orders come in, in total I need seven names on batch #3. TWO CARTS LEFT for the old price of $125. New batch will cost at least $138 according to my current calculations.

JERLAW-tribute, perhaps something to add on the back... My friend José probably comes with a few ideas as well. For the instructions I had wished to have a small book, size that fits just inside the box and have all instruction booklets in it, maybe a little bit shrunken to fit two standard size pages on one cartridge size page. Don't know how thick it would get, perhaps that needs to be boxed as well... I have seen these pictures used when reporting about his unfortunate death, is it really the same guy? http://kterrl.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/jerrylawson.jpg Liked this one: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-17c37CPtfU0/TamrJ86tjgI/AAAAAAAAAMI/eYIKeOHK0hA/s1600/jerrylawson.jpg

I was considering something in this direction, but then I thought it looks a lot like some Chinese pirated NES/Famicom multi-cart. The back is the usual rounded square with some text, maybe screenshots as well. If the colors were inverted I'd think of that french instructionbooklet:

I'm leaning towards that, mainly because it's the easiest and I'm guessing one color print is cheaper... and the cart label is the same as the democart but inverted... and because of that it would be fun to have something else. Maybe invert the colors of the #1 to #17 boxes, just to make it stand out... My - that would look horrible...

Finished all Multi-Carts from batch #3 tonight, will ship them tomorrow. That's all up to and including #35 including the Pac-Man carts for those two who ordered them as well. I haven't found all parts I wanted for batch#4 so I might need to change the PCB-layout, it's in the making. Have a few ideas about the box but nothing painted in the computer yet - and I have gotten zero suggestions, don't know whether to go for a black print only Democart-looking box or something more like the early boxes and clash in the modern font used in the #18 and higher carts... From batch#4 I'll remove the option to add specially selected favorites but will add 15 favorites based on what I think and what has been ordered for the first 35 carts, these will be reachable by using the four buttons on the console as dip-switches while pressing reset - you'll be able to do it with just one hand after some practice. I might add a controller signal as well to be able to reach ALL entries directly - haven't decided yet. This means I can speed up the back labeling with a common label for all future carts. Have made some test with Ferro-RAM to hold scores (non volatile ram that needs no battery), now that I'm not making Pac-Man anymore I might add in a Ferro-RAM as well that is active for score keeping on Pac-Man. If I need to change the layout anyway I might add it as a possible option at least. Unfortunately I have lost memory a few times on my test-cart, but that might be because it's not sealed and touching of the circuits may have occured. Plans are also to add a second slot for Pac-Man to include the intermissions as well - but that needs to be tested (and programmed) first so it's not the biggest priority. Planning to add the music that was released perhaps while displaying some of the pictures that was in the graphics competition, I think that's one of the few things missing apart from some one time stuff I have released at special occasions. So... you should all be playing within 3 weeks - finally!

Top and edge label done on eight carts, only back labels left to do before shipping. Newborn daughter Liza and mother are home from the hospital, Liza had a bad case of pneumonia but it seems to be sorted out.

Did a successful test using a RAMTRON FM1608-120-PG FerroRAM circuit instead of the usual 6116 SRAM, hi-score was still there after turning machine off or extracting cartridge, running the RAM-test showed no problems either nor plugging/unplugging several times while on. So it looks like I will add this kind of non-volatile ram to the Pac-Man cart in the eBay auction, question now is that it has three extra address-pins, so it could hold scores for eight players, don't know if I should explore that option further. DIP-switches would be "easy", a player selection screen would be really nice, perhaps even entering names... Depends on how long I'd like to wait, planning on selling it late January. This particular brand of circuits are End Of Life, they only have SOIC capsule for sale nowadays, should be pretty easy to make a small adapter if you wanted to upgrade a cartridge. The DIL kind are available on eBay, not very cheap: eBay Auction -- Item Number: 380327745386 With the DIL kind it's only a matter of adding four jumper wires for a non-volatile replacement. If anyone wants to do an upgrade themselves, just ask me for directions.

That's basically what I have been doing at home, not that we have "FedEx/Kinko" and "LamiLabel" here in Sweden as far as I know, and as long as you can pay for it almost anything seems to be possible. Seems there's a store for anything you want to do in the States. "Hmm, I'll swing by the 3D-print shop this afternoon and have a full size Christmas tree printed out..." I got a package yesterday with professionally printed and laminated labels with adhesive on the back, looks great. Saved the cutting for myself though to save a lot of bucks, will still print the back labels myself. Should save a lot of time. Will cut and label some tomorrow, several are likely to get shipped before the end of the year.

PCB:s almost soldered, just the ROM and RAM left. I found a pair of FeRAM, I'll do a check on these and see if I can just plug them in right away, if it works I'll sell the one on eBay with permanent hi-score backup.I'll also add a description on my webpage how to make the swap. Possibly I'll offer an upgrade if it's still possible to buy that part, I should perhaps add a way in the programming to clear the hi-score as well...