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vcsrocks

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Everything posted by vcsrocks

  1. vcsrocks
    Well, you can, just not with the 32in1 hardware alone. You will need to take care of the bankswitch, though, as @alex_79 mentioned. Nothing prevents you from using an external controller for that. The installation will be a bit more complex but it can be done. My boards already have the taps for the MSb of the address bus: So it is easy to add external control, but the same principle would apply to the 32in1. I also already have a bankswitch controller in that board, so all that is needed is the selection mechanism which can then select different schemas (F8/F8SC, F6/F6SC, F4/F4SC, 4K and 2K) for each game independently. The same controller could be used with the 32in1 hardware as an external chip.
  2. vcsrocks
    That will be really great
  3. vcsrocks
    I'm not an expert on 2600 bankswitching. This page is a good primer on the various methods. It omits the RAM addresses for Atari SC schemes, which are F000-F07F (write) and F080-F0FF (R). Note that you can't use INC or DEC instructions with on-cart RAM (regardless of bankswitching method). Also, since it's not on zero page, any accesses will take an extra cycle, which can affect kernel timing. I took a quick peek at the Stella source code and it appears to detect SC when in each bank the first 128 bytes and second 128 bytes are identical. For FA, it just looks for a 12K cart that does not contain any 3-byte sequences that imply E7. Perhaps stating the obvious, with the classic Atari SuperChip/SARA schemas (F8SC, F6SC and F4SC) you trade a total of 128 bytes of RAM for 256 bytes of ROM per bank. In other words, with F8 you will get two pages of ROM with 4096 bytes each for a total of 8192 bytes (minus a few bytes for the switching routine). F8SC will give you 128 bytes of RAM and two pages with 3840 bytes of ROM for a total of 7680 bytes. For F6SC (4 banks) you will give up 1K and for F4SC (eight banks) it will be 2K. All three will have the same additional RAM though, 128 bytes. In practice this is really not a big deal though, as the additional RAM will make a big difference. Just something to keep in mind.
  4. vcsrocks
    I'm pretty sure eBay would have a problem with him having your user name in his ad. I would report that.
  5. vcsrocks
    This game has been on my wish list for a long time and I've finally found a nice boxed one
  6. vcsrocks
    Megamania can be quite addictive. It is a fantastic game for all its simplicity. The TigerVision games I honestly only got because of their cool case colors.
  7. vcsrocks
    Both with the same problem is a bit suspicious though. How many different carts did you try?
  8. vcsrocks
    On this one I tried to load the Supercharger games but it will not recognize them, so I assume it does not have the extra memory... The cart is also a lot smaller, but all the tapes that came with it still work: If anyone has numbers 1, 5 and 11 I will be very interested ?
  9. vcsrocks
    I also use two other Supercharge clones I got from a seller in Brazil. This one even had the Supercharger name on it : And they would sell regular games on tape:
  10. vcsrocks
    That is always a risk, as the tapes may dry up over time. I still use my tapes whenever I want to show my kids how much I had to work back in the day to play a game ?
  11. vcsrocks
    Yes, that's how I remembered it too. Without the Y adapter the paddles would not work.
  12. vcsrocks
    I use WD-40 too and afterwards I put them in a ultrasound cleaner with a degreasing solution. They come out like new
  13. vcsrocks
    Really cool! Thanks for sharing
  14. vcsrocks
    Thanks for sharing
  15. vcsrocks

    Maddeness

    vcsrocks replied to Zoyx's topic in Atari 2600

    I've never seen any reference to that game. It would be interesting to see if it ended up in a collection and hopefully a ROM dump shared.
  16. vcsrocks
    Very nice!!!
  17. vcsrocks
    Real nice. Thanks for sharing. That was actually my first Atari-like console. The controllers are real nice as you say. By that time the design was already a trend with the ColecoVision and the Intellivision , but the paddles would start jittering quite fast compared to the Atari paddles. The advantage of the Gemini was that the pot is actually built into the controller PCB, so all you need to do is to open it up and clean the pot track. That design was copied in Brazil for the Onyx Jr. In fact they seem to have merged the Gemini and the Atari Junior and bumped the controller back to the wrong side of the console! ? The cool thing about the Onyx though was the introduction of a pause button so you could go do your homework and get back where you left off:
  18. vcsrocks
    I remember seeing this a couple of years ago. The idea is interesting in that it creates a bus extender for the VCS. This would allow for the production of 8/16/32KB games without bankswitching in the actual game cart (i.e. the bankswitch controller is in the "adapter" plugged between the VCS and the actual game). One thing I would have done differently though is to make the bankswitch selection automatic. This can be easily achieved by implementing the physical switch with four extra pads in the "bankswitched cartridge connector". Every time you insert a game, the connector circuitry will close JP1 and JP2 as required by the ROM in the cart.
  19. vcsrocks
    Here is the updated list of tested games/schemes: Dig Dug (F6SC) Megaboy (F0) EF Template (EF) Sword of Surtr (F4) BMX (F6) Asterix (F8) Pacman (4K) Air-Sea Battle (2K)
  20. vcsrocks
    I did not manage to make the video over the weekend as I intended to, but that may have been actually a good thing. A few days ago I designed a SARA module to add RAM to the cart based on the feedback of @MemberAtarian. As I could use the same design for another project I will be working on, I had the PCBs made and they arrived today: It is basically an external RAM with a 74HC02 as address decoder: The other components/jumpers/headers are there for the next project ? And here is the module plugged into the cart: I tested Dig Dug with this setup and it works fine. I also checked the bus timings and they look good.
  21. vcsrocks
    OK, as always, there is more than one way to skin a cat. I came up with a few ways the user could switch games on a multi game cart and at some point I will try all of them. For now though and for the sake of moving forward, I have settled on the 32in1 on/off switch to flip through the games in ROM. That is very simple to implement and does not require any additional hardware! I've tested this today and it works fine, so I will try to load up a video of the progress so far over the weekend.
  22. vcsrocks
    F0 works fine. I was able to play Megaboy without any problems, so now the list of tested games/schemes is: Megaboy (F0) EF Template (EF) Sword of Surtr (F4) BMX (F6) Asterix (F8) Pacman (4K) Air-Sea Battle (2K) Now back to the game switch...
  23. vcsrocks
    Really amazing project!
  24. vcsrocks
    That would be the most user friendly approach by far. I'll have to see what I can do about the vendor ID though, as I don't have one I can use for this project. Maybe there is a module out there I can use. For now, I need to cross a few other bridges before I get to the actual flashing process, but I will definitely keep it in mind. Thanks for the suggestion!!
  25. vcsrocks
    Thinking about this after my last post yesterday, it hit me that it would probably be fairly easy to implement F0 as well, now that we are dealing with 64KB images. I will put the game selection on hold and try this first...
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