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Sdw

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Posts posted by Sdw

  1. Posted

    Nah, i post over on World Of Spectrum as well... i haven't had much time but i made a vague start at learning Z80 and it gives you a serious amount of respect for the coders.

    I've done Z80 stuff and I can't remember it like 6502 code. There's so many things that are only done with this register or that register or whatever. I guess it's what you're used to, but I can think in 6502. :)

     

    -Bry

     

    I've coded a bit on both 6502 (C64, Vic-20 and DTV) and Z80 (TI-83 and MSX). To be honest I think both architectures have their strengths. The Z80 can seem a little weird if you are used to the 6502, but it has some nice features:

     

    * More registers

    * Being able to use register pairs as 16-bit regs

    * Shadow registers, you have two complete separate set of the regs which you can swap with a clock-cheap instruction

     

    On the other hand the Z80 does not have stuff like the indexed addressing.

     

    Well, 6502 vs. Z80 that was a bit off topic, back to the main fight - A8 vs C64! ;)

  2. Posted · Edited by Sdw

    An EPROM is already UV-erasable. The difference is that an EEPROM is Electrically erasable - i.e. the programming

     

    Ah yes, I see that I wrote that sentence incorrectly, I meant to write 'withOUT using an U/V-eraser' (since I don't have access to one!). I have corrected it now! :)

  4. Posted · Edited by Sdw

    I've been looking into buying a socketed PCB and some EPROMs from the store, and swap the EROMs back and forth for different games/demos.

     

    Then I talked to a friend who's rather knowledgeable about electronics, but not familiar with 2600.

     

    He suggested that it could be possible to use an EEPROM (note the extra E) giving the ability to erase/reprogram without using an U/V-eraser.

    Also since the EEPROM would be larger than 4 or 8kb he suggested hooking up some switches to the extra address pins and thus getting a crude sort of multi-cart, where you by manually setting the address pins access different regions of the EEPROM.

     

    Anyone know if this is possible, or is there some reason that only EPROMs work with the 2600?

  6. Posted

    This seems like a really cool project, and I'll be buying one of these for sure (if they don't turn out too expensive). Will be great to be able to testrun homebrew easily.

     

    A more general question regarding such multicart solutions - how do you select which ROM that is 'active'? I mean will there be some kind of onscreen GUI, or?

  7. Posted

    I just got my first 2600 (a Jr, PAL of course as I am in Sweden). As I am very much interested in the demoscene, I want to get some demos running, and then in the future perhaps try to code a bit myself as well.

     

    So a whole bunch couple of questions arise:

     

    * First of all, is the AtariAge store in business? It's not linked from the mainpage, but with some searching I managed to find my way in, and I could put items in my shopping cart.

     

    * Will those PCBs etc. work in my PAL Jr model?

     

    * I am looking to purchase the socketed version of a PCB so I can swap the EPROM between a couple of different ones. Is it easy enough to remove/insert the chip, or will you need special tools?

     

    * Should I go for the 4kb or the 8/16/32kb version? Some of the stuff I want to run is 4kb, and some is 8kb. I heard that it might be possible to run 4kb stuff in an 8kb EPROM by just padding it up to the right size, in that case the 8kb would be preferable. Is this correct?

     

    * How difficult is it to program the EPROMs? I looked at the programmer we have here at work, and from what I could gather it might support the EPROMs in question, it listed for example "National Semiconductor 27C32", would that mean that it supports all 2732/27C32 or are the vendor differences?

  11. Posted

    I've never owned an Atari, so it seems about time I get one!

    Turns out there is a 130XE up for auction on a local site (it will probably end up at a price way too high for me, but just in case...).

    The machine comes with a tape drive, but no disk drive.

     

    I've read about the sio2pc interface. Is it possible to watch demos using this alone, or do you need a real diskdrive as well to transfer the prods to first?

    For example on the C64 the different PC-connection interfaces are not accurate enough to emulate a diskdrive well enough to cope with modern trackloaders, is it the same on Atari, or will the sio2pc deal with it all loaders?

    Also, do you need to purchase software in addition to the sio2pc hardware to get it going?

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