cschell

As to MMC lifespan, how often do you reorganize the ROMs or add files to your MMC. That's the only time writes occur. The CC2 is read only as far as the MMC is concerned. MMCs have internal spare sectors inside them that can replace failed sectors. In a FAT formatted file system that's going to be the sectors than contain the FAT tables themselves. MMCs are designed to hold up for a while with rather frequent writes. I think they'll last a good while in CC2 only usage. Of course they could fail for other reasons, such as the onboard controller failing, static discharge, etc. (Although they are made to be pretty durable.) If you're really concerned a back up is a rather small investment. Chad

I'm always leary of answering that question, because I can only give an estimate based on the data sheets and the battery capacity. I have never done any endurance testing on the batteries, or measured the current draw of the CC2 NVRAM. So disclaimer time. THIS IS AN ESTIMATE, NOT A GUARANTEE. YOUR BATTERY COULD FAIL AT ANY TIME AND IF IT IS OUTSIDE THE 90 DAY WARRANTY IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO REPLACE IT IF YOU WANT THE FEATURES IT PROVIDES. I MAKE NO CLAIMS OR GUARANTEES AS TO THE LIFE OF THE BATTERY OR THE ACCURACY OF THIS ESTIMATE. Ok, with that out of the way, the numbers say the battery should last 6-7 years. Chad

The CC2 does have the tabs (it's in recycled Atari 7800 cases.) So I imagine having that tab stuck would interfere with it and just about any other cart. Chad

Within the warranty period (which has expired for all current owners) I provide a replacement. Outside the warranty period I can offer trouble shooting advice but little more. I have no ability to replace failed chips on the board (I've never managed to do the whole replace SMDs by hand thing), nor do I keep spare chips for that reason. Sorry, Chad

Hey Ken, Eric, and Bruce, I just wanted to let you guys know that you're to blame, err, I mean to praise for inspiring me to make more CC2s. Two points really stuck out for me. First I have Bruce going around telling everyone how the CC2 was the easily accesible dev system that people had been waiting on (and thus making me feel guilty that they were no long available) to start doing 7800 homebrews. Second Ken actually porting a game that I really liked! Maybe I'll get some more if I throw more carts out there. (Serpentine anyone?) And Eric, just because you're not in the two points above, I do appreciate the work you've done to inspire 7800 programming. Starting up the mailing list, writing Space War and demos, and trying tirelessly to explain the reasons why 7800 does not equal NES. So everyone out there who wanted a CC2 but didn't get one, be sure to thank these guys, and the others like Schmutzpuppe and Heaven/TQA, and to encourage them to keep up their good work. Chad

Not 1000's, only 500 actually. It doesn't seem like a big number, but given that I've never sold more than 238 of any of my products, it's pretty big to me. Actually the cost of redesign vs the extra cost of 500 sockets was about the same. So I decided not to go through the hassle (and nerves) or a redesign. I guess I would have done better with the collectors with a redesign though. Hey Al! Stop the presses. I want these labels printed in red. (Just kidding.) Chad

I secured more of them. A LOT more of them. They would only sell them in large quantities. Chad

Obviously I have no control over the secondary market. But there's probably at least one really happy person who got outbid at $499.00 And I'm very much hoping that soon there will be many more happy 7800 homebrew authors. That's the main driving point behind this decision. Chad

Hello everyone, I just wanted to post a brief not that Cuttle Cart 2's are back in production. You can place an order for one now on my website. http://www.schells.com/cc2.shtml If you don't know what a Cuttle Cart 2 is, it's a very flexible menu driven multicart and 7800 development system that let's you load 2600 and 7800 games into your 7800 by means of a Multimedia Card. Full details are available on the webpage above. Thanks, Chad

Hello everyone, I just wanted to post a brief not that CC2's are back in production. You can place an order for one now on my website. http://www.schells.com/cc2.shtml Thanks, Chad

Well there's always emulators, Superchargers, and (if you can find them) Cuttle Carts if you really do make frequent writes. Or just straight eprom emulators plugged into a board that does the bankswitching of your choice. Chad

Yes, thats also what I think. The 10000 is the absolute minimum that is guaranteed, but in reality they survive much longer. Well, if the part is actually rated at 10,000 writes, it probably won't reliably reach 100,000 (or they'd give it that rating.) But it will still likely reach considerably more than 10,000, which is probably plenty all by itself. Chad

My guess is that the flash in the KK is good for 100,000 writes. So that's 10 loads per day for 27 straight years. A lot of flash devices in uses these days have these lifespans. It's really not much of a concern. (And from the pictures I would say yes it's socketed.) Chad

Star Control 2. Great humor and melee mode. Chad

Ok, so the 78HSCPOK.BNK doesn't work. Clearly your TIA sound is too good Ken because no one who used the new banking bothered to tell me it doesn't work. I've uploaded a new version to my webpage. I've also uploaded new versions of HSC.STR and HSCQUICK.STR that allow the POKEY to work. Anyone who has the old 78HSCPOK.BNK file, be sure to get the new one. Chad

Looks to work ok. Thanks again for the test file. So all you CC2 owners out there who want to get in on Andrew's latest fun have at it. Chad

Ok, Startup files now exist for 3F512K and 3E to handle smaller files. See 7800 Forum for details. Chad

Dishes. I threw one in the sink with some soapy water and some dirty dishes, but they didn't come clean. Now it doesn't seem to want to do anything. Alas, Chad

Ok, I've just loaded some new files to the CC2 utils webpage. They are a new 3F512K.BNK and a 3E.BNK, along with the matching 3E3F512K.STR startup file. These bring the CC2 in step with the emulators' way of doing large 3F files. The 3F512K.BNK file will now work for ROMs from 2K to 512K in size if it is used with the 3E3F512K.STR startup file. (512K files can use 78BIOS.) The 3E works for games from 2K to 480K in size, and supports 32K of RAM. Again it requires the 3E3F512K.STR startup file for files less than 480K in size. Because the CC2 OS does not store the file size after the game is loaded, the filesize has to be retrieved from the GAMES directory by the startup file. This does create a background colored blank screen delay while this happens. The more files in your directories, the longer the delay. (But it shouldn't be that long.) For the original 8K 3F bankswitching files, just stick with the 3F.BNK to skip the delay. Enjoy, Chad

That's what I figured, so I built it that way. Yes, mine also ignores the upper data bits so banks will wrap. That is what I did actually. In fact if you try to access the upper 32K of "ROM" pages, you will get them. So you could write to the RAM and then read it back in 2K chunks rather than 1K chunks. However that obviously wouldn't work on the KK, so I think programmers should not use that fact. (Just like the CC2 can't do 512K ROM + 32K RAM.) It was just too much of a hassle to bounds check the ROM bank on a wierd number like 480K. The reason I vote for 32K is because that is what the KK has onboard. I'm just trying to pick the least common demoninator between the two carts. That comes out to 480K of ROM and 32K of RAM. Of course someone could build a cart that has more. I'm sure the KK could be redesigned to have more RAM, just as the CC2 could. But I don't think either effort would be worthwhile. Anyway, I built a 3E.BNK file, and ran Andrew's test program. I get the patten shown, although more in pink than in grey. But given the way colors works on the Atari I'm not worried about that. I'm fairly certain the matching luminance pattern indicates things are working. (I know my 7800's 2600 color pot isn't quite right actually.) Currently mine only supports 480K files. Nothing bigger, nothing smaller. I may try to make it so that a startup file could copy the last 2K in the file to the last bank. Chad

I guess I should divide by 2K rather than 4K eh? So that would be pages 0-239 vs. 16-255. Oops. Chad

Hi Andrew, Thanks for the spirit of cooperation. Just in case I came across that way I wasn't upset about 3E or KK exclusives. I figure a little hook never hurts to help sell something, and I'm sure Kroko has quite an investment into the KK already that he'd very much like to get back. But I do think it's best for the community at large if we don't get into Format Wars, and obviously you and Kroko agree. As for 3E support. I think the most natural method would be to have pages 0 - 119 be the ROM. Rather than pages 8-127. It sounds like the KK would handle this arrangement without modification. (I'm assuming that it copies the last 2K of a ROM to the last 2K of the 512K address space for both 3E and 3F.) If I'm incorrect here let me know. Whichever method we pick I'll try to whip up a 3E for the CC2. Care to release a 480K sample for testing? Thanks again to both you and Kroko for your support, Chad

Ok, New version (again) of loader is up on my page. Now has the two new banking methods in the drop down list. Also has two new check boxes: (Something like) Save ROM settings in Reg Read ROM settings from Reg If you check the first box, everytime you "SEND" a file to the CC2, the Banking and Startup settings you used will be stored in the CC2 area of the Windows Registry under the ROM name. (In all caps, ignoring the path, using the extension.) If you do this a lot, that could be a lot of Registry entries, which could be bad, I don't really know. If you're concerned, don't check the box. If you check the second box, everytime you change the text in the browse box it will try to match it against one of the registry entries. Again with a lot of entries this could probably get really slow if you typed in the ROM name. So consider this a sloppy tool for lazy developers who use a relatively small set of ROMs. Probably not a good tool for lazy gamers who use a lot of ROMS. Chad

Are you people never satisfied? Now I suppose you want the new 78HSCPOK added to the banking list. It's compiled in. I'll add it later. Mitch, didn't you ask for some to be added as well? PAL ones or something? Might as well tell me what you want so I can do it all at once. Chad P.S. Until I get around to it, I'll let you in on a little secret you may not have noticed. You can type any 8 characters into the banking and startup drop down lists. Just click the list text itself (not the drop down selector) and type what you want. So if say Ken wants 78HSCPOK, he can just type that in. Then he doesn't change it it will come up with that everytime.

Gee, That was easy. Just click a box in the GUI creator. (Too bad I was really busy when you asked for it the first time Ken. Sorry.) Anyway, the new version with minimize button is now on the update page on my website. Chad