DrWho198

The files do not seem to be the original menu I wrote in the day. I most likely have a copy on an old computer somewhere but I can not invest the time in this project at this time. I kind of regret that they did not split up the project once they changed the logic on the board and rewrote the menu. The current version is totally different and only the person who wrote it can give support on it. Untill then you are on your own unless someone has the time to figure out how everything works.

To be honest, the PCB looks a lot different from what it used to be. It's so complicated that I feel it is missing the intent of the original design. And I'm still curious for details and workings of what you intend to do. In case this design moves too far away from Blinky's design then I would suggest calling it something else. I would love to see this project continue, but please make sure that you share information and do not drift away from what was intended (which was a simple DIY design with decent options and flexibility). If you do feel the need to take your own path then I would suggest making a new thread and linking to it in this one. But again... please share what you intend to do instead of saying 'I have this that does that and it's really cool'. Because other people would like to learn from you too, just as you did when you started following this thread. Hey, maybe they can even help you! Just to be clear: All schematics that I and blinky posted were ready to produce and work fine. Code was given and files shared. The latest version that alex_79 adapted should be the most advanced. I have not tested it myself but knowing that alex's previous adaptations were spot on gives me great confidence that his work is reliable. With the latest adaptation that blinky did to the schematics at my request, It was possible to add larger roms as long as you patched the roms to use mdmc instead of its original bankswitching. It's been a long time since I have been working on this project but i remember that we had many roms patched already and I even have a tool somewhere that patches the roms for you. I hope this project stays alive. I had a great time with it and I'm sure many other will too if the thread is not contaminated with unclear information.

I'm curious about the details of his changes. I tried to read his scematics but I do not get what is connected to what. Its mostly the left part that I do not get. What I wonder is if 8k, 4k and 16k can be mixed or not. Is mdmc locked after while other bankswitching is still possible etc.... etc... I do not have much time right now and in 3 days I'm on a vacation, so checking it out further will not happen soon.

I was thinking, by any chance... did you use some of the code in another project? Maybe I got part if your code another way.

When I get the time I surely will compare them. If I remember correctly then I was looking for a menu and could not find one that suited me. But I did see screenshots of your menu and tried to replicate it. I do not think I ever found your source and not even the rom... the only krokodile rom I remember is the multi color bmp demo. This is all out of my head... I might be wrong. But either way, you did help. I also remember that I only had 12 characters at first. That idea and the timing of the 13th character came from another rom. maybe I did find yours in the end... all too long ago. I'll look it up when I get the chance. But thanks for the code. I'm just an amature when it comes to coding and it might be inreresting to look at.

Hmm... its been a while since I wrote that menu but I think I wrote it from scratch. Although I do remember that I took the idea and look from the crocodile card. Just in case I am wrong and did take cade fron you, I am sorry. I normally do not borrow code without giving credit. Again, at least the idea of the menu was yours. Thanks for that one Thomas.

@Dabliogames: The table is needed so you can add games that use bankswitching. If not you would have manu entries that jump into the middle of a game. @arturfreddy: Could you explain what logic your board uses? If you jump to a multigame, do you lock the mdmc bankswitching? If not... then how do you prevent accidental bankswitching?

My latest software on the linker dumps all of my cards, but I can not test compatibility for other cards. I don't use the same software as Blinky does because he focusses on writing his own flash card. I on the other hand focus on dumping cards. My software will detect what kind of bankswitching is used and will dump the complete rom. But not much intrest has been shown by people, and at the moment I'm not working on it myself.

wow... how... how many secams do you have? I wich I had one for my collection... but I can't find any at a decent price in belgium or france.

I don't think it would be easy to change the signal itself. However... as you mention yourself. These pots are most likely inside your television. And some newer CRT tv's have a software menu that is hidden to change this aswell. You should look up your specific model and/or brand of tv and look if it has service menu's. Watch out thouch... some settings in those menus could screw up the picture. Alternativly you could go for a CRT monitor. These have these settings accessible more easily.

Long time ago I once baught some arcade parts from the internet. I think it was from Ultimac: http://www.ultimarc.com/store/section.php?xSec=9&xPage=1&jssCart=c4fb63c2e072ab1ed5efd42a7bacf4dc I'm pretty sure you can get harnasses cheaper, but ultimac is a trusted seller. I would say Google is your friend. And while you are at it walk on by eBay. You might find something in the price/quality range that you are looking for. But ask youself: Do you really need a full "arcade" harness for a supergun? Wouldn't you pay too much for all the extra wire? Your PCB is going to sit close to the other parts anyway so unless you shorten the harness, you will have a lot of wire that needs to be stuffed away. I would just buy a jamma connector from ebay.

External? If you mean hooking something up between the secam atari and a NTSC tv then you can scratch this option. There is no way ti get NTSC colors out of a PAL or SECAM atari. For people who wonder why someone does not just buy a NTSC atari instead of looking at the option to mod one, I'll give you a short explanation. 1) Although a NTSC atari can be baught cheap from the US, shipping it to europe costs you a lot of money. Once you import it you have to pay even more as taxes are calculated on the value of the object+shipping. 2) It is interesting to see what is the essential difference between different region consoles. I have a NTSC atari, but it did not come cheap.

I'm glad that you understood what I meant. I do not consider a 32X game to be a Mega Drive/Genesis game. But I can appreciate them in their separate category. If you can get this working then that would be wondefull. I can imagine something like this being released as a explanation unit with its own games. Maybe adding a bit more memory and other bells and whistles to get thing really going. I hope you get the hardware working, because I would love to see this running on real hardware.

Nice, I'm impressed by the results. Yet I feel like this can not be compaired to a traditional Atari game. It's nice as a tech experiment but I don't feel like it's the Atari's work showing these images. For me it is starting to get in line with the super gameboy. A device that feeds the graphics to the console and does all the work itself. If you look at it a bit sceptical then you are modding the A2600. Maybe it is more like an expansion unit. Still a nice project though, but it's more of an hardware than software breakthrough. I guess it's up to the user to decide what keeps him/her attracted to the 2600. And if games ever get released with this technology then I hope they will be marked with a symbol that shows they are using it. Because as a collector I would avoid it. As a tech junky I love it.

The problem is that not all boards output at the same level of sound. That's why they put the switch there. hatver you do, I wouldn't go for the speake you showed. Those are used in phones and toys and give a terrible sound. If you go for arcade boards then you want a nice sound. And if you are afraid of blowing anything then its a good practice to turn down the volume on the board before turning it of. Then gently turn it up until the right level.

You mean a working x-man rom? Thats not hard to find. I'll send it to you later.

I have no dpc+ carts, but I have exactly the same concerns. Unless the carts act exacly like a traditional cartridge without any dynamic code, chances are small we could read out the actual static code. Although I expect there being a way to dump them, but I do not think AAge wants this information public.

I now realize that I mixed up what was mentioned in the oher post (Mega Board) with Super banking which was also mentioned there. It just made no sence to me. It was this Mega Board that I was refering to, that seems to be useless unless you want to make a 4K game multicard. Superbanking on the other hand is not useless, it is about the same as MDMC but supports less banks. Although as you mentioned Thomas, for developing a single game on these carts, RAM should be added. But I don't think most poeple would use such big storage for a single game anyway. I have been thinking about adding ram to an MDMC though, but I have other things on my mind right now. Besides, that would make the logic more complex anyway.

That's what we are doing, supporting almost all games. I'm confident that we can write code to support almost 100% of the commercial games. Homebrew boards are another matter since it is impossible to know about all of them and some use tricks that prevent us from accessing every bit of the rom chip. Right now I have the hardware and software to run cartridges with: 2K, 4K, E0, E7, F4, F6, F8, FE, FA, MDMC and CV Expect this list to grow soon. MDMC cartridges with over 128 banks will be a problem because of the bank locking. This is where it all started: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/56073-cheap-2k4k-x-in-1-menu-driven-multicart-for-atari-2600/ A design for a cartridge that supports up to 256 banks with cheap stock parts. Then when I made the first cartridge I gave Blinky a PCB aswell. He then decided that he wanted to make it a flash cart. But he needed a programmer(he calls it a linker) for the cartridge. I was planning of making a dumper, and felt that his linker might be a good starting point. When he gave me the sketch (at that point I never layed an eye on Arduino) I felt that his sketch was too far off of what I wanted to do. He focussed on the writing of his cartridge and I wanted to focus on reading existing cartridges. At some time I might add the writing of his flash card, but right now that is not my goal. My goals are at the moment: - Support most if not all available games - Add a Joystick port that will also read out a paddle ( I want to use vJoy to connect to the PC because I think changing the Arduino to a HID would break the serial connection ) - Finish my Client that will allow you to run any game plugged into the dumper. Using Stella as emulator and allowing the use of the original Atari controller that is plugged into the dumper. - if this works, add support for Blinky's flash cartridge. but I think my project might need a new thread soon. I'm waiting for a good point to release the code and project.

I would vote for x-man A lot has been said about Atari adult games, but personally I have to disagree with most of the sh*t they throw at them. They are amusing, and the graphics aren't THAT bad. But they are only good for some laughs and fun with friends. After a while they are repetitive and dull. But X-Men... that's a totally different league! Its just a maze with only 1 way to go. At some point you can wonder off a few blocks but not far. At the end of a maze you have a critter that will bite your nuts off. The critter goes in the opposite direction of you so at some point you'll have to pass it. You can only hope that the thing will (by d*mn luck) pass you from 1 or 2 blocks away. But this is totally random so there is no skill involved. To make things worse the controls are broken, half of the time your player won't go to the direction you want. Once you reach the end you get some cheesy animation of terrible quality(you'll have to google this yourself because I don't want to burn your eyes). Here it is your duty to get in rhythm for a climax. This concept is not new, but I have never seen such a bad execution of that rhythm engine. If you pass that point by succeeding or not, you'll be presented with the next maze. There are only a few mazes but what is the point? You are just waiting till your luck runs out anyway. That's what I call the worst Atari game. And now they ask over 200 USD for boxed copy -.-"

When I get to the point that it is usable for most Cartridges then I'll probably release the code. Might be a good idea anyway, since I just started using Arduino and never used C before. So I expect that others could improve my code. Although, it works fine as it is. ​The hardware/shield at this stage is Blinky's design. But I made my own sketch for it. One thing you'll notice is that my delay to get a stable line is very short. I adopted that from Blinky's sketch, it worked fine so I didn't raise the delay time.

The price is lower if you do not use an official Arduino Mega. If you are going for cost effectiveness then an official Arduino would not be the way to go. On the other hand, if you wish to donate money to the Arduino team then you could do that. But that has little to do with trying to keep things as cheap as possible. My Chinese Arduino Mega clone with USB cable costs me: €6.28 (Including shipping) a shield (optional but handy): €3.17 (Including shipping) 5 Slots: €2.06 (+ €5.61 shipping to Belgium) TOTAL: €17.12 (+/- 18.18USD) Wires and a small piece of proto board that I used to raise the slot a bit are not included. If you would avoid the protoshield and use a cartridge socket/port that you might have from a broken Atari then you will save even more money. Thanks to using an Arduino Mega I have a lot of pins available for other stuff.

might be possible but the structure of my sketch is a bit different. I'll send it to you later tonight. The project I'm working on is based on an arduino mega. that makes it super cheap.

He was referring to a particular board which uses a bankswitching that he calls Super banking. I'm not known to this particular board or what method of bankswitching it exactly supports. But of what I read in the other post, it is based on F0 (megaboy). Which is nothing more than a counter triggered by accessing 1FF0. I'm not sure if the information in the other post was correct though. It actually confuses me since the name Superbanking was already in use for the banking your(meaning CPUWIZ's) new PCB supports. Within the homebrew community we have a few boards that support large roms. I'm not sure if at current time any have been build with more than 256 banks, but I know of a few that do support 256k and which can be triggered to switch to any bank with a single opcode. To add to the list, Blinky's MDMC supports 256 4k banks, which would result in 1MB of rom storage. I have yet to make a rom this size, but it is possible. If you look at MDMC then you will notice that it has very much in common with SB. The one thing it does lack is CE RAM.

To answer your question try to understand this: Bankswitching is a trick in which a larger storage chip is divided in multiple equal parts. Most of the time, the game console can only see 1 part(a bank). Which bank is seen by the console is controlled by the cartridge pcb. The pcb has some logic chips which will change the selected bank depending on a trigger(condition) What this condition is, is chosen by the designer of the pcb. This can not be changed within the software. A cartridge gets a very limited amount of data from the console. Basically the only thing a cartidge can tell is 1)if it gets power, 2) what the location of the last byte was that was accessed, 3) what data bits were send during a write. This is not much to go by, so most cartridges would select a bank by hotspots in memory. In that case each bank has its own unique memory location that will trigger the bank being selected. Another way would be to combine a hotspot with the data bits. That would trigger depending on the byte being written. If I'm not mistaking then the system where this Superbanking is based on, will use a very basic counter. you can only advance one bank furter each time. The good thing is, there is NO limit in the design. The limit is decided by the size of the storage chip and the counter. But for most games this is useless since changing to any bank besides the one directly after the current one, will take too long. Unless you add other ways of triggering there is no fast way to jump to other banks. Now for the simple answer... there is no real limit. But besides a multicard for 2k and 4k games, I see no use for this bankswitching. a small note for noobies: cartridges like Melody and Symphony are a different story. They contain processors that run there own software. They can adapt to the needed bankswitching because deep inside is a processor faster and more powerfull then the one in the Atari itself.