Kroko

Really? I would like to see that. IIRC it was one of these: KrokoCart.bin kk.bin

I have designed the Krokodile as a developer cart and I wanted to be able to do the following: 1. Start the compile script (which also starts the downloading to the cart) 2. Cycle the power switch on the 2600 => Done. With a card based solution I would have had to do the following: 1. Unplug the card from the cartridge (which may or may not be easy depending on the connector) 2. Plug it into the card reader 3. Compile and transfer to the card (a script can also do that in 1 step) 4. Unplug the card from the reader 5. Plug it into the cart 6. Power cycle the 2600. The cable based solution has also some disadvantages. E.g. you need to have the cable connected and a PC next to the 2600. In addition there is a 0.001% risk to damage the 2600. Well I had no doubt which way to go. Do both of the above steps 50 times and then decide. Of course the best solution is to have both available like CC2 and Chimera. I hope Vern will be back at work soon

Then Stella should at least have a developer's switch which makes the startup back random. This seems to be the best approach. I'm going to check all the F8 ROMs I have, and if most/all of them work with startup bank 0, I'll make that the default. But I'll also add an option to randomize the startup bank, which won't be used by default (only for developers). Then new developers can test with this option, to make sure their ROM is designed correctly to start from any bank. Try Berserk VE, I think it needs a special bank as well. It only starts ok in 50% of the cases on the Krokodile

It depends on the "real hardware". Most programmable logic chips start up with registers cleared. So if the bank number is stored in a register then you will most likely start up in the bank which is stored at the beginning of the ROM chip. But only most likely, because typically there is no reset circuit which brings the hardware in a defined state. So especially if you switch the cart on and off quickly, you could get different results. On the other hand you can make your "real hardware" such, that a cleared register leads to the selection of the upper bank instead of the lower bank. It is just a question how you control the address lines of the rom chip. I can only say that the Krokodile will most likely start up such, that the registers are cleared and that means that the address line controlling the ROM bank is also most likely 0. This selects the lower 4K of the ROMs address space most of the time, but not always. Other "real hardware" could do it differently. In emulation you can not emulate all possible hardware implementations at the same time. I would say you need to tell the emulator for each rom, where to start. Depending on the original hardware implementation. Of course it is bad design if a 8K rom is unable to start in both banks and will always cause issues especially on real hardware.

No harm. Not to the 7800 and not to the Krokodile. With a bit of bad luck, the games just don't work ...

I've used my Kroko Cart with my 7800, so, yes it works (for 2600 games only of course). VERY cool! Much appreciated! Thanks! I wouldn't count on it. There are versions of the 7800 which WILL cause trouble with the Krokodile. Depends on the Bankswitching mode ... Modes which monitor the databus may cause trouble on the 7800. Multicarts do not work.

Hi Curt ! I sent you a mail today. Did you receive it ? Unfortunately I can not PM you because your Inbox is full ...

In addition, it will not help the US automotive industry to become more competitive.

If I were you I would not use a voltage above 9V. The 5V regulator already gets very hot at 9V and it doesn't feel good at 12V. I don't want to think about how hot it will get above 12V and I would be afraid to damage the console ... at least long term.

Both Klax and Fatal Run require Superchip RAM (SARA). They will not work on standard boards. You need to try ROMs which don't need extra RAM

I don't understand what you are doing. Can you please post real code ? I don't see where your reset vectors are pointing to. What I would like to see is the content of the reset vector in each bank and what code you have at the location where these vectors are pointing to.

Fortunately the cart does not drive the data lines when detecting a write to these spots. There is no alternative to a write instruction in this case, but it is also not a problem. That would be good design practise and I think most of the original ROMs do it like this, but IIRC I also found a few 3F ROMs that use the rest of the lower TIA addresses together with 3F switching. So you can choose to either emulate the original 3F behaviour or be compatible with these non standard ROMs ... or maybe provide both options under a different name.

The details of 3E were discussed here: http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?s...st&p=770901 What is this ?

The cartridge does not know if you read or write. So yes, both read and write trigger the bankswitch. Switching with a write is not good, because you drive the data lines. If the hotspot is within the cartridge address space you get a bus conflict on every bankswitch. So if you love your atari and your cart, switch with a read (in case the hotspot is in the cartridge address space). Bankswitching is done by some kind of logic chip inside the cartridge. What you can use depends on the logic chip and how it is programmed. So what you can use depends on the cartridge hardware you are programming your game onto. These schemes do not exist. Follow the link that SpiceWare privided above to learn more about what banking schemes exist. IF they exist, you still can only choose very few of them, because you can not buy cartridge hardware for most of them. Check the AtariAge store for what is currently available. That depends on how the bankswitching is implemented in logic. There is no general rule what happens if you do something that doesn't make sense. For the adress based bankswitching schemes, nothing would happen. You just read from this address without triggering a bankswitch. From a programmers perspective you need to be prepared that the cartridge starts in a random bank. Many of the bad hacks out there do only start if the initial bank is bank0. Thats why they sometimes work and sometimes fail if you put them on real hardware. That is bad programming. I would not worry about these too much. The Stella emulator tries to auto-detect what the code is doing and chooses the correct bankswitch scheme. There are also databases available containing the bs scheme for almost every available ROM.

Wouldn't you need to get it programmed by Chad first ? It is an FPGA. Its content is RAM based and is loaded into the chip on each startup. So it is sufficient to just replace the chip.

So you say that it is OK that Hozer steals from the Hack authors ? I am sure you are pretty alone with that opinion. BTW I think it is not nearly the same if you steal from Microsoft or if you steal from an individual who just wants a little reward for the countless hours he invested into something, may it be legal or not. I am sorry if I repeat myself, but I can't believe that there are people who can not see the difference.

It is not wrong as long as the author of game and hack do not care that you build a hack of the hack. But if they directly tell you that they do not want it, and you still do it, then this is wrong. But obviously the seller was not 100% aware of what he was doing and it is good that he changed his mind. My point is that you should not take something if you are directly told not to take it. And I still think that nobody is allowed to take the hackers work against his will. Tell me why the hack thief is not just using the original ? Nobody would complain if the work of the hacker is not stolen. Thats what it is all about. The work of the hacker is stolen. Most hackers would NEVER release anything against the explicit will of the original author. Certain other people do and that is wrong. Nobody is stealing Robins work. Robin is stealing from people who care and that is also wrong. I don't see how this fits to what we are discussing here.

No offense, but this is cheap. if you don't want to discuss, then don't post. It is obvious that you don't care about other peoples work, and that is cheap as well You just repeat the stupid opinions that you already expressed, but don't directly answer to anything I said. Great job, really.

If the original author does not allow to publish it, then it is stolen as soon as you publish it against his will. But this is not the case for most hacks and I think it is ok to publish everything where the original author has no more interest to protect it in any way. Can you give an example where somebody is stupid enough to publish hacks of games where the copyright holders are still interested to protect their property ? Completely wrong. The original work is property of the original author. And the changes to this work are property of the one that changed it. Its is not as you say that nobody is owning anything. Both are owning their part of the work. Nobody has the money to really effectively copyright something in the hobby area, or ? I think it would be quite possible to copyright the modification to a game in case the original author agrees. Nobody would do it because it is not practical. If you change a single byte, you are the owner of this change, at least that is my opinion. Of course you don't own the original code. That is not the point. the point is, that the modification takes time, a lot of time, and that this work is owned by the author of the hack. Yes, I can tell you: If you take something, where the owner does not care that you take it, because you ask or he is no longer interested, then that is not stealing. But if you steal the modification, knowing that the author of the modification does not want you to use it, that IS stealing. Do you (want to) understand the difference ?

Not in Stock, but maybe you can still order in higher quantity: http://www.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dk...l?name=S1126-ND Or maybe here: http://www.distrelec.com/ search for "345-024-520-202" Not sure if it is exactly what you need ...

It is not compatible, sorry. The mode is just there because it exists ... to show what you have just selected.

Very nice. I like that one It flickers a little, but I like it more than the white version

This looks great so far ! Can you please try to make Jumpman colored like in the C64 version ? I like the colored Jumpman much more than the white version. I'm used to the Atari 8-bit version since that's what I played long ago. If it comes down to sacrificing color elsewhere in order to color Jumpman, I'd rather have the white Jumpman. ..Al But while you are playing, you look at Jumpman all the time... wouldn't that justify to try hard to let him look as nice as possible ?

This looks great so far ! Can you please try to make Jumpman colored like in the C64 version ? I like the colored Jumpman much more than the white version.

Since you're happily posting I'm in mourning because Armin must be RIP then I moved. Hey that was a joke Of course you get #1 and #2 #180 for me PS.: In addition it is against the rules. If you don't take 1 and 2 you get NONE !