Chuck Gill

Anybody that has a Cuttlecart should get this file from Paul immediately. It's impressive and a lot of fun. You just need two keyboard type controllers. The Star Raiders touch pads work as do the Keyboard and Kids controllers. -Chuck

Tempest, I dug out my 5200 loaners today - Jr. Pac-man 2-28-84 Gremlins 4-23-84 Last Starfighter 5-8-84 Track & Field 5/10 (no year) Rescue on Fractulus (no date) Ballblazer (no date) Heres a scan if you would like to see them. http://www.zutco.com/atari/loaners.jpg -Chuck

Sark, I have several broken donor Atari's, I can spare a connector. Drop me an email. [email protected] -Chuck

Tempest, Are you interested in 5200 loaner cart dates? I have a few if you are. -Chuck

The coolest things I have are an Atari desk set. It's a pencil holder, ashtray holder and business card holder all made of wood with the Atari fuji laser etched into them. Really cool for early 80's stuff. -Chuck

Paul, I'll give it a go. Sounds like fun. -Chuck

Oldman, It's 9 volts DC, 500ma (minimum), the tip is positive. Have fun. -Chuck

Cassidy, Just to confuse things even more, there is also a 2732B that uses 12.5 volts. Here's what I've found - 2732 - 25V 2732A - 21V 2732B - 12.5V 2732C - ?? Never seen one 2732D - 25V The 21V chips seem to be the most common. If you have no idea what chip you have you can start at 12.5v and step up the voltage until it works. Does your burner ask you if you want your data burned in intel format? I have run across that somewhere in the past and if you choose intel format it scrambles the order of the bytes in the file. -Chuck

Junie, Glad it's up and running. Maybe this will give some people the incentive to come out with new games! I'm looking forward to see what develops. -Chuck

Cassidy, Just a couple of thoughts after reading Paul's post. Check the programming voltage of your eproms. A chip burned at the wrong voltage won't work right. You should be able to burn an eprom with a 4k bin file and then read that eprom back into another file and play it on your emulator. If not the bin file is not being burned correctly. Not all 7404's are created equal, I've had the best success with the low power 74LS04 version. Hope that helps, Chuck "A person never stands so tall as when stooping over a classic game."

I started playing this last night and managed to get as far a finding the green key. I did find a version 1.7 on VGR's website. You can get it at http://www.clark.net/pub/vgr/indent17.zip -Chuck

Paul, You are absolutely right,we are all DEVO. I've just always used the 2732 because they are easier to find and my antique eprom burner doesn't support the 2532. -Chuck

Cassidy, Here's how the hex inverter is wired in an Atari pcb to 2732 eprom conversion. http://www.zutco.com/atari/Board.jpg It's a crude picture, but that's the minimum required to make it work. Cafeman, You got it! Hozer's games are Eproms on a nice custom board using an old Atari case. -Chuck

Atari70's, Try adding - in front of the o as in Dasm combat06.txt -f3 -ocombat06.bin It's also kind of a convention to name your source combat06.s instead of combat06.txt. -Chuck

'A better Pac-Man' is the one most often stuck in my 2600. If you don't have it, you should order it, it's well worth buying. Ms. Pac-Man is my second favorite. Jr. Pac-Man suffers more from poor color choices than anything else, it is tougher to see. -Chuck

Junie, Try http://xtronics.com/memory/EPROM.htm they sell a nice little programmer for $150. It plugs into a parallel port. It's what I'm looking at to replace the antique burner I have. -Chuck

Junie, On the picture all connections are on the side of the board shown. (Back of board) The colors don't mean anything. The 74LS04 has 6 logic inverter gates on it, the cart only needs one of them. That's why only 4 wires are used. Atari chose to invert the chip select line on their cart design, you need to invert it through the 7404 to make it compatible with an eprom or a standard prom. If you want to see the spec sheet for a 74LS04 it's at http://www.fairchildsemi.com/ds/DM/DM74LS04.pdf BTW Ubersaurus, I have lots of eeproms that are over 20 years old, I've never had one lose it's contents yet. Quite a few games from smaller companies came on eproms. You probably have some in your collection. -Chuck

Junie, Here's a crude wiring diagram. http://www.zutco.com/atari/Board.jpg I've shown red slashes where I cut the traces and red dots where the connections are. -Chuck

I would be interested as long as it fits in a standard Atari case and was already drilled and traced to accept a 2732 and the LS7404. $1.00 does not seem unreasonable to me. Randy at Hozer has custom boards made with a custom bankswitching circuit for 16k games. I believe Chris Wilkson (Hope I got his name right) makes them for him. I have been unable to find Chris on the web to see if his awesome bankswitch board is available to the general public. I'm not worried about a shortage of real Atari cases. I enough of them with bad labels or that just don't work that it's not a problem. The 20 or so Pac-Invaders I made were almost all Star-Raiders carts, I seem to get lots of those with no keypad and or bad labels. -Chuck

I ordered "A Better Pac-Man" and it came labeled. I consider this game a must have. I also ordered "Pesco" a good game, but "A Better Pac-Man" is well better. Randy does a good job for us. -Chuck

I have found Paul's testcart indespensible. If you ever need to test large quantities of controllers, including keypads and paddles it's a real timesaver. I also have been using it to help adjust the color on my 2600's and test all the switches. It is a lot more user friendly than Atari's diagnostic cart. If you sell systems or controllers don't hesitate to get one. I give it 2 joysticks up. (This was an unsolicited endorsement) -Chuck

The centerpiece would have to be my "SEEA GUEAST" cart. It's a Taiwan version of Seaquest but it still makes me laugh. My wife found it and "SPAIDDER FIGHT" at a thrift store. -Chuck

I forgot effects and amps! A portion of our living room is devoted to them. I have a Marshall small stack, an old Ampeg VT22, and a couple of small Fenders. (A Sidekick Reverb 25 and a Champ.) The effects are an original Thomas Crybaby, EH Big Muff PI, and an RP-100. I don't use the noisy Big Muff much but I keep it for sentimental reasons. No classical training here, I have more of a Johnny Ramone style. My wife says she forbids me to get any more guitars, but she did get me a left handed Strat for my birthday. and she puts up with all my games. -Chuck

Great observation Joel! I have a 67 Gibson Flying V, a mid 80's Strat (Japan) and a lefty Strat (Mexico). I also have a couple of left handed acoustics (Takemine and Ibanez)and a cheap electric bass. Everything is strung left handed. No Pac-man guitar yet though. -Chuck

I have ordered from Hozer too, the games I have bought are worth every penny. Randy is also pretty fast making up the carts. I really like "A Better Pac-Man". It's the 2600 Pac-Man that Atari's could have been. -Chuck www.zutco.com