Tissemon

I've built a few RTO's and PiRTO's (None for sale, so please don't ask) and here are some pointers from my experience: RTO 1.1 is a tiny bit more compatible than PiRTO, but not by much. On my PAL INTV, I can run both Bad Apple Demo and the technically advanced game Antarctic Tales from my RTO, but on the PiRTO bad apple can't even be started and Antarctic Tales usually crashes somewhere around level 4. But both the RTO and PiRTO can run all the original games I've tested just fine, so I still think the PiRTO is a much cheaper option that is easier to build and has a better UI. But hey, if you've got a Teensy 4.1 laying around and still want to build an RTO, then go for it! It has, however, come to my attention that there are A LOT of faulty/mislabeled 74LVC245-chips that are being sold, even from trusted vendors. I bought 20 chips from a vendor on AliExpress, and built 5 RTOs that were fine. About a year later, I bought 40 new chips, to build 10 PiRTOs, from the exact same vendor and these were all bad. I have also heard from other people that this has happened to. These chips "kind of" works but makes games / menu crash, just as if the timing values in the software is really off. So no matter if you're making a RTO or a PiRTO, do yourself a favour and order at least 4 sockets for the 74LVC245, so you can test them on one card before soldering them to another. I found an easy way to test them by just powering the Teensy / Pico from a computer. On a working chip, all in/out pins should measure about 0V. On a faulty chip all in/out pins have about 1-2,5V on them. Here's a short video on how to test the chips: (I uploaded some similar videos to AliExpress and got a full refund for my chips) Good luck you all! IMG_8608.mov.40d5b877dbb0818c905271f397ff7a94.mov

No, not even a low socket will allow the Pico to fit under a shell that is totally flat on top. You have to make it higher in the end for it to fit. Or do like me and just modify the shell with a hole 🙂 The socketed LVC-chips fits with the regular shell design though, so you don't have to worry about them.

Also, when building the through hole version. I found this method to be best: begin with a regular pin header and cut all the pins in half on the long side, then solder it to the pcb. next, take some caption tape and put it right over both sides of the SD-card readers components and then cut the pins on the SD reader right where it bends and solder that to the other side of the pcb. then just solder the rest of the components.

To anyone building these, I recommend building the first card with sockets so you can test all components. I learned how tedious and boring it is to desolder all those pins the hard way.

Ah, yes, you are right, it wasn't Crazy Clones that broke it for me, it was the game that came after: Deep Pockets - Super Pro Pool and Billiards (1990)(Realtime).bin. But exactly how long is the limit for filenames in PiRTO? The arrays defined with 60 characters, but Adventure (USA, Europe) (Intellivision Lives!).bin is only 50 characters, but can't be shown. I've got quite a few games on my SD-card with names longer than 50, the longest having 74 characters. Would it be possible to make the PiRTO support at least 80 characters (255 characters would probably be optimal, since that is what the FAT32 standard supports, but 80 is probably more than enough for most of us.) I remember that I changed the limit to 100 characters myself easily on the RTO, but when I tried doing the same on the PiRTO now, the files wouldn't show up correctly...

I think I just found a bug with the File Browser: I've got Crazy Clones (1981)(-)(PD).bin in a folder and Adventure (USA, Europe) (Intellivision Lives!).bin in another folder. And it seems that when you have a file with - or ! in its name, the file selector won't show that file or any other file that comes after it. Might be other characters that trigger the same effect, such as , or . (I havn't tested very much yet). These files can be shown on the regular RTO, so it's a bit odd, I think. I might look in to how to fix this later, but if anybody else has a quick fix to this, please post it here.

Made some progress in making a couple of extra carts that will be for sale in Sweden in a while. Complete with overlays/instructions, minibox, shell and sd-card

I've ordered 10 PCBs and all the stuff that is needed to make them. The Picos from a Swedish trusted vendor and the SN74LVC245ANs, the SD-card-module and the capacitors from different sellers on AliExpress. Took a while for me to realize it was the 74LVC245s that were the problem. With the AliExpress ICs the timings were completely off, and I could only get to the menu of the cart if I used the NTSC-settings on my PAL Intellivision. And even then, I couldn't start any games. Aotta has been very kind and have helped me a lot with testing and other stuff, but we couldn't get it to work, whatever I tried. So I ordered 4 new 74LVC245s from my trusted Swedish vendor to compare. So I put together a new PCB with sockets, so I could compare the chips. And with these new chips and the PAL-firmware on the Pi Pico, the cart worked on my Intellivision right away! (Well almost right away - I also noticed that it is very important that all pins have connection in the connector - if not the games can crash a bit at random) I havn't got much trouble with stuff I've ordered on AliExpress before, but this time I got 40 faulty ICs. Not so fun, so I'm working on getting a refund for them, so I can buy new ones for twice the price from my Swedish vendor instead (I don't feel like gambling on any more Ali-chips right now) As proof I found out an easy way to measure if your chips are good or not - Connect the board to your computer and the ICs will get 3,3V on VCC-pin. On the good chips all address pins will then show 0V (or very near 0) and on the bad ones I got around 1-3V on all address pins. There actually was one chip that I tested from AliExpress that had 0V on the address pins as well - but when I tried it in my Intellivision, it still wouldn't work. But to summarize - if your cart won't start on with PAL firmware on a PAL Intellivision, but starts if you try it with NTSC firmware on a PAL Intellivison - it's probably because of one or more faulty SN74LVC245AN. IMG_8065.MOV

I’ve just built a cart for myself and have trouble starting games on my PAL Intellivision. Did you find any timing values that worked for you?

Yeah, You've done a great job! Truly! 👍 I was just curious if it could evolve into something even more awesome. The Intellivoice is a bit bulky, so it would be nice to not need that when playing those games. And I've read that you can connect a keyboard (or other HID-devices) to the Pi Picos usb-port (with an adapter), so ECS-support and keyboard connected to the cart would be cool as well. I know it would take a great deal of work, but maybe someone else feels up for the challenge some time in the future 🙂

Now that it's powered by a Pico with dual core - do you think it would be theoretically possible to add emulated support for Intellivoice and ECS to the cart?

I'm there for you, buddy! To test with my crappy consoles 🤣

Thanks for testing, if they work for you, they will probably work on my Intellivison as well. I've got one with a PCB that works with my RTO now. The reset function on my RTO still only works sometimes though. But what happens if reset function doesn't work on PiRTO? Is it just to get in to the file selector that I might have to push reset one time? Or may I also have to push reset after selecting a game? And if after selecting a game - will the game start on reset or will I get back to the file-selector?

Thanks for the quick reply! I'll double check so I order the correct one! And by the way - how good is the compability? As you might remember I had some issues with Dracula and Antarctic Tales Enhanced Edition on one of my Intellivisions since they seem to be a bit extra picky with timings or something like that. Have you tested those two games? And are there any possible issues with the reset circuit or will this work right away, even on systems that hasn't been recapped?

This looks awesome! I’ve already got a regular RTO but will probably build a PiRTO anyway 🙂 A quick question: a shield with regular SD should work just as good as Micro SD, right?