About to set on course for a new game, but have cart dumping questions.

[MrSmiley381]

Well, this is scary. I'm trying to get into a scene that's been around longer than I have, with my own ideas, and I want to put my stuff on cart when all is said and done. Basically, some friends and I are getting together to make a sort of competition cart. It's all about surviving in different challenges, where your score constantly increases, until you die. Once you die, you move on to the next game. At least, in theory. Is it possible to switch to an entirely different game and keep your score? I suppose that would be a good first question to ask. My friends and I are just getting started with 6502 architecture, so we're trying to figure that out.

 

The main question I came to ask is what exactly I can dump to a 32K EPROM. Can I dump something that's not 32K? Let's say my game comes out to only be 2K. I want to put it on cart, but I only have a socketed 32K board to work with. Can I just burn the game to the entire 32K EPROM? If not, can I inflate/pad the rom so it takes up all 32K? Sorry if this has been asked before, but I couldn't find it.

 

I suppose the last question is about how you feel about my survival mode challenge idea. It's supposed to be intense, and about seeing who can last the longest. I know it's not a wholly original idea, but it was something my friends and I were tinkering around with.

 

Thanks for taking a look. I'm really hoping this turns out to be a good project.

[Mark2008]

Well, this is scary. I'm trying to get into a scene that's been around longer than I have, with my own ideas, and I want to put my stuff on cart when all is said and done. Basically, some friends and I are getting together to make a sort of competition cart. It's all about surviving in different challenges, where your score constantly increases, until you die. Once you die, you move on to the next game. At least, in theory. Is it possible to switch to an entirely different game and keep your score? I suppose that would be a good first question to ask. My friends and I are just getting started with 6502 architecture, so we're trying to figure that out.

 

The main question I came to ask is what exactly I can dump to a 32K EPROM. Can I dump something that's not 32K? Let's say my game comes out to only be 2K. I want to put it on cart, but I only have a socketed 32K board to work with. Can I just burn the game to the entire 32K EPROM? If not, can I inflate/pad the rom so it takes up all 32K? Sorry if this has been asked before, but I couldn't find it.

 

I suppose the last question is about how you feel about my survival mode challenge idea. It's supposed to be intense, and about seeing who can last the longest. I know it's not a wholly original idea, but it was something my friends and I were tinkering around with.

 

Thanks for taking a look. I'm really hoping this turns out to be a good project.

 

I was confused as to what platform in particular you were talking about. The 6507 cpu in the Atari 2600, I know is in the 6502 family, but I thought Atari carts were more standard in the 4k variety and required bank switching to go higher.

 

So i thought maybe you were talking about atari 8-bit.

 

Anyway, I'm not an expert to answer, but thought a few questions might help. Also, did you mean if you take out the cartridge from the console, anyway to keep the score to the next game inserted into the console?

 

I almost assume the answer to that is no, since, I think you are supposed to turn the console off and it doesn't have any permanent storage.

 

But if you have one cart containing several games, then the answer is certainly yes. Even if it appears as multiple games to the end user, it is really just one program, so it can save the score between games.

 

To answer your main question, a game does not have to have exactly 32k of game logic to be on a 32k eprom.

That is not to say it may not be exactly 32k in a strict sense, like filled with zero's at the end....I haven't delt with the details at that level, someone else around here probably knows tons about it. But I do know there is no requirement to have your code exactly match the eprom size.

Edited December 19, 2007 by Mark2008

[MrSmiley381]

Well, this is scary. I'm trying to get into a scene that's been around longer than I have, with my own ideas, and I want to put my stuff on cart when all is said and done. Basically, some friends and I are getting together to make a sort of competition cart. It's all about surviving in different challenges, where your score constantly increases, until you die. Once you die, you move on to the next game. At least, in theory. Is it possible to switch to an entirely different game and keep your score? I suppose that would be a good first question to ask. My friends and I are just getting started with 6502 architecture, so we're trying to figure that out.

 

The main question I came to ask is what exactly I can dump to a 32K EPROM. Can I dump something that's not 32K? Let's say my game comes out to only be 2K. I want to put it on cart, but I only have a socketed 32K board to work with. Can I just burn the game to the entire 32K EPROM? If not, can I inflate/pad the rom so it takes up all 32K? Sorry if this has been asked before, but I couldn't find it.

 

I suppose the last question is about how you feel about my survival mode challenge idea. It's supposed to be intense, and about seeing who can last the longest. I know it's not a wholly original idea, but it was something my friends and I were tinkering around with.

 

Thanks for taking a look. I'm really hoping this turns out to be a good project.

 

I was confused as to what platform in particular you were talking about. The 6507 cpu in the Atari 2600, I know is in the 6502 family, but I thought Atari carts were more standard in the 4k variety and required bank switching to go higher.

 

So i thought maybe you were talking about atari 8-bit.

 

Anyway, I'm not an expert to answer, but thought a few questions might help. Also, did you mean if you take out the cartridge from the console, anyway to keep the score to the next game inserted into the console?

 

I almost assume the answer to that is no, since, I think you are supposed to turn the console off and it doesn't have any permanent storage.

 

But if you have one cart containing several games, then the answer is certainly yes. Even if it appears as multiple games to the end user, it is really just one program, so it can save the score between games.

 

To answer your main question, a game does not have to have exactly 32k of game logic to be on a 32k eprom.

That is not to say it may not be exactly 32k in a strict sense, like filled with zero's at the end....I haven't delt with the details at that level, someone else around here probably knows tons about it. But I do know there is no requirement to have your code exactly match the eprom size.

 

Sorry if I didn't seem very specific. I do mean Atari 2600, I was just typing later at night and my mind was in a million different places at once.

 

Also, I did mean having one cart with multiple games, with the score remaining between games until you die in the last game.

 

As for the 32K eprom thing, really I just wanted to limit development costs and stick with one developer cart. Similarly, the eprom burner I'm looking at can't do anything less than 8K eproms, I believe. That's why I was wondering if I could dump a small game, perhaps 2K, to a 32K cart. What info I did find suggested the possibility of just making multiple copies and saving it all into one .bin. But, I wanted to ask, just to be sure.

 

Thanks for your help so far. The hardest part in deveopment always seems to be the planning and initial upstart. After that, things should start to look better for me.

[Cybergoth]

Actually I think you just have to fill the 32K with so many copies of the smaller binary until it's full.