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Lynx eprom cart


doctorclu

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http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?s...t&p=1166825

http://marcinprusisz.pl/atari/Lynx_cart.pdf

http://atariki.krap.pl/index.php/Atari_256_kB_Game_Cartridge

 

post-9085-1202232460_thumb.jpg post-9085-1202232549_thumb.jpg

 

On the first photo there is my FLASH ROM programmer, a slightly modified SMC 1211TX-WL50 PCI Ethernet NIC. The switch switches between the lower and upper half of the ROM as the SMC-branded Realtek RTL8139C chip can flash ROMS only up to 128KB. I use the ctflasher along with a few simple scripts that cut the ROM image in two and burn them in two steps. :)

Many of the Flash ROMs from the ctflasher's list of supported chips can be easily found in old PCs in the form of the BIOS. :)

So you can most probably get the NIC and the Flash ROMS for free and don't have to search for EPROMs and a programmer anymore.

Pasiu's cart supports the 2xy020 chips only.

The PCBs can sometimes be spotted on eBay, which is where I got mine from.

The WL50 suffix in the NIC's model is important, those without it have almost always only a 28pin DIP socket!

 

Some other carts:

post-9085-1202232671_thumb.jpg post-9085-1202232689_thumb.jpg post-9085-1202232791_thumb.jpg post-9085-1202232811_thumb.jpg

 

Sorry for the ugly-looking network card but I had to use the 40pin ZIF socket because it was much cheaper than the 32pin one. :)

Edited by pepax
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  • 1 month later...

What's the difference between the 27C020 EPROM and the 27020 EPROM? (What does that "C" mean? this appears in other chip series too, like the 28x EEPROMS, etc...)

 

*Edit*

And BTW, does antbody know the carriage-read cycle time of the Lynx?

Edited by per
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What's the difference between the 27C020 EPROM and the 27020 EPROM? (What does that "C" mean? this appears in other chip series too, like the 28x EEPROMS, etc...)

 

*Edit*

And BTW, does antbody know the carriage-read cycle time of the Lynx?

Maybe CMOS ? Does it really matter ? Each manufacturer gives its own names to its chips

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  • 1 month later...

(Quoting this from another message since it helps in my question here...)

 

(Bubsy-TRON)

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River Patroller

 

Posts: 2,344

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QUOTE (per @ Mon Mar 24, 2008 3:17 PM) post_snapback.gifQUOTE (calfranklin @ Mon Mar 24, 2008 9:47 AM) post_snapback.gifJust wondering if there's a way I could play downloaded game roms on my Lynx and not just on the Handy emulator?

I whuld say yes, but you'll need to cut of the Handy formatted header and burn it onto the right sized ((E)E)PROM.

 

 

This is interesting since I am working on something like this.

 

So a 1 meg image will not work in a 2 meg chip?

 

And how do you cut the Handy header off the rom image? Has anyone already done this?

 

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QUOTE (doctorclu @ Tue Mar 25, 2008 4:33 PM) post_snapback.gifQUOTE (per @ Mon Mar 24, 2008 3:17 PM) post_snapback.gifQUOTE (calfranklin @ Mon Mar 24, 2008 9:47 AM) post_snapback.gifJust wondering if there's a way I could play downloaded game roms on my Lynx and not just on the Handy emulator?

I whuld say yes, but you'll need to cut of the Handy formatted header and burn it onto the right sized ((E)E)PROM.

 

 

This is interesting since I am working on something like this.

 

So a 1 meg image will not work in a 2 meg chip?

 

And how do you cut the Handy header off the rom image? Has anyone already done this?

 

 

The easiest way to cut off the rom image is to use a unix command "tail". You can easily find the command "tail" compiled for Windows also.

 

What you want to do is to cut off the first 64 bytes of the game.lnx file and rename it to game.lyx

 

If the game.lnx is 256k then the command

 

tail --bytes=262144 games.lnx > games.lyx

 

will do the trick. (The command "tail" takes the last 256k of the cart)

 

Another problem is that usually your cart is wired for 256k games. To play a 128k game on it you need to split the lyx image into 512 byte pieces and duplicate each piece and glue them together again so you get the required 256k rom.

 

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karri

 

 

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QUOTE (karri @ Tue Mar 25, 2008 5:40 PM) post_snapback.gifQUOTE (doctorclu @ Tue Mar 25, 2008 4:33 PM) post_snapback.gifQUOTE (per @ Mon Mar 24, 2008 3:17 PM) post_snapback.gifQUOTE (calfranklin @ Mon Mar 24, 2008 9:47 AM) post_snapback.gifJust wondering if there's a way I could play downloaded game roms on my Lynx and not just on the Handy emulator?

I whuld say yes, but you'll need to cut of the Handy formatted header and burn it onto the right sized ((E)E)PROM.

 

 

This is interesting since I am working on something like this.

 

So a 1 meg image will not work in a 2 meg chip?

 

And how do you cut the Handy header off the rom image? Has anyone already done this?

 

 

The easiest way to cut off the rom image is to use a unix command "tail". You can easily find the command "tail" compiled for Windows also.

 

What you want to do is to cut off the first 64 bytes of the game.lnx file and rename it to game.lyx

 

If the game.lnx is 256k then the command

 

tail --bytes=262144 games.lnx > games.lyx

 

will do the trick. (The command "tail" takes the last 256k of the cart)

 

Another problem is that usually your cart is wired for 256k games. To play a 128k game on it you need to split the lyx image into 512 byte pieces and duplicate each piece and glue them together again so you get the required 256k rom.

 

--

karri

 

 

 

Would a program like Lynxer also do the job?

 

http://www.mdgames.de/lynxer50.zip

 

Lynxer is described as ROM-image-builder and able to load a homebrewed Lynx-program (*.O) from a cartridge the program has to be transformed into a size fitting to the cartridge. Lynxer adapts the program file(s) to the BLL-cartridge-size of 256 blocks of 1024 bytes.

Edited by doctorclu
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Hey all, I've been working to get a eprom cart working. Here so far in this picture shows that I got the B&C eprom cart, and added four rows of sockets so I can choose from either 1 meg or 2 meg games.

 

Now the part I didn't realize would be so difficult. Can someone please take the Paperboy image I've attached and transform into the image file it needs to be for a eprom load? I have 27c020 ready to go on this. Afterwards, can you let me know what you did so I can try it.

 

My problem right now is too many factors. I need to burn a rom, figure out where the rom goes on the board and how, and oh yeh, I am not sure my eprom burner will do the job. First time. It would be nice if I had a good image to work with so I can get the eprom burner in line.

 

If someone can help me convert this image, I'd appreciate that. If not Paperboy, then some workable image I can burn.

 

Thanks!

post-4709-1210999251_thumb.jpg

Paperboy.zip

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For your first time, instead of transforming the Paperboy (128K Rom) into

the right format for your 27C020 (as Karri describes above), I'd suggest

you start with a 256K *.lyx one instead, which will fit without much fuss.

AvP_lyx.zip

 

Thank you! And what did you use to convert this image?

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You can also use the Yastuna 2 ROM, it is freeware and available in Handy *.lnx format and burnable *.lyx format in the same archive.

http://fadest.free.fr/Yastuna2/indexen.html

 

Oh sweet!! Not only do I get a 2 mb image to play with, but the LYNX FINALLY GETS A GAME THAT STARTS WITH THE LETTER "Y". :D

 

Now we just need to work on "O" and I think "U".

 

In the meantime I will fire up my rom burner to see for starters if my burner will work.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Looks interesting.

 

Do you want to tell us more about it?

 

There is not that much to tell about it. It's a Lynx-Eprom-Adapter I've build some years ago.

It supports 1m*8 eproms (e.g. M27C801), where you can put up your cart-images.

I wrote a little software which can mix up the images to form a 1M image. So you can

merge from 8x128k games up to 2x512k games into one burn file. The picture shows a

eprom with a combination of 2x128k games together with 3x256k games.

The active image can be easily selected by using the up & down buttons of the numeric selector

on the left side. That's all...

 

CU

Irgendwer

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Looks interesting.

 

Do you want to tell us more about it?

 

There is not that much to tell about it. It's a Lynx-Eprom-Adapter I've build some years ago.

It supports 1m*8 eproms (e.g. M27C801), where you can put up your cart-images.

I wrote a little software which can mix up the images to form a 1M image. So you can

merge from 8x128k games up to 2x512k games into one burn file. The picture shows a

eprom with a combination of 2x128k games together with 3x256k games.

The active image can be easily selected by using the up & down buttons of the numeric selector

on the left side. That's all...

 

CU

Irgendwer

 

 

LOL! "That's all", well, very nice. I know a lot of people who would love to have multicarts for the Lynx if you ever decide to share on the process you came up with.

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it's just a coder that replaces jumpers (like those on Karry's card for example)

 

But the wheel is more user friendly for sure. I am also experimenting in a software wheel because there is no way I can remember where I put the image. The software wheel would use a i2c 8 bit latch. But I am still building the mod and need to solder 8 more wires before I can test it.

 

post-2099-1212037428_thumb.jpg

 

--

Karri

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Looks interesting.

 

Do you want to tell us more about it?

 

There is not that much to tell about it. It's a Lynx-Eprom-Adapter I've build some years ago.

It supports 1m*8 eproms (e.g. M27C801), where you can put up your cart-images.

I wrote a little software which can mix up the images to form a 1M image. So you can

merge from 8x128k games up to 2x512k games into one burn file. The picture shows a

eprom with a combination of 2x128k games together with 3x256k games.

The active image can be easily selected by using the up & down buttons of the numeric selector

on the left side. That's all...

 

CU

Irgendwer

 

 

Wow, this is interesting. Do you still make this Lynx Eprom Adaptor?

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Wow, this is interesting. Do you still make this Lynx Eprom Adaptor?

 

The project is about 7 years old and I've done only two adapters - one for a friend & one for me.

I could order some pcbs, but since the price depends on the number of units, the single pcb could

be a quite expensive part (in a prototype series about 12,- EUR) and the test socket & code switch is also not that cheap.

I also have to mention that the adapter is not very comfortable for Lynx I units. My friend has

a Lynx I and I designed a kind of 'rated break point' to divide the lower & upper part of the pcb -

allowing to connect them by appropriate ports & a ribbon cable - but the cartridge door / handle still has to be opened.

 

How many units could I sell here?

 

CU

Irgendwer

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Wow, this is interesting. Do you still make this Lynx Eprom Adaptor?

 

The project is about 7 years old and I've done only two adapters - one for a friend & one for me.

I could order some pcbs, but since the price depends on the number of units, the single pcb could

be a quite expensive part (in a prototype series about 12,- EUR) and the test socket & code switch is also not that cheap.

I also have to mention that the adapter is not very comfortable for Lynx I units. My friend has

a Lynx I and I designed a kind of 'rated break point' to divide the lower & upper part of the pcb -

allowing to connect them by appropriate ports & a ribbon cable - but the cartridge door / handle still has to be opened.

 

How many units could I sell here?

 

CU

Irgendwer

 

 

I´ll take one.

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How many units could I sell here?

 

CU

Irgendwer

 

I'd be interested in one!

 

How do you load software onto it? I own nearly all the Lynx titles, so I'd want it, primarily, to be able to play demos and unreleased Lynx games. If I could easily find and load that software, I'd certainly buy one.

 

Cheers,

Smeg

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