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Wanted: SuperChip-based Atari 2600 Carts


Albert

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Note: For the time being I have as many SuperChip carts as I need. Thanks to everyone who sent some in!!

 

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In an effort to get the homebrew game Cave-In published, I need to acquire a slew of SuperChip-based Atari 2600 carts so we can reuse the SuperChip contained within. What is the SuperChip (also known as SARA)? It's an additional chip that some later Atari 2600 games have that contains an additional 128 byte of RAM, effectively doubling the memory available to Atari 2600 programmers.

 

Here is a list of all the SuperChip based games:

 

Crystal Castles

Dark Chambers

Defender II

Desert Falcon

Dig Dug

Fatal Run

Jr. Pac-Man

KLAX

Millipede

Off the Wall

Radar Lock

Secret Quest

Sprintmaster

Stargate

Super Football

 

I don't expect anyone to send me copies of Off the Wall, of course, but several of those games are relatively common (such as Dig Dug, Crystal Castles, and Jr. Pac-Man). If you have some number of these carts you can sell to me, please send me a PM.

 

Thanks!

 

..Al

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In an effort to get the homebrew game Cave-In published, I need to acquire a slew of SuperChip-based Atari 2600 carts so we can reuse the SuperChip contained within. What is the SuperChip (also known as SARA)? It's an additional chip that some later Atari 2600 games have that contains an additional 128 byte of RAM, effectively doubling the memory available to Atari 2600 programmers.

 

Well this is good news! Cave in is a great game.

 

Can't help with your search though.

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Do those red carts have everything the superchip carts need? They're a lot slimmer.

 

Are you referring to the picture of the PCB's I posted?

 

Yeah

 

Those are just my boards, which is why Al needs donor carts, so he can extract the SuperChip (SARA) from them and use them on these boards.

 

Here is a comparison shot between Atari's board and mine:

SARAandSARA.jpg

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Al,

 

May I make a suggestion?

 

How about offering the cart for sale with a lower price for those who send in their own donor superchip cart for the title? I think this would make things easier on you and put the burden on the potential buyer to save a few bucks for those who wish to.

 

I'll look and see if I can scrape some together for you in the meantime.

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How about offering the cart for sale with a lower price for those who send in their own donor superchip cart for the title? I think this would make things easier on you and put the burden on the potential buyer to save a few bucks for those who wish to.

 

I like that idea too. Though it would elongate the time between ordering and receiving the game, right? That being said, I have a Crystal Castles that can be used. Are you interested in single carts like that, or just people who have multiples?

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How about offering the cart for sale with a lower price for those who send in their own donor superchip cart for the title? I think this would make things easier on you and put the burden on the potential buyer to save a few bucks for those who wish to.

 

I like that idea too. Though it would elongate the time between ordering and receiving the game, right? That being said, I have a Crystal Castles that can be used. Are you interested in single carts like that, or just people who have multiples?

Right now it's a bit expensive to ship just a single or small number of carts. I'm looking to acquire a number of these carts so they can be worked on all at once, instead of in small spurts. And this will just be for the initial batch of Cave-In carts. Ultimately I'll end up using a new board that will make things a bit easier. :)

 

..Al

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Will Cave In and I guess by default Superchip games work in a Flashback 2? Its my only machine right now and it does have the cart slot mod. Thanks for any info! I'm thinking about getting the game as it does look sweet!

http://kennedy.greg.googlepages.com/fb2compat.html

 

Unfortunately all of the Superchip games Al listed above are shown on this list as "not working". Too bad as I only have the hacked FB2 and was planning a Superchip multicart... ah well, saves me the trouble of building the darn thing!

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Those are just my boards, which is why Al needs donor carts, so he can extract the SuperChip (SARA) from them and use them on these boards.

 

Here is a comparison shot between Atari's board and mine:

 

Okay, daft question time here perhaps, but why not just remove the game chip from the old boards and solder the newly burnt homebrew to them instead? Rather than extract the SARA, solder it to the new board AND then solder the homebrew chip to the new board.

Edited by Mayhem
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Those are just my boards, which is why Al needs donor carts, so he can extract the SuperChip (SARA) from them and use them on these boards.

 

Here is a comparison shot between Atari's board and mine:

 

Okay, daft question time here perhaps, but why not just remove the game chip from the old boards and solder the newly burnt homebrew to them instead? Rather than extract the SARA, solder it to the new board AND then solder the homebrew chip to the new board.

 

I don't think that's totally daft, but I'd venture to guess that reusing old boards may present somewhat of a quality control issue (assuming the various circuit boards are 100% compatible with Cave-In). And in this day and age of flakey buyers and their whining, you'd want to keep your liability to an absolute minimum.

 

NOT heating SARA up twice though to remove and re-install her would reduce the risk of accidentally overheating the poor gal. But I'm sure their soldering skills are tip top :-)

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