Help/info needed for "32-in-1" cart

[Herbarius]

Hello,

I just aquired the 32 in 1 Game Cartridge for the Atari 2600.

 

It works, but I have noticed the colors in most games are quite off... E.g. The Court in Activision Tennis is blue, not green.

Could this be the NTSC version (I'm from Germany, therefore normally it's PAL)? I thought this cartridge was only released in Europe, so why should there be a NTSC version at all?

Or maybe colors have been altered in some of the games like they altered graphics in some? I can't test it in Stella because it won't work (you can only play Fun with Numbers).

 

Or could something be wrong with the cart after all?

 

I also noticed the picture wasn't quite as clear as I'm used to from other games, maybe this has something to do with it/could help you determine what's with the colors. Also the cart, when in the VCS, seems to be veeery sensitive to touch, one little bump and it's Hello there, colored bars!

[+Omegamatrix]

Your cart is normal in that the screen is blue in the Atari 32 in 1.

 

 

 

 

I've never looked at the .bin, but usually this happens when a game gets converted from one format (NTSC,PAL,etc..) without fixing the colors. The regular PAL version of Tennis does have correct colors (green court).

 

 

Sorry your cart is so sensitive to the touch.

[Herbarius]

Thanks for you quick reply. Now I know they propably just have been lazy converting the games... maybe it was kind of a rush job

 

May I asked how you managed to get it emulated? Have you made modifications to the ROM file or sliced it into the seperate games somehow?

 

 

Sorry your cart is so sensitive to the touch.

Any suggestions on how I could improve that?

Edited June 12, 2009 by Herbarius

[+stephena]

Hello,

I just aquired the 32 in 1 Game Cartridge for the Atari 2600.

 

It works, but I have noticed the colors in most games are quite off... E.g. The Court in Activision Tennis is blue, not green.

Could this be the NTSC version (I'm from Germany, therefore normally it's PAL)? I thought this cartridge was only released in Europe, so why should there be a NTSC version at all?

Or maybe colors have been altered in some of the games like they altered graphics in some? I can't test it in Stella because it won't work (you can only play Fun with Numbers).

 

Or could something be wrong with the cart after all?

 

I also noticed the picture wasn't quite as clear as I'm used to from other games, maybe this has something to do with it/could help you determine what's with the colors. Also the cart, when in the VCS, seems to be veeery sensitive to touch, one little bump and it's Hello there, colored bars!

I haven't really played with this BIN very much in Stella, but I know it isn't working correctly. Is there any documentation on how the cart should work (ie, how do you select the multiple games)?

[Herbarius]

Is there any documentation on how the cart should work (ie, how do you select the multiple games)?

 

Yes, normally you would switch the Atari off and on again, and it will be a different game.

 

There is some kind of "register" in the cartridge that gets incremented each time you power it up, so this is possible. Somewhere I found a description written by someone who replaced this "register" with DIP switches, so he could select the games with them.

[+Omegamatrix]

May I asked how you managed to get it emulated? Have you made modifications to the ROM file or sliced it into the seperate games somehow?

The cart's been dumped before. Here it is:

32_in_1.zip

 

Edit: and yes the games have been split so they would work in an emulator.

 

Any suggestions on how I could improve that?

You might try cleaning the contacts on the cartridge, or your consoles port itself. Other then that there is not much you can do except try the cartridge in a different 2600, if you have one.

 

 

I haven't really played with this BIN very much in Stella, but I know it isn't working correctly. Is there any documentation on how the cart should work (ie, how do you select the multiple games)?

I believe it switches games each time it's powered on. Is that correct Herbarius?

Edited June 12, 2009 by Omegamatrix

[Herbarius]

The cart's been dumped before. Here it is:

Attached File 32_in_1.zip ( 59.26K )

[...]

I believe it switches games each time it's powered on. Is that correct Herbarius?

 

Yes, that's correct. However, in Stella you can't do this (or can you?), that's why I asked how you got it emulated.

 

 

EDIT: Sorry, didn't download the file and check what it is. It's a seperate BIN for every game. What I knew was a single .bin file which would only give you Fun with Numbers, nothing else.

Edited June 12, 2009 by Herbarius

[+Omegamatrix]

The cart's been dumped before. Here it is:

Attached File 32_in_1.zip ( 59.26K )

[...]

I believe it switches games each time it's powered on. Is that correct Herbarius?

 

Yes, that's correct. However, in Stella you can't do this (or can you?), that's why I asked how you got it emulated.

The file I posted above has all the games split individually. I edited my post above, as I missed that question the first time.

[YOK-dfa]

Any suggestions on how I could improve that?

Throw your cart away and get a new one. 32-in-1 is probably the most common Atari 2600 PAL cart...

[Thomas Jentzsch]

The 32in1 card is a thrown together piece of garbage production wise. E.g. they often used badly hacked NTSC games instead of the correctly converted PAL versions.

[+stephena]

The cart's been dumped before. Here it is:

Attached File 32_in_1.zip ( 59.26K )

[...]

I believe it switches games each time it's powered on. Is that correct Herbarius?

 

Yes, that's correct. However, in Stella you can't do this (or can you?), that's why I asked how you got it emulated.

Well, if that's all there is to it, I'd just need to find what register is storing this value, and have Stella update it every time the ROM is loaded. The latter part is quite easy; figuring out where it's stored is the hard part.

[Eckhard Stolberg]

The cart's been dumped before. Here it is:

Attached File 32_in_1.zip ( 59.26K )

[...]

I believe it switches games each time it's powered on. Is that correct Herbarius?

 

Yes, that's correct. However, in Stella you can't do this (or can you?), that's why I asked how you got it emulated.

Well, if that's all there is to it, I'd just need to find what register is storing this value, and have Stella update it every time the ROM is loaded. The latter part is quite easy; figuring out where it's stored is the hard part.

It's just a counter in the cartridge for the higher address line which is buffered by a capacitor. When you turn the console off for a while, the cartridge always starts with the first game. If you really want to support the 32-in-1 cart with it's own bankswitching scheme, you could simply load the next 2K part of the ROM image into the VCS memory map every time someone hits CTRL-R to reload the ROM in Stella.

[+stephena]

The cart's been dumped before. Here it is:

Attached File 32_in_1.zip ( 59.26K )

[...]

I believe it switches games each time it's powered on. Is that correct Herbarius?

 

Yes, that's correct. However, in Stella you can't do this (or can you?), that's why I asked how you got it emulated.

Well, if that's all there is to it, I'd just need to find what register is storing this value, and have Stella update it every time the ROM is loaded. The latter part is quite easy; figuring out where it's stored is the hard part.

It's just a counter in the cartridge for the higher address line which is buffered by a capacitor. When you turn the console off for a while, the cartridge always starts with the first game. If you really want to support the 32-in-1 cart with it's own bankswitching scheme, you could simply load the next 2K part of the ROM image into the VCS memory map every time someone hits CTRL-R to reload the ROM in Stella.

Of course; I realized this just after I typed the response. I was thinking of finding a register in the ROM itself, when I realized that it's in another piece of hardware in the cart. It has nothing to do with patching the ROM code at all.

[+stephena]

OK, proper support for this is now added to Stella, which will be included in the next release. It works as Eckhard suggested above. Starting the ROM always defaults to the first game (as if it's been unplugged for some time), but while the ROM is loaded, continually reloading (with Ctrl-r) will cycle through each game, simulating an off-on toggle.

Edited June 12, 2009 by stephena

[+stephena]

Now that Stella has native 32in1 support, I started looking at the other multicarts. I have three 4in1 (16K total, 4K per game) and one 8in1 (64K total, 8K per game). In almost all cases, manually splitting the ROM produces binaries that are valid (except for two of the 8K pieces in the 8in1). So I'm looking to do this automatically in Stella. My question is, how do these carts work on a real system? Do they use a power-cycle to switch through each game, just like the 32in1? I can go ahead and have them operate like the 32in1, but it would be nice to know exactly how they work on a real system.

[+Omegamatrix]

Now that Stella has native 32in1 support, I started looking at the other multicarts. I have three 4in1 (16K total, 4K per game) and one 8in1 (64K total, 8K per game). In almost all cases, manually splitting the ROM produces binaries that are valid (except for two of the 8K pieces in the 8in1). So I'm looking to do this automatically in Stella. My question is, how do these carts work on a real system? Do they use a power-cycle to switch through each game, just like the 32in1? I can go ahead and have them operate like the 32in1, but it would be nice to know exactly how they work on a real system.

Alot of them use dip switches, it depends on the multicart. With the dipswitches if it's a 4 in 1 you have 2 dipswitches to give you the four valid choices.

[tremoloman2006]

Was/Is there a NTSC release/conversion of this available?

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Was/Is there a NTSC release/conversion of this available?

Not me, no way!

[+Omegamatrix]

He's being sarcastic, of course.

 

 

Thomas did you make it more authentic by erasing the logos out of Space Jockey, Checkers, Freeway, Fishing Derby, Tennis, Skiing, Boxing, and Laser Blast? Also did you make the sprite hacks of Freeway and Fishing Derby? I started to make this conversion myself when I saw your "cryptic" post. I'm not going to do this if it's already been done.

[tremoloman2006]

If it has been done I couldn't find it under the conversions page. I did look before I asked!

 

http://www.atariage.com/software_conversions.html

[Thomas Jentzsch]

He's being sarcastic, of course.

No, not this time.

 

Sorry.

[+stephena]

Hello,

I just aquired the 32 in 1 Game Cartridge for the Atari 2600.

 

It works, but I have noticed the colors in most games are quite off... E.g. The Court in Activision Tennis is blue, not green.

Could this be the NTSC version (I'm from Germany, therefore normally it's PAL)? I thought this cartridge was only released in Europe, so why should there be a NTSC version at all?

Or maybe colors have been altered in some of the games like they altered graphics in some? I can't test it in Stella because it won't work (you can only play Fun with Numbers).

Just an FYI that I just released Stella 2.8.1, which includes a fix for this. Basically, I added 32in1, 8in1 and 4in1 as bankswitching schemes, with the reload ROM action (Control-r) tied to switching between each ROM. So you open the ROM, and it always starts at game 0. Then pressing Control-r multiple times switches to each game in sequence. You can get it from the 2.8.1 thread.