Anyone here fooled around inside a TV Boy?

[Cassidy Nolen]

HI all,

 

Just got my Super TV Boy in the mail, and of course, disassembled it! I wanted to know if there was an eprom in the system with all of the games on it. Here is what I found....

 

 

The unit has a small board that has the on/off/RF stuff on it, and then a smaller board that seems to have been designed with the idea of an eprom going on it with game data. As I looked it over, I was able to modify a hack so I bypass the RF tuner (thinking that would solve the PAL problem, well it sort of did). I now have a stable black and white signal coming out of the unit via the RCAs I installed. Anyway, here is my question...

 

 

The system has 127 games in it. If the main "operating program" is also 4K, and each of the games are 4K, that brings us to a total of 512K. The board has 24 openings set up to accept an eprom, but instead has a blob of black goo that is wired to the IC holes. To the best of my knowlede, the only available 512 eprom is the 27512 (or 27C512) and I know the pinout of that one. Do you think it would be possible to bypass the silicon blob and install a cartridge port on this unit using the correct address lines that the 2600 uses?

 

If this could be done, a handheld 2600 is not only easy, but incredibly small and efficient (4AA batteries could run the screen and the system).

 

Funny enough, the Activision handheld looks the same as the TV Boy inside, sans the holes for the eprom.....

 

Looking for some thoughts from the experts as I try to redesign a VCSP for the masses.........

 

Cassidy

[Lumpbucket]

The system has 127 games in it. If the main "operating program" is also 4K, and each of the games are 4K, that brings us to a total of 512K

 

Note that most non-banked atari games are 4 kilobyte.

 

To the best of my knowlede, the only available 512 eprom is the 27512 (or 27C512)

 

The 27512 (and C variety) are 512 kilobit, or 64 kilobyte, so not capable of holding 127 4KB games...

 

The 27C4001 is a 512KB EPROM, but it has more pins than a 27512 (32).

 

What might be interesting is if we could figure out what the pins are for the epoxy blob, you might be able to dump the contents of the TV Boy ROM and make an Atari cart from it

[Cassidy Nolen]

You are a genius! I had my bits and bytes all snafu'ed!

 

There are extra holes, and that makes perfect sense. Now I understand. If that is the case, then I really think I can figure out what goes where. The board simply has the programmable chip out of a 27C4001 on the board, and with the pinout of the chip, I should be able to bypass and place a cartridge port on board.

 

Thanks for the info. By any chance, do you think that running an NTSC game on it will make it more "compatible" with an NTSC screen? (right now, the screen is black and white).

 

Cassidy

 

 

As soon as I do get it all pinned out, I would love to make a multicart from the dump. That would be great. Super-bootleg of a bootleg!

[Lumpbucket]

You are a genius!  I had my bits and bytes all snafu'ed!

 

Its easily done..

 

The board simply has the programmable chip out of a 27C4001 on the board, and with the pinout of the chip, I should be able to bypass and place a cartridge port on board.  

 

Yep. It would be a very nice base for a handheld! Bear in mind though that the TV Boy is going to have some sort of banking hardware built in that you'll have to bypass or remove. If its built into the chipset, well, you're kind of stuffed... or at the very least stuck with 4Kb games.

 

(probably)

 

Thanks for the info.  By any chance, do you think that running an NTSC game on it will make it more "compatible" with an NTSC screen?  (right now, the screen is black and white).

 

I have absolutely no idea

 

 

As soon as I do get it all pinned out, I would love to make a multicart from the dump.  That would be great.  Super-bootleg of a bootleg!

 

Indeed! Keep us posted!

[jsoper]

I've seen posts in the past (Kevin Horton?) that the TVboy wasn't completely compatible, timing was somewhat off. And it might not have any OS support for paddle controllers.

[CPUWIZ]

Guess what, my TV boy will be ripped wide open this weekend, I have seen a blob style circuit board converted so I know it's possible.

 

[Atari2600Lives]

Will a TV Boy work in NTSC?

[D.Yancey]

I never got past the title of this thread.....hmmmm

[CPUWIZ]

Will a TV Boy work in NTSC?

 

Well, the one I have is not the 127 game one but rather a 10 in 1 unit and it does work. It should still be an Atari though.

[LinkoVitch]

When you add the cart slot, why not get the TV boy to disconnect the onbord blob and soley access the cart port, if there is no cart it uses the onboard blob.. Bit like the 7800 with inbuilt games.