Supercharger FAQ Questions

[Mot]

A list of questions that I had ever since I got my hands on a Supercharger for $10 (with tape player and $5 for tapes 1-7).

 

If a site has this info, then call me a SOB and point me to that site thanks!

 

 

 

Arcadia stuff is worth more then Starpath stuff, right?

 

Why are the ROM’s not currently on Atari-Age?

 

Why can’t I load game X (a 4K rom) / is there a way to fix to make it work with the Supercharger?

 

Do MP3’s work just as good as WAV files?

 

How do you get the ID needed in Dragonstomper to get across the bridge? / Where is the walkthrough for it?

 

If that smart card cartridge thing comes out, it will not be able to play the 13 games from Starpath right?

 

What emulators (if any) play the Starpath roms? And do I need to read 40 pages of instructions to be able to play them?

 

Supercharger and the 7800 works fine on the one with expansion port but not at all on the one without. Is this because of the smaller contacts? Does it work for anyone?

 

Any advise on making tapes to use with the Supercharger? Like don’t use stereo, only mono. I tried making a tape and it didn’t work but when I plugged Supercharger directly into the computer, it worked great.

[ubersaurus]

The supercharger game roms work fine in z26 at the least...a reason that the roms aren't on this site is because they were being sold for a while on a cd collection, although that is no longer readily available as far as I'm aware, I think the people who own the rights to the games still don't want them out if they can help it. They are out there though, just have to search around a little.

[SS]

A list of questions that I had ever since I got my hands on a Supercharger for $10 (with tape player and $5 for tapes 1-7).

 

Nice snag!

 

If a site has this info, then call me a SOB and point me to that site thanks!

 

The AtariAge Starpath page is here but I'll be damed if there's a hardware listing for the Supercharger it's self. At least, I can't find one.

 

The CyberPunks Supercharger FAQ is here

 

There are others but you'll have to GOOGLE those yourself!

 

 

Arcadia stuff is worth more then Starpath stuff, right?

 

Logically, you would think so but it doesn't seem to work that way. More of a "bragging" thing, really. BTW, the Arcadia version of the Supercharger has a slightly-larger-than-normal end plug on it, so be careful about what you try to shove it into.

 

Why are the ROM’s not currently on Atari-Age?

 

They're still held under copyright by a company called Brigstone Multimedia. The CyberPunks officially liscenced the games for the "Stella Gets A New Brain" project.

 

Why can’t I load game X (a 4K rom) / is there a way to fix to make it work with the Supercharger?

 

They don't all work. You have to "fix" the Supercharger instead.

 

Do MP3’s work just as good as WAV files?

 

Nope. You loose too much necessary information in the compression.

 

How do you get the ID needed in Dragonstomper to get across the bridge? / Where is the walkthrough for it?

 

One thing at a time here, friend!

 

If that smart card cartridge thing comes out, it will not be able to play the 13 games from Starpath right?

 

I don't think so. Better Ask Cupcakeus just to be sure.

 

What emulators (if any) play the Starpath roms?

 

Z26

 

And do I need to read 40 pages of instructions to be able to play them?

 

 

Supercharger and the 7800 works fine on the one with expansion port but not at all on the one without.  Is this because of the smaller contacts?  Does it work for anyone?

 

In my experiance, you'll find more 7800's that do not have compatibility issues with the Supercharger than ones that do. Still, unless the thing has an expansion port, I don't know if there's any way to determine the "right" model just by eyeballing the thing. Anyone know differently?

 

Any advise on making tapes to use with the Supercharger?  Like don’t use stereo, only mono.  I tried making a tape and it didn’t work but when I plugged Supercharger directly into the computer, it worked great.

 

Hmmm ... don't know what your problem is here, sorry. I've made quite a few CDs to use with my Supercharger. I've made them in two channel stereo at a full 44.1khz with no problems what-so-ever.

[D.Yancey]

If you dubbed copies of your cassette tapes and they did not work, the volume level of the reproduction may not be high enough for the supercharger to pick it up. See if you can boost the output to the copies when you dubb them, it could help. Also, try to load them more than once while you shake the earphone jack. Sometimes it can be extremely tempermental! Also, try turning the volume to max on your cassette player when you attempt to load a game.

[Ze_ro]

Do MP3’s work just as good as WAV files?

 

If you're loading them off a computer, don't even bother storing them in sound format. Find a program called "playbin" (I'm too lazy to find the link). It'll take a straight .bin file for an emulator and play it out your sound card in the appropriate format. It will save a lot of time.

 

How do you get the ID needed in Dragonstomper to get across the bridge? / Where is the walkthrough for it?

 

I think you'll have to beat it yourself and find out!

 

What emulators (if any) play the Starpath roms?  And do I need to read 40 pages of instructions to be able to play them?

 

Stella also works fine with Supercharger roms. In fact, it even gives the video effect of the Supercharger load screen.

 

As for the games, most of them are fairly straight forward. The most complicated one is Dragonstomper in my opinion, and even that isn't too hard. Reading the manual always helps, but I don't think they're 40 pages.

 

Supercharger and the 7800 works fine on the one with expansion port but not at all on the one without.  Is this because of the smaller contacts?  Does it work for anyone?

 

I remember there was a way to "fix" 7800's that was posted a long time ago... I think it involved adding a capacitor between two points. I really don't remember how well it fixed things though. I believe the intent was to fix Robot Tank and Decathlon, and I'm not sure if it did anything for the Supercharger. Do a search on the forums and you might find it.

 

Any advise on making tapes to use with the Supercharger?

 

Well, mono and stereo shouldn't really matter. The Supercharger works only on mono, but I'm pretty sure all the programs to make the sound files only make mono output anyways, so it wouldn't matter.

 

The only advice that I have is that when you make a tape/cd, there is an option to make the sound file half as long (thus loading into the Supercharger twice as fast). I would recommend against using this on tapes and cd's, as it might not be 100% reliable, and the game sometimes won't load (Especially on tapes where they can degrade over time). I'd also recommend recording at a fairly high volume, as the Supercharger won't pick it up if it's too quiet.

 

I made a CD for myself with a ton of small roms on it, and it worked perfectly. Only problem is that CD's have a 100 track limit... so unless you mix games on tracks or other nasty things, then you're limited to 100 games on a disc (This may not sound like that bad a limit, but keep in mind that without this track limit, you could fit the entire Atari library on a CD about 50 times over)

 

--Zero

[ZylonBane]

Stella also works fine with Supercharger roms. In fact, it even gives the video effect of the Supercharger load screen.

If it's using the Supercharger boot ROM, then of course it does.

[raindog]

Do MP3’s work just as good as WAV files?

Nope. You loose too much necessary information in the compression.

The correct answer is actually "Yes, but only 80% of the time at best." I made an MP3 CD of about 1500 Atari ROMs using LAME at the highest bitrate, and with a sample size of about 200, that's what I got. I'm pretty sure that I could have left the non-working ~300 MP3 files as WAVs if I had an MP3 CD player that also played WAV files off of CDR, so I could still have gotten it all on one disc, but I had no such player and still don't.

 

I'm seeing three possibilities in the near future as a Cuttle Cart jukebox - my old vTech Helio PDA which has a 75MHz processor, a headphone jack and can be made to run Linux for which makewav exists already, my GBA for which I just ordered a flash card and whose sound circuitry is probably better than the Helio even though its processor is much slower, and this new Sony USB2 DVD/CDRW combo drive that doubles as an MP3 CD/MP3 DVD player that also plays WAV files, assuming I can score one when it comes time to get my new laptop - you could easily fit all the WAV files of all the ROM images on a DVD-R. I'm hoping the Helio will do it because you can get them for 40 or 50 bucks on ebay and that way all Cuttle or Supercharger owners could have a 2600 jukebox that needs no swapping of CD's.

 

Rob

[Mot]

Thanks all Now I know everything I wanted to know but the Dragonstomper ID thing. I guess I will have to try it some more. I just don't have a lot of time to play with one hour drive to get to work and kids and ... (I know, bitch, bitch)

 

Did most of the supercharger owners do the mod?

[Nukey Shay]

Dragonstomper walkthrough

 

Courtesy of AA's own AtarInvader

[D.Yancey]

Do a search of this site on the phrase "modified supercharger". There are a few threads that come up with the links to the site with directions to the modification and the "playbin" and "makewav" files. I did the mod on my supercharger and it was not difficult. It works great!

[Cupcakus]

I'm seeing three possibilities in the near future as a Cuttle Cart jukebox - my old vTech Helio PDA which has a 75MHz processor, a headphone jack and can be made to run Linux for which makewav exists already, my GBA for which I just ordered a flash card and whose sound circuitry is probably better than the Helio even though its processor is much slower, and this new Sony USB2 DVD/CDRW combo drive that doubles as an MP3 CD/MP3 DVD player that also plays WAV files, assuming I can score one when it comes time to get my new laptop - you could easily fit all the WAV files of all the ROM images on a DVD-R.  I'm hoping the Helio will do it because you can get them for 40 or 50 bucks on ebay and that way all Cuttle or Supercharger owners could have a 2600 jukebox that needs no swapping of CD's.

 

Or get a flash cart and don't even worry about stuff like that anymore :-)

 

If that smart card cartridge thing comes out, it will not be able to play the 13 games from Starpath right?  

 

This is something I have been up in the air about. The supercharger device and it's games are still under copyright, however I am pretty sure it's data bankswitching methods are not. In an effort to support the homebrew community, I would love to add supercharger support to the Flash Cartridge, for those homebrewers that would like to make a SC game. However I have no decision as of yet...

[SS]

Did most of the supercharger owners do the mod?

 

I did it and it was great. Great, that is, until last week when the whole thing apparently went kablooie. It’s lying in pieces on my shelf right now. I don’t know if I’ll be able to bring it back to life or not.

[Big Player]

Did most of the supercharger owners do the mod?

 

I did it and it was great. Great, that is, until last week when the whole thing apparently went kablooie. It's lying in pieces on my shelf right now. I don't know if I'll be able to bring it back to life or not.

 

This is what I fear will happen if I even think about modifying my Supercharger. I am electrically and mechanically declined.

 

Can't wait for that flash cart though.

[Ze_ro]

I haven't done the mod either, and I don't plan to. Too much of a risk in my opinion. I'll stick to emulators for anything I can't play.

 

--Zero