Jetboot Jack Posted September 23, 2012 Share Posted September 23, 2012 That BB looks great - very cool Nosty, the potential of your cart is awesome! sTeVE Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+wood_jl Posted September 23, 2012 Share Posted September 23, 2012 Very impressive! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tickled_Pink Posted September 24, 2012 Share Posted September 24, 2012 (edited) Holy crap! I have thought that using a microcontroller on a cart would be useful for something, but as a hard drive controller ... not this. A clever idea. Edited September 24, 2012 by Tickled_Pink Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jetboot Jack Posted November 9, 2013 Share Posted November 9, 2013 Just resurrecting this thread - where is this now? sTeVE Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+CharlieChaplin Posted November 9, 2013 Share Posted November 9, 2013 Well, (repeat modus on) Why not create a "universal" cart, that does upgrade sound, gfx, sprites (players & missiles), speed, RAM, etc. ?!? That universal cart could include three or four main chips: - one chip for sound (not nescessarily a SID chip, not second Pokey, not Covox, could be any kind of third-party soundchip), - one chip for gfx and sprites (which does only more luminances or more colours and luminances, more sprites like in Tomek-8 cart), - one chip for speed or better speed-ups in certain areas (not a 65816, more something like a math-co-processor or a new/faster math-pack or something like an accelerator for certain tasks similar to Super-Charger that is used in Assault Force 3D), - one or more chip/s for RAM/ROM (a ROM chip, Eprom chip, flash-chip, RAM chip, whatever suits to hold some code and configuration; needn`t be SDX on it as we already have that in half a dozen of hardware add-ons, but could be a nice GUI or a game that shows some of this carts features)... Think such a cart. would not be cheap, but at least every A8 has a cart-slot and one would not need a screw-driver or a soldering iron to built it in. The programs would then be loaded from disk (image) or harddisk (image). Who would built such a cart ? Not me, but maybe Lotharek, Candle or one of the other hardware experts from Poland... -Andreas Koch. (repeat modus off) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+JAC! Posted November 12, 2013 Share Posted November 12, 2013 (edited) @Andreas: Sounds makes actually no sense, because on the XL/XE there's no audio in on the module port (as it was on the 7800, so the could put a POKEY into Ballbalzer). So no better sound chip without soldering. And what makes this cart so cool and what strikes me most is the fact that it WILL BE cheap. A 16-bit PIC24 comes already for 2,45 EUR (!). And with the approach taken in the demo you can actually put most of the computation into the cart and use the CPU to stream the data to POKEY or whatever. THAT will make the difference. I really love the idea of the cart and hope there's more news soon. Edited November 12, 2013 by JAC! 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roydea6 Posted November 12, 2013 Share Posted November 12, 2013 I have to agree this cart will be on my X-mas list eventually. Just hoping it comes to pass. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Stella Posted November 13, 2013 Share Posted November 13, 2013 That's FANTASTIC! I love it. I would love to see something like this as a general, "standardized/accepted" upgrade that is embraced by developers. Melody cart for a8. gotta love love love it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matej Posted November 13, 2013 Share Posted November 13, 2013 Well sound on Atari 8bit is good. 2x pokey with fast coprocessor or second cpu will be able to play samples or even MODs... Sound will be not as on AMIGA but it will be sample based... So after SD standard as disk and 2x pokey we needs graphics/turbocard. I know that there is VBXE. But TOMEK8 cartridge idea is nice too... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
popmilo Posted November 14, 2013 Share Posted November 14, 2013 A 16-bit PIC24 comes already for 2,45 EUR (!).Must say, I'm impressed by specs of those micro-controllers. They even have hardware gfx core for hooking up lcd displays. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nosty Posted December 11, 2014 Share Posted December 11, 2014 It's still alive! After a long break I hard work on API for TOMEK-8. Two little demos presented on SV 2k14: 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted December 11, 2014 Share Posted December 11, 2014 Whoa! Gameboy emulation? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nosty Posted December 11, 2014 Share Posted December 11, 2014 (edited) Just borrowed graphics At SV I tried to show that everyone can make animation like this with TOMEK-8 for a few hours. All you need is a few simple commands. Edited December 11, 2014 by nosty Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted December 11, 2014 Share Posted December 11, 2014 Yeah, I was being a little facetious. Cool though... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jetboot Jack Posted January 23, 2015 Share Posted January 23, 2015 I am still SUPER STOKED for this Nosty, can't wait for your next update! sTeVE Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gozar Posted January 23, 2015 Share Posted January 23, 2015 This does look amazing, especially if it can be produced for under $20. Just shut up and take my money! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peteym5 Posted January 25, 2015 Share Posted January 25, 2015 If I or someone else did a game on this cartridge, I won't get complaints about not making it available for download because the game won't work without the chip set on the cartridge. It would have to be for this cartridge only and not be able to run on any of the flash cartridges. Whatever the chip set is. Does it only work with screen graphics or does it also work with player/missile graphics as well? I would need to get some information about programming for this thing. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gozar Posted January 25, 2015 Share Posted January 25, 2015 It looks like they're planning on releasing this as a cartridge so anyone can make games for it and distribute them as downloads to anyone else that has the cartridge. That doesn't mean you can't do a game on cart with it, but it's not really going to stop any complaints since anyone with this cart will still want to buy downloads... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrathchild Posted January 25, 2015 Share Posted January 25, 2015 If I or someone else did a game on this cartridge, I won't get complaints about not making it available for download because the game won't work without the chip set on the cartridge... Won't that depend upon whether emulators are updated to support the cart? Some people may only want to use emulation, e.g. they prefer anything from a console to a raspberry pi. In developing the initial support for the MaxFlash emulation, this helped myself and others being able to do quicker development although of a different kind, e.g. multi-disk ports, game compilations. Hopefully this will happen for this cart model too and may encourage developers. The AtariMax forums (or here on AA) are a place where those images are made available. But would this cart have the same potential problem that a MaxFlash does, that is the user can just buy one and reflash it as necessary? So they may desire just a binary download for them to do this themselves. Have you looked into binary stamping a ROM image, e.g. as part of a purchase & download process? It should be possible to uniquely identify an image to the buyer if your concern is that the image is likely to be distributed (online) and so could be 'named and shamed', but ultimately I would think any form of protection on this platform is eventually subject to circumvention and so is it really worth implementing it? A question for the cart designer is "will the API include routines to r/w access the PIC's flash memory (or EEPROM if it has it) so that hi-scores, save states etc can be saved?" 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peteym5 Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 (edited) I will be honest though in that I would need the unit cost for these cartridges before going ahead and putting games on these to be sold. If it is already costing almost as much as a new EPROM cartridge game, it probably won;t be practical or won't sell very many. Even if it was a pay per download for the cartridge, Someone will need to pay to get the cartridge + flashing software + the game. Would have to consider it would not be something everyone can play unless they got all the stuff. May be paying over $50 anyway. I look for faster math operations, however many programmers know how to use those table driven routines. If we were to do multiple games, would need me and few willing developers to provide games for this cartridge also. Edited January 27, 2015 by peteym5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 Sod downloading chats, someone just make use of that wonderful cart Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jetboot Jack Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 TBH I would rather see amazing games released on cart - like SFX enhanced games on the SNES - each game released as a stand alone product. It fits my perhaps odd Atari world view - standard hardware running games that you need nothing more than the A8 and the game to work. So anyone with an A8 could just pop it in and play a game far more amazing than the games that could be produced at the end of the 8bits life (1991/92). Although the tech wouldn't allow it, this could have been possible back then! sTeVE 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tezz Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 It's still alive! After a long break I hard work on API for TOMEK-8. Hi Arek, great news! Do you have some further development time before Tomek is ready? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matej Posted February 11, 2016 Share Posted February 11, 2016 Any news? Tomek-8 demos are fantastic! Any project website or blog??? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
777ismyname Posted December 7, 2019 Share Posted December 7, 2019 Necro bump. I was wondering if this ever went anywhere or if it is possible that someone else has taken up something similar. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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