Nosty's Tomek Cartridge for 8-bit Atari - great!

[Wrathchild]

The UNO Cart can do similar stuff

 

 

Edited December 7, 2019 by Wrathchild

[777ismyname]

On 12/7/2019 at 6:51 AM, Wrathchild said:

The UNO Cart can do similar stuff

 

 

That is some nice work! I just watched your UNO Cart playlist. The first person 3D map stuff is very impressive. 

[Mclaneinc]

I'd forgotten about that cart, I really hope it continues on but as said in the thread it could be plagued like the VBXE was, great items but no support..Must admit the start wars demo was just mind blowing..

[777ismyname]

10 hours ago, Mclaneinc said:

I'd forgotten about that cart, I really hope it continues on but as said in the thread it could be plagued like the VBXE was, great items but no support..Must admit the start wars demo was just mind blowing..

Cheap ✅ No soldering ✅ Economical ✅Near universal system compatibility (as a system adjunct) ✅

If one of the Atari coding gurus would show us how to interface with this, I'd be extremely grateful.

 

@Wrathchild, is it relatively simple to interface with the microcontroller/how to use its SRAM/etc? Can you quantify how much extra performance you are getting from using the UNO?

Edited December 10, 2019 by 777ismyname
.

[E474]

Hi,

 

   It's based on the STM32 discovery board, or at least the original write up used that, it's a STM32F407G-DISC1, which can be had for about £16 on eBay, though a lot of sellers seem to have upped the price by quite a bit, or are selling something else for more. 

 

   The original thread is here: 

 

  

  I believe @Wrathchild is using the Allegro game development kit for coding on the STM32 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegro_(software) 

 

   I want to do some coding for it, but want to get the next version of ATR Maker Deluxe finished first, but real life is not giving me much free time at the moment.

 

[Wrathchild]

I use Allegro and Visual Studio 2017 to first make proof-of-concepts and then the C code used can then be ported with little change to be incorporated into the UNO's firmware, which is built within Atollic TrueSTUDIO for STM32. Then some A8 code is written to interact with it via the structure of interfacing with the UNO cart, e.g. through the Cart-Bus area of $D5xx or in the $8000->$9FFF and $A000->$BFFF banks.

Edited December 10, 2019 by Wrathchild
named compiler used for UNO f/w

[Chilly Willy]

That's a mighty cool use of an ARM microcontroller. ?  There's a slightly newer model, the STM32F469, at Digikey for $10.79. Runs slightly faster (180 MHz), and has twice the ram, but is otherwise much the same.

 

I noticed the STM32F4 series has an RTCC. The cart could have had a battery socket and given the system a clock.

[E474]

Hi,

 

   I ordered what I thought was a discovery board from AliExpress, but it turned out two of the pins that are used by the cartridge break out board were missing from the "discovery board" I got from China, so I have to sit down and hack the software to use different pins. So that project went in the 'someday/maybe' pile. After that, I found an eBay seller that was selling the correct discovery board for about £16, so I ordered that (last item in stock, now delivered), but that was when I saw the price hikes for other discovery boards. I ordered the microSD break out board from AliExpress, so I am not sure when that will arrive, but I am swamped with things to do, so am just priming the pipeline so to speak.

 

   Having been caught out by the number of pins on the discovery board versus number of lines required for a project, all I can suggest is that you check that the discovery board you are getting is actually pin compatible. Also, I got some 50 line (25 * 2) edge connectors from AliExpress for a PBI -> discovery board connector project, but have had to order more female Dupont crimp connectors as I am not a natural when it comes to crimping.

 

   Hope this helps, caveat emptor!