keoni29 Posted May 14, 2013 Share Posted May 14, 2013 I have made an arduino shield that lets me read the content of atari2600 game cartridges. With a bit of software on my pc I can dump the rom image to a file and then it automatically runs the emulator. Would anyone be interested in a similar device? 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JrPac Posted May 14, 2013 Share Posted May 14, 2013 That sounds like a very exciting project, I am interested. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cebus Capucinis Posted May 14, 2013 Share Posted May 14, 2013 It would be awesome if a drive expansion bay enclosure could be made.....then we could have Atari 2600 cart slots on our computers! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Gemintronic Posted May 14, 2013 Share Posted May 14, 2013 Our very own Matthias_H has made a similar product. Last time I mentioned it I got banned from the topic so I'll say no more. He could definitely have advice about the PC side of things, though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert Posted May 14, 2013 Share Posted May 14, 2013 Our very own Matthias_H has made a similar product. Last time I mentioned it I got banned from the topic so I'll say no more. He could definitely have advice about the PC side of things, though. That's not why you got named from the topic. ..Al Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Gemintronic Posted May 14, 2013 Share Posted May 14, 2013 That's not why you got named from the topic. ..Al Since you haven't replied I still don't fully understand the ban. I DID apologize. So, I can discuss the R____e with this gentleman to further his project? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keoni29 Posted May 14, 2013 Author Share Posted May 14, 2013 I also built a backup cartridge that goes with it. You can write roms to it and play it on the real hardware. The device communicates over serial with the PC. At the moment only 4Kb and lower cartridges are supported, but I can add support for bankswitching carts using a bit of software. A slot loading drive expansion bay version would be very cool! I could build a prototype inside an empty cd drive enclosure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keoni29 Posted May 14, 2013 Author Share Posted May 14, 2013 (edited) I still find it strange that you cannot edit posts after a certain timer runs out . Oh well. Here is a picture of what my second prototype will look like. I saved an atari2600 from the garbage and took out this piece of plastic. The switch is also original, but I don't know what to do with it yet. It looks cool though. The case comes from an old CD drive. Now I have to solder up the guts. Edit: On the right picture you see it's it's a bit skew and it leaves a gap on the top. That is because it is not secured in place by screws. Edited May 14, 2013 by keoni29 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cebus Capucinis Posted May 14, 2013 Share Posted May 14, 2013 Very cool! So this would fit in a drive bay? I don't care if it rips a ROM, but I'm sure it has to, and it runs a batch file or something to automatically start up the emulator? I think this would be really cool to have in the front of a PC case. Looks awesome! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Gemintronic Posted May 14, 2013 Share Posted May 14, 2013 Very cool! So this would fit in a drive bay? I don't care if it rips a ROM, but I'm sure it has to, and it runs a batch file or something to automatically start up the emulator? I think this would be really cool to have in the front of a PC case. Looks awesome! this. The ONLY thing that would make it cooler is if you supported SaveKey memory on-board for hi-scores! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roland p Posted May 14, 2013 Share Posted May 14, 2013 ...Or put the guts of a flashback in it, and wire the a/v output to a pci tv-card . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keoni29 Posted May 14, 2013 Author Share Posted May 14, 2013 While we're at it: why not make a PCI version of the atari2600 (because it's friggin hard?) This device can do everything an atari2600 can do if it's programmed. You'd need to be able to install new firmware to the microcontroller so it supports different types of bankswitching. You'd need to modify the emulator so it can also save data to the ram. Special cartridges with expansion chips for sound or memory will of course be emulated instead of actually used from the cartridge. I could change the program so it makes a temporary rom dump instead of a permanent one. Are there still copyrights on atari2600 games? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+batari Posted May 15, 2013 Share Posted May 15, 2013 When dumping, the auto-detection of a cart's bankswitching is a little tricky, and getting a correct dump with known bankswitching can also be tricky. It was explored here: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/164988-harmony-as-a-copycart/ If you need source code, let me know - Even though Harmony uses an ARM and an Arduino uses something else, the code is mostly C so you might be able to port some of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keoni29 Posted May 16, 2013 Author Share Posted May 16, 2013 Cool, that would save me a lot of work. Please send me the source via PM. I came up with the idea of putting two joystick ports on the device instead of the switch. Then you can use your paddles and joysticks with the emulator! Stella has support for the stelladaptor built in? If so I could just make my device behave like a stelladaptor and it will work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jhd Posted May 16, 2013 Share Posted May 16, 2013 This is very cool. For some reason, I am reminded of the Sega/IBM TeraDrive: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_TeraDrive Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keoni29 Posted May 16, 2013 Author Share Posted May 16, 2013 (edited) Cool! I never heard of that thing! If this project is completed I might make cartreaders for other systems as well. Edited May 16, 2013 by keoni29 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roland p Posted May 17, 2013 Share Posted May 17, 2013 While we're at it: why not make a PCI version of the atari2600 (because it's friggin hard?) Philips made an isa MSX-2 card in the past: When it was made, I thought, that's stupid, emulation is much cooler. Now I think: "wow, that's cool, original msx hardware inside your computer" By the way, the msx also had a cartridge reader: http://www.msx.org/articles/msx-game-reader Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keoni29 Posted May 17, 2013 Author Share Posted May 17, 2013 That is cool. Is there a commercially available atari2600 cartridge reader yet? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Gemintronic Posted May 17, 2013 Share Posted May 17, 2013 That is cool. Is there a commercially available atari2600 cartridge reader yet? I mentioned a member who may have some experience in post #4. Batari has made a reader out of a game brain, I think? It's been a long time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keoni29 Posted May 17, 2013 Author Share Posted May 17, 2013 He uses a game brain in combination with the harmony cart. It's not a stand alone cartridge reader, but it's cool and hackish though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted May 17, 2013 Share Posted May 17, 2013 While we're at it: why not make a PCI version of the atari2600 (because it's friggin hard?) Good luck getting signed drivers for it for modern windows. Stupid Microsoft! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keoni29 Posted May 18, 2013 Author Share Posted May 18, 2013 Would you need signed drivers for a usb device? I could just use the drivers for a normal (usb) cardreader and make my device behave just like one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keoni29 Posted November 11, 2013 Author Share Posted November 11, 2013 Original post: http://8times8.host56.com/?p=334I started porting the cartreader software to the eZ8 microcontroller. It is already possible to read cartridges.Because the eZ8 has 29I/O pins I don't have to use latches to expand the address bus. This means I only need two IC's for the entire build: A max232 for serial communication and the microcontroller! This greatly reduces the cost of the entire thing. It also makes it much easier to build than its arduino counterpart.The cartreader V2 has a renewed communication protocol. Instead of dividing the cartridge address range in pages you can have random access to the cartridge via the pc and do block transfers. Every block has a header like this: mode = [0x00..0x01] (0x00=read, 0x01=write) size = [0x00..0xFF] (0x00=1byte, 0xFF=256bytes) addrH = [0x00..0x0F](12 bit start address) addrL = [0x00..0xFF] If write mode was selected bytes will follow. These are buffered and then written to the cartridge starting at the 12 bit start address.In the next couple of days I will modify the romclient.exe pc software so it works with the eZ8 version. I will rename it to romclient2.exe to avoid confusion. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keoni29 Posted November 12, 2013 Author Share Posted November 12, 2013 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keoni29 Posted November 17, 2013 Author Share Posted November 17, 2013 I almost finished building my second multi-cartridge. This one has F8 bankswitching hardware built in. It can hold up to 16 8k games or 16 4k games (gets copied twice to the cart so when a bankswitch occurs it does not affect the game)After cleaning up the code of the pc connectivity tool that goes with the cartreader I could easily make changes to the bankswitching code. The cartreader still only supports F8, but F6 is pretty easy to implement too. I do not own any F6 games to test it with, so I am going to have to get some F6 games first.It seems like I don't have to make any hardware modifications to the cartreader, so I will solder up a prototype and put it in an enclosure soon! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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