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Atari2600 cartridge reader. Play your real cartridges on an emulator.


keoni29

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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?

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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.

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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.

post-32478-0-39589300-1368553892_thumb.jpg

post-32478-0-20878400-1368557234_thumb.jpg

Edited by keoni29
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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. :thumbsup: Looks awesome!

 

this.

 

The ONLY thing that would make it cooler is if you supported SaveKey memory on-board for hi-scores!

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While we're at it: why not make a PCI version of the atari2600 :P (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?

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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.

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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.

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While we're at it: why not make a PCI version of the atari2600 :P (because it's friggin hard?)

 

Philips made an isa MSX-2 card in the past:

philips_msx2inpc.jpg

 

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" :D

 

By the way, the msx also had a cartridge reader: http://www.msx.org/articles/msx-game-reader

 

msxgr004_jpg_50509.jpg

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  • 5 months later...

Original post: http://8times8.host56.com/?p=334

I 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.
IMG-20131108-WA0000-300x225.jpgIMG-20131110-WA0009-300x225.jpg
IMG-20131110-WA0007-300x225.jpgIMG-20131110-WA0005-300x225.jpg

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.
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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!

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