LTO Flash! - Intellivision Flash Cartridge Information

[coleco_master]

Count me in for 2 copies!

[freewheel]

You guys are going to lose your minds when you get this in your hands and realize how well put together it is. Especially those people that like organizing their stuff in applications that manage your data for you - think iTunes but not a total piece of crap. OK, that didn't come out as nice as I'd hoped.

 

In terms of storage, you can take every single known ROM in existence, put it on this cart, and have tons of room to spare. That's all of the 125, all publicly available homebrew, demos, prototypes, you name it. 32MB seems like a joke until you realize how small these games actually are.

 

Now, you're going to start seeing homebrew coming out... shall we say bigger as time goes on. Right now there's a not-quite limit for us dummy programmers of around 100KB for a single ROM (I'm rounding, but it's close enough). Assuming every single homebrew released going forward a) is that size and b) sees a ROM release, and we get say 20 new games a year - you'll still need 5-10 years to fill this thing. I've been a multicart user for close to 20 years now and there are very few that last that long. There's always storage limits, or compatibility issues, or just new features that make me get a new one within a few years. I just don't see it happening for a long time here.

 

For the cost of 2 new games, give or take, it's a crazy deal. For the programmers in the audience, this thing is a dream. Ever wanted to put a goofy 8-bit message on your TV? Now, literally anyone can do it.

[AtariBrian]

Cool , this one will actually come out . I think I will take one !

[Rev]

I don't feel like going back through the whole thread.....

 

What was payment options again? If I recall was it money order or certified check or similar?

 

Just making sure. Thanks.

[intvnut]

From the wayback machine:

 

 

Meanwhile, at my end, I'm rocking a much more recent firmware. From my textual UI:

.

>>   Primary Revision: 1129   (primary)
>> Secondary Revision: 1133+  (secondary)
>>   Current Revision: 1133+  (secondary)

.

The "+" at the end indicates a version that has changes that aren't checked in yet. So, about 40 check-ins after what intvsteve's running above. I've been cranking away...

 

Primary vs. Secondary refers to the fact that LTO Flash! actually can store two copies of the firmware on the die. The primary is whatever shipped in the box. This won't change for a given LTO Flash! unit, unless you ship it back to me for re-flashing. The secondary is the field-upgrade image. You can erase the secondary at any time and it'll fall back to the primary. Also, if the secondary crashes (heaven forbid), it should fall back to the primary. None of us wants a bricked unit in the field. :-)

 

Oh, and the observant will notice the baud rate is a "paltry" 230400. This will increase before we ship. Target is 1Mbit/sec, over 4x that speed. For reference, the Intellicart serial topped out at 57600, and the CC3 topped out at 115200.

 

 

We actually ended up at 2Mbps (not 1Mbps), on revision 2130. So... about 1000 checkins after that point. Yipe. Note that not all of those check-ins pertained to LTO Flash! firmware. But still, that's a lot of check-ins since then.

 

I'm glad we're finally there.

[intvnut]

What was payment options again? If I recall was it money order or certified check or similar?

 

I'll provide all the details when I announce the ordering instructions. I want to make it as easy as possible for folks to order these.

Edited August 23, 2016 by intvnut

[LidLikesIntellivision]

My Nintendo 3ds will have to wait because I want the Flash!

[+BBWW]

No known compatibility issues with any released games. In the unlikely circumstance of a game incompatibility, LTO Flash! is field upgradeable, so we should be able to address the issue quickly and painlessly. Firmware upgrades are quick, painless and safe. If there's ever an issue, the unit automatically falls back to the original factory firmware and generates a bug report to send to us.

 

 

One should never use Intellivision and Painlessly in the same sentence! :-) This is a great feature regardless of my stupid caveat!

[+DZ-Jay]

 

No known compatibility issues with any released games. In the unlikely circumstance of a game incompatibility, LTO Flash! is field upgradeable, so we should be able to address the issue quickly and painlessly. Firmware upgrades are quick, painless and safe. If there's ever an issue, the unit automatically falls back to the original factory firmware and generates a bug report to send to us.

 

 

Does the companion software client require an Internet connection to work?

[intvnut]

 

Does the companion software client require an Internet connection to work?

 

No.

[+intellivotion]

I'm already armed (with my credit card) and dangerous (so thinks my wife)

[RetroDoug]

 

I'll provide all the details when I announce the ordering instructions. I want to make it as easy as possible for folks to order these.

Have you ever taken in consideration as payment options (above all for European and Asiatic users) an Amazon Gift Card sent to your Amazon account? Not exactly "real money", but if you regularly buy on Amazon is more or less the same... ?

[+Tarzilla]

 

I want to make it as easy as possible for folks to order these.

I'll can be at your house in 4 hours...I even have American cash, small bills ok?

[ckblackm]

Will the PC side software work with Linux? (using Wine, or a VM'ed windows?)

[ZillaRUSH]

Sweet!!!

[LidLikesIntellivision]

Will the PC side software work with Linux? (using Wine, or a VM'ed windows?)

CLI tools, if possible, would be very helpfull too.

[Byte Knight]

Very excited about this! Have there been any pictures of the game selection screen posted yet?

[AtariBrian]

I apologize as I have not read through this thread at all . I am not to familiar with the Intellivision homebrew scene but are released roms available so they can be put on this flash cart ?

[+intvsteve]

Will the PC side software work with Linux? (using Wine, or a VM'ed windows?)

Check your PM.

 

CLI tools, if possible, would be very helpfull too.

The short of it: I believe intvnut has command line tools.

 

No Linux GUI at this time. We felt that the Linux audience would likely prefer command line, and we (OK, I) didn't want Linux a GUI to jeopardize the schedule for Mac/Windows.

 

In theory, Windows UI should work via VM, but is not tested w/ Linux host, Windows guest. (I did test Windows host, VMware Windows guest, and that worked.) Have not tried via Wine. The UI uses .NET 4.5 on Windows Vista and newer, and .NET 4.0 on Windows xp. The real issue is whether the FTDI USB<->serial drivers will work across the host/guest boundary. While this worked flawlessly on my Windows Host/Guest testing, VirtualBox on Mac was not happy with the guest OS trying to do this. VBox died just trying to configure the VM to have access to the generic device. :/

 

 

Very excited about this! Have there been any pictures of the game selection screen posted yet?

 

Can't recall. My PC video capture card is crappy, but I can try to post something. Or use shaky phone-cam.

 

 

I apologize as I have not read through this thread at all . I am not to familiar with the Intellivision homebrew scene but are released roms available so they can be put on this flash cart ?

 

For the original games, Intellivision Productions has, in the past, offered some free ROMs, and sold the collections "Intellivision Lives!" and "Intellivision Rocks!". Those may be unavailable now. They do show up from time to time on eBay for reasonable prices. They may have another offering soon. Not sure if the ROMs on other collections for PC / Playstation / et. al. have them loose.

 

For homebrew releases, some have offered up their ROMs either for free or for a nominal fee. Carl Mueller, Jr.'s Impossible Things site, the IntelligentVision site, and I believe CollectorVision have all offered ROMs at one time or another.

 

And of course there are quite a few nice ROMs in the IntyBASIC contest thread and other threads in the programming sub-forum.

[IntyPod Burgertime]

 

Better work a few extra hours this week. I don't think Joe does pre-orders. When ordering info is announced, it'll be because it's ready for immediate shipment.

I was still waking up when I read the announcement, so I misread it as pre orders

[walterg74]

Have you ever taken in consideration as payment options (above all for European and Asiatic users) an Amazon Gift Card sent to your Amazon account? Not exactly "real money", but if you regularly buy on Amazon is more or less the same...

Would you like you employer to pay your salary in Amazon gift cards..?

[uveprom]

Sounds Great!

[TrekMD]

Excellent news! Will definitely be getting one of these!

[freewheel]

For the Linux users in the audience:

 

I can confirm there are easy-to-use (for Linux users anyway) CLI tools. I didn't try the WIndows GUI in Wine or a VM, because I generally have low success with USB in those environments - especially the type of USB driver involved here.

 

Once things settle down (both personally, and within the toolchain itself) I plan on taking a good crack at whipping up some simple scripts to automate the CLI stuff. If the official creators don't beat me to it first!

[freewheel]

I apologize as I have not read through this thread at all . I am not to familiar with the Intellivision homebrew scene but are released roms available so they can be put on this flash cart ?

 

As mentioned, there are quite a few freely-available ROMs out there. Some of commercially-released games, and a fair bit of homebrew.

 

Once the multicarts are out there, I hope someone (I already have an idea who) will take the time to maybe put together a compilation of what's available. It may just be links to a bunch of websites - some creators are protective of their property and don't want things being shared willy-nilly - but I also hope that we can get enough people onboard with combining a few dozen together into an easy-to-distribute "freeware" bundle. We'll see. It's non-trivial and you can't just go about passing other people's work around like this, without permission. Worst case, for now you'll just have to find and download them yourself. Someone should spin up a thread dedicated to links to downloadable ROMs.

 

On that note - if the community steps up and is willing to actually pay for ROMs now that we have readily accessible multicarts to play them on, I guarantee you that there will be more available on a regular basis.