How can i take a homebrew game on a cartridge?

[jan711]

Hello, i`am new here, my name is Jan and come from Germany. Hope you understand my bad english.

 

Also i want to burn a Homebrew Game on a eeprom

 

1. It`s an 32kb Game and i will use a 27c256 UV eeprom. <- this is no problem!

2. Where can i get now a PCB for the burned Game (Pixelpast have no more offer and on AA i can`t find these) , What is about bankswitching? because imo i can use only 4K but i need 8banks

3. Maybe i can open another cartridge like fatal run (32k) can i change the ROM to my eeprom without mod?

4. I will only a single Modul, because this is the fact i won`t use the Harmony

 

Thanks

Jan

 

 

 

[Papa]

I was under the impression that you could send your rom to AA and they would make it into a cartridge.

 

 

http://atariage.com/store/index.php?l=product_detail&p=949

[jan711]

Thanks, but i will do it for myself to learn. Atari are absolutly a new area for me. Further more i can clear the eeprom und write another 32k game on it. i dont need a label and 25 bucks + shipping and duty/tax are not realy cheap for this projekt what i want to do. For other projekts it will be good to now that anyone can release it.

Edited February 9, 2015 by jan711

[yllawwally]

The bankswitching scheme is how you swap between the 8 banks. Does your game need ram on the game board, or only rom? Is the game written already? Can you burn PLDs? Because the board the pixel past had, used a pld to do the bank switching. Since you are doing only one game, you could take any 4k game, and remove the ROM. Then you would have to dead bug connect the chips to the board. It's a pain, but if you want to do a one off by yourself it's probably a good method.

[jan711]

Yes it`s already written by a member here.

He said that i can send it to AA when his Name as Programmer will said, but i will do only one cartridge for my own use and it haven`t a Sara (Ram) only a PLD (F4 board need) i never programmed PLD and i don`t now how i release the PLD. Maybe i think i can use an old Cartridge, but i think it`s not releasable

[yllawwally]

F4 is the bank switching method. The PLD program can be downloaded from pixel's past, it's called pld code f4. That PLD is used to control the bank switching, it's what allows the atari to see more than the first 4k of the eprom. The PLD doesn't need to be released, however the cartridge will need to have one.

[Tron Unit]

Sounds like you could use a multicart like Harmony.

[alex_79]

3. Maybe i can open another cartridge like fatal run (32k) can i change the ROM to my eeprom without mod?

Commercial Atari games usually have custom chips which included the mask rom and the bankswitching logic in a single package, so you can't just replace the chip with an eprom.

 

 

On pixels-past website there are schematics and the code for the PLD to implement the 32k f4 bankswitch. (There are also the gerber files to have the board produced, but that's antieconomical for a single cart).

You can use an old board (with the chip removed) and wire it to a small piece of prototype board where you build the actual circuit with the eprom and the PLD. With a bit of work you can make it fit in a standard case.

Here there are pics which shows what the construction would look like (that's a non-bankswitched multicart, but the construction is similar).