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[LYNX] Rewritable Multigame Cartridge


jfmateos

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Installed 8 games on the multi-cart successfully using GadgetUKs utility. All were 256kb, so only had to remove the header. One was 129kb and converted to 256kb without a problem. My only issue is, I wish I didn't have to unplug and plug it back in for each slot. Also, I left it sit plugged in for a awhile and when I went to add a game, my computer didn't recognize it. Had to unplug and plug it back in.

 

jfmateos, all-n-all, awesome multi-cart. Thanks!!!

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Dear Krip316,

 

In fact it is not mandatory to unplug the burner... you can burn a rom, delete it, change the slot, burn another rom, and so on... this works in most cases, but some user's computer store additional files when a file is deleted (trash bin) and then it is recommended to unplug the burner.

 

If the burner is left plugged, the PC will probably set the saving energy mode and will not be recognized properly.

 

thank you very much

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my cards arrived and I tested it: it works great!! thank you jfmateos!!
I just tried 256ko games for the moment. I convert with gadjetUK soft, just remove the header of 64o (thank you also gadjetUK!).

I have a question, there are some game which become bigger after the conversion with gadjetuk utility than before (256ko before and 513ko after). Is it normal?

I thought the game's file would be smaller after conversion.

And when i tried to put a converted game (513ko) on the card my pc said normally that it more than 512ko :(

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Sorry, I am a bit confuse between kb and ko, but in windows explorator the lnx files are in Ko (256Ko). The thing is that I didn't try to convert a 512ko game with your utility yet. I convertedjust 256ko lnx games and some became a file .lyx but of 513ko.

And I ticked the 'remove header' and 'remove header only'.

Am I doing something wrong, or maybe my lnx games are not good...

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I had similar trouble with 512Kb roms, if I ticked remove header only, they ended up being 1024Kb, if I ticked the 512Kb mateos option and remove header, they ended up at 512KB but didn't work unfortunately. 256Kb roms worked great with the utility. I came to the conclusion it was most likely user error.

 

I managed to get the 512Kb roms working using the foolproof converter provided by Mateos so give that a shot.

 

http://www.vectrex.hackermesh.org/alynxconverter/

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There might be a bug there when just removing header only. I will check later, it was originally a util to convert 128Kb ROM to 256Kb ROM so that's likely why it's doubling up when just header removal is ticked. It is just a quick and dirty util, plenty of room for improvement. I don't like relying on websites as they might not always be there / up.

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There might be a bug there when just removing header only. I will check later, it was originally a util to convert 128Kb ROM to 256Kb ROM so that's likely why it's doubling up when just header removal is ticked. It is just a quick and dirty util, plenty of room for improvement. I don't like relying on websites as they might not always be there / up.

 

Not to start making feature requests, but is there a way/is it possible to convert odd-sized ROMs to 256? That'd mean a lot of the homebrew stuff would be usable too (random example: adventure.lnx rom is about 11k, catkanoid is 15k)

 

I had a quick stab at it using "dd" on the command line, but couldn't get it to work. :)

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Here's the updated version - It's still lacking some better features and exception handling etc, but its a bit better at controlling things that shouldn't be possible etc.

 

Regards ROMs smaller than 128Kb, you will now find that it automatically disables the options that aren't valid (ie. 512Kb etc). For games like adventure and alien, just chose the 128Kb -> 256Kb BLL option and it should still work. I've just tested with Handy and those games work OK.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/fglm8fp3shfnnh9/ImageConvert.1.0.0.2.zip?dl=0

 

NOTE: If you try and feed the output back in as an input file wierd things can happen. You really should keep your original roms safe, and just use the exports of this. Don't update / modify your original ROM files.

 

EDIT: Just tested with Adventure and Alien - coverted 128Kb -> 256Kb (BLL) both work fine on Mateos 15 in 1.

Edited by GadgetUK
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is someone has tried to pad a little Rom file (less than 128kb) with 00 until 128Kb?

Because I tried and I converted the file with GadjetUK's soft and it doesn't work (I tried (EPYX / Mateos) and (BLL / Mateos)).

I filled the rom with 00 until 131104 bytes. Is this number correct?

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A real 128k cart duplicates 512 bytes 4 times to build up the 2048 bytes in a block.

 

No software relies on this duplication so you can fill the end with anything you like. Real carts wrap over.

 

The cart has 256 blocks. You cannot make a 128k cart to work as a 256k cart by duplicating or adding zeroes. You need to enlarge each block from 512 bytes to 1024 bytes for each and every block.

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A real 128k cart duplicates 512 bytes 4 times to build up the 2048 bytes in a block.

 

No software relies on this duplication so you can fill the end with anything you like. Real carts wrap over.

 

The cart has 256 blocks. You cannot make a 128k cart to work as a 256k cart by duplicating or adding zeroes. You need to enlarge each block from 512 bytes to 1024 bytes for each and every block.

That explains a lot.

 

I just remember EPROM burning guides for NES/SNES repros. For instance, if you're reproing a game with a 64kbyte PRG onto an 256kbyte EPROM, the 64kbytes needs to be duplicated 4 times. That way, if the most significant bits in the mapper chip initialize so that the game loads the wrong area of the EPROM, the game will run normally and not crash. Also if the game calls on data or banks beyond the end of the ROM, it will wrap around to the beginning on a smaller ROM. Also some SNES games performed deliberate operations on SRAM memory outside the normal bounds as a means of copy protection. If the game cart or copy device had a larger bank of SRAM than it should, the check would fail and trigger a "bootleg" mode. In Earthbound this caused enemies to spawn at an accelerated rate and other nasties that made the game unplayable.

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