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Ultimate Atari Cart (Electrotrains) Pre-Order by 18 APR 17


MacRorie

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UPDATE: As of 18 Mar 17: 34 Ordered, 16 to go. All payment emails sent. We are OVER HALFWAY THERE!!!

If we can get to 40 orders, I will order the parts and this thing will be a go. We will still need to get to 50 to pay the balance for the SMD assembler, but if we can get to 40, we can start this process and move the timeline up.

 

I have found another supplier for some of the parts and they had a deal, so I have started to order some of the parts. . Let me be clear: I STILL NEED 50 PRE-ORDERS. Tell your friends. Hell, I even gave Facebook $10 to advertise!

 

Folks,

As promised, here are the details:

 

Starting TODAY, 17 FEB 17, I am taking pre-orders for Electrotrains' Ultimate Atari Cart.

 

Here is how it will work:

 

Process:

1. Send total payment via PayPal to marlin4@gmail.com. Please, make sure you use the "Pay for goods/services" option.

1a. Please include email & AtariAge handle somewhere in the notes when sending PayPal.

2. You may order as many cartridges as you wish, but your payment MUST be received IN FULL (including shipping) for you to reserve one or more of them.

3. There needs to be 50 pre-orders by April 18, 2017. If there are not, all pre-orders will be refunded IN FULL.

4. I will send you an email verifying receipt and telling you your # on the list. The number does nothing but let you know how close we are to starting production.

5. As soon as I receive 50 pre-orders, I will order the parts and start the process of making the cartridges.

 

 

TIMELINE:

17FEB: Pre-Orders Start

ASAP: As soon as 50 pre-orders are made, I will order the parts. I already have the PCBs. The LATEST this date could be is 18 APR 2017. Faster pre-ordering means, earlier start date.

25 APR Parts & PCBs to assembler

02 MAY Assembled boards received back.

Begin doing hand solder parts (3), programming, casing, testing

16 MAY Begin shipment

01 JUN All carts should be in your hands

 

NOTE: If the 50th pre-order comes earlier than 18Apr, then everything gets moved up. It is all dependent on how fast the 50 pre-orders happen.

 

Costs:

US$95.00+shipping

Includes one Ultimate Atari Cart inside of a custom printed, 3D case.

Case is BLACK, unless you choose differently. The label is waterproof and laser printed.

If you do not want the case, subtract $5.00.

If you want a different COLOR for the case, ADD $5.00

(See the attached PDF file for available colors. Do Glow in the dark!!)

 

Shipping is as follows:

US-based PayPal Addresses: $10.00 for up to three carts

Canada-based PayPal Addresses: $15.00 for up to three carts

Rest of the world PayPal addresses: $20.00 for up to two carts

 

US shipments will go out Priority Mail, insured. Everybody else will go out International First Class Package.

 

WHAT IS THIS CARTRIDGE?

It supports most ROMs up to 1 megabyte in size, including standard 8k and 16k cartridges, XEGS, AtariMax 1 & 8mbit ROMs, SIC! Cart, Bounty Bob, OSS, SDX & Williams. ROM dumps can be easily converted into CAR format with my html/javascript conversion utility, RomToCar. It will also load .XEX files directly from the SD card.

 

  • Design, PCB & FPGA firmware by Robin Edwards (electrotrains at atariage)
  • Atari boot menu & XEX loader by Jonathan Halliday (flashjazzcat at atariage)
  • Debugging - Matthias Reichl (HiassofT at atariage)
  • Help, suggestions and FAT32 LFN code from Mark Watson (foft at atariage)

 

For more information, here are some links:

#1

#1

http://tinyurl.com/gtwzaew

Also details further down in the thread here: #25

Inland PLA Colors.pdf

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Edited by MacRorie
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13 down, 37 to go! Folks, if you know of any other place I can post this, please let me know. I would love to get this started earlier. It looks like we can easily meet the goal of 50, but might need to advertise it a bit more so we can get started sooner.

 

-M

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Will this cart work with an unmodified 400 or 800? I'm recently getting back into my Atari and am trying my best to sort out all the new accessories and modifications out there now.

 

It will work in an unmodified 800, definitely. I have not tested it on a 400, although it's usefulness maybe limited given the limited ram and, thus, the limited number of carts/XEX files that could be used. However, I will test it on my 400 and post here. Runs fine. Usefulness is determined by how much RAM is in the system. 48k should run everything designed for 48k/400/800. See my most recent post for more details.

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It will work in an unmodified 800, definitely. I have not tested it on a 400, although it's usefulness maybe limited given the limited ram and, thus, the limited number of carts/XEX files that could be used. However, I will test it on my 400 and post here.

Thanks!

I have a 400 as well, but it has a 48k upgrade. So I assume it'd work in it as well.

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This is a copy of the docs from ElectroTrains' website.

Ultimate Cartridge for Atari 8-bit Computers
The Ultimate Cart is a multi-cart for Atari 400/800/XL/XE computers.

Basic Usage
Insert an SD card (either full size, or MicroSD in an adapter) into the slot. The card does not require any special preparation, since the Ultimate cartridge can read FAT (including FAT32) file systems. Long file names are supported.
When the Atari is powered on, a list of any ROM & CAR files and directories on the SD card should be shown on the Atari’s screen. Keyboard commands are shown at the bottom of the screen. A newer version of the firmware also supports XEX files – this may be installed on your cartridge.
It is best to organize your files in directories since the cartridge will load and sort the files in the directory before display. If you have to many files in any one directory, this may cause a noticeable pause before display.
You can disable the cartridge (using the X key) if you want to boot normally (e.g. to disk) and leave the cartridge plugged in (to avoid wear and tear).

SD Cards
Higher speed SD cards are recommended. SDHC (High capacity) cards are supported. On a high-speed card, a 1 megabyte ROM file (e.g. AtariMax) takes about 3 seconds to be loaded into the cartridge when selected. Slower cards may take longer.

Status LED
post-16779-0-41405400-1488060008_thumb.png

 

Reset Button

Press the reset button (next to the SD card slot) to reset the cartridge firmware. This will generally cause the Atari to crash, and the reset button on the Atari can then be pressed to return to the cartridge menu.

Supported Cartridge Types (CAR files)

post-16779-0-22802200-1488060015_thumb.png

 

 

Converting to CAR format

Utilities are available to convert ROM/BIN files into the CAR file format. The ROM2CAR utility available on the project website provides an easy drag and drop interface to do this.

With the most common 8k and 16k Atari ROMs, there is no need to convert these first to CAR format since these cartridge types will simply be assumed from the size of the ROM file (see below).

ROM Files

Plain ROM files are supported, but since these files are raw cartridge dumps, the Ultimate Cart will decide what type of cartridge they come from based on the file size only. The table below shows what types will be used.

post-16779-0-18458100-1488060021_thumb.png

XEX Files

The latest version of the firmware adds a new menu, with joystick control. It also supports loading XEX files (in addition to cartridge files). Note that the XEX loader is copied to location $700 in the Atari’s RAM. This should be compatible with most software in XEX form.

Problem Files

You may come across files with a .BIN extension. These are often just .ROM files and can be renamed.

You may also find ROM files where the Ultimate Cart menu gives the error “Bad ROM/CAR file”. This happens when the ROM file is not an exact multiple of 1,024 bytes. In this case, the ROM dump may have already been converted to a CAR file (with a 16 byte header) but has been wrongly named. In this case you can simply rename the file from .ROM to .CAR.

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