AVGCART

[Mclaneinc]

Any idea of price yet?

[tmp]

2 hours ago, Mclaneinc said:

Any idea of price yet?

not sure, probably same price as avgsio cable

[Mclaneinc]

Sounds good to me, CC mentioned a possible memory conflict if you have a U1MB, apart from removing said U1MB, could there, is there a way around this?

 

Obviously the whole point of it is that it's a ram upgrade, but I like the other features it has but don't want it to clash with the U1mb (if possible)

Edited October 18, 2021 by Mclaneinc

[Peri Noid]

Will you publish the connection schematics so that one can make it oneself?

[tmp]

41 minutes ago, Mclaneinc said:

Sounds good to me, CC mentioned a possible memory conflict if you have a U1MB, apart from removing said U1MB, could there, is there a way around this?

 

Obviously the whole point of it is that it's a ram upgrade, but I like the other features it has but don't want it to clash with the U1mb (if possible)

are we still talking about eci cable for avgcart?

(currently) its sole functionality is to allow running stuff that requires extended memory so it's only useful on stock machines

[tmp]

45 minutes ago, Peri Noid said:

Will you publish the connection schematics so that one can make it oneself?

i can send you a pcb if you want to build one (there's a level shifter in the connector so it's not just a passive connecting of pins)

[manterola]

Please publish the schematics... or do you mind if I create one? or do you think it will be a seller in USA?  

[Atari_bbs_fan]

7 hours ago, tmp said:

just in

This is great to see Tmp!  I'm not sure how you're doing the ordering list but I too would love to have one for my AVG cart.  Curious though, my AVG card currently only has the SIO cable port exposed through it's case.  What will be required to connect this new cable assembly?

[+MrFish]

Any possibility of emulating the Corina Cartridge?

 

Bomb Jake.rom

 

Yie Another Kung-Fu.rom

 

[tmp]

On 10/18/2021 at 10:00 AM, Atari_bbs_fan said:

This is great to see Tmp!  I'm not sure how you're doing the ordering list but I too would love to have one for my AVG cart.  Curious though, my AVG card currently only has the SIO cable port exposed through it's case.  What will be required to connect this new cable assembly?

9 pin jst connector needs to be soldered to the cart, the thing is that your cart has that connector placed on a not very convenient place (also oriented absolutely wrong for this purpose) so it wouldn't be possible to just plug/unplug cable from outside as it's the case with sio cable, one needs to plug it when cart is out of the shell and also file some hole at the side of the cart to let the cable out (so it becomes kinda semi-permanent, for removing you need to unscrew the shell)

 

i hope i'll find time to try to modify one of these older carts and post some photos tomorrow, my queue is currently filled with random crap that needs to be done prior to that

[tmp]

11 hours ago, MrFish said:

Any possibility of emulating the Corina Cartridge?

 

Bomb Jake.rom 520 kB · 8 downloads

 

Yie Another Kung-Fu.rom 1.01 MB · 8 downloads

 

maybe, if those games don't absolutely require eeprom to work

the question is whether it's worth the effort (i can't answer that)

[+MrFish]

3 hours ago, tmp said:

maybe, if those games don't absolutely require eeprom to work

 

I'm not sure about that.

 

Here's some more info in English.

 

Corina - New Cartridge Architecture

 

3 hours ago, tmp said:

the question is whether it's worth the effort (i can't answer that)

 

I suppose it's somewhat dependent upon the amount of effort that would be required.

 

Here are a few pros for having them emulated.

1. These two games -- in their final forms -- can only be played on a Corina cart; and they're both advanced and desirable titles for the system.

2. They can be played without extended RAM (but, of course, with the extended RAM needing emulation, it's required at some level in the hardware).

 

[Atari_bbs_fan]

9 hours ago, tmp said:

i hope i'll find time to try to modify one of these older carts and post some photos tomorrow, my queue is currently filled with random crap that needs to be done prior to that

 

EDIT: something like this

 

 

Ok.. that picture shows a 1000 words.  I think it won't be too hard to modify my older AVG cartridge enclosure to allow for the wires out for my 130xe.  Is the 9pin JST connector already soldered onto the PCB?

 

[tmp]

3 minutes ago, Atari_bbs_fan said:

Is the 9pin JST connector already soldered onto the PCB?

nope (even the one on the photo isn't actually soldered)

[tmp]

6 hours ago, MrFish said:

 

I'm not sure about that.

 

Here's some more info in English.

 

Corina - New Cartridge Architecture

 

 

I suppose it's somewhat dependent upon the amount of effort that would be required.

 

Here are a few pros for having them emulated.

1. These two games -- in their final forms -- can only be played on a Corina cart; and they're both advanced and desirable titles for the system.

2. They can be played without extended RAM (but, of course, with the extended RAM needing emulation, it's required at some level in the hardware).

 

i'll do a quick test sometime later this week/next week to see whether there's anything preventing making it work

[Mr Robot]

48 minutes ago, tmp said:

i'll do a quick test sometime later this week/next week to see whether there's anything preventing making it work

Maybe use the mechanism you used for flob to support the eeprom? Both games are available as xex files (the only differences are the loading screen (Bomb Jack/Bomb Jake and Yie ar Kung Fu/Yet Another Kung Fu) and the eeprom saving. 

 

atari800 doesn't support them and there's no cart type for them, Atari++ had a special hacked release for these two images,  altirra supports everything as always.

 

No multicart supports them.

 

[madness77]

On 10/19/2021 at 12:13 AM, tmp said:

9 pin jst connector needs to be soldered to the cart, the thing is that your cart has that connector placed on a not very convenient place (also oriented absolutely wrong for this purpose) so it wouldn't be possible to just plug/unplug cable from outside as it's the case with sio cable, one needs to plug it when cart is out of the shell and also file some hole at the side of the cart to let the cable out (so it becomes kinda semi-permanent, for removing you need to unscrew the shell)

 

i hope i'll find time to try to modify one of these older carts and post some photos tomorrow, my queue is currently filled with random crap that needs to be done prior to that

 

Slowly, AVGCart becomes BSTCart

 

[pseudografx]

1 hour ago, madness77 said:

 

Slowly, AVGCart becomes BSTCart

 

In my book it already is ?

[+ZuluGula]

1 hour ago, madness77 said:

Slowly, AVGCart becomes BSTCart

The last thing it needs, would be addition of #FujiNet 

[tmp]

6 minutes ago, ZuluGula said:

The last thing it needs, would be addition of #FujiNet 

i can make you a special firmware build that will slow everything down to sio speeds...

[+ZuluGula]

4 minutes ago, tmp said:

i can make you a special firmware build that will slow everything down to sio speeds...

I ment ability do get software from Internet through WiFi.

[+MrFish]

3 hours ago, tmp said:

i'll do a quick test sometime later this week/next week to see whether there's anything preventing making it work

 

Thanks.

 

A couple of possibly useful notes...

 

A special version of Atari++ emulator was created specifically to emulate these two carts (attached). @phaeron (Altirra author) voices some complaints about Atari++ Corina emulation here. 

 

Altirra can emulate them both -- up to a point (some problems with in-game graphics). So, you may be able to glean some starting points from it's source code. Source code may be available for the special version of Atari++ too.

 

Also, I believe both of these titles only run fully (in-game) on PAL hardware.

 

[Note: Name whichever cart you want to run in the special version of Atari++ to "kung_cart.bin", which will cause it to automatically load when starting the emulator.]

 

Yie Another.zip

 

[+MrFish]

2 hours ago, Mr Robot said:

Both games are available as xex files (the only differences are the loading screen)

 True for Bomb Jake, but not true for Yie Another Kung Fu. The cartridge version was completely redone, with many different graphics in-game.

 

[+MrFish]

33 minutes ago, MrFish said:

 True for Bomb Jake, but not true for Yie Another Kung Fu. The cartridge version was completely redone, with many different graphics in-game.

 

Here's a comparison (in addition to the title-screen differences).

 

The main differences are colors used, and the use of lower-res in the score/info panel of Yie Anther Kung Fu (cartridge) for achieving more colors. Yie Ar Kung Fu (XEX) uses hi-res score/info with P/M overlays to add color. Also, Yie Another Kung Fu (cartridge) uses almost the entire screen height, whereas Yie Ar Kung Fu (XEX) uses considerably less.

 

Additionally, there may be more differences (like in A.I., for instance), since I believe the source code from the XEX version was lost at some point, and the project was started from scratch to arrive at the cartridge version ( @miker could verify this ).

 

Yie Another Kung Fu (Corina Cartridge)

 

    

 

 

Yie Ar Kung Fu (XEX)

 

    

 

[+MrFish]

@Xuel has patched Yie Another Kung Fu to work with Altirra's Current model for emulating the Corina cartridge.

 

As a fallback, maybe the patched version would be easier to get running on the AVG cart (no patched version for Bomb Jake yet, though).

 

BTW, the somewhat garish colors for Yie Another Kung Fu shown above are a symptom of the palette being used. Here's how it looks in Altirra with a better palette selected.