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Dragon's Lair is sold out!


Tursi

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Yeah, it's magic alright! Where cartridges are concerned we've come full circle after 38 years. Many of us started with cartridges on a bare console, and most of us have come back to them. This game is mind-blowing in that it can work on an un-expanded system, even a 'QI' 2.2 version console.

 

I never thought I'd see the day when a 16K bare console could run a program with combined program and video of over 83 megabytes.

 

Here's a quick peek for those still on the waiting list...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0FDniHQ6xs&feature=youtu.be

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Is it possible watch DL as movie without playing game ?

No. I thought about it but decided not to. Since there's a practice mode it only takes a few play-throughs to start learning each scene, then you can leave hints on and the last trick becomes getting the timing on the shorter moves (and not being fooled by the mirrored scenes, some of which have different timing!) You'll be walking through it in no time. ;)

 

Another tip for those who are starting to go through - the sequencing between home and arcade is different, as are the rules for advancement. In particular, Arcade forces you to play every scene, including both versions of the mirrored scenes, AND pass them, before you can get to the Lair. Home mode only requires one of each mirrored scene, and if you fail a scene twice you get to move on anyway. Between that and the more logical scene order I like it a lot more.

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There's no magic. I've been working up to this for years and years. Nobody pays attention so you just /think/ it popped up out of nowhere. :)

Yup.

 

The image converter, to the video converter, to all the cartridge work. And bank switching on address and data lines, I'm really gonna want to see a write-up on it eventually, Tursi :)

 

Sent from my moto x4 using Tapatalk

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No, I just double checked what I sent, and one of you didn't get 113. ;)

 

Giving you numbers is how you're anonymized when I send orders, so in the sake of fairness, I won't say here who it was. ;)

 

 

It was me. I fat fingered it while responding on my phone. I am not #113. Sorry for the confusion.

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Was the size of the cartridge 83 MB, or 8.3 MB? For some reason, I thought I remember reading it had an 8 MB ram chip.

 

Beery

 

According to Tursi, The 'Gigacart' is 128 megabytes banked through the TI's 8K cartridge range. It also simulates 256 bytes of GROM which does end run around the v2.2 console check. In this case, this monster port of Dragon's Lair is approximately 83 megabytes, leaving some unused space. ;)

 

Apparently in the future there is a design to use up to 4 flash chips, sacrificing GROM support for up to 512 megabytes, more development is in order before it's easily programmable on-board for the masses.

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Dumb question (sorry): Will this work on a TI that's been expanded to 32k?

 

Thanks.

 

It should, but it does not need 32K. It will run on a totally unmodified or unexpanded console. Everything needed is crammed into the cartridge. When I use mine I don't even bother to turn on the P-Box, but if I do, it still works. It also work with or without an F18A.

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Dumb question (sorry): Will this work on a TI that's been expanded to 32k?

 

Thanks.

Yes, I've tested on a console with 32k. The only thing I've ever heard of that /fails/ when 32k is attached is Tutankhaman (sp), but I have my doubts that that's actually the cause there. I spent a few hours to see if I could fix it...

 

But Dragon's Lair operates on any 4A console with no expansion required. It supports joysticks (more comfortable to play) and F18A (slightly less flicker).

 

Omega is spot on about the hardware - it's based around a 128MB flash chip and so offers 16384 pages of 8k each. Dragon's Lair is using about 83MB of that space and, sadly, I did not get any Easter Eggs in there (except the diagnostics mode ;) ). Next time, when I'm not under such a time crunch.

 

There is a tiny amount of GROM emulation - this was limited mainly by the size of the CPLD that drives it all... with all the latches for ROM there wasn't a lot of space left for a GROM emulation. But there's plenty of room to bootstrap a ROM cart - frankly most of that space is unused too. (I looked at the next size up CPLD, and it went from $3 to about $9, adding too much to the cost of the cart just to get a few more bits of GROM.)

 

There is a CPLD load that offers 512MB via four chips - that's what the ROM select jumpers on the PCB are for. This loses GROM emulation though, since it doesn't fit. That's really only for myself, I promised myself a movie cartridge many years ago and that gives the space I need. ;)

 

And, yeah, working to see if I can make a programmable version. Right now I have to program the flash chip before I solder it down. But none of that affects this particular release. I can write it up sometime after I'm done building boards. ;)

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