Miner 2049er questions

[reklen]

Help! I just bought a miner 2049er cartridge.  How is this thing supposed to fit in the computer.  It's got some weird bottom knob on it that prevents me from sticking it in the cartridge slot, and the cartridge looks different from my other ones.  Any one have this, is it missing an attachment or something?

[ti99iuc]

that cartridge need to be inserted in the side expansion port  

[reklen]

Thanks for the quick response, I never would have thought or tried that, and I couldn't find the information on youtube, thanks again.  Is this the only cart like that?

 

[apersson850]

I've never seen that before. So you had to unplug your expansion box to run it. What an idea.

[ti99iuc]

You're welcome.
yes you have to unplug expansion box if you have it.
it is not the only cart like this, but not so much are done anyway.

Tigervision for example also done another game named: ESPIAL 

 

other rare cartridge was also from Exeltec: Killer Caterpillar and Arcturus

(this is the one of ksarul, i still haven't it )

in the eighties also a company named SunWare produced software on this kind of cartridge:

[matthew180]

When games came in that physical format, it was a sorry attempt at preventing software piracy.  Devices plugged into the side-port can take over the computer as soon as it is powered on, which means no other software could be loaded or run from the cartridge port and your PEB could not be plugged in at the same time.  But, like always, physical access means full access, and people quickly overcame the protection and made copies.  Now we get to live with those failed attempts at software protection.

[+arcadeshopper]

It was also to subvert the qi ROM block

Sent from my LM-G820 using Tapatalk

[Ksarul]

Note also that the side port versions could be up to 48K in size. That would allow for very large TI applications that didn't need anything but a bare console to use. I see that capability as more of an advantage than a protection scheme (although it did help with the latter too). Allowing a console user access to huge programs like that would have been a major plus--especially since it completely avoided the cartridge port lockout scheme for V2.2 consoles. I figure that a lot more cartridges using these tricks would have shown up on the market if TI hadn't pulled out. Sunware had a good idea for ROM/RAM-only cartridges, but they came on the market just a little too late and the company folded after concerting just the two known Exceltec cartridges. . .both of which are extremely rare. I know of only four copies of Killer Caterpillar and less than ten copies of Arcturus. I am lucky in that I have found one of each for my collection.

[Papalapa]

¡Holy cow! first time that I have seen someting like this.

[Ksarul]

Note also that the Thorne EMI games would have been side port cartridges too. They never released them in that format, but prototypes do/did exist. Kantronics also made a HAM Radio sideport cartridge (HAMSoft). Lastly, there were GROM Buster cartridges from CorComp and Navarone that plugged into the side port and allowed the user to insert ROM only cartridges into the cartridge port of a V2.2 console, press the GROM buster button, and the ROM cartridge would now be able to execute (instead of being locked out by the TI). This was a great option for those with V2.2 consoles.

[mizapf]

I hope that we still have the original dumps of these sideport cartridges somewhere, and not just patched versions. I could make them available in MAME, in particular since I reorganized the peripheral expansion emulation as a real port ("ioport"), so instead of "-ioport peb" (as the only option now) we would then have "-ioport arcturus" etc.

 

And of course these "GROM busters" would be interesting.

[iliketurtles]

On 11/12/2019 at 7:39 PM, Ksarul said:

Note also that the Thorne EMI games would have been side port cartridges too. They never released them in that format, but prototypes do/did exist. Kantronics also made a HAM Radio sideport cartridge (HAMSoft). Lastly, there were GROM Buster cartridges from CorComp and Navarone that plugged into the side port and allowed the user to insert ROM only cartridges into the cartridge port of a V2.2 console, press the GROM buster button, and the ROM cartridge would now be able to execute (instead of being locked out by the TI). This was a great option for those with V2.2 consoles.

Wait... you forgot two. The Paraprint cartridge by DataBioTics, and the Corcomp PIO Plus cartridge (which were both in the same case as a TI cartridge, just with a sideport connector).

Edited November 24 by iliketurtles