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Cuttle Cart 2 resurfaces!


cjherr

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I was looking through my retro electronics looking for something, and lo and behold, I found a Cuttle Cart 2 I had forgotten I had purchased BITD! Now all I have to do is find an 32MB MMC card (SD won't fit) and a way to format and write to it, and we'll see if it works. It has a socket for a POKEY chip. I wonder if the POKEY ONE will work. Anyone know if it has a chance?

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Well, you might reach out to @PacManPlus because after I did some repairs on his CC2 over the summer, he actually was able to replace the old MMC with a standard SD slot onto his CC2 and it works much better under that format. Also, I believe someone did test a CC2 with a PokeyOne (PMP again maybe?) and confirmed it does work, but won't fit in the cart shell due to the slightly larger overall size of the PK1.

 

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I’m glad you started this thread, as I just got ahold of a CC2 myself! It is truly astonishing how this tech is still so relevant, and it works great! I’ve been busily playing games that I’ve patiently waited for years to enjoy on real hardware... Apple Snaffle, Worm, Wasp, all the Bob D. games, all the hacks... the CC2 is one of the few true answers to unleash the awesome power of your Atari 7800 ProSystem. 
 

And there’s one other great reason why: the hacks! Donkey Kong Jr. Mario Bros. Double Dragon. Pole Position II. All of these games have been improved and are so much more fun to play!

 

Then there’s the development capacity... I look forward to being a contributor to game development too!

 

I was thinking of starting a CC2 support thread, where we could collaboratively improve the menu system and banking files. If these components were streamlined, the tech would be much easier to keep current with today’s game development (I know there’s the CC2 Discussion Thread too; very helpful)!
 

The 7800 is a totally awesome and underrated gaming machine. There were few games released in its heyday to bring out the best on the system, but thanks to all the incredible minds here at AA, there are some stellar, high quality productions that I think everyone should enjoy!

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On 11/15/2019 at 6:08 AM, -^CrossBow^- said:

Well, you might reach out to @PacManPlus because after I did some repairs on his CC2 over the summer, he actually was able to replace the old MMC with a standard SD slot onto his CC2 and it works much better under that format. Also, I believe someone did test a CC2 with a PokeyOne (PMP again maybe?) and confirmed it does work, but won't fit in the cart shell due to the slightly larger overall size of the PK1.

 

 

That's deserving of a couple of YouTube videos... the introduction and modding techniques...

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16 minutes ago, Lynxpro said:

 

That's deserving of a couple of YouTube videos... the introduction and modding techniques...

Getting an SD card to work wasn't really a mod in this case. The original MMC slot is just a piece of brittle plastic that is press fit onto data read pins that are soldered directly to the CC2 PCB. In both @PacManPlus and @MegaManFan's CC2 carts, both of them had that plastic essentially come loose from the PCB. PMP's was also cracked and not holding the MMC cards against the data pins very well. There isn't any difference really in the pin outs between the SD and MMC devices. 

 

So really it isn't so much a mod as just replacing the MMC slot with an SD card slot. This allows you to use both MMC and SD cards on the CC2 at that point.

 

 

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On 11/19/2019 at 6:13 AM, -^CrossBow^- said:

Getting an SD card to work wasn't really a mod in this case. The original MMC slot is just a piece of brittle plastic that is press fit onto data read pins that are soldered directly to the CC2 PCB. In both @PacManPlus and @MegaManFan's CC2 carts, both of them had that plastic essentially come loose from the PCB. PMP's was also cracked and not holding the MMC cards against the data pins very well. There isn't any difference really in the pin outs between the SD and MMC devices. 

 

So really it isn't so much a mod as just replacing the MMC slot with an SD card slot. This allows you to use both MMC and SD cards on the CC2 at that point.

 

 

That still amazes me. I would've thought whatever controller chip that's used to read the data off the MMC wouldn't be compatible with SD since it was obviously a newer standard back when the CC2 was designed. Super cool...

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48 minutes ago, Lynxpro said:

That still amazes me. I would've thought whatever controller chip that's used to read the data off the MMC wouldn't be compatible with SD since it was obviously a newer standard back when the CC2 was designed. Super cool...

Near as I've read, there isn't a huge difference between the MMC and SD protocols. SD just supports more of them and secure versions of them. So basically with an SD reader attached, the SD card it just mimicking the MMC card and the extra pins on the SD card format aren't required for basic reading of the data in this case.

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16 minutes ago, save2600 said:

Is it possible to reproduce the CC2? Seems it would be faster than waiting for other SD flashcarts to materialize. 

The reason it stopped being produced was because components it relied on to work weren't being manufactured anymore and becoming more expensive to acquire. 

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On 11/21/2019 at 6:06 AM, -^CrossBow^- said:

Near as I've read, there isn't a huge difference between the MMC and SD protocols. SD just supports more of them and secure versions of them. So basically with an SD reader attached, the SD card it just mimicking the MMC card and the extra pins on the SD card format aren't required for basic reading of the data in this case.

 

Interesting.  Do you know what the memory size limitation of an MMC/SD card is with the CC2?

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 12/2/2019 at 6:03 PM, Lynxpro said:

 

Interesting.  Do you know what the memory size limitation of an MMC/SD card is with the CC2?

I'm going to do some small testing with this later tonight. I have both a 1gb Lexar that works without issue, and was playing games with one using a 2gb samsung MicroSD in an SD adapter that was working fine. I'm going to try and use 4gb and 16gb  and up by formatting the cards using format software to force a FAT partition to the cards and see if they still work. Hoping they do as it is MUCH easier to source 8gb and up SD cards for cheaper than lower capacity ones will cost you these days. But I can at least confirm that 1gb and 2gb cards are a go.

 

To be fair though, even a 1gb SD card is overkill for storage due to how small the actual game .bin files are.

 

Another thing to consider if you do this to our CC2 is that the original slot on the cartridge will need to be widened a bit and the SD slot will stick out quite a bit from the cartridge. I believe PMP made a custom cart shell for his once he did this mod.

 

UPDATE:

 

Okay I did some testing just now with an old 1gb and 2gb SD cards. Also tested using a 16gb SDHC and 64gb SDXC cards. 

 

The 1 and 2gb cards worked just fine without any issues. But I know this already having tested with them before.

The 16 and 64gb naturally didn't work on default formatting. I then formatted them to FAT32 which is the lowest format type I can choose and still have full capacity. Neither worked so the CC2 will only accept FAT formatted SD cards. I then created a 2gb simple volume on the 16gb card and was able to FAT type the format on that one and still no go as the CC2 just says no MMC detected. I tried similar doing a 4gb volume on the 64gb card and same results with MMC not detected.

 

So in conclusion it would seem that the CC2 will only read lower capacity FAT formatted SD cards. I do not have a 4gb SD card to test so I cannot say for sure if that will work, but I can say that 1 and 2gb SD cards are possible to use on the CC2 with an SD card reader in place of the MMC.

 

 

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  • 1 month later...

So I did the mod.    Soldered the 3 far right legs together as shown in the video.  Solder the 7 center legs to the CC2 board and the 2 far left lefts I just left as is.   CC2 is now seeing the card installed.  I'm having load errors, I think I need to gen a new card.   Anyone have the utlities for this, this is the first time I'm getting to use my CC2 in 10 years and I don't remember how to do this.

 

Update:

 

Actually I found all of the CC Generator files and my full backup image of my old MMC card, so I'm up and running.  If anyone needs anything, please let me know.  If you need the slots, I got 10 of them in from the UK, PM me if you need one to fix your CC2, its a very simple solder replacement.

 

Edited by Curt Vendel
Found the files
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