Mysterious cartridge

[xrbrevin]

this just turned up on ebay - anyone know what it does?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Atari-MAGICAL-ELECTRONICS-cartridge-for-6502-8bit-machines-PURPOSE-UNKNOWN/402249001776?hash=item5da7e8ab30:g:bmAAAOSwfxReqwNf

 

Edited April 30, 2020 by xrbrevin
typo

[marauder666]

Not sure, but I had something that looked similar as a teenage dirty pirate.

 

Plugged it into right cartridge port on the 800, and it allowed some software to load and dump the left cartridge to tape.

Edited April 30, 2020 by marauder666

[Mclaneinc]

Yup, that rings a bell..

[+Nezgar]

Maybe a clone of "The Pill" - but with a neat little "I'm active!" status light when engaged by software.

 

http://www.nleaudio.com/css/products/pilldocs.htm

 

Software here: (who knows if it's compatible)

 

[xrbrevin]

an intriguing bit of A8 history. i note that the ICs have been de-labeled...

 

heres a pic for the archives

 

Edited April 30, 2020 by xrbrevin

[1050]

De-labeling is not an obstacle these days with any modern USB eprom programmer of the $40 eBay variety. They have an option of "guess which logic chip this is" and with the help of that testing facility, the number they used to carry can found very easily.

[Rybags]

Can't say I've heard of a Right Cartridge copier.  I imagine such a thing would have Rom onboard to do the copying.

Or alternately, be able to modify what the system sees in the cart flags area to allow disk boots to occur.

The usefullness would be questionable.  I'm not sure what happens if you have a 16K left cartridge - I'd imagine it would override whatever right cart is present.

 

Or maybe it's the other way around and this cart can disable itself, so a copy process could just move the copy code to Ram, jump to it, disable right cart then commence the copy.

The process of copying carts can be done entirely in software anyway - really the only necessity of hardware like this is to be able to write-protect the RAM just before you run it.

[_The Doctor__]

acetone and swabs work wonders on clearing chip ID # covering goop...