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BennVenn's ElCheapo Lynx SD Flash Cart


Igor

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3 hours ago, UHATEIT said:

Oh I want to say it DID say I had 270 which is what I had total. But it went from mid B to Z then # to mid B but was missing a while page of them like 14-16 or so. 

 

But removing down to 250 was perfectly fine after that. But I saw the update eventually will allow over 256 someday right?

Ah looks like I have a bit of an overflow issue, it should never go beyond 256 even if you have more, I'll look into the code to fix that.

Yes Once BennVenn releases firmware that will have directory support and support for more files, it will do...though from what you're reporting the firmware may be sneakily supporting more than 256 files already and I just need to update the menu to do the same. I'll talk to Ben and see what he says.

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  • 2 months later...
6 hours ago, BadPricey said:

Hi all, 

I can't seem to get T-Tris running using El Cheapo SD. It works perfectly fine on Handy. Is there a list of games which do and don't work?

Rgds 

BadPricey

Do you own a copy of T-tris? If not, you have not even the right to play it. Go get it from Songbird!

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2 hours ago, 42bs said:

Do you own a copy of T-tris? If not, you have not even the right to play it. Go get it from Songbird!

In answer to your question, no, I don't own T-tris. The ROM is being hosted freely on the Internet and I wanted to try it. It doesn't work so I can't play it on real hardware. No loss I've deleted it. Fortunately I do have this. 6773BC67-1708-40FD-9E01-397F3A9D7F05.thumb.jpeg.771de1beb34e24a706019a50c8eb1669.jpeg

 

So to answer my original question is there a list of games that do or don't work on El Cheapo SD?

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19 minutes ago, BadPricey said:

In answer to your question, no, I don't own T-tris. The ROM is being hosted freely on the Internet and I wanted to try it. It doesn't work so I can't play it on real hardware. No loss I've deleted it. Fortunately I do have this. 6773BC67-1708-40FD-9E01-397F3A9D7F05.thumb.jpeg.771de1beb34e24a706019a50c8eb1669.jpeg

 

So to answer my original question is there a list of games that do or don't work on El Cheapo SD?

You can buy a copy of T-Tris from Songbird (he invested a lot on the re-release). The Gameboy version is not an adequate replacement  ?

If an why it does not work on the SD card is likely because it was a bad copy.

 

Edited by 42bs
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16 minutes ago, 42bs said:

The Gameboy version is not an adequate replacement  ?

 

? ^^^???

 

It's a game I'd like to try before I buy on real Lynx. Normally I'll try two or three games out and then stick them on my Birthday /Christmas list. 

I usually order from Telegames UK as shipping from Songbird is expensive. 

 

Bad ROM, not convinced, worked on Handy. 

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There is no list but ElCheapoSD only supports real LNX files, the ROM could be a LYX or an O type ROM, that would most likely be your issue.

Handy is a lot more lenient as it can detect LNX vs LYX vs O ROMs, so can Retro HQ's Lynx GD.

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  • 9 months later...

Does anyone else have trouble playing the "Super Asteroids and Missile Command" ROM on their ElCheapoSD? I'm using the atari gamer boot.bin and when I select the room it fails to load, there's some text the flashes in front of my eyes too quickly for me to read (could be an error). Subsequent attempts to load the ROM seem to just hang. If I remove the associated .SAV file seems to go back to quickly failing with flashing text too quick for me to read then back to freezing on load.

 

I searched the forum but couldn't find any specific mention of this.

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1 minute ago, oski_98 said:

On a hunch I just shorted the rom name to astro.lnx and somehow that fixed the issue.

Any chance the original had an ampersand (&) in the file name? It's just a theory and probably way off. It could also be a long file name. I haven't dug that deep into any SD art yet so I'm not familiar with the El Cheapo but have been looking at bits of information. I'm hoping to get the SD cart and the screen at the same time.

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It didn't have an ampersand, but it was a long name. I think the firmware, or maybe the boot image, don't handle long names and also certain characters well.  For example I noticed that for some file names, ones that have only letter characters, it doesn't show the extension. But if the file has an underscore it shows the file extension.

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3 hours ago, oski_98 said:

It didn't have an ampersand, but it was a long name. I think the firmware, or maybe the boot image, don't handle long names and also certain characters well.  For example I noticed that for some file names, ones that have only letter characters, it doesn't show the extension. But if the file has an underscore it shows the file extension.

The issue you described is when the firmware can't launch the selected ROM for some reason and falls back into the menu without a clean reset, that causes it to just hang. Can you tell me what the original file name was so I can see if I can reproduce the issue and fix the menu loader please?

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On 3/25/2022 at 10:31 PM, Igor said:

The issue you described is when the firmware can't launch the selected ROM for some reason and falls back into the menu without a clean reset, that causes it to just hang. Can you tell me what the original file name was so I can see if I can reproduce the issue and fix the menu loader please?

Yeah, I had issues with the following names for the ROM:

1. "Super Asteroids, Missile Command (USA, Europe).lnx"

2. "super_asteroids_missle_command.lnx"

 

It works fine if I just name it: astero.lnx

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2 hours ago, oski_98 said:

Yeah, I had issues with the following names for the ROM:

1. "Super Asteroids, Missile Command (USA, Europe).lnx"

2. "super_asteroids_missle_command.lnx"

 

It works fine if I just name it: astero.lnx

I just tried renaming a ROM like that and it didn't cause a crash for me. At least there's a workaround, I'll document that on my site. Thanks for the info!

 

P.S. ElCheapoSD troubleshooting guide is here - https://atarigamer.com/pages/elcheaposd-troubleshooting-guide

Edited by Igor
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3 hours ago, oski_98 said:

@Igorpossibly I have an older revision? I downloaded it last week though. Could it also be that the presence of other files affect it? Or even the quality of the SD card?

I assume you're using the one that I wrote, not the original menu? The version on itch.io is the latest, it hasn't had an update in about a year ?

It would be the presence of other files on the card and also the order that those files were copied to the card, bit tricky to debug!

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On 5/26/2021 at 3:50 AM, BadPricey said:

? ^^^???

 

It's a game I'd like to try before I buy on real Lynx. Normally I'll try two or three games out and then stick them on my Birthday /Christmas list. 

I usually order from Telegames UK as shipping from Songbird is expensive. 

 

Bad ROM, not convinced, worked on Handy. 

It works fine on Elcheapo, the rom being shared is a bad dump. Buy the game it is worth it.

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This beenvenn’s sd card for the lynx looks freaking damn cool,but what’s the benefit of it compared with the gamedrive?

i own the first sd card from saint wich load games pretty slow(i don’t know if it was because of the slow ram or the chip inside that sd card )but i first tout it had to do with the lynx hardware,but the gamedrive loads games twice as fast and it can emulate eeprom save files on to the sd card.

on the saint version you have to moddifie eeprom save games to take advantage of the sd card,

also the gamedrive does support builtin cheat option via an os menu(i don’t know if that’s possible on the early saint version trough os update) but it would be cool,now despite i own the old saint version am still happy with it since it sincr it is still better then that rotery flashcard or masta flash card system, it also beats that unhandy aga sd card to the punch?

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On 4/6/2022 at 3:23 AM, johannesmutlu said:

This beenvenn’s sd card for the lynx looks freaking damn cool,but what’s the benefit of it compared with the gamedrive?

i own the first sd card from saint wich load games pretty slow(i don’t know if it was because of the slow ram or the chip inside that sd card )but i first tout it had to do with the lynx hardware,but the gamedrive loads games twice as fast and it can emulate eeprom save files on to the sd card.

on the saint version you have to moddifie eeprom save games to take advantage of the sd card,

also the gamedrive does support builtin cheat option via an os menu(i don’t know if that’s possible on the early saint version trough os update) but it would be cool,now despite i own the old saint version am still happy with it since it sincr it is still better then that rotery flashcard or masta flash card system, it also beats that unhandy aga sd card to the punch?

Here's a comparison table - https://atarigamer.com/pages/sd-flash-carts-for-atari-lynx

In the end it comes down to price really. The ElCheapoSD is named that way to reflect it ?

Edited by Igor
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On 2/26/2021 at 10:05 PM, KevinMos3 said:

I've been itching to do a label for the BennVenn cart, and finally got around to throwing together a quickie.  The idea was to use the tie-dye pattern at the top so it matches the rest of the shell, and put something Lynx-like where a label normally goes.  I didn't plan on using the circuitboard on the label, but once I scanned it in for sizing, I liked it better than the plain orange or purple.  Here's what it looks like applied to my BennVenn cart:

KIMG0140_sm.thumb.jpg.39c16e42f959238257fc32521393d1d9.jpg

 

There's approximately a millimeter or so of excess on the sides to give room for trimming.  I actually applied this label to the cart before trimming off the edges, letting the hobby knife ride in the groove between the PCB and shell.  It gave a nice fit.

 

All images uploaded in 600dpi.  If forum software resizes them, I'll zip them up or something.

1901942060_BennVennLabelV1600dpi.thumb.png.ac5a8fe1e3ace1f583b64d71eacfd3d1.png 1905469703_BennVennLabelV2600dpi.thumb.png.fb1b15880b3589995f556d3e88136b8f.png 960630599_BennVennLabelV3600dpi.thumb.png.1ad3505aa56b23b37b3c38acd0c76987.png 1274324111_BennVennLabelV4600dpi.thumb.png.150d36c9af0dece73b3c864f27fb4ea9.png

WoooW that sd card and it’s menu looks freaking damn cool along with amezing features, but remeber that a sd card was SUPPOSEDLY ABSOLUTELY TO BE WAAAY IMPOSSIBLE for the lynx,because the lynx lacks a hardreset wich is normally required for a flashcard to work on a certain system,only the dev-kit of the lynx does contain a hardreset feature(probably for testing)

but the consumer version of the lynx lacks such luxury feature,and theres no time machine to going back to fix that,and the softreset of it could only reset 1 of those two 256K blocks but not the other one,BUT here comes the ultimate solution ,by disconnecting and rejoining 2 specefic pins together, you can isolate the ram,thus causing it to reflash itself,this creates a fake hardreset but the effect is the same,also since the lynx bios does NOT give up after a failed attempt to load a game,it reattempts to load a game,this way a sd card did became possible on the lynx,this is absolutely fantastic,i just can’t say it enough how fantastic this is,because this opens up new capabilities for the lynx such as overcoming the 512K limit by swapping 512k of data in and out to make new larger homebrew games possible ,releasing multi rom carts for the lynx,even cheat codes became possible with such smart clever tricks,this might be the best smart clever trick i have ever see to get around hardware limitations,and remember “limitations leads to creations”???

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I like to think of the BennVenn ElCheapoSD as the 'budget SD flash cart' and the RetroHQ Game Drive as the 'premium option', GD has more features and supports more EEPROM types by emulating them, ElCheapoSD has a physical EEPROM chip on it.

 

In terms of hard resetting a Lynx, it's doable in software with a few lines of code, it's not a hard reset but close enough as it forces the Lynx to fully re-initialise.

 

We've also worked with both BennVenn and @SainT from RetroHQ to bring the official boxes and cart stickers out for each of the flash carts... These are available from our shop (atarigamer.com/shop)

 

1CE6A93B-3C9F-48CD-B394-3A220C459C27.thumb.jpeg.551346409a27677aeea90d2b874059d4.jpeg IMG_6099.thumb.jpeg.f99fd05d15ae1b3113397db948ae7420.jpeg

 

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On 4/8/2022 at 4:30 PM, johannesmutlu said:

lynx does contain a hardreset feature(probably for testing)

I added a reset to my Lynx, but the GD does not return to the menu. One needs a reset button at the card to clear the memory.

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On 4/10/2022 at 4:13 AM, Igor said:

I like to think of the BennVenn ElCheapoSD as the 'budget SD flash cart' and the RetroHQ Game Drive as the 'premium option', GD has more features and supports more EEPROM types by emulating them, ElCheapoSD has a physical EEPROM chip on it.

 

In terms of hard resetting a Lynx, it's doable in software with a few lines of code, it's not a hard reset but close enough as it forces the Lynx to fully re-initialise.

 

We've also worked with both BennVenn and @SainT from RetroHQ to bring the official boxes and cart stickers out for each of the flash carts... These are available from our shop (atarigamer.com/shop)

 

1CE6A93B-3C9F-48CD-B394-3A220C459C27.thumb.jpeg.551346409a27677aeea90d2b874059d4.jpeg IMG_6099.thumb.jpeg.f99fd05d15ae1b3113397db948ae7420.jpeg

 

WoooW that official box art and cart look pretty darn cool as well? 

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