Old Tech Poll: 8K Supercart

[Omega-TI]

Since the arrival of the FinalGROM 99, the question arises, if you owned one, and you now have a FG99, do you still use the Supercart?

 

 

 

[arcadeshopper]

Since the arrival of the FinalGROM 99, the question arises, if you owned one, and you now have a FG99, do you still use the Supercart?
 

 
 

I use one every day to run the after hours BBS for TIPI

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[+9640News]

Yes, I used the 8K Super cart as I needed the additional 8K of ram it offered in the >6000 to >7FFF space for programming memory.  Using 4K Ram like the Mini-Memory cartridge was insufficient with the FinalGrom99.

 

My TIPI/BBS is running as well with one, even though it is not externally accessible at the moment.

 

Beery

Edited September 1, 2020 by BeeryMiller

[+InsaneMultitasker]

My 8k supercart has a prominent place at my desk as it is one of four carts I use with the real iron.  (XB27 ubergrom, Minimem, and regular ol' XB being the other three).

[sparkdrummer]

A Supercart and the program Batch It are a big part of Yesterday’s News production. 

[Omega-TI]

Nice to see, so far, that the cart is still being used!   👍

[RickyDean]

Have a couple of self built ones, used one some, the higher level one with a 32k sram and bcd switch was not quite complete when I packed it all away to move back to s. Ga. at the end of 1999.

[wierd_w]

(dumb question)

 

Couldn't you do a GROM + RAM image for the FG99, that has a small stub GROM (since the GROMs are accessed very differently from RAM/ROM), and then have an 8k RAM image header for the RAM portion?

 

(It would require mods to the FG99 FW, but a "write on grom" bankswitcher might also work to bankswitch the full 8k space? Since the cart already can do GRAM, it clearly can catch when a write is attempted. If mode is read-only, and write is attempted, that could be caught as a signal.)

Edited September 2, 2020 by wierd_w

[+RXB]

After SAMS 1 Meg or up to 32 Meg on Classic99 the Super Cart with up to 16K or even 256K is pretty much totally useless.

[wierd_w]

I dunno about that, since both could live concurrently. (different addresses occupied.)

 

(for instance, your program data could live comfortably in the 8k pages supplied by the supercart, while using the SAMS memory for data elements. Being independently pageable would be handy.)

 

Edited September 2, 2020 by wierd_w

[+9640News]

4 hours ago, RXB said:

After SAMS 1 Meg or up to 32 Meg on Classic99 the Super Cart with up to 16K or even 256K is pretty much totally useless.

No, not useless.  You have an extra 8K of ram available and you don't have to worry about bank switching code to map routines in and out.  In my case, I needed more than the 4K I could have gotten with the FinalGrom99.

 

Beery

 

[hloberg]

one of the odd uses of this cart is that it's needed to run Infocom's 'Leather Goddesses of Phobos'.

[atrax27407]

And several other Infocom games

[+InsaneMultitasker]

9 hours ago, RXB said:

After SAMS 1 Meg or up to 32 Meg on Classic99 the Super Cart with up to 16K or even 256K is pretty much totally useless.

Supercart is a nice, easy way to expand RAM.  Not useless.  Great for debugger tool on the real hardware, games that use it, etc.     Or were you just trolling us? 

 

[+RXB]

No trolling, I have not used any super cart in years. 

RXB has EA built in and as I use the SAMS the use of Supercart is pretty much useless unless just Console only.

Expanding RAM currently the SAMS can support 32Meg of RAM. This is laughable compared to SAMS vs Supercart.

Can you explain why I can not run Debugger from SAMS?

 

Years ago I demoed running 44K of 8K assembly support from RXB. There was no reason I could not run 4 Meg.

My game IN THE DARK was 644K of maps all in SAMS. I doubt a Supercart could pull this off easy.

 

I do know some people think the Supercart is boss, I just do not see the argument it is as valuable.

[wierd_w]

Again, it does not need to be either/or.

 

your main program can live in the supercart, then SAMS can be paged without as much hassle; your handlers/main program always are in accessible memory, inside the supercart.  This would allow you to page in/out the ENTIRE 32k space for data elements

 

(I still wonder if abusing GRAM so that it could be externally latched to drive a mapper chip, could be used to make the supercart pageable too.)

Edited September 2, 2020 by wierd_w

[Omega-TI]

I guess at this point in time I guess the question needs to be asked... what programs REQUIRE a SuperCart, that cannot be run with a FinalGROM?

(The assumption is due to the additional 4K and the way the program is written.)

[HOME AUTOMATION]

[sparkdrummer]

Module Emulator by Pilgrim’s Pride required a SuperCart. 

[majestyx]

I know this is getting away from the original topic, that being a poll, but does Classic99 emulate a Supercart in order to play the Infocom titles that need it (Leather Goddesses was mentioned, and I know that the Infocom Sampler states it needs it), or is that overcome by it being able to emulate SAMS, or perhaps some other method?

[+InsaneMultitasker]

3 minutes ago, majestyx said:

I know this is getting away from the original topic, that being a poll, but does Classic99 emulate a Supercart in order to play the Infocom titles that need it (Leather Goddesses was mentioned, and I know that the Infocom Sampler states it needs it), or is that overcome by it being able to emulate SAMS, or perhaps some other method?

Yep, they work just fine in Classic 99 so long as you load from the Editor Assembler cartridge.  Memory spaces between SAMS and Supercart do not create any conflicts.

[arcadeshopper]

I know this is getting away from the original topic, that being a poll, but does Classic99 emulate a Supercart in order to play the Infocom titles that need it (Leather Goddesses was mentioned, and I know that the Infocom Sampler states it needs it), or is that overcome by it being able to emulate SAMS, or perhaps some other method?

If you set up editor assembler it makes it a super cart auto

This was just discussed in like 2 other topics

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[majestyx]

2 hours ago, arcadeshopper said:

If you set up editor assembler it makes it a super cart auto

This was just discussed in like 2 other topics

Sent from my LM-V600 using Tapatalk
 

Okay, but I don't read every topic and I don't see it listed as a subject. I thought since the usefulness of the Supercart is being debated, I would ask about it here because it seemed appropriate to the discussion of the cart. It appeared from the discussion in THIS topic that the Supercart MUST be used for those games. Now I know, so thanks for the confirmation.

 

This is what made it so confusing:

 

 

I'm like, wait, how can you use both the Supercart (which I've never had or used) AND the E/A cart? As I've mentioned in some of my other posts, still not THAT familiar with all the TI stuff that's happened between 1985 and around the time I joined AA. I appreciate the patience!

 

Edited September 3, 2020 by majestyx

[arcadeshopper]

Okay, but I don't read every topic and I don't see it listed as a subject. I thought since the usefulness of the Supercart is being debated, I would ask about it here because it seemed appropriate to the discussion of the cart. It appeared from the discussion in THIS topic that the Supercart MUST be used for those games. Now I know, so thanks for the confirmation.
 
This is what made it so confusing:
 

 
I'm like, wait, how can you use both the Supercart (which I've never had or used) AND the E/A cart? As I've mentioned in some of my other posts, still not THAT familiar with all the TI stuff that's happened between 1985 and around the time I joined AA. I appreciate the patience!
 

Yeah super cart is an EA grom cart with 8k of ram installed instead of a rom on a cart board that supports both rom and grom like a munchman or tiinvaders cart board. Check the FAQ for details and instructions for building one of you are curious.

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[GDMike]

My Supernotes express AND supernotes pro both have 32K ram plus the editor assembler chip altogether on the cartridge with a battery to keep data in the 32k when the cart is unplugged.

 

Edited September 3, 2020 by GDMike