S.P.I.K.R. Happy Birthday Intellivision

[storm_walker]

Thought I would do something special for Intellivisions birthday...

 

Here's a clip of it:

https://mail.kdcorp.us/SPIKR.mp4

 

Mad props go to Joe Z for his incredible work on JZINTV and Byte Knight for his work on the image for the Ultimate Intellivision Flashback.

 

And of course the originators: Mattel, David Chandler, Dave Rolfe and so many more... thanks

 

 

[JasonlikesINTV]

So what am I looking at here?

[Rick Reynolds]

It looks like he's loading the games from the carts - but we didn't actually see that...   

 

Is there some kind of adapter under the flashback that he's actually putting the cart into?  And the #S.P.I.K.R entry in the menu system means "read data from the cart plugged into the adapter"?  Or are those carts not really original carts, but have been modified with some kind of RFID system (or the like) and the system reads which game to run when it is nearby?  Or is there other slight of hand going on here and the carts are just window dressing to some other method of choosing the game?

 

Kind of a fun demo, regardless.  I'd like to know what's really going on.

[decle]

Very cool

 

Super Pro Intellivision Kartridge Reader?

Edited December 2, 2021 by decle

[IMBerzerk]

1 hour ago, Rick Reynolds said:

It looks like he's loading the games from the carts - but we didn't actually see that...   

 

Is there some kind of adapter under the flashback that he's actually putting the cart into?  And the #S.P.I.K.R entry in the menu system means "read data from the cart plugged into the adapter"?  Or are those carts not really original carts, but have been modified with some kind of RFID system (or the like) and the system reads which game to run when it is nearby?  Or is there other slight of hand going on here and the carts are just window dressing to some other method of choosing the game?

 

Kind of a fun demo, regardless.  I'd like to know what's really going on.

Looks like that from what I see.  He's cut in and mounted an actual cart port that reads in the RetroPie version of JzIntv.  The S.P.I.K.R. program is reading direct from the cart to JzIntv... Kinda like a ROM reader.  I'd like to see more, and if this is going to be an product soon to be for sale.  

 

That would be fantastic.. but at the same time kinda odd because you can just run every game right from the menu in front of you if you have all the games loaded.  

 

But I can see the use for this for sure. You can covert old, burned out units over to this style and have working Intellivision based on modern technology.  

 

Didn't we ask for this in the Amico... Lol.

Edited December 2, 2021 by IMBerzerk

[storm_walker]

2 hours ago, decle said:

Very cool

 

Super Pro Intellivision Kartridge Reader?

winner winner chicken dinner

[storm_walker]

No slight of hand. Scouts honor.

 

Edited December 2, 2021 by storm_walker
Remove link to .heic image

[Rick Reynolds]

Pretty neat!  I hope you'll be sharing more info about the hardware (??).

[TPR]

8 minutes ago, storm_walker said:

No slight of hand. Scouts honor.

IMG_2015.HEIC 1.26 MB · 2 downloads

I edited your post to include a version of the photo that people can see.

[IMBerzerk]

1 hour ago, storm_walker said:

No slight of hand. Scouts honor.

 

Awesome!  When can I buy one??

[1980gamer]

Pretty awesome.

Will these read (play) advanced carts?  JPL or whatever games use onboard hardware?

 

[JasonlikesINTV]

7 hours ago, storm_walker said:

No slight of hand. Scouts honor.

 

Neat.  So what am I looking at here?

[DZ-Jay]

4 hours ago, JasonlikesINTV said:

Neat.  So what am I looking at here?

Apparently, it's an Ultimate Flashback that reads cartridges, and plays them on an emulator.  You know, what we all wanted the Amico to be.

Edited December 3, 2021 by DZ-Jay

[1980gamer]

2 hours ago, DZ-Jay said:

You know, what we all wanted the Amico to be

I think you may have wanted to say, HAVE as an option?  Not BE?

 

I would be happy if this could work via USB on the Amico.

 

@storm_walker can this read multicarts? LTOFlash or CC3?

 

 

[mr_me]

That cartridge slot and board is plugged into the USB port of the Raspberry Pi.  It can work with any computer, including an Amico, with a little bit of software.  I see the same board is used to adapt the Intellivision controllers to USB, also convenient.

[DZ-Jay]

I want one.  Actually, two, please.  👍

[storm_walker]

4 hours ago, 1980gamer said:

I think you may have wanted to say, HAVE as an option?  Not BE?

 

I would be happy if this could work via USB on the Amico.

 

@storm_walker can this read multicarts? LTOFlash or CC3?

 

 

I don't have either of these so I'm not sure what happens after the initial menu program is loaded. Do they write to the bus to tell the cart to load rom X into the address space? or how that is handled.

 

If that is the case, then today, no it wouldn't as there is no mechanism in jzintv to send a command back to SPIKR, however, it could be extended to do that using the serial interface I described above if people would be interested in that, assuming it wouldn't interfere with the built in JLP function of jzintv.

 

I do not pickup the reset line from the cart currently, but that would be an easy matter to wire that to a I/O pin to detect it, then send the reset to jzintv through the joystick command.

[storm_walker]

18 minutes ago, DZ-Jay said:

I want one.  Actually, two, please.  👍

I would have to extend the code to pickup the 1000 address locations that Christmas Carol uses though. hehe 🎅

[Rick Reynolds]

Oh yeah, if these board become something folks in the community can purchase, I'm in for at least one.  If you would care to post instructions on how one could replicate these efforts (presumably with accompanying code), I'd be all-in for that also...

[DZ-Jay]

1 hour ago, storm_walker said:

I would have to extend the code to pickup the 1000 address locations that Christmas Carol uses though. hehe 🎅

 

Hahaha!  Touché!

[storm_walker]

On 12/3/2021 at 9:53 AM, Rick Reynolds said:

Oh yeah, if these board become something folks in the community can purchase, I'm in for at least one.  If you would care to post instructions on how one could replicate these efforts (presumably with accompanying code), I'd be all-in for that also...

See attached ZIP file.

 

Has the .INO sketch for the Teensy, patch files for jzintv icart.c & icart.h, the hackfile.cfg I re-hacked to work with this, the splash screen, the schematic of the teensy, kart connector and controller connectors as well as kartDumper.c I used during development to dump karts to a .rom file on disk.

 

Also a couple closer pics of the SPIKR board to see the prototype layout.

SPIKR.zip

[IMBerzerk]

10 hours ago, storm_walker said:

See attached ZIP file.

 

Has the .INO sketch for the Teensy, patch files for jzintv icart.c & icart.h, the hackfile.cfg I re-hacked to work with this, the splash screen, the schematic of the teensy, kart connector and controller connectors as well as kartDumper.c I used during development to dump karts to a .rom file on disk.

 

Also a couple closer pics of the SPIKR board to see the prototype layout.

SPIKR.zip 153.88 kB · 4 downloads

Com'on man... Get this badboy done and into production!! 

 

I want. I want. I want!!!

 

You may have created the Holy Grail of Intellivision mods! 

[storm_walker]

10 hours ago, IMBerzerk said:

Com'on man... Get this badboy done and into production!! 

 

I want. I want. I want!!!

 

You may have created the Holy Grail of Intellivision mods! 

I don't know about "Holy Grail" maybe more like "The holy hand grenade of Antioch" 1, 2, 5... 3 sir...

 

What is you want exactly? a board that goes in the Flashback? a stand-alone unit with the 2 controller ports & Kart port?

 

[DZ-Jay]

6 hours ago, storm_walker said:

I don't know about "Holy Grail" maybe more like "The holy hand grenade of Antioch" 1, 2, 5... 3 sir...

 

What is you want exactly? a board that goes in the Flashback? a stand-alone unit with the 2 controller ports & Kart port?

 

What we would like is an Ultimate flashback with a cartridge port, so that you could play either games from flash or from cartridge.

 

It looks like that's what your project does.  I think you will find that the Intellivision community is willing to pay for the complete, finished product, since many of us cannot be trusted to open up those devices without screwing them up.

 

Put it in a nice box with shrink-wrap and it'll sell like gangbusters! 😆

Edited December 9, 2021 by DZ-Jay

[1980gamer]

If this is just a cart dump, I am guessing carts with onboard helpers or saves or DRM will not work?

 

We need to get an LTO Flash cart in your hands for testing.