BackBit cartridge on the Intellivision

[+DZ-Jay]

8 hours ago, 1980gamer said:

Hmm, Maybe.  I thought this was the game that "created" the new routines?

Maybe it was done via software?

 

As you say that was a 2007-08-ish release.  15 years ago is a long time ago to remember the details.

 

I do remember talk about squeezing every ounce of performance out of the Intellivision.

 

By the way..  A great game!  I loved the TI99 version of Moon Patrol and this was certainly inspired by that version of the game.

 

No, there are no hardware accelerated routines in Space Patrol -- it is just good ol' hand-optimized CP-1610 assembly language.

 

As I understand it, Joe Z. programmed the game before JLP boards were invented.  Space Patrol and 4-Tris were later re-released concurrently with Christmas Carol and D2K Arcade using the first iteration of JLP boards, but it was just the original code.  Besides, those boards did not have any hardware-accelerated functions.

 

As far as I know, there are very few games that have ever been released which take advantage of the hardware-accelerated functions, and all of them have been since the release of the LTO Flash! cartridge.

 

    -dZ.

[Games For Your Intellivision]

The design of the JLP is functionally the same as it was back in 2012. No changes have been made since then except to reduce the size of the board. 

[+DZ-Jay]

2 hours ago, Games For Your Intellivision said:

The design of the JLP is functionally the same as it was back in 2012. No changes have been made since then except to reduce the size of the board. 

But was the API for accelerated functions implemented or generally available back then?  And if so, was anybody using it given that IntyBASIC did not include support for it until much later?

 

    dZ.

[8bitwidgets.com]

I have ordered my backbit for intellivision as well.  I've for some time felt discouraged from digging deeper into development without being able to feel my games on real hardware..  and this is fantastic!   I hope that significant list of games mentioned can be supported as I do hope to enjoy the recent homebrew efforts and innovations, however I will be thrilled to be able to just take the general wear and tear of game swapping on my home system..  plus the fact that it's SD based will make moving over builds to my Sears intellivision to play is incredibly exciting!  I kept holding out for LTO, but I've been hoping someone would offer an alternative, thank you @evietron for bringing this product to our community!  I have also preordered my copy.  

[Sonaru]

I believe the LTO flash has been discontinued (its been over two years since they've been sold or contact has been made with the seller) so this is great to have a new sd flash cart available. Also this new sd flash cart looks more promising than the LTO flash because it supports micro sd cards instead of the annoying USB flash storage. Adding games will be much easier

[8bitwidgets.com]

@Sonaru it's not really discontinued, the maker is just busy with real life stuff..  He's alive and well, just busy.  This is just a hobby, not a business for the guy and unfortunately just hasn't had time to get back to it.  Maybe he'll get some help to make them, but until it is what it is.  

 

However, yes it's great we have an alternative though 100%.  I'd still get an LTO at some point if they became available at non-scalper prices.   

[Sonaru]

I think this new BackBit cart will be better than the lto flash because it has more modern hardware and sd card support. Putting on new games via USB and needing to use a program to interface with the lto flash is unwieldy. An SD card where you can simply dragon and drop roms would be ideal. Not to mention that internal flash storage can become corrupted.

[8bitwidgets.com]

I agree with the SD design..  i have the coleco version that is 128-in-1 that uses software and yea really not that happy with it compared to the ultimate cartridge which is SD based..  at the time it was a bit of a sore point that i bought it and they sold for the same price. i just didn't see the sd cart product on the site..  but anyway, yea i'm thrilled for the backbit.  i just hope it ships soon!    

[carlsson]

Better for the one to update the contents perhaps, but we'll see how much of the advanced features the BackBit is capable of supporting. Bank switching, extra RAM, accelerated instructions etc. As noted a number of the top homebrew rely on one or more of these features. Now the ROMs to those tend to be encrypted or not available at all so in practice it might be a non-issue if there exists Intellivision games not loadable from this cartridge if the game files anyway aren't available.

[+DZ-Jay]

49 minutes ago, carlsson said:

Better for the one to update the contents perhaps, but we'll see how much of the advanced features the BackBit is capable of supporting. Bank switching, extra RAM, accelerated instructions etc. As noted a number of the top homebrew rely on one or more of these features. Now the ROMs to those tend to be encrypted or not available at all so in practice it might be a non-issue if there exists Intellivision games not loadable from this cartridge if the game files anyway aren't available.

I think that of those features, extra RAM is an important requirement.  Back in 2018, I ran a simple poll asking programmers about various development topics, and a plurality mentioned "Cartridge RAM" (19%) and a "42K Memory Map" (20%) to be "standard" for home-brew development (question #7).

 

Flash RAM is good (I've used it), and accelerated functions may be attractive to some (not my thing); but personally, extra RAM and a 42K memory map are things I always take for granted.

 

Except as some sort of torturous "macho-programmer" challenge, I have no desire to attempt to fit any game within the old-school 4K, 8K, or 16K memory map.  Also, I avoided cartridge RAM in Christmas Carol (as my own little torturous "macho-programmer" challenge), and I have regretted it ever since (so many memory issues, so many arbitrary compromises to overcome them!  Small-ish system stack, I'm looking at you! ), which is why any new project I've worked on afterwards starts with the grounded assumption that I have a 42K memory map of which 2K are dedicated to lovely, capacious 16-bit RAM.

 

Lastly, although there's been a resurgence of Intellivision home-brewing during the past couple of years, most titles released have been by the same few highly prolific programmers, so maybe it's worth asking them what they consider to be a "make or break" set of features.  If I had to guess, I'd say it is ... whatever is available for publication.

 

I think it's time to run that poll again.  I'll try to do it over the week-end.

 

If anybody has any suggestions on what sort of questions we should ask, please send me a PM.

 

     -dZ.

Edited June 3, 2022 by DZ-Jay

[mr_me]

Cartridge ram and bank switching would be needed just to support all the old Mattel cartridge rom files.  The memory map should be defined by the cartridge rom/cfg file.  I think any advanced features could be added through firmware updates, if not initially implemented.

[8bitwidgets.com]

1 hour ago, carlsson said:

Bank switching, extra RAM, accelerated instructions etc.

The maker said they could possibly improve it somehow if there was a sizeable enough games.  I think that case was made but we have to wait and hear back from @evietron to see if this added support will happen and when.  She sounds very knowledgeable about this and I imagine has already done things like this for other systems the backbit supports.  So yes hopefully this is something that might even be addressed before the next batch of backbits on preorder ship.  i'd certainly be willing to wait a little to have it ready out the gate!  

[evietron]

For BIN+CFG support, you first have to convert it to a ROM with the BIN2ROM tool.

 

I added Intellicart/CC3 bank switching support. I'm expecting a voice module to arrive tomorrow, then I'll see about making voice carts work!

 

If there is a cart you want supported that is not already, please send me the BIN/ROM files, and I will try to get it to work. The best place to request features is on the BackBit Forum.

[8bitwidgets.com]

On 6/5/2022 at 2:41 PM, evietron said:

then I'll see about making voice carts work!

ok please please please get voice module to work.  b17 bomber is a staple game!     @nanochess has at least one game that uses intellivoice.  I'm sure others have some as well, but at least the 4 classics are widely available online to find / test with.  

[+DZ-Jay]

On 6/5/2022 at 2:41 PM, evietron said:

For BIN+CFG support, you first have to convert it to a ROM with the BIN2ROM tool.

 

I added Intellicart/CC3 bank switching support. I'm expecting a voice module to arrive tomorrow, then I'll see about making voice carts work!

 

If there is a cart you want supported that is not already, please send me the BIN/ROM files, and I will try to get it to work. The best place to request features is on the BackBit Forum.

What do you mean “making voice carts work”?  If I plug in your device to an Intellivision console expanded with the voice module, shouldn’t it work already?

 

    dZ.

[mr_me]

It should work as is.  She just didn't have an Intellivoice to test.

[8bitwidgets.com]

2 hours ago, mr_me said:

It should work as is.  She just didn't have an Intellivoice to test.

fantastic, it makes sense as i wasn't aware of the intellivoice games being anything radically different from other games other than them accessing the intellivoice hardware

[+DZ-Jay]

3 hours ago, mr_me said:

It should work as is.  She just didn't have an Intellivoice to test.

I was asking @evietron what they meant.  I'm sure he or she can answer for themselves, thank you.

 

   dZ.

Edited June 6, 2022 by DZ-Jay

[mr_me]

Should work but you never know.  Something could interfere on the audio pin, for example.

[8bitwidgets.com]

I appreciate the thoroughness.  

[evietron]

My IntelliVoice arrived today. I've confirmed that there is indeed a problem in getting voice data out of the cartridge. I haven't figured out the issue yet. For example with B-17 Bomber, I'm serving the cartridge data at 5000-6FFF and D000-DFFF but it just says "Mattel Electronics presents". I've opened up a B-17 cartridge and it's just ROMs so you would think it would just work.

[8bitwidgets.com]

Someone on this list (probably more than one!) could probably explain what might be going on with the b-17 game.  do you have any other the other intellivoice games?  i wonder if the all fail to play the voice..  but that is interesting that it doesn't say the name.   

 

I know that the different games use a different accent for their game titles.   "bomb squad" sounds like it's trying to have an english accent..   where "b-17 balmer" is more like a soft southern accent.  

[+5-11under]

22 minutes ago, evietron said:

My IntelliVoice arrived today. I've confirmed that there is indeed a problem in getting voice data out of the cartridge. I haven't figured out the issue yet. For example with B-17 Bomber, I'm serving the cartridge data at 5000-6FFF and D000-DFFF but it just says "Mattel Electronics presents". I've opened up a B-17 cartridge and it's just ROMs so you would think it would just work.

So the B-17 game doesn't work through the Intellivoice, except for part of the title screen?

Do other games work through the Intellivoice?

Also, are you using a Model 1 or Model 2, or other?

[evietron]

21 minutes ago, 5-11under said:

So the B-17 game doesn't work through the Intellivoice, except for part of the title screen?

Do other games work through the Intellivoice?

Also, are you using a Model 1 or Model 2, or other?

Games work fine aside from the voice after "Mattel Electronics presents". I'm on a Intellivision II.

[evietron]

I figured it out. I needed to disconnect pins 16/18/20 on the cart from GND. Is there any adverse affect for not grounding these pins on a non-voice ROM?