Making my own games tonight, need advice...

[Cassidy Nolen]

Ok,

 

This sucks.

 

Nothing works. I have hooked up the hex inverter just like the picture someone sent to the group (+power and ground, and one of the 6 inverters) and nothing. The 2600 acted like there was nothing in it when I turned it on. I wired it well onto the test board, so I am not thinking that is the trouble, and the tester board worked fine before the modification for the hex inverter.

 

I am not sure the burner is working correctly. When I try to save the eprom image back to the buffer and save that as a binary to run on an emulator, it does not work. This could be for a few reasons, I think:

a. I am stupid

b. Because it is an eprom image, it would need converting to work on an emulator

c. It was never there at all, and the burner was a waste of 200 bucks.

 

Personally, I believe it is a combination of a and b. ANYONE who has had luck making the Pocket Programmer work with 2600 stuff, please let me know what I am doing wrong. I know there is somebody here laughing because they know exactly what is up. Please, that person, its worth a steak dinner at Outback, my treat, to figure out what I am doing wrong.

 

Any thoughts are really appreciated.

 

 

Cassidy

[Paul Slocum]

You have all the right parts.

 

- Make sure you aren't using instructions for a 2532 EPROM. The 2532 is a pin-for-pin match, but a 2732 requires you to modify the board a little more in addition to inserting the inverter.

 

- Use a multimeter to check all your connections on the board. Also check to make sure there are no shorts between ZIF socket pins.

 

- Standard 4K .bin files that work with Z26 etc. should work on the real Atari if burned directly to a 2532 or 2732. I use a different burner, but mine will verify a burn. What you read back should be exactly the same as what you put in.

 

-Paul

[Chuck Gill]

Cassidy,

 

Just a couple of thoughts after reading Paul's post.

 

Check the programming voltage of your eproms. A chip burned at the wrong voltage won't work right.

 

You should be able to burn an eprom with a 4k bin file and then read that eprom back into another file and play it on your emulator. If not the bin file is not being burned correctly.

 

Not all 7404's are created equal, I've had the best success with the low power 74LS04 version.

 

Hope that helps,

 

Chuck

 

"A person never stands so tall as when stooping over a classic game."

[Cassidy Nolen]

Ok guys,

I am on the verge of being useful to the 2600 community.....

 

I have:

a bunch of 2732 EPROMS

a bunch of 7404 hex inverters (hope they are the right ones)

a burner

an eraser

some extra carts

a 2600 cart converted to a ZIF socket (now I will wire it to the hex inverter 7404 when I get home.

 

Is this going to work? Do I have to do anything else? I tried burning an image onto a chip (used the bin for Adventure) and then copied it back to the cache, saved it and tried opening it on an emulator. It did not work.

 

Just wondered..Thanks for any advice.

 

Cassidy

[eric_ruck]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cassidy:

Ok, This sucks.

---

 

This is why I don't do hardware. You could try e-mailing Glen again, maybe he knows something.

 

Eric

[Cassidy Nolen]

Ok,

 

So I think I have a start. If the eprom image cannot be saved and played on an emulator, then there is a chance I have bad eproms or at least they did not take the burn.

 

The compare program lets me compare the image on the eprom to the buffer image. Bottom line, the computer says they are the same, but saved, they are not. Here are my thoughts, tell me if I am close.

 

1. My eproms are off of ebay. I do not know where they have been or how many times they have been erased. I have erased them at least three times myself.

 

2. I am assuming the burn voltage is 25 Volts. There is documentation that talks about a 2732A that burns at 21 Volts. Maybe I have been burning too hot?

 

3. Is there a need to burn the image more than once? I have tried programming the chip once, that did not work, so I programmed it again.

 

Finally, if I get the 2532's, will I still need a hex inverter or do I just wire it in?

 

I cannot thank you all enough for the time to reply to me on this. I am really wanting to be of service to the community, and think this might be the way (just as soon as I dig out of this messy stuff here!).

 

Cassidy

[Paul Slocum]

I think you need to figure out what the difference is between the original ROM file and the one read from the EPROM. Make sure the new file is exactly 4096 bytes. Use a hex/binary editor to look at the two files and see where the difference is. It is just a few bits different? Is the new file all zeros? Are bits missing? Are extra bits set? This will give you an idea of what's going on here.

 

Look at the part number on your EPROM. If it says 2732A... then you need to use 21v. Any other letter after the 2732 means it's a regular 2732.

 

Also, try erasing your EPROMs for a full 30 - 45 minutes.

 

The 2532 does require the inverter, but other than that it requires no modification to the board.

 

I get my EPROMs from BGMicro:

 

BGMICRO

 

-Paul

[Chuck Gill]

Cassidy,

 

Just to confuse things even more, there is also a 2732B that uses 12.5 volts.

 

Here's what I've found -

2732 - 25V

2732A - 21V

2732B - 12.5V

2732C - ?? Never seen one

2732D - 25V

 

The 21V chips seem to be the most common. If you have no idea what chip you have you can start at 12.5v and step up the voltage until it works.

 

Does your burner ask you if you want your data burned in intel format? I have run across that somewhere in the past and if you choose intel format it scrambles the order of the bytes in the file.

 

-Chuck

[Cassidy Nolen]

By gosh, he has got it!

 

Turns out, I had to open the binary in an editor, save it as a copy, and then load that into my bufer. Otherwise, it cannot see the bin file. I copied all of them over from a MAC, probably part of the trouble. As it is now, I have a spare Jungle King board loaded with 2732's. Now I am going to go scavenge all of my spare boards for chips in the garage. This kicks so much butt. Thanks to everybody for the help. I will make it up to the community, not sure how yet, but I will...

 

Cassidy