Are there any ST cartridges?

[kevin242]

You know I was looking over my ST and realised something for the first time. It has

a cartridge port, which is strange for a 16 bit machine (IMO) According to the official

ST manual the cart's can be up to 128k in size, so I wonder were there any carts

made for the ST?? Was this port ever used for anything else?

 

 

Also, what is the deal with the Hard Drive port, is there a cable you can use to convert

that to some kind of standard HD like SCSI or IDE?

[Gregory DG]

I have a real-time clock cartridge for my ST. It's just a battery backed clock so you don't have to set it every time.

 

I use(d) my hard drive port with the ICD Link which allows for external SCSI hard drives. I just went into the store one day (back in... 94?) and bought a drive for a Macintosh and hooked it up. I think it's 80 meg or so? Huge amount of space for an ST.

[Gunstar]

The cartridge port was used quite often, but not for game cartridges (non that I can think of anyway), I, for example have two "cartridges" for my ST, one is the Stereotek 3D cartridge that allows the use of the 3D LCD-shutter glasses for 3D games; the other is a 'Magicsac' cartridge that has the classic MAC roms in it and in conjunction with software turns my ST into a classic Mac. There were also similiar cartridges for turning your ST into a 286 IBM PC, and numerous other "hardware" enhancements. There may have been a few "application" packages that use the cartridge port too, IIRC.

 

As for the DMA HD port, it is for SCSI, the old style MFM scsi drives, but it did require an adapter/controller still, most were built into the esternal harddrive box, like ICD's FaST HD or Ataris own HD "shoebox." That picture I have in the thread I started about uprgades show the PS/1 case that I have my ST HD/adapter/controller installed in and the 15-pin DMA cord comes out the back and plugs into the DMA port on the ST. Same with the floppy drive I have install in that case; it's hooked up to the floppy disk port like an external Atari floppy would be (SF314). There are mods to put internal IDE harddrives into the cases of ST's and STE's since the older harddrives/adapters/controllers that were made to use the ST's DMA port are both rare and expensive in most cases. I was lucky enough to find an old adapter/controller board without a case and an old 30MB Seagate MFM drive for dheap too, so I put the "kit" into the PS/1 case. That, and becuase there is only a limited amount of space inside the ST's case, and with all the other mod/upgrades I've done and plan on doing, there wouldn't be room left for an internal IDE drive. But, I do think there are IDE adapter available that use the DMA port, if you want to use a newer IDE HD. I think there's just such a mod on the "hacks" page I gave you a link too.

Edited May 24, 2005 by Gunstar

[+Stephen Moss]

As well as those prevoiusly mentioned I think that there was a version of ST basic that was available on a cartridge, some sampling cartridges were also produced to connect there like the audio sampler for the STOS Meastro accesory.

[Inky]

There was a game called RC AEROChopper that used the cart port to hook up the cool RC controls oto the ST

[Xebec's Demise]

You can make your own cartridges too:

 

http://www.atarimagazines.com/v4n12/STCartridges.html

[Paolo]

I have a Video capture card, to be inserted in the cartridge port. Inputting a composite signal I could have 8-grayscale pictures, or 16 false colour pictures, or R, G and B pictures, but I had tu use a filter on the camera in order to have a useful capture, and then mix them down in a 16 colour picture. When I finally found the right filters (intensity and colour), I managed to have some interesting colour pictures.

 

I had to ask my brother to STILL STAND in order to test the thing, though

 

Of course, I have the CUBASE DONGLE!!!

Edited May 25, 2005 by Paolo

[doctorclu]

Thanks for the link on how to make ST carts.

 

So date I have the following "carts"

 

VT 100 Cart - Terminal cart, will work at 9600 baud.

 

Spectre 128K - Mac emulation, simple cart holding Mac rom.

 

Spectre GCR - The Mac emulation cart with the added floppy drive ports on the

cart itself.

 

Hand Scanner - Connects through cart port.

 

Desk Acc - A desk accessory cart.

 

Cart extender - Ribbon cable running from Cart port to a cart. Great if you have a space large enough for the ST, but not with a cart in the port.

 

Audio ???? - A cart with Audio in jacks... good for capturing Audio for midi and mod samples, amoungst others.

 

There might be more, but that is all I can think of.

 

 

I would give my left nut to get Star Raiders ST on a ST cart. Sadly, that game is like 225K or something, a little larger than the straight out cart. Would need some bank switching of some type.

[+DarkLord]

Thanks for the link on how to make ST carts.

 

      So date I have the following "carts"

 

      VT 100 Cart - Terminal cart, will work at 9600 baud.

     

      Spectre 128K -  Mac emulation, simple cart holding Mac rom.

 

      Spectre GCR - The Mac emulation cart with the added floppy drive ports on the

                            cart itself.

 

      Hand Scanner - Connects through cart port.

 

      Desk Acc - A desk accessory cart.

 

      Cart extender - Ribbon cable running from Cart port to a cart.  Great if you have a space large enough for the ST, but not with a cart in the port.

 

      Audio ???? -  A cart with Audio in jacks... good for capturing Audio for midi and mod samples, amoungst others.

 

    There might be more, but that is all I can think of.

 

 

      I would give my left nut to get Star Raiders ST on a ST cart.  Sadly, that game is like 225K or something, a little larger than the straight out cart.  Would need some bank switching of some type.

898325[/snapback]

 

and as the previous post mentioned - the VideoMaster ST cart. I've got the version of it for my Falcon and its way cool. Will record audio and video at the same time. Its not full color though, but scaled... Still cool though.

 

Whats wrong with Star Raiders for the ST on floppy disk? I've got it. its not too bad. :-)

 

See ya.

[+remowilliams]

I had a Spectre cart, a Backpack cart (contained a bunch of handy utilities like calculator, etc), and the floppy copier cart (Happy, Discovery?) - that thing was cool.

[doctorclu]

I had a Spectre cart, a Backpack cart (contained a bunch of handy utilities like calculator, etc), and the floppy copier cart (Happy, Discovery?) - that thing was cool.

898583[/snapback]

 

Backpack... might be waht I had. The cart had a bunch of acc files, nothing to run them though. I think it came with a disk.

 

As for Star Raiders on a disk... not bad, I just want Star Raiders in cart form for the 2600, Atari 400/800, ST, and of course the Jag version of Star Raiders... Battlesphere.

 

Doc Clu

[Serblander]

I have 2 carts for my ST's:

 

Notator cart (part of the Notator proffesional music package)

B.A.T. game cart (this great Sci-Fi Adventure Game came with an audio cart that had to be plugged-in not only to hear all the musi & digitized sound effects, but also as part of the copy protection)

 

and i'm still on the lookout for more ST carts!

 

@ Gunstar:

the Stereotek 3D cartridge that allows the use of the 3D LCD-shutter glasses for 3D games

This looks/sounds AWESOME! What exactly is it and what ST games support it?? Btw, if you do come to Australia for a holiday, you might want to bring it along - it's probably just too valuable to leave at home all alone!

[carmel_andrews]

and of course the ST version of multiface (apparently doesn't work with the STE)

 

Ultimate ripper cartridge (similar to multiface)

 

LLS and TCB explorer (similar in concept to Ultimate ripper)

 

When i had an ST i did have (briefly) a multiface cart

[Sikor]

Here http://www.rsi.pl/paskud/ you can find (on serwis subpage) info about IDE Interfeace on cartridge port for your ST - you can use 2 ide drives (HD or CD) with your ST...

[Curt Vendel]

It is rather interesting how most Atari carts for the ST were more hardware add-ons then s/w, Atari itself only really did the VT100 terminal cart, and not much else on cart for the ST's, its one of the other Atari products with a cartridge port that really wasn't used for games.

 

 

Curt

 

Thanks for the link on how to make ST carts.

 

      So date I have the following "carts"

 

      VT 100 Cart - Terminal cart, will work at 9600 baud.

     

      Spectre 128K -  Mac emulation, simple cart holding Mac rom.

 

      Spectre GCR - The Mac emulation cart with the added floppy drive ports on the

                            cart itself.

 

      Hand Scanner - Connects through cart port.

 

      Desk Acc - A desk accessory cart.

 

      Cart extender - Ribbon cable running from Cart port to a cart.  Great if you have a space large enough for the ST, but not with a cart in the port.

 

      Audio ???? -  A cart with Audio in jacks... good for capturing Audio for midi and mod samples, amoungst others.

 

    There might be more, but that is all I can think of.

 

 

      I would give my left nut to get Star Raiders ST on a ST cart.  Sadly, that game is like 225K or something, a little larger than the straight out cart.  Would need some bank switching of some type.

898325[/snapback]

 

and as the previous post mentioned - the VideoMaster ST cart. I've got the version of it for my Falcon and its way cool. Will record audio and video at the same time. Its not full color though, but scaled... Still cool though.

 

Whats wrong with Star Raiders for the ST on floppy disk? I've got it. its not too bad. :-)

 

See ya.

898565[/snapback]

[walter_J64bit]

I had a Spectre cart, a Backpack cart (contained a bunch of handy utilities like calculator, etc), and the floppy copier cart (Happy, Discovery?) - that thing was cool.

898583[/snapback]

 

LOOk here I got one

[+remowilliams]

Yeah that's the cart I remember alright. Got the name right too

 

I remember it not seeing much use after I built an ultra cheesy Blitz copier cable that worked lightning fast to copy disks.

 

I remember I couldn't get a hold of a floppy connector plug at the time and wasn't about to sacrifice a $50 floppy cable, so I just used some larger gauge wires and poked them into the floppy port connector one at a time. That was some rig

[Tickled_Pink]

I had a Romantic Robot Multiface ST cart. Now all I have left from it are two 27C256 EPROMs.

[techie_alison]

I had a Romantic Robot Multiface ST cart. Now all I have left from it are two 27C256 EPROMs.

900144[/snapback]

 

Oh wow, cool. Are in you in a position to put the roms into a burner and read the images? Would be great to have access to those.

 

Is likely a fresh multiface could be built using a DIY cartridge;

http://www.1632-sales.zenwebhosting.com/acatalog/ (then goto "Enter Here for 16/32 Systems Online Shop", "Atari Catalogue", "Atari Hardware"). They're down the bottom.

 

Seem to remember though that the ST Multiface had a thingy which plugged into the monitor port??

[carmel_andrews]

Seem to remember though that the ST Multiface had a thingy which plugged into the monitor port??

900159[/snapback]

 

Quite right, so that you could take snapshots of game screens etc .. on the fly (like photographs)

[Matthias]

Hello,

 

i can remember that there were also some Cartridge-Port-Expansion-boards available

so you were able to attach 4 or 5 "cartridges" to your ST (only one was active of course).

I think a lot of the music (MIDI)-software used Dongles, so a musician had to handle 2 or 3 of them during a song-production.

 

And another "cartdrige" was the Jaguar Server by Roine Stenberg which allowed data transfer to the Jaguar.

 

Regards

Matthias

[+rdemming]

Seem to remember though that the ST Multiface had a thingy which plugged into the monitor port??

900159[/snapback]

 

Quite right, so that you could take snapshots of game screens etc .. on the fly (like photographs)

900162[/snapback]

 

Yes, the wire causes a monitor change interupt so the Multiface cart could stop the running program and break in. Unfortunately it is a no brainer to disable that interupt and most games disabled it so that was quite useless in practice. But I liked the file manager/copier of cart.

 

Another cartridge product is the ROM-drive from a german company called Dela. This was a 512KB bankswitched rom cartridge. Using the accompanied software your favourite programs could be put on EPROMS and the ST saw the ROM-drive as a read-only harddisk.

 

Robert

Edited July 31, 2005 by rdemming

[+DarkLord]

Yeah that's the cart I remember alright.  Got the name right too

 

I remember it not seeing much use after I built an ultra cheesy Blitz copier cable that worked lightning fast to copy disks.

 

I remember I couldn't get a hold of a floppy connector plug at the time and wasn't about to sacrifice a $50 floppy cable, so I just used some larger gauge wires and poked them into the floppy port connector one at a time.  That was some rig 

899944[/snapback]

 

Guys, just saw one of these on Ebay for sale, if anyone is interested in picking one up.

[LYNXGUY]

I remember using that cartridge slot for PC Ditto and we used it for something that came with a music program if I remember correctly, like Jam Master or Beat Box.