Atari Rom/Ram Tester

[gambler172]

Hi Guys

i found a nice Atari item.It seems to be some kind of Rom or Ram Tester.I comes directly from Atari.

Does anyone own this?Does anybody know,what electronic device i need for this thing?

Please see the attched photo.Maybe it was made for Atari engineers?

greetings gambler172

[Rom Hunter]

Hi Guys

i found a nice Atari item.It seems to be some kind of Rom or Ram Tester.I comes directly from Atari.

Does anyone own this?Does anybody know,what electronic device i need for this thing?

Please see the attched photo.Maybe it was made for Atari engineers?

greetings gambler172

Never seen something like it.

 

Very interesting.

 

Thanks for sharing!

 

[gambler172]

Hi

Yes,i have never seen this before too.I would like to know,how it works.

greetings gambler172

[Bruce Tomlin]

It's probably for testing/repairing arcade equipment.

[gambler172]

Hi Bruce

maybe you are right.But there is a slot,where 2600 roms fit too.And there are a lot of switches on this unit.And this unit is original from Atari.Maybe Curt knows anything about this.

greetings Walter

[Marco]

Here you go:

 

ROM / RAM announcement

 

Cheers,

Marco

[A.J. Franzman]

Yup, it's for chips from arcade video and pinball machines, not 2600 consoles.

[Atariman]

I may be wrong, but I think that was called the Catbox - and yes, I'm aware of the A/V catbox for the Jag, but I could have sworn that this shared the same name...

[gambler172]

Here you go:

 

ROM / RAM announcement

 

Cheers,

Marco

Hi Marco

thanks a lot.Now i know,what it is.I would like to know,if anyone else owns this Ram/Rom Tester.

Because i would like to know,how to connect it to an electronic device.

greetings Walter

[Atariman]

Well, it looks like my memory was doing just fine - it IS the Atari Cat Box. Searching for it online is a little hard as the Jaguar's A/V expander is named similarly, but if you go to This Site, you'll see the part number for the manual, etc on the list (just search for 'cat box' in the document).

 

The Cat Box is also mentioned here when discussing the repair of Asteroids arcade games. Also, mentioned here...

 

"What the CAT Box Does:

 

The CAT Box gives repair technicians (in the field) access to the processor's

bus and enables him to test for open or shorted address and data lines,

read switch inputs, turn outputs on and off, test RAM, and perform

Signature Analysis.

 

When people use the CAT Box to perform signature analysis on game

ROMs, the CAT Box connects a counter to the address lines and simply

runs through the addresses. By using a ROM Select to start and stop

the Signature Analyzer, a signature is taken for the bit pattern in

that ROM, thus establishing whether the ROM is good. This is usually

done just for the ROM containing the reset and interrupt vectors and

test routines; if this ROM is good the game will probably be able to

run Self-Test."

 

The part number for the manual is TM-179 (or CO-179). I didn't find anywhere that had reproduced the manual online.

[Atariman]

of course, when I STOPPED officially looking for the manual, that's when I found it... But, that's also when I found that I was wrong (d'oh) - that isn't a CAT box, it is the Atari memory tester (hmm... imagine that with the RAM/ROM and all that on the top... )

 

ANYWAY, the manual for your memory tester is attached. I found it here

 

[edit] Crap - I'm having trouble attaching the file. You shouldn't have any problems finding it on the site I hyperlinked. Good luck.

Edited January 8, 2007 by atariman