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Is My Fatal Run a Fatality?


KevinMos3

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I bought Fatal Run for the 2600 new in the box back in the mid-to-late nineties if I remember right. I don't remember where I got it from. It could have been Video-61 or if it was in the really late nineties it could have been ebay. Either way, by the time I bought the game, I was doing more collecting that playing.

 

Anyway, I could have sworn that I played this game at some point, but when I try to play it now, I just get rolling lines (if I use it in the 7800), or a black screen with a couple of green lines (if I use it in the 2600 Jr). I only see Fatal Run listed as a PAL game, so I thought maybe that's the problem, but as I said... I could have sworn that I played it before. Would this game just be dead?

 

edit: It has been kept in the house so it has always been dry and has never seen hot or cold temps.

Edited by KevinMos3
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I'm afraid Shawn may be right... it may be dead then. So much for bit rot being a myth right?

 

I've got some Xonox games that have gone bad (they went bad almost 20 years ago!), and I once bought a game brand new (Infiltrate by Apollo) that was DOA, but this would be the first by Atari. What kind of board is in this thing? Is it a standard PROM or is it something funky like those Xonox games? I know it's 32K, but what would be another common game I could use to make another? I definitely want to buy an eprom programmer again and I'd want to resurrect this cart, but I wouldn't want to mess up this label so I'd need to cannibalize another cart.

 

This really sickens me. Like I said, it was bought NEW and has been well kept... and only played "maybe" once, (I can't even remember for absolute certain that I ever played it).

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I'm afraid Shawn may be right... it may be dead then. So much for bit rot being a myth right?

 

I've got some Xonox games that have gone bad (they went bad almost 20 years ago!), and I once bought a game brand new (Infiltrate by Apollo) that was DOA, but this would be the first by Atari. What kind of board is in this thing? Is it a standard PROM or is it something funky like those Xonox games? I know it's 32K, but what would be another common game I could use to make another? I definitely want to buy an eprom programmer again and I'd want to resurrect this cart, but I wouldn't want to mess up this label so I'd need to cannibalize another cart.

 

This really sickens me. Like I said, it was bought NEW and has been well kept... and only played "maybe" once, (I can't even remember for absolute certain that I ever played it).

The Atari games larger than 4K used bankswitched ROMs, so in order to build a reproduction, you'll need some sort of bankswitching logic in addition to a standard EPROM. Pixels Past designed new boards that can accommodate 32K EPROMs and preprogrammed GAL chips to handle the bankswitching. They were only sold in the AtariAge store, so you might have to ask Albert how to get one; be sure you get the correct GAL chip, as different game sizes require different chips.

 

Once you get the board, which you can program with the NTSC version of Fatal Run, there is a way to install it in your old cartridge without ruining the label. It will require some work and a new back piece for your cartridge shell (unless you don't mind using your cartridge with a hole in it), but I've used this trick successfully to "change" common PAL versions of certain 7800 games into the more rare NTSC versions.

 

First, turn the cartridge over and mark the spot on the back where the center of the screw post is located. It's about 3.5 centimeters from the end label side and about 4 centimeters from either the left or right sides, horizontally centered; sometimes you can see a slight indentation in the plastic. Use a 1/4" drill bit to carefully drill through the shell; you'll only need to go about a quarter of a centimeter to get through the outer surface. This will detach the bottom half of the screw post from the shell, allowing you to unsnap the back half without removing the screw. Unsnap one side at a time, working from the open end toward the front, and be very careful as you do this so you don't open it too quickly and break the end label; if you're careful, you can slowly peel the back piece off without tearing the label once you've got it open. Then, cut the screw at the point where the two halves of the post join, remove the old board, get a new back piece, install the new board (after you've tested it loose!), and snap the cartridge back together.

 

Granted, the cartridge won't be screwed together anymore, but with three snaps on either side, it should still be pretty solid.

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Thank you very much for this info. I would need to use the back from another red label cart to match up with the red label front right? (since the red labels didn't have the spring loaded covers). If so, I'm not sure I have another red label cart I'd want to cannibalize, but I'll check. If not, I'll just have to scan this cart and print a label for a Pac-Man case.

 

I'd just hate to leave a hole in that mint condition (heh, non-working) cart.

 

This reminds me of a non-working Dreamcast game I once bought. The GD-ROM had a scratch on the top of the disc, but it only affected a sector were there was the IP.BIN and dummy data, so the game wouldn't boot. But, I was still able to rip all the data and make a backup on a CD-R. I keep the CD-R in the case with the GD-ROM so I feel a bit better about it, (I mean, I still feel like it's the original instead of just a backup).

Edited by KevinMos3
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Thank you very much for this info. I would need to use the back from another red label cart to match up with the red label front right? (since the red labels didn't have the spring loaded covers). If so, I'm not sure I have another red label cart I'd want to cannibalize, but I'll check. If not, I'll just have to scan this cart and print a label.

Yes, or from any 7800 cartridge, since they use the same shells. If you talk to Albert about getting a cartridge board, see if he has a spare shell back he can send you along with it, or I might have a few kicking around here.

 

Also, if you haven't snapped open a bunch of 2600/7800 cartridges before, you might want to get another one to practice with. If you haven't gotten the hang of it first, it's very easy to break one of the plastic snaps or open it too quickly.

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There might be a tantalum cap inside that failed. But when they fail, they'll often take something else with them. In this case, your ROM. Could always open her up and cut one end off of the cap to see...

It wouldn't surprise me. I've been disassembling a bunch of 7800 cartridges, and it's obvious that the quality standards for Atari cartridges had slipped drastically by the late 1980s: I've seen cartridges with tabs that are broken out of the box, capacitors with leads that are too long and almost twisted around each other, shells that aren't completely closed, ROM chips that aren't completely in the sockets, boards from new cartridges that are dirty and scratched up and splashed with random beads of solder, and so forth.

 

This cartridge might have just gotten a bad ROM, or the capacitor could have been a cheap one that died prematurely. If possible, fixing the old board would be a better alternative to replacing it, so that might be the first thing to try. Fortunately, replacement 100nF capacitors are cheap and easy to find.

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I really appreciate the advice. I'll have to grit my teeth and break out the drill. [shivers]

 

I really hope it is a cap. I'm quite familiar with replacing those. I've done countless motherboards for customers. But then again, I wouldn't mind getting an eprom with the NTSC conversion either.

Edited by KevinMos3
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I really appreciate the advice. I'll have to grit my teeth and break out the drill. [shivers]

 

I really hope it is a cap. I'm quite familiar with replacing those. I've done countless motherboards for customers.

Good luck. Again, practicing on another cartridge would be a good idea, both for the drilling and for the disassembly.

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I opened the case and here's what I've got now. The hole turned out pretty clean, so after getting into the cart, I really lost all ambition to worry about replacing the back. As soon as I touched the bit to the back of the cart, I got over the whole "but this thing is in mint condition" issue. I may leave the hole as-is or fill it with epoxy.

 

Do you see any visible signs of a problem? It's obvious when cylindrical caps go bad because of the bulge at the top, but I'm not so familiar with telling when these go bad.

 

Also, would I be able to just replace the current prom with a new eprom? I've done similar things with carts for other systems, but never for Atari carts of any kind. I've been wanting to learn about these for a long time, but kept putting it off. Now that I'm engaged in this, it's forcing me to learn. :)

Heck, could I put a socket on this so I could test out other 32K ROMs from time to time?

post-9364-126164039033_thumb.jpg

post-9364-126164079538_thumb.jpg

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Glad to see you got it open!

 

That board is very interesting. I've never seen a Fatal Run board before, and unlike other 2600 boards, it looks like this one is using a standard mask ROM with extra logic for bankswitching, like Atari's 7800 boards. The lower chip (CO20231) is a SuperChip/SARA chip, which is an extra 128 bytes of RAM, and the one on the upper left is the 32K ROM.

 

I don't see anything obviously wrong with it, or with the capacitors, but one or more of them might very well be bad. I believe they're all 100nF (0.1uF) capacitors, which are cheap and easy to find, but of course you'll want to confirm this by checking them yourself. You can replace them first, or you can go ahead and replace the ROM with an EPROM. Unless I'm mistaken (somebody correct me if I'm wrong about this), you can probably desolder that 32K ROM and replace it with a 27C256 EPROM containing a copy of NTSC Fatal Run. However, you'll also need to add one component to the board: a 14-pin 74LS04 inverter, which you can piggyback on top of the 74LS30 on the upper right*.

 

Here's how I do this modification with my 7800 boards: first, remove the ROM and clean the solder out of the holes. Next, take the 74LS04 and bend all the pins out straight except pin 7 (ground) and pin 14 (+5V). These are the lower rightmost pin and the upper leftmost pin, respectively, with pin 1 being on the lower left, under the notch in the side. Clip the thin parts of the pins you bent out and solder pins 7 and 14 onto pins 7 and 14 of the 74LS30, so that the 74LS04 is piggybacked onto the 74LS30 with only the two pins connected; make sure the notch on both chips is on the same side before you solder them together. Now, bend up pin 22 of the EPROM, insert the EPROM into the board, and solder in all the other pins, making sure the notch is on the same side as the original ROM. Pin 22 is the output enable, seventh from the right on the bottom side, which will need to be flipped by the inverter. Finally, run two jumper wires: one from the bent-up pin 22 of the EPROM to pin 12 of the 74LS04, and another from pin 13 of the 74LS04 to the pin 22 hole on the board, underneath the bent-up pin of the EPROM. If everything goes well, this should be all you need to do to replace the ROM.

 

Even with the 74LS04 sitting on top of the 74LS30, you should still have enough clearance inside the cartridge case to put the board back inside. Also, just to be on the safe side, you might want to install a low-profile 28-pin socket for the EPROM instead of soldering it directly into the board. You might want to do this anyway to test other 32K games, as you suggest, although I think Fatal Run was the only 32K game produced for the 2600 outside of homebrews. Again, there should be enough clearance to allow the socket, as long as it's low profile; I've successfully used them in several of my own cartridges.

 

If you don't have easy access to an EPROM programmer, and if you don't have a 74LS04 and a socket handy, PM me and I can set you up with a Fatal Run ROM and all the hardware you'll need.

 

*EDIT: This board might not require an inverter, so try replacing the ROM without adding the inverter first (see our subsequent posts below); if this doesn't work, add the inverter as described.

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I've never seen that PCB before, thanks for posting! Other 2600 carts had the bankswitching hardware contained within the mask ROM, this one has external BS hardware. Interestingly, it looks as if the chip with the sticker on it could be a PLD.

 

The lower chip (CO20231) is a SuperChip/SARA chip, which is an extra 128K of RAM

 

I wish! Only 128 bytes :)

 

Unless I'm mistaken (somebody correct me if I'm wrong about this), you can probably desolder that 32K ROM and replace it with a 27C256 EPROM containing a copy of NTSC Fatal Run. However, you'll also need to add one component to the board: a 14-pin 74LS04 inverter, which you can piggyback on top of the 74LS30 on the upper right.

 

Bassed on this Fatal Run prototype, I'd guess that you could probably just replace the current ROM chip with a 27c256 (there is no 7404 on that board, so the PLD probably takes care of CS inversion). But who knows, the production ROM could have a different pinout.

Edited by Wickeycolumbus
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I wish! Only 128 bytes :)

Oh geez, did I really say 128K? That's what I get for writing so much at 5:30 in the morning. Thanks for pointing that out; I've corrected it in my post.

 

Based on this Fatal Run prototype, I'd guess that you could probably just replace the current ROM chip with a 27c256 (there is no 7404 on that board, so the PLD probably takes care of CS inversion). But who knows, the production ROM could have a different pinout.

I noticed that, too; my concern was that the PLD might be different on the production boards. But certainly, it couldn't hurt for the OP to try a direct ROM replacement first; if it doesn't work, he can add the inverter later. I think he'll be socketing the ROM, so that will make it easy to try both.

 

Now that I think about it, I was able to directly replace the BIOS in my XEGS with an EPROM without adding an inverter, and it was a mask ROM that used a similar "23256" part number, so I think you might be right.

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  • 1 month later...

I've never seen that PCB before, thanks for posting!

You're quite welcome. BTW, if that image can be of use to anyone, by all means, do what you will with it, (as long as it's not some nefarious purpose). ;)

 

Hey just curious, how this turned out?

Did you have to add the inverter?

Or can the rom on the fatal run pcb be removed and replaced with an eprom with no other mod needed?

Please let me know. Thanks.

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Or can the rom on the fatal run pcb be removed and replaced with an eprom with no other mod needed?

Yes.

Ah, good to know that for sure. I thought it might have needed an inverter (as some 7800 cartridge boards do), but never having owned a Fatal Run cartridge, I've never tried it myself.

 

The OP and I were talking about the NTSC Fatal Run EPROM and a few other things he wanted from me, but I think he just got busy with work and other things. I don't think he's had the chance to work on it again since.

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