9 replies to this topic

[ravenxau]

I was just wondering if anyone has, or knows how to convert an old cartridge to work as an adapter using compact flash memory or perhaps and old thumb-drive - I am quite handy with a soldering iron and and can find my way around a schematic circuit without to much trouble, but i know very little of atari or usb/ CF hardware....

[GroovyBee]

I'm not quite sure what you are asking. Are you trying to make a multi-cart for a system or making a new housing for a PC USB thumb drive?

[ravenxau]

GroovyBee, on Fri Feb 25, 2011 3:31 AM, said:

I'm not quite sure what you are asking. Are you trying to make a multi-cart for a system or making a new housing for a PC USB thumb drive?

A multi-cart is the general idea, although it would be fine to just store a single game rom - what i'm asking is what is involved in wiring a CF card or thumb drive to the 2600's cart slot to play rom images?


Edit:- On doing some more research, perhaps building a simple EEPROM burner will be a better way to go.....

Edited by ravenxau, Fri Feb 25, 2011 7:39 AM.

[GroovyBee]

ravenxau, on Fri Feb 25, 2011 7:16 AM, said:

A multi-cart is the general idea, although it would be fine to just store a single game rom - what i'm asking is what is involved in wiring a CF card or thumb drive to the 2600's cart slot to play rom images?

You'll need to have a good understanding of how the 2600's TIA works, in depth knowledge of both 6502 assembler and electronics design plus PCB layout skills for a project like that. Or you could just buy a Harmony cart .

Quote

Edit:- On doing some more research, perhaps building a simple EEPROM burner will be a better way to go.....

You can buy EPROM burners relatively cheaply.

[ravenxau]

GroovyBee, on Fri Feb 25, 2011 8:11 AM, said:

You can buy EPROM burners relatively cheaply.

also seen some schematics for building your own burners - then you just need an old combat cartridge to recycle

[Video]

You'd need more than just soldering, you'll need some software to actually read said card, and convert whatever is one it to something the console would read, you may need ram, somewhere to load the game until the console will use it. It's going to be rather complicated either way.

If it's like a genesis or SNES, there are current multi carts on the market you can buy that will read SD media and play on your actual hardware. There are several options for the 2600, but you'll have to find one, as I believe they have all been discontinued now, though don't hold me to that.

[awace]

ravenxau, on Fri Feb 25, 2011 3:24 AM, said:

I was just wondering if anyone has, or knows how to convert an old cartridge to work as an adapter using compact flash memory or perhaps and old thumb-drive - I am quite handy with a soldering iron and and can find my way around a schematic circuit without to much trouble, but i know very little of atari or usb/ CF hardware....

I know how to use an old atari cart like pacman since there is a lot in my collection i thought i could get 20 carts and sell for $1. more on ebay THAT FAILED miserably anyway with 7 extra pacman carts i decided to try burning my own hackomatic III modified atari roms onto a real atari cart.
I got success I bought a homebrew copy of snoopy cause I couldnt find one and wanted to play then i used cart removed laBEL
and 2764 chip copied it w old eeprom burner i got from hamvention in dayton ohio may 14-17 some weekend in may anyway copied to new chip
I had erased for 30 minnutes it WORKED. then i used null modem cable and xmodem and burned my crockrocks asteroids changed rocks to look like
aw and ®'s since my name is adam w anyway it worked i had my own cart ..
then i modified the flashback II using the color b/w switch to switch between a10 and a10 on the built in memmory and since one disconnects and one connects I used the double pole double throw switch b/w switch I had to scrape all traces from board its like two switches in one.
I discovered when i was making a space invaders test chip for arcade pcb that you need to switch up the a10 line pin to switch roms on the fly I disconvered this when i was playing regular asteroids on the FLASHback II and switched from built in memmory to actuall crockrocks cart and viola it was weird only the rocks went from clear to the aw/® ones I went hmm cool.
so if you could figure out how to switch from a10 lines on a chip like mowerman's pacman 4 game menu you might beable to use a

270c10 or a 290c10 i just learned from my NAGASAKI single board pc104 computer i got for only $4.95 that a 290c10 ok ill get actuall chip number from manual lets you have 1meg on a eeprom type chip but its flash!!

so you pick witch pin at witch address its not easy but you could make youre own multi cart..
ok back to making a sinlge cart
you need only a regular atari cart a 8k rom and a 7404 chip w only 4 pins chop the rest off the 7404 flip over like dead bug and hook to cart you have to scrape some traCES AND rewire the cart but I was shopping at PAWN SHOP and got lucky they had all the ATARI carts in a drawer under the glass cases FULL OF ATARI carts sega carts and nes 8bit and snes carts I was like COOOL i bought A BLUE CART AND WHEN I RIPPED IT APART IT HAD A 2732 IN IT AND A 7404 ALREADY WIRED TO MY LIKING TO MAKE A HOMEBREW CART..


i BOUGHT A NEW WILLEIAM EEPROM BURNER OFF EBAY YES I SPELLED IT WRONG IT SHOULD NOT COST MORE THAN $20 i PAYED $15 3 YEARS AGO..
ANYWAY GET A 24v POWER PACK OR 12V POWER pack DC donot use the usb jumpers use a external power pack and make shure you have
a
PARRALEL PORT for this type eeprom burner

THIS IS ONLY TO SHOW WHAT AND WITCH ONE I HAVE\
eBay Auction -- Item Number: 250778777606
anyway you can send direct .bin files w out having to convert them you must 1st test to blank check need ultravoilet light to erase 30 mn before checking
i think you get aal 04's or 0f's if blank
then you set dips using .97j software and manual for jumpers for voltages
DONOT USE USB FOR power input you need 12v powerpack to program 2732's
A great place to get 2732's is a old birdie king or other Taito arcade pcb there is 20 chips in a birdie king 2 pcb!! get like 9dollars on ebay if youre lucky..
so i burned the hackem to a 2764 or 2732 i cant remember I have two type homebrew carts one takes longer chips but it booted
i love listning to COMBATROCK IN THE MORNING.
I did however finnaly get windows 98 and succussufly got a video card drivers and network card drivers loaded onto a 1meg compact flash to ide connector on a single board computer..
my next goal now that I got the backplane w isa plug and found my old DOS soundblaster branded a240 i5 d1 sound card .
sorry for punctuation errors.
I have a 486 w 3 sockets to take 27c010 chips as disk on chip sockets the 4th chip is the c-mos this board looks like a arcade pcb but its a 486! only if my 5x86-p133 chip wasnt blown..
aparanetly i can format the chips like a floppy disk witch would be cool if i had the disk on chip flash type chips i could just load old dos stella.exe and some roms and gamemenu.exe witch is a front end that allows joystick loads..
otherwise using a flash drive w real atari would take some work.
you might be better off using a super charger and a mp3 player .
anyway good luck.

[awace]

[
anyway good luck.


ps here is a chip number the 486 used its like flash memmory but acts like a eeprom? weird.
Atmel Flash Memory AT29C256 , AT29C512 , AT29C010A , AT29C020 , AT29C040 , AT29C040A
W29EE512 , W29EE011 , W29EE012 , W29C020(128) , W29C040 , PH29EE010(W29EE011)
ASD AE29F1008 (AT29C010), AE29F2008 (AT29C020)
Ver 0.992 up(DOS). Can run under win9x
(disable prog. CPUIdle or CPUCool) AT49BV512

Edited by awace, Tue Mar 1, 2011 11:26 PM.

[Pioneer4x4]

GroovyBee, on Fri Feb 25, 2011 8:11 AM, said:

Or you could just buy a Harmony cart .

Like he said...

[ravenxau]

thanx for all the great feedback and ideas - much appreciated