Cuttle Carts - Low Stock

[Lemmi]

WOOT my Cuttle Cart is on its way to Michigan

[Ze_ro]

quote:

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Originally posted by C. Schell:

I don't think I would do an audio interface on anything other than the 2600. Perhaps the Colecovision as I think the largest games for that console are 32K. It would depend on how many of the games were 32K.

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I much prefer the idea of an audio interface actually... my ColecoVision is a whole room away from my computer The largest ColecoVision game that I'm aware of is 32K, and there are about 18 games that are 32K. The majority of my ROM's seem to be 16K, and a few are only 8K.

 

Is it more an issue of the time it takes to load the game, or the complexity of the audio circuit?

 

--Zero

[cschell]

quote:

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Originally posted by Ze_ro:

Is it more an issue of the time it takes to load the game, or the complexity of the audio circuit?

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It's both actually, and a reliability issue as well. Audio is slow, and less reliable than a serial connection. When I was testing stuff with the 64K Megaboy on the Cuttle Cart, I was having lots of problems getting it to load reliably. It turns out that my computer was glitching the audio output when it would access the hard disk to read in more of the wave file. Now this glitch is very small and I can't hear it, but it's enough to break the simple FSK audio system. That's actually where the playbin utility came from, to avoid accesses to the hard disk while playing the larger ROMs. I wasted a lot of time trying to find better audio circuits before I figured out that it was my computer not playing the stream correctly. Once I burned a CD, no more problems.

 

Most of the old audio interfaces are very simple, they just run the audio stream into a schmitt trigger and take the output of that trigger as the signal. This works fine if you have signals whose voltage swing is sufficient to actually flip the schmitt trigger, but of course fails completely for low level signals. A lot of modern sound cards with their lack of amplifiers do not provide sufficiently strong signals, so I went with a more complicated circuit that works for signals in the millivolt range and up. The end result is more components on the board, which increases board size and assembly complexity, which both add to the cost.

 

Then there's the speed. Serial can easily reach speeds of 38.4kbps, it's even doable using a software UART on the 2600. Faster systems can go even faster. Compare that to the audio limit of around 10kbps and you've got much faster loads through serial. I actually replaced all the Supercharger loading routines with new ones coded from scratch. In the new routines I added up the cycle counts of all the instructions and reworked things to maximize my sampling rate on the audio. The end results were routines that could load about 25% faster than those used on the Supercharger.

 

Gee, wasn't that an exciting ramble? Anyway, the truth is that there are two camps of people, those that like serial and those that like audio. I think it largely comes down to who has a computer near their console (or a Laptop/Pocket PC/Palm Pilot/Palm Top, etc.) Those that do prefer the serial interface, it's quick, reliable, and they can use a utility that lets them pick a game from a menu. Those who do not have a computer near their console prefer the audio system because they can use their stereo, portable CD player, other game system, etc., and rather than seeing benefits of a serial interface they see it as something that prevents them from using the product.

 

There's not a lot that can be said to convert a person from one camp to the other. (Well, some people who went out and bought a $100 laptop to use the Intellicart did convert to serial when they saw how convenient it was.) When I first announced the Intellicart there were debates about which inteface was better, and I've received complaints from both camps on the two projects (even some bordering on hate mail.) And before you suggest it, I do not intend to support both on a single product, it's just too much added complexity.

 

Chad

[ubersaurus]

Well I got my old tv for the atari and intellivision next to my computer, but I know that it won't always be that way. Either way works though.

[Lemmi]

weeee i love the tracking number feature

 

Its now in Memphis TN

 

Im getting excited its almost here

[Lemmi]

Now it just arrived in Michigan, I know what i will be doing Christmas morning

 

Well maybe not, i dont think Fedex will be making deliveries on the 24th , but i hope to get it on the 26th

 

[ 12-24-2001: Message edited by: Lemmi ]

[Lemmi]

*Bounces around the room*

 

I got the cuttle cart today and my friend was over when it arrived, and when i opened it he looked at it and said what kind of atari 2600 game is that?

and in my best Joey (from Friends) voice i said "IT'S A CUTTLE CART BABY!!!!!!!!"

 

and to anwser your question what kind of game is it? ITS ALL OF THEM

[cschell]

I'm glad it finally arrived for you. I didn't think Fedex would get it to you before Christmas.

 

Hope the extra delay wasn't too disappointing, and that it was worth the wait.

 

Chad

[Lemmi]

quote:

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Originally posted by C. Schell:

I'm glad it finally arrived for you. I didn't think Fedex would get it to you before Christmas.

 

Hope the extra delay wasn't too disappointing, and that it was worth the wait.

 

Chad

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Humm lets see Was it worth the wait? HELL YES

 

And i played it for 4 hours straight (after i figured the thing out )

 

well worth every penny

 

and thank you and everyone that helped bring this cuttle cart to life

[ubersaurus]

Mine was so worth every penny. It's breathed new life in the 2600 I just got, replacing my now defunct one and the now closeted 7800.