Does multicart or flash cart for the LYNX exist?

[+karri]

will the burned flashcard who also contain a downloader?

 

Actually all my code contains a downloader because of need to burn stuff. The Lynx Reloaded was the first cart I had with a dual speed downloader (thanks Sage). Now I have a dual speed downloader coming up in MegaPak also.

 

The downloader itself sits in useless memory at the very top in the Lynx memory space at fe00. It waits for the magic 42BS cookie (sounds a lot like 42Bastian Schicks work And when it gets it it reads in code somewhere in RAM and jumps there. This thing can be used for downloading games into RAM without a need to flash anything! A very good utility for the Lynx. I use it a lot.

 

If your own code supports downloading then you can just burn the code over itself so there is no need for cart swaps, flipping dip-switches etc. You can also ComLynx several units and flash them all at once. These things are nice for developers only.

 

The only problem is that making these carts is a bit time consuming and I have been much too busy lately. Oh. And the chips cost a lot compared to ordinary carts. And this is not so good for ordinary users as you need to understand a lot to use the dip-switches correctly.

 

If you look at the cart design you may have noticed that there is a flat cable going out. It is then divided in 3 parts. The first part goes to a PC COM port, the second part to the ComLynx socket in your Lynx, the third part has a female ComLynx connector for cascading several Lynxes together.

 

Today I am experimenting with an USB connection based on a FTDI-chip running at 62500 bauds. It speeds up lots of things and is nice for debugging ComLynx stuff too. You can buy these from the ftdi webshop for £15.75.

 

--

karri

[Richard H.]

Today I am experimenting with an USB connection based on a FTDI-chip

I've used the FT232RL it's pretty good, I'm currently using one in the AtariVox interface. They're the sort of chip used in USB-serial adaptors.

 

You only need one 100nF cap and the chip, all the configuration is done via the USB using the MProg utility. You can do useful stuff like reversing TX, RX, CTS etc.

 

It's got very fine pitched leads, but my 'solder-flood' technique does work well on them.

[Songbird]

The loader works only at 9600 bauds. This will be changed soon to 62500 bauds. And perhaps I fix the protocol also to allow streaming the data during programming.

That would be awesome! One of the few bumps in your cart is the long burn time for such tiny games.

[Richard H.]

Karri, can you tell me -

 

1) what the SWVCC pin is ?

2) why you have audio-in connected to an EEPROM ?

3) where's A11 ?

 

 

 

Thanks...

[semicolo]

there's no A11 and I think that audio-in is more a digital input than some sort of audio input.