4ever2600 Posted June 1, 2007 Share Posted June 1, 2007 Hello! Quick question to all... I purchased a couple of rom boards that handle 256k 27c020 roms that I would like to put into a ZIF socket. But before I go soldering on the zif socket THE WRONG WAY... Could someone please tell me which way the socket goes?? LOL Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Songbird Posted June 1, 2007 Share Posted June 1, 2007 I don't think the orientation of the socket is going to matter. The socket is just a way to extend the pins from the EPROM so you can (obviously) swap EPROMs with little trouble. The real trick is making sure you solder all the ZIF legs to the PCB. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4ever2600 Posted June 1, 2007 Author Share Posted June 1, 2007 (edited) Thanks for replying Carl... Yeah, I'll give it a shot... Because it IS a zif socket, the pins end up flush with the board. Is the trick making sure that solder gets DOWN IN the holes with the pins to make sure there is complete connection? Any tips you could suggest? Thanks! - D Edited June 2, 2007 by 4ever2600 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Songbird Posted June 1, 2007 Share Posted June 1, 2007 Thanks for replying Carl... Yeah, I'll give it a shot... Because it IS a zif socket, the pins end up flush with the board. Is the trick making sure that soldier gets DOWN IN the holes with the pins to make sure there is complete connection? Any tips you could suggest? Thanks! - D I haven't soldered anything for, oh, 10-12 years, so I don't think I'll have any tips for you other than use a good iron and keep the board clean as you go. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.R Posted June 2, 2007 Share Posted June 2, 2007 I too ordered a board from ebay. They arent well made in my opinion, as they only employ single sided tracks. Make sure u solder the socket on the top side (the silkscreen side). Id bend the pins flush with the board once they are through the holes and then do a small solder over the top. Make sure you have a thin soldering tip aswell. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4ever2600 Posted June 2, 2007 Author Share Posted June 2, 2007 (edited) Ahhhhh Sh1t !! I took two of the boards I ordered and soldered a ZIF style socket onto one and also a regular DIP socket to another. (now bear in mind, I've soldered many 2600 style chips to boards, never a problem (even sockets to AA boards and then chips) so I'm not THAT big of a newbie... But with Lynx style games this is my first.) I burned the .lnx files to appropriate chips (27C020) and (27C020-15) after making sure the chips were blank, AND then successfully burned! Did a rom check, all well... Tried the roms in the sockets both directions and the lynx STILL says, INSERT GAME! I don't get it... Is there something special I have to do to the rom before I burn it to the chip? The roms work fine with HANDY... LYNX GURUS HELP! Edited June 2, 2007 by 4ever2600 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimtene Posted June 2, 2007 Share Posted June 2, 2007 Ahhhhh Sh1t !! I took two of the boards I ordered and soldered a ZIF style socket onto one and also a regular DIP socket to another. (now bear in mind, I've soldered many 2600 style chips to boards, never a problem (even sockets to AA boards and then chips) so I'm not THAT big of a newbie... But with Lynx style games this is my first.) I burned the .lnx files to appropriate chips (27C020) and (27C020-15) after making sure the chips were blank, AND then successfully burned! Did a rom check, all well... Tried the roms in the sockets both directions and the lynx STILL says, INSERT GAME! I don't get it... Is there something special I have to do to the rom before I burn it to the chip? The roms work fine with HANDY... LYNX GURUS HELP! First of all, it's the *.lyx files that should be burned to the chips. The *.lnx files have extra data specific for Handy use. Next, if you got the same pcb board from ebay that V.R. got, then you have to contend with connecting the tracks on the second side. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4ever2600 Posted June 2, 2007 Author Share Posted June 2, 2007 Nimtene! You are AWESOME! That was my problem! I soldered the sockets onto the boards right, but I was burning the .lnx files to the chips instead of the .lyx! I happened to have a .lyx file handy (no pun intended!) and burned it and VOILA! Worked perfect! Now onto the next problem... So I have all these .lnx files right? I'm sure you all know where this is going... HOW DO I CONVERT THEM TO .lyx??? I did a little digging on a program called ucon64 that is supposed to do this... Took a 257k file and shaved it down to 256k file... DID convert it, but didn't shave off the 64k of data that it is supposed to that is put there for HANDY... Maybe my cmd line usage isn't right... Any help there... I have been using... ucon64.exe --lyx sotb.lnx Anyways, as usual, thank everyone for the help... I'm on my way... If anyone knows an easier way to convert... BY ALL MEANS... Lemme know... Thanks! - D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+karri Posted June 2, 2007 Share Posted June 2, 2007 The lnx file has 64 bytes extra at the top of the file. But you may need to do some heavy processing of a lnx file o make a suitable ROM image of it. It depends on the game how the ROM should be wired to the cart. It is different for 128k 256k and 512k games. If the rom is connected for 512k carts then you need to spread out a 256k game by copying every 1024 byte chunk twice. For a 128k game you need to copy every 512 byte chunk 4 times to get it spread out for 512k wiring. If the rom is wired for 256k carts then you cannot run 512k games on it. But you can burn a 128k game by copying every 512 byte chunk twice. If the rom is wired for 128k games then that is the only thing you can run on it. -- Karri Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4ever2600 Posted June 2, 2007 Author Share Posted June 2, 2007 The board is wired for a 256 cart... I need to know how to convert that .lnx file to a .lyx file... When you say, "I may have to do some heavy processing", what exactly do you mean? And when you say if I want to burn a 128k game, I have to burn the image twice to the rom right? Is there a special way to do this? I'd like to try it... Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+karri Posted June 2, 2007 Share Posted June 2, 2007 The board is wired for a 256 cart... I need to know how to convert that .lnx file to a .lyx file... When you say, "I may have to do some heavy processing", what exactly do you mean? And when you say if I want to burn a 128k game, I have to burn the image twice to the rom right? Is there a special way to do this? I'd like to try it... Thanks! The way to strip off 64 bytes can easily be done in linux by the command tail --bytes 262144 prog.lnx > prog.lyx To burn a 128k game to a 256k rom is more complex. I would split the prog.lyx file to 512 byte pieces. You will get 256 pieces. The command for doing this in Linux is "split -b 512 prog.lyx". After this you need to assemble a 256k file out of the pieces. In Linux something like: cat piece1 > newprog.lyx cat piece1 >> newprog.lyx cat piece2 >> newprog.lyx cat piece2 >> newprog.lyx ... cat piece256 >> newprog.lyx cat piece256 >> newprog.lyx This is a bit heavy processing in my opinion. Of course you can write a bash script to automate the process. -- Cheers, Karri Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynxman Posted June 2, 2007 Share Posted June 2, 2007 Hi everybody, i am a little bit confused. From my side of view, it should work if i burn 128K into a 256K Eprom, i have to connect A17 to Ground. But, it doesn´t work. Why? Karri, can you please tell me the difference between wiring for 128K Eprom and 256K Eprom. I want to understand how to make a 2 in 1 Card out of this ebay Card. I buyed 2 of them. I use 1 with a 27C020 EEPROM for Space Incident and it works fine. i tried two 128K games burned into 1 256K Eprom and switch A17, but it don´t work. :-( Regards Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+karri Posted June 2, 2007 Share Posted June 2, 2007 Hi everybody, i am a little bit confused. From my side of view, it should work if i burn 128K into a 256K Eprom, i have to connect A17 to Ground. But, it doesn´t work. Why? Karri, can you please tell me the difference between wiring for 128K Eprom and 256K Eprom. I want to understand how to make a 2 in 1 Card out of this ebay Card. I buyed 2 of them. I use 1 with a 27C020 EEPROM for Space Incident and it works fine. i tried two 128K games burned into 1 256K Eprom and switch A17, but it don´t work. :-( Regards You need to switch 8 address lines Cart 512k 256k 128k A12 A11 A10 A9 A13 A12 A11 A10 A14 A13 A12 A11 A15 A14 A13 A12 A16 A15 A14 A13 A17 A16 A15 A14 A18 A17 A16 A15 A19 A18 A17 A16 This is not really practical. So instead I usually connect the cart as a 512k cart and remap the images in software before burning the image to the cart. So you need to flip all 8 lines to make it work directly if you burn the lyx image directly on the EPROM. To make this work with a single switch you need to interleave the 512 byte blocks from the two 128k images and flip the A9 - not the A17! -- Karri Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynxman Posted June 2, 2007 Share Posted June 2, 2007 OK Karri, thank you for this information. OK, next Brain cooking question. If i want to burn a 512K Eprom and i want to use this 256K PCB. I connect A18 from the Eprom to Pin 30 of the Card Connector. Now i also need some kind of interleave? But in which way? My Brain is burning... Maybe the following methode is working: (1024 blocks with 512Bytes) block1 block513 block2 block514 . . Regards Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+karri Posted June 3, 2007 Share Posted June 3, 2007 If i want to burn a 512K Eprom and i want to use this 256K PCB. I connect A18 from the Eprom to Pin 30 of the Card Connector. Now i also need some kind of interleave? But in which way? My Brain is burning... Maybe the following methode is working: (1024 blocks with 512Bytes) block1 block513 block2 block514 . . Regards Well... Close, but not quite there yet. You need 2048 byte blocks but the wiring of the rom is for 1024 byte blocks only. So you need an extra wire to connect the signal A10 from the cart connector to A18 on the ROM. Then you need to split the 512k image into 1024 byte blocks. First you program the odd blocks block1 block3 block5 ... block255 then the even blocks block2 block4 block6 ... block256 But of course you need a 512k chip to burn a 512k game on it. Try Ninja 3. It works. If you want to have multiple games on the same cart you need dip-switches and some resistors. Put the dip switch between the DIP address ROM 1 A10 A18 2 A9 A9 From ROM pin A18 connect a 10k resistor to +5V From ROM pin A9 connect a 10k resistor to +5V Dip1 Dip2 Game on on 512k game, 256k game1, 128k game1 off on 256k game2, 128kgame2 on off 128k game3 off off 128k game4 -- Karri Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynxman Posted June 3, 2007 Share Posted June 3, 2007 Hi Karri, thank you very much! Kind Regards Bernd Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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