Shawn Posted April 7, 2008 Share Posted April 7, 2008 Did anyone else notice that there is a significant chunk of the 7800 BIOS BIN data in there?I also seem to remember when the 7800 was first announced that it was supposed to have Pole Position 2 built-in to the BIOS. Like they later did with Asteroids. Hmm... Mitch PS Any chance of a picture? pp2 would have been a much beter choice as the built in pack in for sure. Can't you use pretty much any of the smaller games in the bios IIRC? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shawn Posted April 7, 2008 Share Posted April 7, 2008 So I'm assuming this won't work on a CC2 either? Allan i doubt it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted April 8, 2008 Share Posted April 8, 2008 PolePosition2Proto.binHi GuysHere is a dump of my Pole position proto.Maybe Eckhard can tell something about,why it does not work. greetings Walter While I'm thinking about it. Thanks for getting it dumped and releasing it. Mitch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atarian63 Posted April 8, 2008 Share Posted April 8, 2008 Why not dump the carts without opening them? I've done that for valuable Atari 8bit carts. Gotta love that crazy wired pic! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted April 8, 2008 Share Posted April 8, 2008 Did anyone else notice that there is a significant chunk of the 7800 BIOS BIN data in there?I also seem to remember when the 7800 was first announced that it was supposed to have Pole Position 2 built-in to the BIOS. Like they later did with Asteroids. Hmm... Mitch PS Any chance of a picture? OK, I decided I may as well try burning the Pole Position 2 BIN to an EPROM and see if my BIOS theory was correct. I guess I haven't been sniffing as much solder fumes as I thought cause it works. Well sorta... It works fine as a BIOS, 2600 and 7800 games play fine. However, I am unable to get the built-in Pole Position 2 game to work. I tried some of my unencrpted protos to see if the authentication had been implemented and they didn't work. But one time when I was trying one of them Pole Position 2 came up. I turned it off and then on again to see if it would work again and it didn't. I haven't been able to get it work again since. Maybe someone else can figure out what you need to do to trigger the built-in game. Mitch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted April 8, 2008 Share Posted April 8, 2008 Did anyone else notice that there is a significant chunk of the 7800 BIOS BIN data in there?I also seem to remember when the 7800 was first announced that it was supposed to have Pole Position 2 built-in to the BIOS. Like they later did with Asteroids. Hmm... Mitch PS Any chance of a picture? OK, I decided I may as well try burning the Pole Position 2 BIN to an EPROM and see if my BIOS theory was correct. I guess I haven't been sniffing as much solder fumes as I thought cause it works. Well sorta... It works fine as a BIOS, 2600 and 7800 games play fine. However, I am unable to get the built-in Pole Position 2 game to work. I tried some of my unencrpted protos to see if the authentication had been implemented and they didn't work. But one time when I was trying one of them Pole Position 2 came up. I turned it off and then on again to see if it would work again and it didn't. I haven't been able to get it work again since. Maybe someone else can figure out what you need to do to trigger the built-in game. Mitch I've got to stop replying to myself. OK, I've managed to get Pole Position 2 to come up several times using a common 7800 cart. It seems that if I don't get the cart seated 100% that Pole Position 2 will start. I played several games but didn't notice anything different than the released version. Congrats Walter, it looks like you have the long lost Pole Position 2 BIOS proto. Why someone stuck it on a cart board is odd, I guess they didn't know what they had. Mitch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eckhard Stolberg Posted April 8, 2008 Share Posted April 8, 2008 PS Any chance of a picture? Maybe someone else can figure out what you need to do to trigger the built-in game. Congrats Walter, it looks like you have the long lost Pole Position 2 BIOS proto. Why someone stuck it on a cart board is odd, I guess they didn't know what they had. The code to trigger the build-in game is the same as in the NTSC and in the Asteroids BIOS. (The NTSC BIOS would enable 2600 mode when no cartridge was found.) Pole Position 2 should start when no cartridge is inserted. Maybe it's a problem with your modifications to the console. Does Asteroids start when you install the Asteroids BIOS on the same chip in this 7800 console? Good work identifying the proto as a BIOS, BTW. Maybe someone put the code on a cartridge because Pole Position 2 wouldn't start from the BIOS for him either. Since it will be a couple of days before Walter gets his proto back, I'll post some pictures again. Ciao, Eckhard Stolberg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted April 8, 2008 Share Posted April 8, 2008 The code to trigger the build-in game is the same as in the NTSC and in the Asteroids BIOS. (The NTSC BIOS would enable 2600 mode when no cartridge was found.) Pole Position 2 should start when no cartridge is inserted. Maybe it's a problem with your modifications to the console. Does Asteroids start when you install the Asteroids BIOS on the same chip in this 7800 console? Good work identifying the proto as a BIOS, BTW. Maybe someone put the code on a cartridge because Pole Position 2 wouldn't start from the BIOS for him either. Since it will be a couple of days before Walter gets his proto back, I'll post some pictures again. Ciao, Eckhard Stolberg Hmm, I can't think of any reason why it shouldn't work on this 7800. I'm pretty sure I have a copy of the Asteroids BIOS floating around, I'll give that a try and see how it works. Thanks for the pictures, strange that they split it on to two EPROMs since it would need to be on one EPROM to work as a BIOS chip. It's nice to have it dumped anyway, thanks again guys. Mitch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gambler172 Posted April 8, 2008 Author Share Posted April 8, 2008 Hi Mitch Would be great,if we could get it work on a CC2. greetings Walter Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted April 8, 2008 Share Posted April 8, 2008 Hi MitchWould be great,if we could get it work on a CC2. greetings Walter I doubt it's possible without a major rewrite of code since it's currently designed to run as a 7800 BIOS. I don't know if it has any PAL code in there either but probably not. Mitch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted April 9, 2008 Share Posted April 9, 2008 OK, I tried out the Asteroids BIOS in that 7800 and it comes up fine with no cart. I put the Pole Position 2 BIOS back in and it doesn't work unless I put a cart partially in. It seems like there is something else it's detecting or not detecting that's making it not work correctly. Maybe that's why it was never released. Mitch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shawn Posted April 9, 2008 Share Posted April 9, 2008 OK, I tried out the Asteroids BIOS in that 7800 and it comes up fine with no cart. I put the Pole Position 2 BIOS back in and it doesn't work unless I put a cart partially in. It seems like there is something else it's detecting or not detecting that's making it not work correctly.Maybe that's why it was never released. Mitch Think you can inject the pp2 into the asteroids bios you think? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eckhard Stolberg Posted April 9, 2008 Share Posted April 9, 2008 Hi MitchWould be great,if we could get it work on a CC2. greetings Walter I doubt it's possible without a major rewrite of code since it's currently designed to run as a 7800 BIOS. I don't know if it has any PAL code in there either but probably not. Mitch Actually skipping the BIOS part and starting the game directly would be pretty easy. But then all you'd get would be a normal NTSC Pole Position II. Ciao, Eckhard Stolberg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eckhard Stolberg Posted April 9, 2008 Share Posted April 9, 2008 OK, I tried out the Asteroids BIOS in that 7800 and it comes up fine with no cart. I put the Pole Position 2 BIOS back in and it doesn't work unless I put a cart partially in. It seems like there is something else it's detecting or not detecting that's making it not work correctly.Maybe that's why it was never released. Mitch Are you using the same type of EPROM for both BIOSs? The first test is for floating data lines and IIRC there were issues with the first version of 2600 Reindeer Rescue depending on whether the game used a NMOS or a CMOS EPROM. Due to a bug the game was relying on the state of the floating TIA pins on a read instruction, and one of the EPROM types was pulling those pins high. Maybe there is a similar issue with your BIOS EPROMs. Ciao, Eckhard Stolberg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eckhard Stolberg Posted April 9, 2008 Share Posted April 9, 2008 Think you can inject the pp2 into the asteroids bios you think? Yes, you could do that. Infact in the Pole Position II ROM there is even enough room to fit the entire NTSC BIOS in. That BIOS also includes the cartridge test. But since there is no game in the BIOS to start if no cartridge was found, the BIOS just sets the 7800 into 2600 mode. I guess that means that Pole Position II was originally meant to be part of the BIOS. Ciao, Eckhard Stolberg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted April 9, 2008 Share Posted April 9, 2008 OK, I tried out the Asteroids BIOS in that 7800 and it comes up fine with no cart. I put the Pole Position 2 BIOS back in and it doesn't work unless I put a cart partially in. It seems like there is something else it's detecting or not detecting that's making it not work correctly.Maybe that's why it was never released. Mitch Are you using the same type of EPROM for both BIOSs? The first test is for floating data lines and IIRC there were issues with the first version of 2600 Reindeer Rescue depending on whether the game used a NMOS or a CMOS EPROM. Due to a bug the game was relying on the state of the floating TIA pins on a read instruction, and one of the EPROM types was pulling those pins high. Maybe there is a similar issue with your BIOS EPROMs. Ciao, Eckhard Stolberg I'm pretty sure they're different brand EPROMs. I don't have them in front of me but I would guess that they are both CMOS. I'll see if I have any other brand of 27256 EPROMs and give that a try. Mitch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted April 10, 2008 Share Posted April 10, 2008 OK, here's the results. The EPROM I used for the Asteroids BIOS is a TMS 27C128. The EPROM I used for the Pole Position 2 BIOS is a Cypress 27C256. I dug around and found an AMD 27C256 so I tested Pole Position 2 with that to see if it made a difference. With the AMD chip the BIOS works fine with carts but the built-in game does not work by itself. The half way inserted cart trick does not work either. I'm rather inclined to agree with Eckhard that the Pole Position 2 BIOS is expecting something to be in a particular state. I may try experimenting with connecting either a weak pull-up or pull-down resistor to one of the address lines and see if that affects it at all. A couple of things I noticed while testing with the Cypress EPROM; I can get the built-in game to work using either a 2600 or 7800 cart but it seems to be easier to do with a 7800 cart. I also noticed that unlike the Asteroids BIOS the Atari screen comes up before Pole Position 2 starts. So it seems to be authenticating itself, which I think is a bit odd. Mitch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gambler172 Posted April 10, 2008 Author Share Posted April 10, 2008 Hi Mitch You are right;the guy who sold the proto did not know,what nice thing he had.He thought,PP2 does not work. And so i could buy it for a really good price. greetings Walter Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gambler172 Posted April 12, 2008 Author Share Posted April 12, 2008 POLE278.binPole_Position_2_BIOS_Proto.binHi Guys Eckhard sent me this.The Pole278 bin works now on a CC2. greetings Walter Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted April 12, 2008 Share Posted April 12, 2008 POLE278.binPole_Position_2_BIOS_Proto.binHi GuysEckhard sent me this.The Pole278 bin works now on a CC2. greetings Walter Is there anything different about this version other than the BIOS it's looking for? Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gambler172 Posted April 12, 2008 Author Share Posted April 12, 2008 Hi Tempest Only the code in the bios seems to be different.The game seems to be the same.Maybe Mitch can check. greetings Walter Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted April 12, 2008 Share Posted April 12, 2008 Hi TempestOnly the code in the bios seems to be different.The game seems to be the same.Maybe Mitch can check. greetings Walter The code is different than the final release but I don't really notice anything different while playing. Maybe Eckhard knows what the changes affect. Mitch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eckhard Stolberg Posted April 12, 2008 Share Posted April 12, 2008 Is there anything different about this version other than the BIOS it's looking for? The only change I made to POLE278.bin was that I'm skipping the BIOS part and jump to the game code directly. I also added an instruction to lock the console into cartridge mode, so that the binary wouldn't crash when being executed as a cartridge instead of a BIOS. As for changes between the proto and the final release, I didn't look into those. But I suspect they were all releated to seperating the BIOS and the game part only. (adding proper startup code for a game, sepearating the graphics for both parts etc.) Ciao, Eckhard Stolberg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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