interesting mystique 4 in 1

[orangest]

http://cgi.ebay.com/Atari-2600-cart-4-game...1QQcmdZViewItem

[Atarimania75]

http://cgi.ebay.com/Atari-2600-cart-4-game...1QQcmdZViewItem

 

 

and here is another from a different seller with the same pic???? Wonder whats up here??

http://cgi.ebay.com/Atari-2600-cart-4-game...1QQcmdZViewItem

[holygrailvideogames.com]

Aren't these homemade. I figure that the guy will keep selling these until eBay gives him the boot or people stop buying them.

[holygrailvideogames.com]

http://cgi.ebay.com/Atari-2600-cart-4-game...1QQcmdZViewItem

 

 

and here is another from a different seller with the same pic???? Wonder whats up here??

http://cgi.ebay.com/Atari-2600-cart-4-game...1QQcmdZViewItem

 

The location is the same. I am sure he just has multiple eBay ID's.

[Atarimania75]

Aren't these homemade. I figure that the guy will keep selling these until eBay gives him the boot or people stop buying them.

 

Its the first time i saw them but 2 listed at once with same picture and description seems odd!

[SpendTooMuchOnAtari]

"This item is sold with no warranty because of its age."

[cosmosiss]

oooo look at the pretty switches. I like it.

 

 

 

Edited February 26, 2008 by cosmosiss

[Shawn]

Pretty dumb and a waste of switches\time if you ask me. A $1 dollar PIC would have handled that nicely and made it not look like such a hunk.

[ninermaniac]

Sorry guys. I got curious and got one. Now lets see if I get ripped an new A$$H@LE.

[Recycled]

Sorry guys. I got curious and got one. Now lets see if I get ripped an new A$$H@LE.

 

 

Congratulations on the fine selection of games!!!

 

[Captain Beard]

"This item is sold with no warranty because of its age."

I like how it is "tested and in working order" but is also "sold AS-IS in the condition stated above."

 

In other words, it is guaranteed to work*

 

*This is not a guarantee.

[BigO]

Pretty dumb and a waste of switches\time if you ask me. A $1 dollar PIC would have handled that nicely and made it not look like such a hunk.

Off topic a bit . . . what would that implementation look like? 1 push button to cycle through the games and 4 LEDs? I can see doing something like that with an LED next to each menu item listed on the label.

 

With hard switches, it's easy to see how you'd set the switches then cycle the power to restart (assuming flipping the switches mid game would scramble its brains). I guess with the PIC you could write the selection to flash data memory and not actually change the banking until the PIC is rebooted.

[CPUWIZ]

Pretty dumb and a waste of switches\time if you ask me. A $1 dollar PIC would have handled that nicely and made it not look like such a hunk.

Off topic a bit . . . what would that implementation look like? 1 push button to cycle through the games and 4 LEDs? I can see doing something like that with an LED next to each menu item listed on the label.

 

With hard switches, it's easy to see how you'd set the switches then cycle the power to restart (assuming flipping the switches mid game would scramble its brains). I guess with the PIC you could write the selection to flash data memory and not actually change the banking until the PIC is rebooted.

 

He is talking about the board I made a while back, the PIC is basically incrementing a number in EEPROM and uses it to output 5 additional address lines (for 28 pin EPROM's, instead of a 24 pin 4K EPROM), this happens every time you power cycle.

[BigO]

Pretty dumb and a waste of switches\time if you ask me. A $1 dollar PIC would have handled that nicely and made it not look like such a hunk.

Off topic a bit . . . what would that implementation look like? 1 push button to cycle through the games and 4 LEDs? I can see doing something like that with an LED next to each menu item listed on the label.

 

With hard switches, it's easy to see how you'd set the switches then cycle the power to restart (assuming flipping the switches mid game would scramble its brains). I guess with the PIC you could write the selection to flash data memory and not actually change the banking until the PIC is rebooted.

 

He is talking about the board I made a while back, the PIC is basically incrementing a number in EEPROM and uses it to output 5 additional address lines (for 28 pin EPROM's, instead of a 24 pin 4K EPROM), this happens every time you power cycle.

 

Okay, cool. I follow that. But, how does the game (bank) selection work?

 

I understand that the additional control lines can bank in chunks of the ROM according to the address lines, but what's actually controlling how the additional address lines are set, i.e. what is the user interface? I was envisioning on the simple side a button to cycle through the various bank selections (using the 6th I/O line from a cheapie PIC). The other option would be menuing software on the cart with banking being triggered presumably by some special address access like standard bank switching methods. (My "knowledge" on the subject is mostly speculation.) Just my curiosity working overtime...

 

(I assume that the original subject of this post has two address lines under the control of the switches to select among 4 banks.)

Edited February 27, 2008 by BigO

[CPUWIZ]

Pretty dumb and a waste of switches\time if you ask me. A $1 dollar PIC would have handled that nicely and made it not look like such a hunk.

Off topic a bit . . . what would that implementation look like? 1 push button to cycle through the games and 4 LEDs? I can see doing something like that with an LED next to each menu item listed on the label.

 

With hard switches, it's easy to see how you'd set the switches then cycle the power to restart (assuming flipping the switches mid game would scramble its brains). I guess with the PIC you could write the selection to flash data memory and not actually change the banking until the PIC is rebooted.

 

He is talking about the board I made a while back, the PIC is basically incrementing a number in EEPROM and uses it to output 5 additional address lines (for 28 pin EPROM's, instead of a 24 pin 4K EPROM), this happens every time you power cycle.

 

Okay, cool. I follow that. But, how does the game (bank) selection work?

 

I understand that the additional control lines can bank in chunks of the ROM according to the address lines, but what's actually controlling how the additional address lines are set, i.e. what is the user interface? I was envisioning on the simple side a button to cycle through the various bank selections (using the 6th I/O line from a cheapie PIC). The other option would be menuing software on the cart with banking being triggered presumably by some special address access like standard bank switching methods. (My "knowledge" on the subject is mostly speculation.) Just my curiosity working overtime...

 

(I assume that the original subject of this post has two address lines under the control of the switches to select among 4 banks.)

 

Every time the PIC is power cycled, it increments the game number and writes it back to EEPROM.

[supercat]

He is talking about the board I made a while back, the PIC is basically incrementing a number in EEPROM and uses it to output 5 additional address lines (for 28 pin EPROM's, instead of a 24 pin 4K EPROM), this happens every time you power cycle.

 

A simpler approach would be to use a 32K AtariAge board, with a slight tweak to the banking PLD.

[BigO]

[...]

 

Every time the PIC is power cycled, it increments the game number and writes it back to EEPROM.

 

Ah, yes. I missed putting that in your previous post, though you did say it. Got it now. Thanks.

Edited February 27, 2008 by BigO

[BigO]

He is talking about the board I made a while back, the PIC is basically incrementing a number in EEPROM and uses it to output 5 additional address lines (for 28 pin EPROM's, instead of a 24 pin 4K EPROM), this happens every time you power cycle.

 

A simpler approach would be to use a 32K AtariAge board, with a slight tweak to the banking PLD.

To achieve the same power cycle=selection functionality? Sorry for my ignorance of PLD particulars, but I assume by your statement that the PLD also has some sort of persistent but changeable-on-the-fly storage capability.

 

The whole scheme feels less than intuitive to me. On the other hand, if I have to cycle the power to achieve the switching in my scheme, all I would gain is that the game selection would persist across power cycles. For some reason that strikes me as the more obvious interface, but obviously requires more time to implement and easily twice the expense in hardware. The (edge?) condition where I need to power off the game to restart it and don't want to select a different game is where I meet my resistance.

 

Objectively, it's a clean, slick method that I think my narrow mind would not have uncovered on its own. Thanks for the enlightenment, guys.

 

We now return you to your regularly scheduled discussion...

Edited February 27, 2008 by BigO