Has anyone ever worked on modifying the Activision 10 in 1?

[Cassidy Nolen]

Hi all,

 

Just wondering if anyone has thought the way I have about it? I opened mine up and see there are two blobs of black goo and traces in between. I am making an assumption one of the blobs is the processor/system and the other is the data/programs?

 

I was wondering would it be possible to figure out the data channels (ex. A1, A2, etc) and interface that with a 2 or 4K cart? I am sure it would not be bank-switchable, etc, but maybe uses a standard CPU from the current market to run on? Just an idea I had. I am making a hand held one of these anyway (with screen and all) but thought about this; figure I would ask if anyone had any info on the system (schematics, etc).

 

Thanks,

Cassidy

[DanBoris]

This might be possible if the system was a clone of the 2600 hardware, but I have it on good authority that it isn't a clone of the 2600 hardware in this unit. The person who told me this is under an NDA so he couldn't tell me exactly how it was done. Also, a quick look at the circuit board confirms that there is not a clear speration between "hardware" and ROM on the two epoxy blobs. There are cleary controller inputs going to the one blob, and video signals coming out of the other.

 

So if it isn't cloned hardware there are a few options to how it could work:

 

1. An embedded processor with custom sound/video hardware running a 2600 emulator. This seems unlikely since it would probably not be cost effective enough to get a processor with enough power to do this.

 

2. An embedded processor with custom sound/video running ports of the games. It's also possible that the games where put through some sort of re-compilation process to make the porting easier.

 

3. A 6502 running the actual game code, and a second embedded processor and custom hardware that emulates the TIA in a combination of software and hardware.

 

Dan