+chriswhit Posted February 2, 2010 Share Posted February 2, 2010 I built a 144K Bank switching Dev Cart to use with my 7800 dev. I keep getting an error when I attempt an upload. It says (error unknown cart type). I checked 3 times to make sure I hooked everything right and everything seems ok. I used winter games to build it leaving the original ram in U2 and installing a 128kx8 sram in U1. I was told this s ram was 128k but I'm not sure eBay Auction -- Item Number: 370297377740 The pdf I used is the one in post 4 http://www.atariage....__fromsearch__1 Page ten of the pdf. any help would be greatly appreciated. Hopefully my friend knows what hes talking about on the size of the sram. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted February 2, 2010 Share Posted February 2, 2010 Do you have the updated version of 7800ctrl? Mitch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+chriswhit Posted February 2, 2010 Author Share Posted February 2, 2010 I'm not sure. I have the one that came with the Devkit2 zip. Not sure where I downloaded it from because I downloaded it about 4 months ago. I can dump carts ok and they will run on my friends Cuttle cart 2 but not on this cart. I do remember the download for 7800 control came with a pdf for a 48k dev cart if that helps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+chriswhit Posted February 2, 2010 Author Share Posted February 2, 2010 I do have one jumper wire on u1 that I connected from pin 31 to pin 27. The directions said to solder to hole 27 but the pin is in hole 27. I'm wondering if they mean hole 27 meaning directly below pin 29? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+chriswhit Posted February 2, 2010 Author Share Posted February 2, 2010 (edited) Resistors r3 r4 and r5 need to be 3.3k. I used a resistor with these stripes orange orange red and gold. Am I reading the resistors right? Edit: My 48k dev cart has the same issue could something be wrong with my 7800 dev system? It plays games from a cart ok and dumps them ok with the exception of pac kong but thats the only pal game I tried. Edited February 2, 2010 by chriswhit Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted February 2, 2010 Share Posted February 2, 2010 I do have one jumper wire on u1 that I connected from pin 31 to pin 27. The directions said to solder to hole 27 but the pin is in hole 27. I'm wondering if they mean hole 27 meaning directly below pin 29? Yes, that means hole 27 which is under pin 29, not pin 27. Orange, orange, red is 3.3K. The gold band just means it has 5% tolerance which is fine. Mitch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+chriswhit Posted February 2, 2010 Author Share Posted February 2, 2010 I do have one jumper wire on u1 that I connected from pin 31 to pin 27. The directions said to solder to hole 27 but the pin is in hole 27. I'm wondering if they mean hole 27 meaning directly below pin 29? Yes, that means hole 27 which is under pin 29, not pin 27. Orange, orange, red is 3.3K. The gold band just means it has 5% tolerance which is fine. Mitch I fixed that issue but no change. I'm positive I wired both of my dev carts right now. Is there a way to test the caps on the board? Also I noticed Winter games has a different type of caps than other boards with the same part # does it matter which style caps I use? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted February 2, 2010 Share Posted February 2, 2010 I do have one jumper wire on u1 that I connected from pin 31 to pin 27. The directions said to solder to hole 27 but the pin is in hole 27. I'm wondering if they mean hole 27 meaning directly below pin 29? Yes, that means hole 27 which is under pin 29, not pin 27. Orange, orange, red is 3.3K. The gold band just means it has 5% tolerance which is fine. Mitch I fixed that issue but no change. I'm positive I wired both of my dev carts right now. Is there a way to test the caps on the board? Also I noticed Winter games has a different type of caps than other boards with the same part # does it matter which style caps I use? Probably monolithic caps vs ceramic disc caps, either are fine. I would email Eckhard and ask him for the updated 7800ctrl.exe file. I probably have it somewhere but I also have a dozen or so custom versions of 7800ctrl for testing and I'm not sure anymore which is the correct one. Mitch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+chriswhit Posted February 2, 2010 Author Share Posted February 2, 2010 Thanks I will try that. Hopefully that's my problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
krewat Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 Funny that you're using Winter Games. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaybird3rd Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 Funny that you're using Winter Games. Winter Games is generally a popular "donor" for these projects because it already has 16K of RAM onboard (it's really a 32K chip, of course, but unfortunately only 16K is usable). It's actually not that hard to upgrade '565 boards from other games to 16K, since 32K SRAMs are still easy to come by, but games that already have it are more convenient. Personally, I'd much rather leave my Winter Games cartridges intact and upgrade a board from Jinks or Barnyard Blaster instead. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
krewat Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 (edited) What's bizarre about that 32K is that Atari gave me HELL about using 32K on one of my games, and made me go back and bring it down to 16K. I think it was IM, but I'm not sure, maybe it was WG. Funny how it has a 32K chip in it anyway Edited February 3, 2010 by krewat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaybird3rd Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 What's bizarre about that 32K is that Atari gave me HELL about using 32K on one of my games, and made me go back and bring it down to 16K. I think it was IM, but I'm not sure, maybe it was WG. Funny how it has a 32K chip in it anyway Yes, I just looked inside one of my Winter Games cartridges, and sure enough it's got a Sony CXK58256P-12L chip in it, which is a 32K SRAM. Another member pointed out once that SRAM chips were only (commonly) manufactured in capacities corresponding to odd powers of two (2K, 8K, 32K, 128K, etc), so Atari would have had to buy a 32K chip regardless. They must have insisted on 16K so they could use one of their existing cartridge boards, which only allow up to 16K of RAM. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 What's bizarre about that 32K is that Atari gave me HELL about using 32K on one of my games, and made me go back and bring it down to 16K. I think it was IM, but I'm not sure, maybe it was WG. Funny how it has a 32K chip in it anyway Since only five 7800 carts used on cart RAM it would seem that Atari tried to discourage developers from using any at all. The five games are: Summer Games 16K Winter Games 16K Impossible Mission 8K Jinks 8K Tower Toppler 8K So the fact that you managed to get Atari to use RAM on three of you games is a pretty good accomplishment in itself. Mitch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
krewat Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 Bwah hah hah hah - the POWER Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaybird3rd Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 While we're on the subject of cartridge memory, there's something I've been wondering about: I've got a bunch of 8K SRAM chips from Jinks cartridges. If I wanted 16K on a cartridge, is there a way to piggyback two 8K chips together (with possibly some jumper wires to reconfigure the pins if necessary), or would I need a 32K chip instead? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
krewat Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 While we're on the subject of cartridge memory, there's something I've been wondering about: I've got a bunch of 8K SRAM chips from Jinks cartridges. If I wanted 16K on a cartridge, is there a way to piggyback two 8K chips together (with possibly some jumper wires to reconfigure the pins if necessary), or would I need a 32K chip instead? Quickly, without thinking about it too deeply, you'd need to take the extra address line, invert it, and use it as a chip select (if it's not used for something else already). So, it's not just the two RAM chips, it's at least one more support chip (7404?). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaybird3rd Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 Quickly, without thinking about it too deeply, you'd need to take the extra address line, invert it, and use it as a chip select (if it's not used for something else already). So, it's not just the two RAM chips, it's at least one more support chip (7404?). Thanks. It sounds like a straightforward upgrade to a 32K chip would be a better solution after all. Fortunately, they only cost about $2.50 each. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
krewat Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 Thanks. It sounds like a straightforward upgrade to a 32K chip would be a better solution after all. Fortunately, they only cost about $2.50 each. Yeah, at $2.50 each, it's not worth it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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