Superchip ram usage

[Pioneer4x4]

I am working on a game that so far requires the superchip ram. If I can get it to not require it, great but I doubt it. If it does require the extra ram, what options do I have for putting in in hardware other than a harmony cart?

Basically, what carts use superchip that I can cannabalize for the cause? I want to make at least 2 prototypes, even if it all falls through. I have a good eprom burner, so I should be OK if I can hack up some old carts.

I found this list with a bit of googling. The only ones I have extras of are Dig Dug and Jr. Pac-Man. Any crime hacking up a Dig Dug?

 

 

Defender 2 / Stargate

Chrystal Castles

Dark Chambers

Desert Falcon

Dig Dug

Jr. Pac Man

KLAX

Millipede

Off the Wall

Radar Lock

Save Mary

Secret Quest

Shooting Arcade

Sprintmaster

Super Football

[SeaGtGruff]

I am working on a game that so far requires the superchip ram. If I can get it to not require it, great but I doubt it. If it does require the extra ram, what options do I have for putting in in hardware other than a harmony cart?

Basically, what carts use superchip that I can cannabalize for the cause? I want to make at least 2 prototypes, even if it all falls through. I have a good eprom burner, so I should be OK if I can hack up some old carts.

I found this list with a bit of googling. The only ones I have extras of are Dig Dug and Jr. Pac-Man. Any crime hacking up a Dig Dug?

 

 

Defender 2 / Stargate

Chrystal Castles

Dark Chambers

Desert Falcon

Dig Dug

Jr. Pac Man

KLAX

Millipede

Off the Wall

Radar Lock

Save Mary

Secret Quest

Shooting Arcade

Sprintmaster

Super Football

It looks like you listed all of them, at least the "old" ones (i.e., non-homebrews).

 

If you don't want to use the Harmony/Melody cart, you could always try CBS RAM+ carts, or MNetwork carts with extra RAM. You might have to modify batari Basic, though, or get someone else to. I did a modification of the older 0.35 version of batari Basic to add E7 MNetwork bankswitching to it, although I haven't upgraded it to version 1.0 yet. But with the Harmony/Melody you should be able to use any of them.

 

Michael

[Pioneer4x4]

If you don't want to use the Harmony/Melody cart, you could always try CBS RAM+ carts, or MNetwork carts with extra RAM. You might have to modify batari Basic, though, or get someone else to. I did a modification of the older 0.35 version of batari Basic to add E7 MNetwork bankswitching to it, although I haven't upgraded it to version 1.0 yet. But with the Harmony/Melody you should be able to use any of them.

 

Michael

Do you know which ones those are? I think the CBS are labelled on them with the RAM+

I didn't know MNetwork made them also.

[SeaGtGruff]

If you don't want to use the Harmony/Melody cart, you could always try CBS RAM+ carts, or MNetwork carts with extra RAM. You might have to modify batari Basic, though, or get someone else to. I did a modification of the older 0.35 version of batari Basic to add E7 MNetwork bankswitching to it, although I haven't upgraded it to version 1.0 yet. But with the Harmony/Melody you should be able to use any of them.

 

Michael

Do you know which ones those are? I think the CBS are labelled on them with the RAM+

I didn't know MNetwork made them also.

The following is adapted from the document on game sizes by Kevin Horton (http://kevtris.org/files/sizes.txt):

 

Atari Superchip (a.k.a. the F8SC, F6SC, and F4SC methods)

8K (F8SC) = 7680 bytes of ROM and 128 bytes of extra RAM

16K (F6SC) = 15360 bytes of ROM and 128 bytes of extra RAM

32K (F4SC) = 30720 bytes of ROM and 128 bytes of extra RAM

Memory map:

$F000-$F07F = write addresses for the 128 bytes of extra RAM (always present)

$F080-$F0FF = read addresses for the 128 bytes of extra RAM (always present)

$F100-$FFFF = 3840 bytes of ROM, which is selected from two (F8SC), four (F6SC), or eight (F4SC) 4K ROM banks

Bankswitching hotspots:

$FFF4 = select the 1st 4K ROM bank in F4SC

$FFF5 = select the 2nd 4K ROM bank in F4SC

$FFF6 = select the 1st 4K ROM bank in F6SC, or the 3rd 4K ROM bank in F4SC

$FFF7 = select the 2nd 4K ROM bank in F6SC, or the 4th 4K ROM bank in F4SC

$FFF8 = select the 1st 4K ROM bank in F8SC, or the 3rd 4K ROM bank in F6SC, or the 5th 4K ROM bank in F4SC

$FFF9 = select the 2nd 4K ROM bank in F8SC, or the 4th 4K ROM bank in F6SC, or the 6th 4K ROM bank in F4SC

$FFFA = select the 7th 4K ROM bank in F4SC

$FFFB = select the 8th 4K ROM bank in F4SC

Games:

Dig Dug

Crystal Castles

Millipede

Stargate

Defender II

Jr. Pac-Man

Desert Falcon

Dark Chambers

Super Football

Sprintmaster

Fatal Run

Off the Wall

Shooting Arcade

Secret Quest

Radar Lock

Save Mary!

KLAX

 

CBS RAM+ (a.k.a. the FA method)

12K = 10752 bytes of ROM and 256 bytes of extra RAM

Memory map:

$F000-$F0FF = write addresses for the 256 bytes of extra RAM (always present)

$F100-$F1FF = read addresses for the 256 bytes of extra RAM (always present)

$F200-$FFFF = 3584 bytes of ROM, which is selected from three 4K ROM banks

Bankswitching hotspots:

$FFF8 = select the 1st 4K ROM bank

$FFF9 = select the 2nd 4K ROM bank

$FFFA = select the 3rd 4K ROM bank

Games:

None listed?

 

M-Network (a.k.a. the E7 method)

16K = 15360 bytes of ROM and 2048 bytes of extra RAM

Memory map:

$F000-$F7FF = 2048 bytes of ROM (if one of the 2K ROM banks is selected), which is selected from seven 2K ROM banks

$F000-$F3FF = write addresses for 1024 bytes of the extra RAM (if the 1K RAM bank is selected)

$F400-$F7FF = read addresses for 1024 bytes of the extra RAM (if the 1K RAM bank is selected)

$F800-$F9FF = write addresses for 256 bytes of the extra RAM (always present), which is selected from four 256-byte RAM banks

$FA00-$FBFF = read addresses for 256 bytes of the extra RAM (always present), which is selected from four 256-byte RAM banks

$FC00-$FFFF = 1024 bytes of ROM (always present)

Bankswitching hotspots:

$FFE0 = select the 1st 2K ROM bank

$FFE1 = select the 2nd 2K ROM bank

$FFE2 = select the 3rd 2K ROM bank

$FFE3 = select the 4th 2K ROM bank

$FFE4 = select the 5th 2K ROM bank

$FFE5 = select the 6th 2K ROM bank

$FFE6 = select the 7th 2K ROM bank

$FFE7 = select the 2K RAM bank

$FFE8 = select the 1st 256-byte RAM bank

$FFE9 = select the 2nd 256-byte RAM bank

$FFEA = select the 3rd 256-byte RAM bank

$FFEB = select the 4th 256-byte RAM bank

Games:

Burgertime

 

Although not mentioned in Kevin Horton's document, there are other bankswitching methods that can have extra RAM:

 

4A50 (64K ROM and 32K RAM) - from supercat (not in production yet, but the Stella emulator can run 4A50 cart images)

CV (2K ROM and 1K RAM) - from Commavid (not a bankswitching method per se, since there are no banks to switch)

EFSC (64K ROM and ? RAM) - developed for the unfnished Home Runner game

3F (512K ROM and ? RAM) - an expansion of the Tigervision format?

 

Michael

[Wickeycolumbus]

CPUWIZ made Superchip (AKA SARA) boards. You can't easily hack up an old PCB, you would also have to add the bankswitching hardware (which is handled inside the mask ROM of the old games). I suppose you could wire up a 4K EPROM and have 4K with the superchip though. E7 or CBS would be harder to make a cartridge of without the Harmony/Melody.

Edited March 27, 2010 by Wickeycolumbus

[Pioneer4x4]

CPUWIZ made Superchip (AKA SARA) boards. You can't easily hack up an old PCB, you would also have to add the bankswitching hardware (which is handled inside the mask ROM of the old games). I suppose you could wire up a 4K EPROM and have 4K with the superchip though. E7 or CBS would be harder to make a cartridge of without the Harmony/Melody.

Thanks, I guess I need to look at those boards. As for 4K with superchip Batari Basic will not allow 4K with superchip will it?

[Wickeycolumbus]

CPUWIZ made Superchip (AKA SARA) boards. You can't easily hack up an old PCB, you would also have to add the bankswitching hardware (which is handled inside the mask ROM of the old games). I suppose you could wire up a 4K EPROM and have 4K with the superchip though. E7 or CBS would be harder to make a cartridge of without the Harmony/Melody.

Thanks, I guess I need to look at those boards. As for 4K with superchip Batari Basic will not allow 4K with superchip will it?

 

I'm not sure about bB, but I don't believe any emulators support 4K with superchip. You'd have to double up the ROM and use the F8SC setting for emulator testing.

[Omegamatrix]

I once went through Stella testing every bankswitched rom from Superchip roms. This is what I found:

 

 

8k

 

Defender II - NTSC, PAL (aka Stargate) note Defender II and Stargate have different roms...

Stargate - NTSC, PAL (aka Defender II)

Elevator Action - NTSC prototype

 

16k

 

Crack'ed - NTSC prototype

Crystal Castles - NTSC, PAL

Dark Chambers - NTSC, PAL

Desert Falcon - NTSC, PAL

Dig Dug - NTSC, PAL

Jr. Pac-Man - NTSC, PAL

Klax - NTSC prototype, PAL released

Millipede - NTSC, PAL

Off the Wall - NTSC, PAL

Radar Lock - NTSC, PAL

Save Mary! - NTSC, PAL (both late prototypes are superchip)

Secret Quest - NTSC, PAL

Shooting Arcade - NTSC, PAL (both are prototypes)

Sprint Master - NTSC, PAL

Super Football - NTSC, PAL

 

32k

 

Fatal Run - NTSC prototype, PAL released

[+batari]

CPUWIZ made Superchip (AKA SARA) boards. You can't easily hack up an old PCB, you would also have to add the bankswitching hardware (which is handled inside the mask ROM of the old games). I suppose you could wire up a 4K EPROM and have 4K with the superchip though. E7 or CBS would be harder to make a cartridge of without the Harmony/Melody.

Thanks, I guess I need to look at those boards. As for 4K with superchip Batari Basic will not allow 4K with superchip will it?

Do you want to do your own soldering and harvest your own Superchips from old games? If so, you can ask CPUWIZ if he will sell you some boards. Otherwise, Albert can build your Superchip games with Melody boards.

[Pioneer4x4]

Do you want to do your own soldering and harvest your own Superchips from old games? If so, you can ask CPUWIZ if he will sell you some boards. Otherwise, Albert can build your Superchip games with Melody boards.

I want to make sure it works first, I'm fine with soldering and should be OK burning a rom. I guess I'll have to wait until I get that far. What I'm working on will require 2 Ataris and I only have 1 Harmony, and 2 Superchargers. If I could make it work in 4k with no extra ram, I'm set.