qix_maniac Posted October 9, 2010 Share Posted October 9, 2010 I recently acquired "the pill" ..looks like a cart with an on off switch on top. can anyone tell me what it does in simple terms? not just a link to techy talk but a summary "for dummies" on what it does and it's purpose? Thanks in advance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted October 9, 2010 Share Posted October 9, 2010 (edited) Quick answer - it allows part of your computer's RAM to act like ROM. Long answer - you can copy A8 cartridges by hotswapping them into the machine and using a previously loaded program to write them to a disk file. Then you can load them into RAM - since the addresses used by cartridges are the same as high memory in a 48K system, you can run non bank-switchable cartridges from RAM. It didn't take the games makers long to catch on, so most game cartridges have hidden "self destruct code" that writes to addresses within the ROM space, which does nothing if running from ROM but will corrupt a RAM-based copy to the point where it'll either be crippled or just crash the system. The switch on The Pill allows you to load such a cart copy, then it should prompt the user to switch it on which should write-protect the RAM area from $8000-$BFFF It's also of use to cartridge developers - you can simulate a 16K ROM environment to test your programs during development. But of course in this day of emulation, plus the fact that practically every game from the old days was cracked, it's not so relevant. The cartridge itself isn't anything revolutionary - I don't have one but would guess that all it does is detect if a Write operation is being attempted to $8000-$BFFF, and if it is, it triggers the relevant cartridge control lines to make the system think that a ROM is present there. In doing so, that inhibits the access to system RAM, and the write occurs to the non-existant ROM on cartridge. Edited October 9, 2010 by Rybags 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
qix_maniac Posted October 9, 2010 Author Share Posted October 9, 2010 (edited) Rybags, thanks for taking the time to reply. I'd like to try it out. I have a disk drive, various dos versions I can boot from; I have the pill and I have tons of cartridges... but half of what you said does not compute...I'd need dummy step by step instructions :-) Do I boot my system with the pill inserted? Do I boot from dos first? ...what is the first step? sorry about all the dumb questions which are probably obvious to most of you. my goal would be to take a cartridge like decathlon, and try to use pill and see if I can save it on a floppy...can anyone help with that step by step who has done it before? Edited October 9, 2010 by qix_maniac Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted October 9, 2010 Share Posted October 9, 2010 You'd need games with specifically made loaders because you need to have the cartridge disabled at first. Then it would prompt the user to switch the cartridge "On" and at that point it could run the game. I expect that the "Super Pill" probably automates the process - in theory they could just have added some extra circuitry so that the write protect could be switched by software instead of manually. I don't know if there's any games downloadable that could run with The Pill. I guess it would be easy enough to write a loader that'd let you try out 8 and 16K non-banked cartridge images with it though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carmel_andrews Posted October 9, 2010 Share Posted October 9, 2010 Something that rybags missed out, both versions of Pill will only work with standard 8/16k carts, they will not work with xegs carts of any oss carts that use more then 16k Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted October 9, 2010 Share Posted October 9, 2010 Then you can load them into RAM - since the addresses used by cartridges are the same as high memory in a 48K system, you can run non bank-switchable cartridges from RAM. As usual, you didn't bother to read the thread properly. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UNIXcoffee928 Posted October 9, 2010 Share Posted October 9, 2010 I remember that there was also a similar type of product called: "The Wedge". Did anyone here have one of these? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted October 9, 2010 Share Posted October 9, 2010 Then you can load them into RAM - since the addresses used by cartridges are the same as high memory in a 48K system, you can run non bank-switchable cartridges from RAM. As usual, you didn't bother to read the thread properly. Please stop yelling at yourself. Tempest 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillC Posted October 9, 2010 Share Posted October 9, 2010 I recently acquired "the pill" ..looks like a cart with an on off switch on top. can anyone tell me what it does in simple terms? not just a link to techy talk but a summary "for dummies" on what it does and it's purpose? Thanks in advance. The instruction manual on what THE PILL does and how to use it can be found here. The required boot disk images can be found here. Bill Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atariksi Posted October 9, 2010 Share Posted October 9, 2010 I recently acquired "the pill" ..looks like a cart with an on off switch on top. can anyone tell me what it does in simple terms? not just a link to techy talk but a summary "for dummies" on what it does and it's purpose? Thanks in advance. To add to info already provided since most cartridges are already available as files (.ROM), you can use a PC uploader to run on real machine with or without the pill cartridge. If the ROM is unprotected, you can usually just load it to appropriate address $8000...$BFFF and run it otherwise use the loader with the pill to override the protection. Here's one uploader that uses the parallel port and will upload .ROM files as well as normal binaries: eBay Auction -- Item Number: 320600224696 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atari8bitCarts Posted August 22, 2011 Share Posted August 22, 2011 (edited) Got one hoping to test out soon, when I have time. Any suggestions or tricks? Edited August 22, 2011 by chrislynn5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kheffington Posted August 23, 2011 Share Posted August 23, 2011 (edited) Deleted posted by mistake sorry. Edited August 23, 2011 by kheffington Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kheffington Posted August 23, 2011 Share Posted August 23, 2011 Deleted posted in error. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davemac Posted July 30, 2017 Share Posted July 30, 2017 (edited) Hi everyone, Sorry to bring up such an old thread, but I bought an 800 back in the late 80's and the previous owner had managed to effectively build a Pill switch into the machine itself. It is just a NAND gate, which connects the R/W line (R line of cart slot) via the gate to cart slot pins A & 14, presumably to change the base address. The in-line two-way double-pole switch sits between the 7400 chip and the cartridge slot's pins. If anyone would like to build one I'll sketch up a schematic. Cheers, Dave Edited July 30, 2017 by davemac Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariGeezer Posted July 30, 2017 Share Posted July 30, 2017 I did that to my 800 too back in 1984. Still have it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davemac Posted July 31, 2017 Share Posted July 31, 2017 I did that to my 800 too back in 1984. Still have it That's great! I decided to try it on my 400 tonight, and it works fine. Ironically, my 800 seems to have been done that year too! Sadly the 800 broke last week. It now needs a C015199 ROM and I think a bad 7805 regulator caused it. I'm getting a 6V output from it, which is very odd. I've heard that you can program your own ROMs as they were based on the 24C64 EPROM/PROM. It's early days yet. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scitari Posted December 17, 2018 Share Posted December 17, 2018 Thanks for this thread. I still have my Pill from back in the day and just did a blog post about it on Atari Projects. I wonder how many of these are still out there? I don't think they pop up on eBay very often. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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