mickey Posted February 9, 2003 Share Posted February 9, 2003 For the few of you who were interested (judging from the lack of positive responses to my last post). I have finished the bootloader code, Da Vinci is now upgradable with no extra hardware. I have finished the CPLD updater code, the bankswitching chip is now upgradable with no additional hardware. I have added a 5x7 led matrix and a three button dial switch found on many PDAs (the one that has up and down and push). The led matrix scrolls messages and animations while the dial switch allows for menu selecting. I have added text searching so bins can easily be found on the flash card and loaded without the use of VCS or PC. This part has worked out better than I ever imagined and no impact on price. I am still working on adding VCS selectable games. I have completed the circuit board design (it all fits in a standard case), pictures to come. I am sending it out to the board house this week, but low cash will forced me to go with a 4 week lead time option. I am still working out the assembly of the board. All but a few parts are surface mount including passive components, which makes it almost impossible to assemble by hand. If anyone knows of somewhere I can get 5 prototypes assembled, passive and active components on both sides, for a reasonable price, please let me know!! I have been talking with Albert and hope he will agree to test one of the protos against his cart collection. Thats it for now, here are a couple pictures. I know what your thinking about the led matrix, its too small. Thats what I thought, so I started out with a bigger module. It turns out that this one worked much better than the bigger one, its easier to read! CPUWIZ, could you mirror these pictures again, I am using a friends web account? Thanks Hope to hear from you, Vern Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CPUWIZ Posted February 9, 2003 Share Posted February 9, 2003 Done, I smell a discount on this puppy coming up for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SS Posted February 9, 2003 Share Posted February 9, 2003 For the few of you who were interested (judging from the lack of positive responses to my last post) It's not that I'm not interested, it's that you're talking sooooo far over my head! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
liquid_sky Posted February 10, 2003 Share Posted February 10, 2003 i must have missed the orig thread, so sorry if this is redundant, but what size cards will this bad boy accept? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CPUWIZ Posted February 10, 2003 Share Posted February 10, 2003 http://www.atariage.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=20077 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
liquid_sky Posted February 10, 2003 Share Posted February 10, 2003 CPUWIZ to the rescue Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JCroniger Posted February 10, 2003 Share Posted February 10, 2003 I am very interested. I think there are a lot of other people interested too. There is definitely a demand for this kind of item, just look at what the Cuttle Cart is going for on Ebay. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mickey Posted February 10, 2003 Author Share Posted February 10, 2003 Its nice to hear some support. Are people interested in buying this if it is available at $150. I wish it was cheaper, but assembly is jacking the price up, there are big up front costs and per board cost. How much did the cuttle sell for? Seems like an unlimited size hard drive for your VCS would be worth $150, let me know if I am wasting my time. If not $150, what would it be worth? Thanks, Vern Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goochman Posted February 10, 2003 Share Posted February 10, 2003 Ok, To recap for folks - What does this do that other products dont - How would Cupcakus product differ? Pros/Cons anyone - I want to buy one of these things but want the most flexibility. $150 is fine for me depending on which one offers to most back for the buck. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrizzLee Posted February 10, 2003 Share Posted February 10, 2003 $150 is steep for such limited capability!!!! However, I would pay upt to $200 for something that: ______________________________________________ a) Was fully tested and qualified to work on ALL 7800 models. b) Could hold all the 7800 and 2600 games on one flash rom. c) Get rid of the LCD/LED screen and use on-screen menu that users can select the games using their joysticks or the "Select" button. __________________________________________________ I think this is doable, with the expception of Pitfall II and the Pokey chip enabled games. Just my 2 cents..... -Lee Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mickey Posted February 10, 2003 Author Share Posted February 10, 2003 To recap for folks - What does this do that other products dont Simply, the Da Vinci stores bins loaded from a PC or cloned from a cart onto a removable 2MB flash card. All bankswitching is supported except starpath or Pitfall II, starpath will be in future release. Game selection can be done from PC via serial cable, onboard LED display, or 2600 (still in progress). PC wise, it is OS indepenent. The only thing needed is an ANSI terminal and xmodem or xmodem/crc serial transfer protocol. Firmware is completely upgradable as is the bankswitching logic without the use of any extra hardware. Included would be the Da Vinci with one 2MB flash card, power cable, cloning cable, serial cable. No plans are in place to support the 7800. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JCroniger Posted February 10, 2003 Share Posted February 10, 2003 Its nice to hear some support. Are people interested in buying this if it is available at $150. I wish it was cheaper, but assembly is jacking the price up, there are big up front costs and per board cost. How much did the cuttle sell for? Seems like an unlimited size hard drive for your VCS would be worth $150, let me know if I am wasting my time. If not $150, what would it be worth? Thanks, Vern I think the original Cuttle Cart went for $100.00 This also included a floopy disk. I think that the Da Vinci would be worth $150. It sounds like a great item. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goochman Posted February 10, 2003 Share Posted February 10, 2003 So, I hook it up to the PC via a Serial cable, download 2600 bins to it, unplug and connect to the 2600 and play games? Or does it have to stay connected to the PC? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mickey Posted February 10, 2003 Author Share Posted February 10, 2003 So,I hook it up to the PC via a Serial cable, download 2600 bins to it, unplug and connect to the 2600 and play games? Or does it have to stay connected to the PC? It does not need to stay connected to PC. You dont even need a PC technically. You can go to your mom's house, hook up all your old carts, clone them, come home and play them all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CPUWIZ Posted February 10, 2003 Share Posted February 10, 2003 $150 is steep for such limited capability!!!! Limited ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goochman Posted February 10, 2003 Share Posted February 10, 2003 So this thing can suck carts right into memory and then I can go plug it into my 2600? Does the LED allow me to choose which 'cart bank' to play (I presume)? That would be cool. SO how does Cupcakus offering differ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mickey Posted February 10, 2003 Author Share Posted February 10, 2003 So this thing can suck carts right into memory and then I can go plug it into my 2600? Does the LED allow me to choose which 'cart bank' to play (I presume)? That would be cool. Not sure what you mean by 'cart bank', so I will answer two ways. Bankswitching is auto detected in the cloning process. When downloading a bin, it will be necessary to know the bankswitch type. I have made a new bin type that I call a vin. It is the same as a bin except a header that has the cart name and bankswitching type. Cloned carts can be saved as bins or vins, bins for stella compat, and vins for Da Vinci use. There are a couple ways to select a bin to play using the on board LED matrix display. The first is to simply scroll through all the bins and select the one you want. The second is a text search and scroll through bins that match. And third I am finishing work on, adding an indexing system, so you can just input a number associated bin and go right to it (this is by far the fastest way to select games). For my proto setup, I keep a print out of my bins and indexes. I am almost done implementing this, couple bugs still. Bins can also be selected with the PC, and I havent put much time into it yet, but I am working on setting up a VCS selectable game thing (no promises, but looks promising). Hope this answers the question! Vern Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SS Posted February 10, 2003 Share Posted February 10, 2003 I would definitely pick one of these up for $150. I am assuming that the flash card can be continually written to? Sounds cool as heck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mickey Posted February 10, 2003 Author Share Posted February 10, 2003 I am assuming that the flash card can be continually written to? Flash cards can be rewritten. They arent that expensive either, $10. I only support the Atmel Data Flash 2MB now, possible update later to support larger cards (do you really need larger?), and other types of cards (other types are cheaper for much more space). http://www.digikey.com/scripts/us/dksus.dl...2600&Row=132264 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goochman Posted February 11, 2003 Share Posted February 11, 2003 Ok, So - what does Cupcakus cart thing do different from this one - Anyone know? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Nathan Strum Posted February 11, 2003 Share Posted February 11, 2003 I have made a new bin type that I call a vin. It is the same as a bin except a header that has the cart name and bankswitching type. Cloned carts can be saved as bins or vins, bins for stella compat, and vins for Da Vinci use. So... what happens if you try to run a non-vin bin on Da Vinci? I assume, based on other posts, that this works. But the above quote makes me wonder how it will detect the correct bankswitching method off of a regular bin? Will a cloned cart work as a bin on Da Vinci, or does it have to be a vin? Will all bins need to be vins to use the 2600-based bin selection method? Am I completely missing the whole concept? I especially like the idea of OS independence with Da Vinci. Sure, Mac users only have 3% market share, but it's nice to be included from time to time. Sure hope it'll work with a USB/serial converter or serial PCI card. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mickey Posted February 12, 2003 Author Share Posted February 12, 2003 I have made a new bin type that I call a vin. It is the same as a bin except a header that has the cart name and bankswitching type. Cloned carts can be saved as bins or vins, bins for stella compat, and vins for Da Vinci use. Am I completely missing the whole concept? Sorry for the confusion. I will try to clear it up. First off, bins and vins only exist on your PC. A bin is just a list of the data that is in a cart. If you download a bin to a Da Vinci, you will need to provide a bankswitching type. Da Vinci cannot detect the correct bankswitching of a bin. There are a few places that have lists of bankswitching type, so it shouldnt be too hard to fill it in. If you select the wrong type, nothing blows up, but you will get weird stuff through the screen and speakers of your TV. There are a couple ways to download bins to Da Vinci. One, is to the SRAM. If you do this, the bin is not permanently saved, it will be lost as soon as power in disconnected. Only one bin can exist in the SRAM at a time and that is the bin that will be played when placed in the VCS. Another way is to download a bin just to the flash card. If you do this, you will not effect the bin in the SRAM, but along with bankswitch type you will need to supply a name for the bin (sorta like the bin has a filename on your PC, but in this case it is a filename on the flash card). Downloading to the flash card is permanent (until you delete). Now I got tired of every time I download a bin into Da Vinci I had to fill in banktype and name, so I created a new file type on my PC. A vin is the exact same information as the bin except a 128 byte header. The header contain the name and bankswitching type and a few other things. I wrote a script that went through my bins and made vin copies so they would be more friendly to Da Vinci. It is a huge time saver for me because during testing a would constantly be erasing my flash card and downloading all my bins again. You DO NOT need to use vin files if you dont want to. As far as cloning carts gos, bankswitching can be auto detected. So simply cloning a cart is enough to be able to play it, but to save it to the flash card you need to provide a name. If you clone a cart and wish to upload it to a PC, then you have the option of uploading a vin file or a bin file to your PC. Hope this clears things up, let me know if it doesnt, Vern Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SS Posted February 13, 2003 Share Posted February 13, 2003 Hope this clears things up, let me know if it doesnt OK, call me thick. Lord knows you wouldn't be the first to do so. Anyway, I can only clone my own carts to use with Da Vinci? I don't see the point in that. Unless I'm missing something (which I probably am). The way I see it, the whole reason to use a product like this would be to play games that I don't already own or new homebrews / hacks. Will there be a way to do this? I'm so confused ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CPUWIZ Posted February 13, 2003 Share Posted February 13, 2003 You can upload any game (except Pitfall II and Starpath games) into the cart, not just your own. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SS Posted February 13, 2003 Share Posted February 13, 2003 You can upload any game (except Pitfall II and Starpath games) into the cart, not just your own. So how will it know which bankswitching method to use if the game is not in VIN format? Will a conversion program be availible? I'm still so confused ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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