When to spring for a Skunkboard?

[jmetal88]

I think the main thing that's hard for beginners to 'get' with ASM is memory management. At least that's the way it is with me. After reading up some on programming microcontrollers like the PIC with ASM, I have a little bit better understanding than I did when I just started trying to learn about ASM, but I still don't have it down well enough to make a useful program.

[+Gemintronic]

Geez. Found a Skunkboard on eBay for just under $300 dollars. Is there something down the pipe I can wait for or are homebrew devs just scrizooed on flash cart prices?

[GroovyBee]

If you can solder you can do the BJL BIOS mod for considerably less. You can also make coasters for the CD unit (if you have that) or you can rely on the help from other people in the community to test for you until you decide its worth pursuing.

[+Gemintronic]

Are there any guides to making the (presumably encrypted) CD image of your binary?

[GroovyBee]

Its all explained on the Reboot site here :-

 

http://reboot.atari.org/new-reboot/burning.html

[+Gemintronic]

myatari lists eprom boards with sockets. Is that a valid route? Or, do they have pretty outdated info?

http://www.myatari.com/atarijag.txt

Developer Stuff:

 

JAGEP2 JAGUAR EPROM CARTRIDGES 2X16MEG 20.00 W/SOCKETS

JAGEPB JAGUAR EPROM CART 2X16MEG BARE 5.00

NO SOCKETS USES TC5716200D EPROMS

JAGEPB1 JAGUAR 10 each EPROM CART 2X16MEG BARE 40.00

JAGEPB5 JAGUAR 50 each EPROM CART 2X16MEG BARE 175.00

 

JAGEP4 JAGUAR EPROM CART 4X4MEG 20.00

W/SOCKETS USES 27C4000D EPROMS

 

JAG27C800 27C800 EPROM 42 PIN $5.00

JAG27C160 27C160 EPROM 42 PIN $7.00

JAG27C4000 27C4000 EPROM $5.00

JAG93C46 93C46 SERIAL RAM $3.00

JAG93C86 93C86 SERIAL RAM $4.00

JAGCAP 2 BYPASS CAPS FOR CART $2.00

[CPUWIZ]

I'd say that "List change 2/25/2013" would indicate that it is pretty up to date.

[+Gemintronic]

I'd say that "List change 2/25/2013" would indicate that it is pretty up to date.

 

Which means I'm in retard mode. I hate being sick! Thanks for being my coprocessor CPUWIZ. I guess that just leaves finding a good source for the EPROMs and a programmer. I've always wanted an excuse to buy one

[sh3-rg]

Which means I'm in retard mode. I hate being sick! Thanks for being my coprocessor CPUWIZ. I guess that just leaves finding a good source for the EPROMs and a programmer. I've always wanted an excuse to buy one

 

Someone on js2 bought some bare boards and had to arse around a bit to get any use out of them (I'm still not sure if he got there yet). For development, burning eproms to test stuff is not going to be any fun.

 

There are people out there with spare skunkboards, I was lucky to find an AA member who sold me his for pretty much cost price because he knew it would get put to work making new games and not just sat on a shelf or playing ROMs like many of them end up. Put a message in the general AA Jaguar area, maybe you'll find someone who is sitting on one they would rather see being used for its intended purpose. Virtual Jaguar and a skunkboard is the perfect combo for Jaguar dev.

[+CyranoJ]

Geez. Found a Skunkboard on eBay for just under $300 dollars. Is there something down the pipe I can wait for or are homebrew devs just scrizooed on flash cart prices?

 

I've been working pretty much entirely with VirtualJaguar for the last 12 months or so, occasionally having one of the guys test on real hardware for me to make sure things are still working. VJ has come along a long, long way. I'm actually finding it more convenient to work with the emulator than I did with the skunkboard, plus it's faster, and there are some rudimentary debugging features available.

 

Once you know your 'core library' is solid on the real thing, there isn't much that can go wrong really. Hats of to Shamus and the VJ crew for the work they've been doing.

 

In a nutshell, you don't even need a Jaguar at all to start working on it.

Edited March 9, 2013 by CyranoJ