Buil a cartridge: time, costs,...

[Matej]

When you are in Europe.

Or 60cent for 20 plus package.

Here is Z7/KP38 cartridge shell.

http://www.soselectronic.com/?str=371&artnum=50531&name=z7-kp38

[barnieg]

When you are in Europe.

Or 60cent for 20 plus package.

Here is Z7/KP38 cartridge shell.

http://www.soselectronic.com/?str=371&artnum=50531&name=z7-kp38

 

Very Cheap, but wouldn't you need a custom pcb?

[Matej]

Nope. They was used for TURBO and game cartridges in POLAND.

[Island2Live]

Nope. They was used for TURBO and game cartridges in POLAND.

Unfortunately at the moment (4-Apr-2014) the stock is listed with only 5 pcs. available. When making a badge of cartridges with say 25 or 50 this is not enough. Are there any alternatives?

 

Kind regards,

Henrik (Island2Live)

[peteym5]

Video61 (Atarisales.com) has some stock blank cartridge boards, Williams (32K and 64K) and XEGS (upto 128K) bank switching formats. Along with cheaper 8K and 16K cartridges.

 

One issue with selling games on Flash Cartridges, after you sell them, they can loose their memory. A few bought a 2nd run of Tempest Xtreem and ran into this issue.

 

EPROM cartridges hold their memory and cannot be re flashed without and EPROM burner.

 

You have to consider the Royalties owed to the programmer, artists, musicians who worked on these games who want their cut from each sales. Plus have to consider labor of manufacturing the cartridge.

 

I will be honest that I had been looking for cheaper and reliable alternatives to making cartridges for games. So if someone can come up with something, please say something.

[HiassofT]

One issue with selling games on Flash Cartridges, after you sell them, they can loose their memory. A few bought a 2nd run of Tempest Xtreem and ran into this issue.

It would be interesting what caused these issues. If done properly data retention time and data safety of EPROMs and flash ROMs should be approximately on par.

 

If you are using a flash-based cart you could tie the write enable input to VCC (like you do with the VPP pin on EPROMs) after programming it - for example using a (solder-)jumper. Then you can't erase or reprogram it.

 

I will be honest that I had been looking for cheaper and reliable alternatives to making cartridges for games. So if someone can come up with something, please say something.

If the existing solutions like Atarimax or SIC don't fit your needs (for example the above mentioned hardware write protect might be quite desirable) you could talk to the developers if they could adapt their cart to your needs - or you could design a cart by yourself.

 

You could then use this design as a base for most/all of your future projects.

 

Nowadays it's no big deal - and also quite cheap - to get small batches of 50 or 100 PCBs manufactured. Actually this might be cheaper than doing it by yourself as the PCB manufactures who also do pick-and-place usually buy the parts in large quantities. Just be sure you only use SMT parts and avoid THT in your design - otherwise it won't be cheap.

 

We gave this a try when we built The!Cart (mega-hz might be able to tell you more as he took care of it) and it worked out really well.

 

Once you have a bunch of "blanks" you can easily program them with whatever game/software you like, maybe hardware-write-protect it, put it in a case and you are done.

 

For automated testing and master-programming The!Cart we built a small adapter with 2 cart slots and a little bit of logic so we could switch between them in software. I wrote a small tool for the Atari that would program the data from the master cart to the slave cart, verify it and also check the RAM and EEPROM. Programming 128MB took quite some time, but since the whole process ran unattended you could just start it before going to bed and had a ready-to-ship cart in the morning.

 

Another alternative would have been to use something faster than the good old Atari 8bit, for example an Atmel/PIC/ARM microcontroller, then the whole process would have been a lot faster - but I didn't have the spare time to do this.

 

so long,

 

Hias

[jaybird3rd]

Does anyone think there would be a demand for an inexpensive new cartridge board which uses the same bankswitching as Atari's XEGS cartridges but which can support larger EPROMs (>256K)? I'd like to try my hand at converting some disk-based games to cartridge format, so I was thinking of designing some boards for my own use, but I'd be glad to also make them available to others if there is any interest in them. They would be designed to fit Atari's original 400/800 and XEGS cartridge shells.

 

(EDIT: Never mind, it looks like Bryan has already done exactly what I had in mind! Serves me right for not keeping up with these projects!)

[+CharlieChaplin]

Does anyone think there would be a demand for an inexpensive new cartridge board which uses the same bankswitching as Atari's XEGS cartridges but which can support larger EPROMs (>256K)? I'd like to try my hand at converting some disk-based games to cartridge format, so I was thinking of designing some boards for my own use, but I'd be glad to also make them available to others if there is any interest in them. They would be designed to fit Atari's original 400/800 and XEGS cartridge shells.

 

Well,

 

Brian already has such XE/XEGS pcb`s available, ranging from 64k up to 1MB. Personally I think the pcb`s are not the big problem, but the cart. shells are (if you do not want to re- use the old shells from the 80s)...

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/223288-possible-cartridge-project/?do=findComment&comment=2950148

 

-Andreas Koch.

[jaybird3rd]

Ah, thanks for the tip! I have some of Bryan's cartridges in my collection, but I never opened them up; if I had, I would have seen that he already designed exactly the kind of board I had in mind! Good to know that it's out there.

 

I agree that cartridge shells are, by far, the most difficult component to obtain, now that designing and manufacturing new boards is relatively simple. I wonder if the new shells that AtariMax uses for their cartridges available for purchase separately.

[peteym5]

We might need someone to make us some shells that properly fit. The link at the top of the 2nd page here, the shells are slightly too wide to fit into an Atari 8-bit slot. We know spoke with Bryan.

 

You have the XEGS boards for 64K ROMS and up. But also may need something for games 32K and under or else it will cost the same. Video61 (Lance) at Atarisales.com has a surplus of Williams cartridges 32K & 64K. Also has 16K that are cheaper. If the final game is under 24K, you can use Deflater/Inflater and decompress parts into RAM to fit onto a 16K cartridge.

Edited April 7, 2014 by peteym5

[peteym5]

Bump...

 

With these Flash Cartridges like SIC! and AtariMax, can the flash chip be replaced with an EPROM, or are the pinouts that different?

[Island2Live]

It appears to me the boards (PCBs) are not that of a problem. Propper dimensioned shells holding the boards are the (sorry) pain in the ... well ... you know.

»Matej« provided a link to shells which - he said - could hold PCBs for Atari (the »Z7=KP38« ones from the company »SOS Electronic«). Now »peteym5« says they are slightly too wide to fit into the Atari. Is someone able to confirm or deny this?

I've investigated in Germany what it might cost to produce shells on my own using plastic die casting. The shells itself are very cheap to produce. The problem is the so called »tool« for the die casting process. Producing this one is the expensive part (min. EUR 1,000.00 here in Germany). When you are going to produce 1,000 shells the price is acceptable in my humble opinion. But for 50 or 100 shells as an experiment to produce a game in cartridge ... forget it.

There is an other thread here in the forum:

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/146490-spectraview-1-and-2-info/?p=2970695

which lists the company »Solakian Mold Co.« in Fresno, CA as a possible producer of shells (or better say they produced the shells 25 years ago). But »Kyle22« wrote the company is gone.

I also see an option to kindly ask the makers of »RGCD« (the company which produces games on cart for the C64) how they managed to get new unused shells for their games.

Any other ideas welcome.


Kind regards,
Henrik (Island2Live)

[Island2Live]

I found this:

 

http://icomp.de/products/cartcase_e.htm

 

I think the question for the new cases for the C64-games of RGCD is now solved. I question myself if those cases can be used for an Atari (I don't know the dimensions of the Atari shells)?

 

Kind regards,

Henrik (Island2Live)

[Mathy]

Hallo Henrik

 

I've investigated in Germany what it might cost to produce shells on my own using plastic die casting. The shells itself are very cheap to produce. The problem is the so called »tool« for the die casting process. Producing this one is the expensive part (min. EUR 1,000.00 here in Germany). When you are going to produce 1,000 shells the price is acceptable in my humble opinion. But for 50 or 100 shells as an experiment to produce a game in cartridge ... forget it.

 

What quality are we talking about, when producing the tool costs € 1000,- ? And if we want a better quality, how much/how fast would the price go up? Would that be "any shape"? How much would the shells cost, not counting the price for the tool?

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

 

PS @All: Could we just copy one of the Atari shells or would we need to ask Atari if we can use their design or do we need to come up with a new design? And how hard would it be to design a shape that could easily (like with of without an inlay in the die cast tool) be used for pass through cartridges.

Edited April 16, 2014 by Mathy

[Paul Westphal]

Keep it the XE style...grey case with colorful glossy blue label..try to make it look like an original XE release. I'm looking forward to this game on cart. Too bad Lance at V61 can't make better labels... you may want to talk him into getting a better printer.

[Island2Live]

What quality are we talking about, when producing the tool costs € 1000,- ? And if we want a better quality, how much/how fast would the price go up? Would that be "any shape"? How much would the shells cost, not counting the price for the tool?

 

I try to answer as best as I can from what I've found on German plastic producer sites. They usually want a written question to calculate the costs. But at the moment I shy away from that as long as I am not actually going to produce shells.

 

Quality

The quality is usual industry quality for producing plastic cases. As far as I understand and if you are going to produce a »tool« you will get exactly the same quality as the original shells from Atari.

 

Shape

It's all up to the »tool«. You must understand the tool is basically two metallic blocks with carved spare parts where the plastic will go in during the mold process. Those two parts are pressed together with extreme pressure and then the plastic goes in filling the empty room. The two parts of the tool are separated again and you have what you want to produce. Basically that's it.

 

It's up to client to define how it should look like. I am far from being an expert in the area but you can produce nearly any shape. May it be a yoghurt beaker, a can for shampoo, the housing for an MP3 player ... or an Atari cart.

 

Producing cost for the shells

Don't know exactly. It depends on the produced quantity. I think if you like to go for say 1,000 shells it's probably only some cent.

 

Producing cost for the tool

I forgot to mention: Since we need two parts for the shells - one upper and one lower - we need two tools. So this price will go up to at least EUR 2,000.00.

 

Copyright of Atari

Since we are not going to copy the exact shape of an Atari shell this should not be an issue. The dimensions of the shell are not copy protected. And we are not going to copy that »push insert flap« mechanism of the old brown shells simply because it would be too expensive. I would intentionally go for a slightly different look of the shells. I would also like to make them a bit taller to the cost of being not compatible to the old Atari 400/800 computers (because of their closing door). The benefit is: You have more room for more electronics in the shell.

 

 

Keep it the XE style...grey case with colorful glossy blue label..try to make it look like an original XE release. I'm looking forward to this game on cart. Too bad Lance at V61 can't make better labels... you may want to talk him into getting a better printer.

 

That's exactly what I have in my mind. But any other color is thinkable. And I really mean ANY.

 

 

Kind regards,

Henrik (Island2Live)

[Island2Live]

... Too bad Lance at V61 can't make better labels... you may want to talk him into getting a better printer.

 

Btw. - I forgot to mention - professional made labels meaning being made by a printing company in the range of 100 to 250 pcs with four color printing and on plastic outdoor quality label does cost nothing more than EUR 20,00 here in Germany. In other Europe countries and in the US should be roughly the same. So ... no excuse for bad made labels.

 

Kind regards,

Henrik (Island2Live)

Edited April 17, 2014 by Island2Live

[Island2Live]

Since I am thinking so long about making a whole »buyable« package with an Atari 800 cart I've written down a parts list of the things you need. Here it comes:


PCB - Electronic Board
You need something which holds the electronic components. Those boards are not complicated to make and are readily available from various sources.

Electronic Components
EPROM, TTL-logic, maybe an IC-holder, etc. ... all the electronic components which are needed to build the electronic components of the cart.

Cartridge Case
Probably one of the two most problematic parts (see discussion in this thread). The PCB needs a plastic housing for the convenience of buyers. You don't want to give a buyer who payed - let's say $30,00 - a raw PCB.

Cartridge Label
The cartridge needs a professional made label.

Instruction Manual
Of course we want a multi-page full color printed manual for our cartridge.

Gadgets
I always think about giving some gagdgets to my buyers. Just to say »thank you so much for buying my product«. This could be badges, plastic cards with a game logo, a sticker, a pin, a medal, whatever. Don't underestimate the importance of such things!

 

I LOVE the idea of giving out a medal or plastic card with an engraved code. Entered into the game this code enables certain features.

 

Packaging
The second most complicated part. All the items above needs a »housing« to put it onto the shelf. I can see a full color printed box in the usual Atari silver-grey. My investigations indicate it's also not that cheap to produce this. Especially there need to be a punched holder for the cart fitting into the box.


Kind regards,
Henrik (Island2Live)

Edited April 17, 2014 by Island2Live

[flashjazzcat]

I agree that cartridge shells are, by far, the most difficult component to obtain, now that designing and manufacturing new boards is relatively simple. I wonder if the new shells that AtariMax uses for their cartridges available for purchase separately.

 

It appears not. There was some frustration expressed regarding the non-availability of these bare shells during the initial SIDE cart runs, but whether any direct approaches were made to AtariMax I do not know. Hence the slightly-too-wide shells are in general use, and 1200XL cart tunnels require widening with a flat file. Shame, since the AtariMax shells are perfect.

Edited April 17, 2014 by flashjazzcat

[Irgendwer]

Are there any alternatives?

 

 

http://elektronika-sklep.pl/sklep/p3398,obudowa-z7.html

http://maszczyk.pl/pl/offer/view/86/334/obudowy-km-20

http://maszczyk.pl/en/offer/view/86/335/km-20b

?

Edited April 17, 2014 by Irgendwer

[ivop]

Here's my latest experiment, making your own with a silicone mold and polyurethane:

 

http://atariage.com/forums/blog/293/entry-10952-making-you-own-polyurethane-cartridge-cases/

 

Regards,

Ivo

 

 

[Island2Live]

That is very interesting! Especially if one want's to produce very low charges like 25 or 50 cartridges. Thank you very much for sharing your experiment with the public!

 

Kind regards,

Henrik (Island2Live)