Zach Posted April 7, 2003 Share Posted April 7, 2003 If toy companies can make talking dolls, it seems entirely feasible to build a circuit that produces the audio signal for a Supercharger to read. Attach a headphone jack, pack it inside an unloved Pac-Man cart, and there it is: a cartridge you can hold in your hands, store with your other carts, and use to load the game more conveniently than with a CD player. I have almost no experience with electronics, so I'd like to find out what others think. Cheers, Zach Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CPUWIZ Posted April 7, 2003 Share Posted April 7, 2003 That would be called the Cuttle Cart. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zach Posted April 7, 2003 Author Share Posted April 7, 2003 But isn't the Cuttle Cart a substitute for a Supercharger? I meant making something that substitutes the CD player. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted April 7, 2003 Share Posted April 7, 2003 ?? "Attach a headphone hack..." Then why would you even need a headphone jack? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zach Posted April 7, 2003 Author Share Posted April 7, 2003 OK. I guess my description was not very descriptive. Since a picture is worth a thousand words... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted April 7, 2003 Share Posted April 7, 2003 Hm...that somehow didn't make things easier How about the upcoming Flash Cart? I think that one lets you grab a cart's data. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CPUWIZ Posted April 7, 2003 Share Posted April 7, 2003 LOL ... I know what he is talking about now, a cartridge that plays a WAV file into the SuperCharger/CuttleCart. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted April 7, 2003 Share Posted April 7, 2003 * confused But if you had the actual cart...why bother with a Supercharger? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zach Posted April 7, 2003 Author Share Posted April 7, 2003 But if you had the actual cart...why bother with a Supercharger? That's a valid question. Because SuperCharger games require extra RAM. I think putting such games in a cart has been ruled out before because of the cost of RAM. (You'd need 6K). Publishing Supercharger CDs has been discouraged because people extol the virtues of a physical cart you can hold in your hands. (I tend to agree.) Talking dolls don't cost much, so I was thinking this could be a solution to both problems. Good Luck, Zach Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricBall Posted April 8, 2003 Share Posted April 8, 2003 My C$0.03: Although there might be some perceived benefit to having a standalone playback unit for Supercharger games, it still requires the buyer to have either a Supercharger or a Cuttle Cart. (Which is one of the negatives for Supercharger homebrews.) Keeping costs down may also be tricky. I suspect there are microcontrollers with onboard DACs, and maybe even onboard EEPROM which could be used. (Talking dolls are cheap because of economies of scale, allowing for cheap semi-custom VLSI chips.) Creating a "Super Chip" or "RAM +" homebrew cartridge shouldn't be expensive. A 2Kbyte RAM (smallest from Maxim/Dallas Semi) is $5.50. The bankswitching/write logic will determine the complexity & cost of the control logic (e.g. LSI, PLC, FPGA), but any >4K homebrew already has that. Standalone cartrige versions of Supercharger games may even be technically possible, with a custom loader application replacing the SC ROM. (Heck, the Cuttle Cart does this and more.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zach Posted April 10, 2003 Author Share Posted April 10, 2003 Thanks Eric, that was worth more than 3 cents. I hope no one faults me for my naive enthusiam. It's just that I love the Supercharger. (Plus I'm looking forward to Leprechaun.) I'll go back to software hacking now, something I know I can handle. Zach Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slapdash Posted April 11, 2003 Share Posted April 11, 2003 Publishing Supercharger CDs has been discouraged because people extol the virtues of a physical cart you can hold in your hands. Er, actually, making CDRs has been discouraged because CDs have been made professionally and are being sold off for only $5 apiece shipped. Why reinvent the wheel? Hozer Video Games still has them, you just have to order via regular mail now. I've given the address in a couple Supercharger threads in the 2600 forum. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cschell Posted April 12, 2003 Share Posted April 12, 2003 Keeping costs down may also be tricky. I suspect there are microcontrollers with onboard DACs, and maybe even onboard EEPROM which could be used. (Talking dolls are cheap because of economies of scale, allowing for cheap semi-custom VLSI chips.) There are micros with on board DACs, but there would be no need to use one. The supercharger would happily accept a square wave from the micro's digital output lines. Just keep the fundamental frequency of the squarewave in the same range as the audio files. Chad Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carlos_Lopez Posted April 12, 2003 Share Posted April 12, 2003 Creating a "Super Chip" or "RAM +" homebrew cartridge shouldn't be expensive. A 2Kbyte RAM (smallest from Maxim/Dallas Semi) is $5.50 You can also consider using a bigger (and cheaper) RAM. You can buy a CY6264-70SNC 8KB SRAM for $3.42 ($2.13 in hundreds) from DigiKey, or even a CY7C199-35VC 32KB SRAM for $2.10 ($1.26 in 100's). Just tie the extra address lines to Vcc and you will have a cheap 2KB RAM. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mos6507 Posted April 13, 2003 Share Posted April 13, 2003 I think it would be possible to simply store the supercharger games in ROM and load the games digitally by copying them from ROM to RAM without the audio step. You'd just need to rewrite the Starpath routines to sidestep the audio decoding. That would be much more efficient than storing audio on the cart. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricBall Posted April 13, 2003 Share Posted April 13, 2003 I think it would be possible to simply store the supercharger games in ROM and load the games digitally by copying them from ROM to RAM without the audio step. You'd just need to rewrite the Starpath routines to sidestep the audio decoding. That would be much more efficient than storing audio on the cart. Correct, but you would also have to have a CPLD to duplicate the unusual Supercharger bankswitching/write logic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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