Making your own game?

[Video]

Ok, I know Atari Age sells Eproms in various sizes, and all the Boards you'd need for both 2600 and 5200, and I can strip Pac-Man carts for these to go in all day long.

 

But where the heck do I get an EProm burner from? I've never gotten a streight answer. I know, they're probably expensive, but I'd be willing to pay a hundred or two to burn my own games (nothing illegal mind you) Oh, preferably I'd like a burner that'll burn chips Atariage sells.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

One more question, why doesn't Atari Age sell burners? Or is price the issue?

 

Oh, I'll need to know how it hooks up and what to do to get a Bin Rom image to the cart, but I'll ask that at a later date once I get an Eprom burner that will work with Atari games.

[tearex]

A number of burners for older Computers (for example the Commodore 64) can be found cheap on eBay, normally within a week or so one should show up. I payed about $25 or so for mine, if I remember correctly. They were more widespread in Germany than in the US though, so maybe on the US eBay site it might take longer and/or be more expensive than over here. I don't know if there were burners for other systems like the Apple II or the Atati 8-bit series. The C64 had a couple of features, like AC voltage on the port, that made it very easy to build a simple, cheap, and reliable burner for that system with no need for external power supplies, memory or a microprocessor in the burner, or similar stuff. The software for the C64 burners is usually floating around the net somewhere, so even if you don't get a disk it will be possible to find it usually.

 

A current PC based burner will probably cost you at least $100, more like $250 for a half-decent one. Although I didn't check the prices after I got the C64 based burner.

 

Also don't forget that you'll probably want to get an UV eraser as well. Otherwise you can't reuse the EPROMs.

 

The old burners normally all did the 2716/32/64/128/256 chips, but not much more. Most burners of today can burn dozens of chips, but they should all have lists which tell you exactly which chips work. the 27xx are so standard that few burners should have problems with them.

 

Any *good* electronics store, where the people working there actually know what they sell, should be able to get one for you and answer any particular questions you might have.

 

Hope this helps,

[Super-Genius!]

You can get a reasonably priced burner from these people:

 

http://www.m2l.com

 

They work quite good!!

[Video]

Cool, thanks for the tips and linsk. So, if I get a C64 burner, I should be able to copy the bin I want to a 5.25 disc and use the Commodore to burn it right? I mean, I don't think it's important that the machine actually knows what it's burning to do a good job does it?

[tearex]

Cool, thanks for the tips and linsk.  So, if I get a C64 burner, I should be able to copy the bin I want to a 5.25 disc and use the Commodore to burn it right?  I mean, I don't think it's important that the machine actually knows what it's burning to do a good job does it?

 

Correct. You'll need some way to get the file on a Commodore disk, for example StarCommander from http://sta.c64.org or you can connect the systems with a Null-modem cable and download the file to the C64. Unfortunately there's no way to make disks that the C64's floppy drive can understand in a PC 5.25 drive.

 

Otherwise it doesn't matter at all what system the data is for or from, all the burner wants is a bunch o'bytes.