Igor Posted February 4 Author Share Posted February 4 47 minutes ago, JagChris said: I think I'm misunderstanding you. I have an ECSD and EOTB seems to run fine. It just won't save. Oh I see, if it's the cart version, I think it will only play up to a certain point. The cart had some kind of different EEPROM for saves as far as I remember, ECSD only has the 128 byte EEPROM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JagChris Posted February 4 Share Posted February 4 (edited) 49 minutes ago, Igor said: Oh I see, if it's the cart version, I think it will only play up to a certain point. The cart had some kind of different EEPROM for saves as far as I remember, ECSD only has the 128 byte EEPROM It only plays up.to a certain point? Well that sucks. I wonder why Karri and others would even bother discussing this with BennVenn. Got my hopes all up. Someday ill have to get a Lynx GD then I guess.. Edited February 4 by JagChris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+karri Posted February 4 Share Posted February 4 15 hours ago, JagChris said: It only plays up.to a certain point? Well that sucks. I wonder why Karri and others would even bother discussing this with BennVenn. Got my hopes all up. Someday ill have to get a Lynx GD then I guess.. I have the EOTB with the 16k RAM for saves. So it works. Currently I also have a 64k eeprom. I don't see a big problem to change the read/write routines from the RAM to the 64k eeprom. It was pretty easy to find the code in EOTB. But... The gameplay is frustrating as the mazes in later stages are completely unpredictable. So I have not made the change - yet... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JagChris Posted February 6 Share Posted February 6 On 2/4/2024 at 9:15 AM, karri said: I have the EOTB with the 16k RAM for saves. So it works. Currently I also have a 64k eeprom. I don't see a big problem to change the read/write routines from the RAM to the 64k eeprom. It was pretty easy to find the code in EOTB. But... The gameplay is frustrating as the mazes in later stages are completely unpredictable. So I have not made the change - yet... Well ok. It would have been nice if replies to.my initial post regarding ECSD, EOTB and game saves had been more clear instead of leaving impressions that weren't. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Igor Posted February 6 Author Share Posted February 6 3 hours ago, JagChris said: Well ok. It would have been nice if replies to.my initial post regarding ECSD, EOTB and game saves had been more clear instead of leaving impressions that weren't. I've had a look at the Atari Lynx Vault game database and it lists EOTB as a 512K ROM, so what I said about it only playing up to a point isn't correct, for some reason I was thinking it was a much larger ROM. What @karri is talking about is that the "homebrew" release used an NVRAM for the EEPROM, the ECSD uses a 93C46 chip, the NVRAM is 16K vs the 93C46 having just 128 bytes. I don't know if EOTB uses all 16K, but I'd imagine it will be using more than 128 bytes. It would be interesting to see if this works on @SainT's Game Drive... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SainT Posted February 6 Share Posted February 6 No, it uses the 2nd chip enable for SRAM save state as I remember. It could be modified to use a different save method compatible with the GD, but I’ve not looked at doing that… I did think about it some years ago. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+karri Posted February 6 Share Posted February 6 It uses similar commands as when interfacing with a cart. The blocksize is just 64 bytes and you use the block lines as with a cart. So my suggestion is to ditch the SRAM code and replace it with something else. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Igor Posted February 7 Author Share Posted February 7 Ok so the end story is that EOTB can't save on any of the current SD Flash Carts as I understand it... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JagChris Posted February 7 Share Posted February 7 37 minutes ago, Igor said: Ok so the end story is that EOTB can't save on any of the current SD Flash Carts as I understand it... OK. The ECSD only has one 128byte save chip? What game uses that? And if there are multiple games needing that save are they out of luck? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Igor Posted February 7 Author Share Posted February 7 (edited) 1 hour ago, JagChris said: OK. The ECSD only has one 128byte save chip? What game uses that? And if there are multiple games needing that save are they out of luck? Pretty much every single modern homebrew game uses the 128 byte chip, the NVRAM was only used in EOTB as far as I know The ECSD does save the contents of the EEPROM to the SD card when it detects a ROM change, so you could play multiple games that make use of the EEPROM, though I've not really experimented in much detail with this Edited February 7 by Igor 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eewoke Posted March 22 Share Posted March 22 Hi, I feel a complete noob. I do not seem to be able to update my elcheapo with firmware 008. Would someone be so kind to explain what steps to take? I followed the instructions.txt and explanation on the atarigamer website. Both explanations are different though. Please help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Igor Posted March 23 Author Share Posted March 23 8 hours ago, eewoke said: Hi, I feel a complete noob. I do not seem to be able to update my elcheapo with firmware 008. Would someone be so kind to explain what steps to take? I followed the instructions.txt and explanation on the atarigamer website. Both explanations are different though. Please help. What you need to do is put FIRMWARE.BEN and BOOT.BIN from the update zip on the SD card. Put batteries in your Lynx, it's not recommended to use USB or a power adapter for this. Put the SD card into the ECSD, put the ECSD into the Lynx. Turn the Lynx on. It should power up and say INSERT GAME, it takes about 10 seconds for the firmware to update, so you will see this message until it's updated. Once updated, it will boot into the menu. You can replace the standard menu with our menu if you like. Now there's a catch here, not all SD cards work for doing the upgrade - you need to use an 8Gb card or smaller, and not all brands work either. I had to go through a bunch of different SD cards before I could get one that worked. Hope that helps! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eewoke Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 Hi, Thanks! I used different sd cards. I thought it worked, but now I get the message ‘too many files’ after reading the sd card. Only 8 games in the root and the latest boot.bin. Driving me nuts…. 😳 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
42bs Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 42 minutes ago, eewoke said: Hi, Thanks! I used different sd cards. I thought it worked, but now I get the message ‘too many files’ after reading the sd card. Only 8 games in the root and the latest boot.bin. Driving me nuts…. 😳 Re-format the SD card as FAT32 and put files back. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eewoke Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 24 minutes ago, 42bs said: Re-format the SD card as FAT32 and put files back. Thanks!! That did the trick. All works like a charm now! Unfortunately the Mister Lynx pack is not working. Probably those roms use headers. A no intro set worked perfectly. Again thanks for all help! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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