BackBit cartridge on the Intellivision

[mr_me]

 

29 minutes ago, Caleb Garner said:

yep some of those games failed to load.  i didn't try all of them, but none of the ones in my list you mentioned that i did try loaded. 

 

is there a tutorial on how to run the bin2rom program to do conversions?  i've never done it before and it looks like i have a LOT of things to convert  

 

In a Windows computer click and drag the .bin/int rom file on to the bin2rom.exe command file that comes with jzintv.  You should see a .rom file with the same name appear with the .bin/int file.  You'll find bin2rom.exe in a subfolder called "bin".  Jzintv found here http://spatula-city.org/~im14u2c/intv/

 

Each .bin/int file you convert should have a .cfg file of the same name.  If it doesn't and it uses a non standard memory map, it will fail to run.

Edited August 15, 2022 by mr_me

[8bitwidgets.com]

ah that's easy!   i thought i might be getting into some cmd / dos commands.  I'll try that out.  if not tonight i'm going to give it a go tomorrow at work.  

[mthompson]

Can someone post an example of a run command to use with bin2rom on a Mac? Thanks. 

[mr_me]

On a command line it would be the command followed by the name of the bin file:

 

bin2rom "demon attack.int"

 

Probably easiest if you put the command file and rom files together in the same directory.  Otherwise you can put the command location in the path environment or just type the path with the command.  Again make sure you have the corresponding memory map .cfg file named exactly the same as the .bin/int rom file.

[8bitwidgets.com]

OK so I had some time this morning to really sit with this and try some things out.  a few things I discovered so far:

 

1) The .int were no better / worse than .rom either they worked or they didn't regardless of the extension.

 

2) here is a list of pretty common games not working with it.  This is not an exhaustive test but it's from a pool of games I tried. 

 

     Christmas Carol

     Beauty and the beast

     Hover Force

     Microsurgeon

     Stadium Mud Buggies

     Tower of Doom

     Chess (showed weird results, picture attached)

     World Series Major League Baseball

     Demon Attack

 

Some imagine games did work though like dragonfire, dracula, and safecracker.  From what I could see all the classic Mattel games worked fine.  All intellivoice games were fine.  i

 

I feel like it's not a matter of chasing down each game to find the issue as much as there must be some common thread to all of these not working.  

 

 

 

Edited August 20, 2022 by Caleb Garner

[mr_me]

Cartridge RAM is not supported so USCF Chess is not expected to work.  You get the exact same screen in an emulator without cartridge ram.  ECS style bankswitching isn't supported so World Series isn't expected to work.  Dragonfire, Dracula, Safecracker use standard memory maps so they are expected to work, with or without .rom conversion.

 

For the others, did you have the correct .cfg file for each .bin/int file before conversion.   You can test a .rom in jzintv to see if it's correct.  Try testing the attached .rom files in the Backbit.

ms.romms_cc3.rom

Edited August 20, 2022 by mr_me

[+cmadruga]

I wonder how's the general level of compatibility with non-JLP homebrews.

[8bitwidgets.com]

1 hour ago, mr_me said:

For the others, did you have the correct .cfg file for each .bin/int file before conversion. 

when i copy over the files, it is just a rom or int.   i have no cfg files next to them.   when i drag a bin over the bin2rom i just drag the bin.  am i suppose to grab the cfg and bin over together?  

 

Hey both of those microsurgeon roms worked! 

[mr_me]

For the .rom conversion just drag and drop the .bin/int file.  The correct .cfg file must be there beside it with the exact same name.  When copying to the Backbit, just copy the converted .rom file.  There could be something not right with the .cfg resulting in a .rom file with the wrong memory map.  If you have jzintv working you can test the files there.

 

 

3 hours ago, cmadruga said:

I wonder how's the general level of compatibility with non-JLP homebrews.

Any homebrews that use cartridge ram or bank switching?

Edited August 21, 2022 by mr_me

[+cmadruga]

1 hour ago, mr_me said:

Any homebrews that use cartridge ram or bank switching?

Of course. But those should not work. I’m wondering about everything else.

[mr_me]

She supports Intellicart bank switching.  If you know of one that uses it, it can be tested.

Edited August 21, 2022 by mr_me

[+eebuckeye]

Have the issues been reported on Evie's forum?  She seems very willing to assist.

[+-^CrossBow^-]

Um... not sure if mine is different or something, but Christmas Carol is working on my Backbit? I played a few rounds earlier while testing a Sears SVA I got back to working order.

 

I did update my BackBit to the latest 1.3.9 firmware before all of this though.

[+DZ-Jay]

6 hours ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

Um... not sure if mine is different or something, but Christmas Carol is working on my Backbit? I played a few rounds earlier while testing a Sears SVA I got back to working order.

 

I did update my BackBit to the latest 1.3.9 firmware before all of this though.

 

Which version of Christmas Carol do you have, the one from the web site?

 

   -dZ.

[8bitwidgets.com]

ok so I had 1.3.3 but i just upgraded to 1.4.0 and yes Christmas Carol works!  Yay!   So that's great to see.  I'll see about those others if i can find a cfg file for them to properly convert the bin2roms

[+DZ-Jay]

1 minute ago, Caleb Garner said:

ok so I had 1.3.3 but i just upgraded to 1.4.0 and yes Christmas Carol works!  Yay!   So that's great to see.  I'll see about those others if i can find a cfg file for them to properly convert the bin2roms

 

Great! 👍

 

Enjoy!

 

   -dZ.

[+-^CrossBow^-]

3 hours ago, Caleb Garner said:

ok so I had 1.3.3 but i just upgraded to 1.4.0 and yes Christmas Carol works!  Yay!   So that's great to see.  I'll see about those others if i can find a cfg file for them to properly convert the bin2roms

Holy crap... 1.4? 1.3.9 was the latest available when I downloaded it yesterday afternoon! @evietron is fast with those updates!

 

[8bitwidgets.com]

On 8/21/2022 at 6:33 AM, DZ-Jay said:

Enjoy!

indeed!  what a great game.  I can see how much effort it would take to make something like this.  feels professional from start to finish!    

[+-^CrossBow^-]

In mentioning somethings I noticed with Evie, she has released another update for the BackBit that has the 201 diagnostic built into it and easily loaded by pressing the backbit cart button while powering on the console. Essentially turning the backbit into a build in diagnostic cart as well. Very cool. She made some other changes as well to the utility section that I noticed didn't seem to work initially like being able to change the time and date. The cart includes an RTC if you weren't aware. So it very cool to see these changes made so quickly.

 

My only issue with the cart currently is the menu itself. It is limited by how many characters it can display for each rom so many of mine will need to be gone through and renamed. I also need to run a bunch of them through the converter to they are more likely to work on the BackBit cart.

 

[+DZ-Jay]

23 minutes ago, Caleb Garner said:

indeed!  what a great game.  I can see how much effort it would take to make something like this.  feels professional from start to finish!    

 

It should!  That darn game stole over two years of my life -- including two entire Christmas Seasons, where my wife was left to celebrate mostly on her own. 😱

 

Anyway, on the BackBit, I really hope to be able to play with mine this week.  It's been a crazy few weeks at work.

 

It's there anything I need to know before using it?

 

    -dZ.

[8bitwidgets.com]

6 minutes ago, DZ-Jay said:

It's there anything I need to know before using it?

that you're wife isn't going to see you much once you get started! 

 

*update the firmware which is stupid simply.  just copy the latest flash rom for it and put it in the root of your sd card..  that's it.. when it boots it instantly updates..  

 

Most standard OG games (dare i say all?) work fine with it no hassle / drama..   the imagine games are spotty but @mr_me is helping me hash through them outside of this thread so I hope to have some kind of comprehensive collection thats backbit verified.  

[8bitwidgets.com]

27 minutes ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

It is limited by how many characters it can display

yea this is tough, but kind of an inherit issue with intellivision fonts?  maybe a smaller font could be chosen?  

 

I'm going to do what you're talking about which is rename them to shorter names for easier identifying.  

 

thanks for explaining how to get to that diagnostic.  i saw the update but not how to access it.   great addition!

[+-^CrossBow^-]

11 minutes ago, Caleb Garner said:

yea this is tough, but kind of an inherit issue with intellivision fonts?  maybe a smaller font could be chosen?  

 

I'm going to do what you're talking about which is rename them to shorter names for easier identifying.  

 

thanks for explaining how to get to that diagnostic.  i saw the update but not how to access it.   great addition!

Well it came about because I read the cart had a diagnostic mode built in and it didn't seem to do anything at the time. Evie added it pretty much next day so very cool.

 

Now, if you want to change the date and time, be advised this still took me a bit to figure out initially. What you do is access the Utility screen by pressing 1 on either controller. Then use the disc to move down to time for instance and then press the Enter key. When you do this an Arrow will appear at the end of the last current time digit pointing to the left. What you need to do is press the clear key to delete the numbers back to the position you need to change the digits for. In my case the cart's time was several hours off so I had to wipe all of the time. Now what you do is press the number on the controller to match what digit you want. But...where it got confusing to me is that you need to put in a space as the colon separator.

 

So as an example the error I kept getting was that say the clock says it was current 9:25am and in reality it was more like 11:30am. So I would delete all the numbers and then press 1130 and then press enter. But instead of saying 11:30 it would change to something crazy like 2:00am or at one point in time it was showing 32:00 as the time?! What you have to do is press on of the side buttons as a space between the hour/min. So to get the time set I had to type it out to say 11 30 and then press enter and it worked.

 

So... not without some quirks for be sure but still a very cool cart so far. I also purchased the Vic-20 adapter for it but haven't tested any of that yet.

 

[+DZ-Jay]

22 minutes ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

Well it came about because I read the cart had a diagnostic mode built in and it didn't seem to do anything at the time. Evie added it pretty much next day so very cool.

 

Now, if you want to change the date and time, be advised this still took me a bit to figure out initially. What you do is access the Utility screen by pressing 1 on either controller. Then use the disc to move down to time for instance and then press the Enter key. When you do this an Arrow will appear at the end of the last current time digit pointing to the left. What you need to do is press the clear key to delete the numbers back to the position you need to change the digits for. In my case the cart's time was several hours off so I had to wipe all of the time. Now what you do is press the number on the controller to match what digit you want. But...where it got confusing to me is that you need to put in a space as the colon separator.

 

So as an example the error I kept getting was that say the clock says it was current 9:25am and in reality it was more like 11:30am. So I would delete all the numbers and then press 1130 and then press enter. But instead of saying 11:30 it would change to something crazy like 2:00am or at one point in time it was showing 32:00 as the time?! What you have to do is press on of the side buttons as a space between the hour/min. So to get the time set I had to type it out to say 11 30 and then press enter and it worked.

 

So... not without some quirks for be sure but still a very cool cart so far. I also purchased the Vic-20 adapter for it but haven't tested any of that yet.

 

I'm a bit confused.  What's the date and time in this device for?

 

    dZ.

[+-^CrossBow^-]

1 hour ago, DZ-Jay said:

I'm a bit confused.  What's the date and time in this device for?

 

    dZ.

I believe it is more for use with other systems like the computers. But it is there so that any files you copy over or save to the device will have date/time stamps from the backbit cart to help keeps things organized. Again, I believe it is for features mainly with using 8-bit computers, but it is still there and displays the time on the backbit menu even on the Intellivision, so that was mainly why I wanted to know how to change the time on it.