BackBit cartridge on the Intellivision

[+DZ-Jay]

2 hours ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

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.

 

 

Ah, thanks.

 

   -dZ.

[+videofx]

On 8/20/2022 at 3:39 PM, Caleb Garner said:

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.  

 

 

 

Try downloading the latest firmware. None of the games I tried would work either. I was about to post here but decided to see if there was new firmware, and there is. So try that.  Hope it helps like it helped me!

[8bitwidgets.com]

2 hours ago, videofx said:

Try downloading the latest firmware.

So I've got the latest firmware that relates to intellivision..  in fact a little past it.  1.4.5 but with a lot of great help from @mr_me we were able to figure out how to get working roms.  

 

The only game (aside from chess / triple play which are due to lack of ram support, and well ECS games for obvious reasons) was Atlantis.  It plays but the clouds don't look right..  very odd.  other imagic games play fine it's just this one..

 

 

 

[GeorgieBoysAXE]

So, I’m definitely interested in this product for the Intellivision & Ti99/4A, but what REALLY peaked my interest was the MSX2 support. I currently have the MegaFlashROM SCC+ SD & it’s just a nightmare to mess with if you haven’t played the system in a while, require so many steps to flash a ROM to the cart, or keypad commands to get to its menu on system boot.

 

How easy is it for the MSX2 to recognize the Backbit as an all-in-one sort of deal similar to any other flash cart that I could easily navigate to & from?

[8bitwidgets.com]

On 9/18/2022 at 11:09 AM, Caleb Garner said:

was Atlantis. 

For those interested, this has been fixed with firmware update!  all games I've tested at this point work from the original 125.   The only exception is chess because of the ram issue, but i believe that is being addressed if not already.  There was talk elsewhere about addressing this.  

[mr_me]

They'd also have to add support for ECS style bank switching to get World Series MLB working.  There is a hacked version of World Series out there with modified bank switching that might work.

[8bitwidgets.com]

23 hours ago, mr_me said:

They'd also have to add support for ECS style bank switching

My understanding is that @evietron is going to give us a bank switching feature, but it will be it's own format (with a bin2whatever conversion method).  I figure this is great because while it's a different format, you'd only need to .bin / .cfg merge games into this new format that need bank switching support. 

Edited October 28, 2022 by Caleb Garner

[Rickster8]

I'm very interested in getting a BackBit cart for my Intellivision. I have the LTO Flash and loading roms to it has been a disaster, either the cord is no good, Windows 10, LTO Flash software not recognized, need to download drivers, blah blah blah, don't fkin care anymore. Ready to move onto something else..... 

Edited October 28, 2022 by Rickster8
Wording

[8bitwidgets.com]

56 minutes ago, Rickster8 said:

it has been a disaster,

Sorry to hear that.   I think you'll be happy with a backbit.  I guess they are on backorder again but i don't know what the ETA is for the next batch @evietron ?  

 

I would consider getting an LTO, but honestly if bank switching is added, i don't care about JLP.  Every game I've wanted (other than chess / triple play) work now.. and i have those carts so no biggie if i really have to play chess.. heh.  

[rietveld]

3 hours ago, Rickster8 said:

I'm very interested in getting a BackBit cart for my Intellivision. I have the LTO Flash and loading roms to it has been a disaster, either the cord is no good, Windows 10, LTO Flash software not recognized, need to download drivers, blah blah blah, don't fkin care anymore. Ready to move onto something else..... 

I have had 2 LTOs for a few years now.  The only time I had a problem was when I used a cheap dollar store Cable.  I can easily add ROM using either my WIN10 or Linux Ubuntu laptops 

[evietron]

On 9/18/2022 at 8:09 AM, Caleb Garner said:

So I've got the latest firmware that relates to intellivision..  in fact a little past it.  1.4.5 but with a lot of great help from @mr_me we were able to figure out how to get working roms.  

 

The only game (aside from chess / triple play which are due to lack of ram support, and well ECS games for obvious reasons) was Atlantis.  It plays but the clouds don't look right..  very odd.  other imagic games play fine it's just this one..

 

 

 

This has been fixed in latest firmware. It was caused by the auto INTV II patching.

[8bitwidgets.com]

On 10/27/2022 at 11:22 AM, Caleb Garner said:

For those interested, this has been fixed with firmware update! 

@evietron absolutely!  I mentioned in a few posts above that it was thanks your excellent support!   btw, any news on the bank switching?   I know you were talking about making a new format for it (which is just fine, especially since it would only have to be applied to the games / apps that need that support)

 

I know someone out there looking for a multicart solution..   i'm steering them to backbit, but i understand they are on backorder.   so any ideas of when the next batch might be coming out would be great to know.   I love this thing and I'm so grateful you included the intellivision to work with it!  

 

Thanks!

Caleb

[evietron]

I was trying to get some more input for the ECS format. I'm thinking that 2K banks might be more universal than 4K banks?

 

As for the next batch of carts I'm waiting on chips and last I heard they are short of raw materials, and that's the main holdup.

[newtmonkey]

On 10/27/2022 at 11:52 PM, GeorgieBoysAXE said:

So, I’m definitely interested in this product for the Intellivision & Ti99/4A, but what REALLY peaked my interest was the MSX2 support. I currently have the MegaFlashROM SCC+ SD & it’s just a nightmare to mess with if you haven’t played the system in a while, require so many steps to flash a ROM to the cart, or keypad commands to get to its menu on system boot.

 

How easy is it for the MSX2 to recognize the Backbit as an all-in-one sort of deal similar to any other flash cart that I could easily navigate to & from?

I have a MegaFlashROM SCC+ SD and BackBit, so can respond to this.  The BackBit is much easier to use, similar to an any other flash cart on a console (turn on the system, menu shows up, select a game).  For running cart games, it's a nicer (simpler) solution than the MegaFlashROM.

 

The BackBit does have some limitations.  It doesn't support SCC audio in Konami games, and I don't think it supports playing disk games.  So, sadly, there is really no all-in-one solution.  For playing just cart games (exclduing SCC enhanced carts), the BackBit is the best solution imo.  For playing disk games, the EmuFDC is my favorite option.  That leaves MegaFlashROM SCC+ SD, which is very clunky to use, but is actually the best "all-in-one" solution as it supports cart roms, disk images, and SCC enhanced games.

[8bitwidgets.com]

3 hours ago, evietron said:

I'm thinking that 2K banks might be more universal than 4K banks?

I'm not fluent in this, but i could have sworn it was 4k chunks that were popular with home brew folks..  something about it being easier to work with math-wise?  

 

I'm sure the gurus will respond with correct information soon.   

 

 

Understood about the chip shortages.  I imagine there is no time table for those raw materials?  

 

 

2 hours ago, newtmonkey said:

It doesn't support SCC audio in Konami games

if you mean 

Loco-Motion

Super Cobra

Tutankham

Happy Trails

 

These all play fine on backbit.. i have all of them and they tested / played great.  

 

I don't know what disc games are, other than Tron?  

 

 

[newtmonkey]

@Caleb Garner

 

I was responding to a post from @GeorgieBoysAXE asking about MSX support.

Edited October 29, 2022 by newtmonkey

[+DZ-Jay]

8 hours ago, evietron said:

I was trying to get some more input for the ECS format. I'm thinking that 2K banks might be more universal than 4K banks?

 

I do not think so.  The Mattel ECS games that used bank-switching used 4K banks.  The Intellicart used 2K boundaries, but I do not think that was very popular.  I believe that home-brews that use it, follow the Mattel-style bank-switching at 4K boundaries.

 

Joe Zbiciak has documented the Mattel-style bank-flipping thoroughly, and supports it in the jzIntv emulator and SDK-1600 library directly.

 

     -dZ.

 

[8bitwidgets.com]

23 hours ago, newtmonkey said:

asking about MSX support.

ah ok that makes sense.  

[8bitwidgets.com]

@evietron kicks ass!  We got bank switching support now with the backbit!   as of firmware 1.5.4

 

 

[+DZ-Jay]

4 minutes ago, Caleb Garner said:

@evietron kicks ass!  We got bank switching support now with the backbit!   as of firmware 1.5.4

 

 

Did Bad Apple use bank-switching?

[JohnPCAE]

34 minutes ago, DZ-Jay said:

Did Bad Apple use bank-switching?

It uses ECS bankswitching. It's over 400k in size.

[mr_me]

2 hours ago, Caleb Garner said:

@evietron kicks ass!  We got bank switching support now with the backbit!   as of firmware 1.5.4

What file format?

[8bitwidgets.com]

a custom format for the backbit .ecs  

 

https://github.com/evietron/BackBit-Convert/blob/main/Intellivision/dist/bin2ecs.exe

 

just like bin2rom you just drag / drop the .bin next to the .cfg and you get a new .ecs file which works on the backbit like any other.

 

it's nice because of course this is only needed for games that require bank switching.. 

[+cmadruga]

Anyone tested Sorrow from Kai?

Curious about what happens when it tries to do flash save/load.

[8bitwidgets.com]

2 hours ago, cmadruga said:

Anyone tested Sorrow from Kai?

Curious about what happens when it tries to do flash save/load.

I don't know that game, but i would doubt it works at this time.  I know ram is being talked about for Chess and such.  I don't know how the rom was configured to work on the LTO..  does it know to write some chunk of data?  

 

I don't see any reason why it couldn't since it's still just SD storage which is persistent..  but i'm not sure how the rom would be written to claim some space on the sd card..  maybe this is some feature that comes with JLP?

 

@evietron do you know if there is a way to achieve this?  to have a game know how to write save data to a file on the SD card?   This seems outside the typical capabilities of an typical intellivision game.