Heck of a deal on High Score Cartridge

[Silver Back]

The last time one went up for auction I was interested but it went a little too high for something I'll hardly if ever use. But somebody has listed a deal on eBay. 

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/144646011928?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=TM2flNdORcu&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=zRG8b1txQru&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

[mimo]

I'll take two please 

[Jinks]

This reminds me of the fact some 7800 games have a high score screen that 99.99999% of 7800 owners never ever will see including myself.  Someone should make a module or something for that. 

 

Edited July 15, 2022 by Jinks

[+Trebor]

3 minutes ago, Jinks said:

This reminds me of the fact some 7800 games have a high score screen that 99.99999% of 7800 never will see including myself.

 

 

[Jinks]

Just now, Trebor said:

 

 

In person. I know I can see about anything online. But wouldn't it be cool to have a real 7800 have that function too? 

[+Trebor]

4 minutes ago, Jinks said:

In person. I know I can see about anything online. But wouldn't it be cool to have a real 7800 have that function too? 

Absolutely; the capture is more for those who indeed have never seen it before at all, in person or otherwise. 

 

I do not believe it is worth the $799.99 (+$10.00 shipping) price tag on that auction though, but to each their own. 

[+-^CrossBow^-]

The real question is if it actually works or not? Far as I know, most of the battery backed up ones do not work properly. Mine included...

 

[+Trebor]

1 minute ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

The real question is if it actually works or not? Far as I know, most of the battery backed up ones do not work properly. Mine included...

$800+ paper weight... that would suck.

[+-^CrossBow^-]

Just now, Trebor said:

$800+ paper weight... that would suck.

Well, it appears it has never been tested and mine works provided you keep power applied to it. New battery holder that I installed when the original cracked didn't work and CPUWIZ wanted a peak at it so I sent it to him and he too couldn't figure out why it wasn't working as it should. I should have taken Curt up on his offer to retrofit it as a nvram version years ago...

 

[gambler172]

Good that i have 4 HSC ? .

799 is too high, but if someone pays it?

I have 3 with different boxes and and labels and the NV ram one, which Curt made for me.

Edited July 15, 2022 by gambler172

[Jinks]

Would this feature ever be part of a multicart?

 

If I owned one for 800 bucks it would just sit in a drawer being too pricey to risk being damaged.

 

 

 

[Silver Back]

The one that went up for auction a few months ago ended up selling for a couple hundred from bids I remember.  That was well above the 100 dollar limit I set for myself.   

[+Razzie.P]

8 hours ago, Jinks said:

This reminds me of the fact some 7800 games have a high score screen that 99.99999% of 7800 owners never ever will see including myself.  Someone should make a module or something for that. 

 

I gotta go read up on the cart since I'm not in the know, but your comment -- does that mean that some games had high score screens programmed in them, but they can't be seen without a cart that didn't even exist?  or it did exist and I missed it completely?

[+Trebor]

4 hours ago, Razzie.P said:

I gotta go read up on the cart since I'm not in the know, but your comment -- does that mean that some games had high score screens programmed in them, but they can't be seen without a cart that didn't even exist?  or it did exist and I missed it completely?

High Score Cartridge info - from the manual:

 

Quote

This cartridge is based on the original designs created in 1984. However, in
the summer of 1984 Atari, Inc. was sold and the Atari 7800 Prosystem
game console was put on hold until it was finally re-released in 1986. The
accessories such as the High Score Cartridge and Computer Keyboard were
canceled and never produced.

 

Thanks to Gary Rubio, a former Atari Consumer Electronics Engineer
who provided Curt Vendel with both the original GCC schematic as well as
the original code for the High Score Cartridge it has finally been designed,
laid out and built for gamers to use and enjoy.

Getting Started:

 

Your 7800 High Score cartridge is capable of saving up to 5 scores for
up to 13 different games. Only the first 9 games designed back in 1984
were written to support the 7800 High Score cartridge. These games
include:

 

Asteroids
Dig Dug
Centipede
Galaga
Joust
Ms. Pac Man
Xevious
Food Fight
Robotron 2084

 

Preparing your 7800 High Score Cartridge for use is simple.
Included in your package along with this manual and the 7800 High Score
cartridge is a plastic envelope containing a CR2032 3 volt lithium battery.

This battery supplies power to the onboard 16K of Static Memory inside of
the cartridge that will hold your high scores.

 

A limited amount were produced and sold circa 2000-2001.

 

The second batch (Rev 2), materialized circa 2003.  Again, in limited quantity.

 

A third batch (Rev 3.1), a short time after that.

 

There was a scattered bit of 10 or so leftovers distributed by Curt circa 2005-2006, still on the SRAM design.  Though Curt intended to move it over to NVRAM based.  Ultimately, there are extremely few NVRAM based HSC out there.

[Jinks]

So none were made by atari? All homebrew? 

[+Trebor]

47 minutes ago, Jinks said:

So none were made by atari? All homebrew? 

Correct.  HSC along with Keyboard were intended for a 1984 release.  When the 7800 got shelved and then finally (fully/truly) released in 1986, the cut backs include no keyboard and no HSC.

[+-^CrossBow^-]

1 hour ago, Jinks said:

So none were made by atari? All homebrew? 

To clarify, those original Atari released games did include the screen and code for use with the HSC but the HSC wasn't officially released so until the homebrew releases of the HSC in the early 2000s, no one was really able to see or use the high score options. But some newer homebrew games also include code to make use of the HSC for those that might have one.

 

Again, I do have one but it doesn't have a label or box as I got it from Curt Vendel back in 2004 in a modified text combat 2600 cart shell. It does work for its intended purpose provided you leave it in the 7800 with the console powered one. So for the one game you might want to track high scores with I can use it and it was handy for some tournament use back then. If I had the schemes for the HSC then perhaps I could look into more and perhaps repair mine.

 

[+Mitch]

The functionality was also built into the CC2.

 

Here is a pic of two proto version and one of the repros.

 

Mitch

 

 

[Cousin Vinnie]

On 7/15/2022 at 8:26 AM, Silver Back said:

The last time one went up for auction I was interested but it went a little too high for something I'll hardly if ever use. But somebody has listed a deal on eBay. 

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/144646011928?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=TM2flNdORcu&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=zRG8b1txQru&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

How much did that sell for? Less than $799?

[Lynxpro]

On 7/15/2022 at 2:53 PM, Trebor said:

High Score Cartridge info - from the manual:

 

 

A limited amount were produced and sold circa 2000-2001.

 

The second batch (Rev 2), materialized circa 2003.  Again, in limited quantity.

 

A third batch (Rev 3.1), a short time after that.

 

There was a scattered bit of 10 or so leftovers distributed by Curt circa 2005-2006, still on the SRAM design.  Though Curt intended to move it over to NVRAM based.  Ultimately, there are extremely few NVRAM based HSC out there.

 

 

Curt had been receptive to the idea of cranking out another batch of 'em - since the XM was still being finished - prior to his untimely death. Those would've used NVRAM...