Intellivision RTO-MultiCart - new multicart

[+5-11under]

12 minutes ago, SiberianSpForces said:

Will this become a diy kit? Be cool project. 😎

A project like this... quite possibly. I definitely am thinking about it. There's several items that a user could purchase and assemble separately.

[SiberianSpForces]

My big concern would be the board. I have breadboard and could get a donor cart for the slot pins. 😝

[aotta]

In developing and prototyping the boards i ordered several batches (min order is 5 boards) from a note Chinese online pcb builder, and it was cheapest than buying (and sacrifice!) An old Intellivision cartridge! But someone already desoldered an intv cart and get RTO cart working (in a mess of wiring!)

Edited February 3, 2023 by aotta

[carlsson]

I thought the pins were the least of your problems if you manufacture a cartridge. As aotta writes, it would be a terrible mess of wires from each pin on the sacrificed cartridge, to the main board where the electronics are hosted. Even if you have spare cartridges that have a value of $0 each, the work required and the effort to get things to stay in place would make it futile, compared to drawing a fresh PCB with everything in desired positions.

[aotta]

For who is interested in my DIY project, here a small preview of the new 1.1a version, with reset, hack poke and "prev" button added (sorry, audio in Italian):

 

 

[+fdr4prez]

That's neat.

 

Is there a limit for the length of the filename to be displayed? 

 

Does it need to display the file extension, or can that be hidden via a firmware change?  Should be no real reason to show the .BIN correct?

 

Any plans for a 3D printed housing for the cart?

[aotta]

7 minutes ago, fdr4prez said:

That's neat.

 

Is there a limit for the length of the filename to be displayed? 

 

Does it need to display the file extension, or can that be hidden via a firmware change?  Should be no real reason to show the .BIN correct?

 

Any plans for a 3D printed housing for the cart?

As you can read in source code, filename is a char[46], so that's the max lenght it's read from SDCard, and the file must have a .bin extension, or is it skipped by the program.

But on the Oled display it could be omitted, or changed with any flavour you like

Yes, i made an initial draw of the new case, and i'm going to work on it in the next days.

As usual, i'll post the final version on my github repository.

[+fdr4prez]

49 minutes ago, aotta said:

and the file must have a .bin extension

the BIN format needs the CFG file, too, so I assume you need it too for the memory mapping?

 

many people are using the ROM format, so there are less files to keep track of.

 

Can you support ROM?

[aotta]

No, Rto look for bin file and cfg with same name (otherwise it use default 0.cfg).

Bin file are smaller than Rom and can be easily obtained with romtobin tool given with jzintv.

Anyway, you or whoever could adapt source code for adding rom support.

[8bitwidgets.com]

On 2/8/2023 at 4:55 PM, aotta said:

Yes, i made an initial draw of the new case, and i'm going to work on it in the next days.

if you need any help printing enclosures let me know.  

[aotta]

11 hours ago, Caleb Garner said:

if you need any help printing enclosures let me know.  

Thank you but already done my homework!

Released in my github repo the final release 1.1 of RTO Cart:

[8bitwidgets.com]

Looks fantastic!  

[aotta]

9 minutes ago, Caleb Garner said:

Looks fantastic!  

Thank you!

here a quick & dirty video showing it running:

 

[SiLic0ne t0aD]

Great job! That looks really cool.

 

Kind of a bummer about the .rom file extensions though.. I prefer those since they're an all in one, self contained file, but as was mentioned, I guess it could always be written into future firmware.

 

Definitely interested in a DIY kit, or maybe a complete unit, whenever they're ready. 👍

[carlsson]

Technically, I remember there is some compatibility difference between BIN+CRT and ROM formats, like some configurations can't be stored in either of the formats but I don't remember the details what or which.

[aotta]

i'm not an expert in Intellivision (i got in this forum and in JohnPCAE's code most of the info i needed for building RTO ) but i think in ROM format it can't be given info about RAM addressing neither paging bank used in some titles like Chess or BadApple.

And, the [macro] section i use for applying cheat pokes from http://www.midnightblueinternational.com/romhacks.php seems work with ROMs too, but .cfg gile is needed!

[Tissemon]

This is really awesome!

Just too bad that there seems to be a shortage of Teensy-cards here in Sweden right now. Would it be possible to convert the code / PCB to use a Pico Pi instead or is it too slow / too much work to convert?

Would be extra nice if that would be possible since it's about 5 times cheaper and readily available.

[zx-81]

You can find some on thepihut dot com

(This is where i bought mine).

 

[Tissemon]

Another question: Would it be theoretically possible to program the chip to also act as if an Intellivoice was connected? That would have been really cool feature and a true LTO-killer 🙂 

[+fdr4prez]

22 minutes ago, Tissemon said:

Another question: Would it be theoretically possible to program the chip to also act as if an Intellivoice was connected? That would have been really cool feature and a true LTO-killer 🙂 

If possible, then why not the ECS, too?

[carlsson]

Hm, software emulation of the AY PSG and SP256 for speech? Interesting thought. The extra controller ports and cassette (?) port would be hard to emulate. RAM is almost a given regardless what else it emulates.

[+DZ-Jay]

1 hour ago, Tissemon said:

Another question: Would it be theoretically possible to program the chip to also act as if an Intellivoice was connected? That would have been really cool feature and a true LTO-killer 🙂 

I believe that would require the inclusion of some proprietary intellectual property.

 

1 hour ago, fdr4prez said:

If possible, then why not the ECS, too?

 

Ditto.

 

    dZ.

[aotta]

8 hours ago, Tissemon said:

This is really awesome!

Just too bad that there seems to be a shortage of Teensy-cards here in Sweden right now. Would it be possible to convert the code / PCB to use a Pico Pi instead or is it too slow / too much work to convert?

Would be extra nice if that would be possible since it's about 5 times cheaper and readily available.

No, the Pi pico hasn't enough gpio and missing the SDCard, so a porting to this platform is quite impossible withouth redrawing the project from scratch.

About adding ECS or Intellivoice emulation, the main issue is that when selected the rom the "loop" cycle must be always "online" to the console to answer to read/write request from Intellivision, so any other code would interfere with normal functionality of the RTO.

Maybe a different approach with a GPIO asynchronous routines for I/O ram and rom and multitasking for the emulation, could be implemented, but it's out of my scope (and interest) for now. But i left opensource / openhardware the project for anyone interested in improve it!

[Tissemon]

14 hours ago, aotta said:

No, the Pi pico hasn't enough gpio and missing the SDCard, so a porting to this platform is quite impossible withouth redrawing the project from scratch.

About adding ECS or Intellivoice emulation, the main issue is that when selected the rom the "loop" cycle must be always "online" to the console to answer to read/write request from Intellivision, so any other code would interfere with normal functionality of the RTO.

Maybe a different approach with a GPIO asynchronous routines for I/O ram and rom and multitasking for the emulation, could be implemented, but it's out of my scope (and interest) for now. But i left opensource / openhardware the project for anyone interested in improve it!

Thank you for your answers!

 

I think I will build one as soon as I can get my hands on a Teensy 4.1 that isn't too expensive. Right now the cheapest one I can find is for around 60USD with shipping to sweden included. 😞

Is there a readily available parts-list anywhere? I could tell most things, like 74LVC245 and the resistor-values from the ki-cad files, but what about the tactile switches? What are the best measures for them, if I intend to use your 3d-printed shell? Is it 6x6x17mm ? And I'm guessing the LEDs are standard 2X5X7 rectangle-LEDs, right?

[aotta]

6 hours ago, Tissemon said:

Thank you for your answers!

 

I think I will build one as soon as I can get my hands on a Teensy 4.1 that isn't too expensive. Right now the cheapest one I can find is for around 60USD with shipping to sweden included. 😞

Is there a readily available parts-list anywhere? I could tell most things, like 74LVC245 and the resistor-values from the ki-cad files, but what about the tactile switches? What are the best measures for them, if I intend to use your 3d-printed shell? Is it 6x6x17mm ? And I'm guessing the LEDs are standard 2X5X7 rectangle-LEDs, right?

Yes, i made no BOM for last version since it could be easy to get from kicad, there is only - in the cvs in the "old" folder in github - the one for the previous version.

If you want to use the 3d box i designed, you're right with the rectangle "standard" leds (i bought a multicolor box of them since i prefere them to cylindric ones ) and i used 6x6x12mm button, the shell profile go low in the buttons area so you don't need too high ones, unless you want to use some button caps over them.