RTO - my "production" take on the multicart

[SiberianSpForces]

As is, that's pretty slick! 

[RockLobster]

On 4/24/2023 at 4:16 PM, 5-11under said:

I was able to get some labels printed this afternoon. The pictures, compared to real life, show all the little imperfections

 

You say imperfections, I say I want it now.

[RockLobster]

On 4/24/2023 at 4:45 PM, DZ-Jay said:

I think I mentioned my interest in being a beta tester in the past, but just in case, here it is:  count on me for testing.

@5-11under Also add me to the list of testers.   
 

I'll be happy to record behaviors with little dinky video captures and other documentation.

 

Direct capture demo:  https://streamable.com/920q8m

 

Comparing to Flashback emulation or via MiSTer:  https://streamable.com/faes17

 

Other weird behaviors:  https://streamable.com/sh42es

[aotta]

On 4/24/2023 at 11:16 PM, 5-11under said:

I was able to get some labels printed this afternoon. The pictures, compared to real life, show all the little imperfections (as well as the blatantly obvious issue with the corner of the label). I'll expect the next ones to be at least a little bit nicer looking than this one. One of the issues that I had to deal with, by first applying only part of the label, was the fact that I needed to cut the holes in the label, and then put the screws in (also in the front). Over the next few days, I'll put together the beta units.

   

MicroSD and MicroUSB ports on the sides:

   

The 1.3" OLED display. It looks clearer in real life, without the glow around the letters:

   

Edit: adding picture in Model I:

But where is printed the project's author name??  

[aotta]

...may be you will thank the author in the box case, as my Italian friends did!

 

 

 

Edited April 30, 2023 by aotta

[Special Teams]

SWEET!  I'm also in for one when they're ready to go.

Thanks!!

[+DZ-Jay]

1 hour ago, aotta said:

...may be you will thank the author in the box case, as my Italian friends did!

 

 

 

 

Love it!

 

       -dZ.

[wolfy62]

😮👍👏🥰.

Or something like that box....

[+5-11under]

3 hours ago, aotta said:

But where is printed the project's author name??  

D'oh. At least you're in the boot-up credits.

[aotta]

14 minutes ago, 5-11under said:

D'oh. At least you're in the boot-up credits.

ah, so did you change the splash screen too?

[+5-11under]

22 minutes ago, aotta said:

ah, so did you change the splash screen too?

Nope, that's still the same.

[+5-11under]

Demo units on the way soon... .

At some point in the near future, I'll open up official pre-orders, likely with down-payment to at least cover the cost of the Teensy module.

 

[RockLobster]

11 minutes ago, 5-11under said:

Demo units on the way soon...

Possibly unrelated but will this let us bypass the inability of INTV2 consoles to play Coleco games or do we simply need to find patched games?  Unsure if this is a thing.

[+5-11under]

14 minutes ago, RockLobster said:

Possibly unrelated but will this let us bypass the inability of INTV2 consoles to play Coleco games or do we simply need to find patched games?  Unsure if this is a thing.

IIRC, that's a ROM "issue", so a patched ROM would work.

[+DZ-Jay]

1 hour ago, 5-11under said:

Demo units on the way soon... .

At some point in the near future, I'll open up official pre-orders, likely with down-payment to at least cover the cost of the Teensy module.

 

Gorgeous!  Looks like a TRON poster, with the grid and all. 😄

 

   dZ.

[+5-11under]

55 minutes ago, DZ-Jay said:

Gorgeous!  Looks like a TRON poster, with the grid and all. 😄

 

   dZ.

Thanks! I took the pictures too early, though. I might need to open them all up. I guess that's why I'm making 3 instead of 30... .

[RockLobster]

On 4/30/2023 at 8:11 AM, aotta said:

...may be you will thank the author in the box case, as my Italian friends did!

 

I like keeping the art style similar to original art but updated it so that the "girl" / "little sister" actually holds a controller too instead of just watching the boy or older brother play.   Very 2023!  

[+BBWW]

WANT! :—)

[+KylJoy]

I'm in for one of these!

[hyrulebr]

I want one too!

[CrazyChris]

Make sure to bevel the contact edge of the board?

Also, gold plated contacts wold be good.

 

BTW, Awesome Cartridge! 

 

 

Edited May 30, 2023 by CrazyChris
Edited my Edit

[+5-11under]

45 minutes ago, CrazyChris said:

Make sure to bevel the contact edge of the board?

Also, gold plated contacts wold be good.

 

BTW, Awesome Cartridge! 

Thanks! Yes, the edge is beveled. For the prototypes, I have to do that manually (and I think I did for the one in the pictures). The production version will have that already done.

 

The prototype boards were HASL finish. The production boards will be my supplier's version of "hard hold". That's in quotes, because it ends up having thickness greater than "gold flash" but not as thick as proper "hard gold".

 

[+5-11under]

There's a couple of beta unit in tester's hands. One is having issues with a Model II, which likely needs some tweaks in the tight-loop timing. In the past, I've had similar issues with some of my own boards, such as the one that has RAM on it.

[aotta]

On 5/30/2023 at 3:55 PM, 5-11under said:

There's a couple of beta unit in tester's hands. One is having issues with a Model II, which likely needs some tweaks in the tight-loop timing. In the past, I've had similar issues with some of my own boards, such as the one that has RAM on it.

Get the correct timing was the most tricky works in creating the RTO, and in my first versions i added a routine in NACT phase handling that changed the delay time with up and down button on the cart, while playing, and showing the value in the display, so i could reset the inty and check new if values was better than previous!

I left the actual value (delRD=482; delWR=540) since they worked fine in my PAL Intys, but a smart french guy found that different setting are needed for SECAM Intellys (delRD=626; delWR=702), you can find his RTO version at https://github.com/zx81zx81/RTO-Cart-secam . And, value used for SECAM version are nearer to the ones used by @JohnPCAE in his bird's nest (i'll never stop to thank him for sharing the source!), so may be timing i use it's a bit faster than the very right one.

I think you could simply try this value for the Inty II, or use values between the 2 setting.

Let us know!

[Tissemon]

3 hours ago, aotta said:

Get the correct timing was the most tricky works in creating the RTO, and in my first versions i added a routine in NACT phase handling that changed the delay time with up and down button on the cart, while playing, and showing the value in the display, so i could reset the inty and check new if values was better than previous!

I left the actual value (delRD=482; delWR=540) since they worked fine in my PAL Intys, but a smart french guy found that different setting are needed for SECAM Intellys (delRD=626; delWR=702), you can find his RTO version at https://github.com/zx81zx81/RTO-Cart-secam . And, value used for SECAM version are nearer to the ones used by @JohnPCAE in his bird's nest (i'll never stop to thank him for sharing the source!), so may be timing i use it's a bit faster than the very right one.

I think you could simply try this value for the Inty II, or use values between the 2 setting.

Let us know!

Thanks for this info! I've built myself a RTO cart 1.1 from your GitHub but experienced some glitches in some games like Dracula and Antarctic Tales (actually I've built 4 carts, but they all behave the same). I first thought it was my capacitors that were bad, so I did a full recap - both the logic-part and PSU-part. Before the recap I had to push reset to get the boot screen on the RTO, and after the recap it booted right away. But the glitches in said games were still there. So I then started to suspect a faulty chip in my Intellivision. That is until I read this comment. I tried changing the values and recompiling the firmware to my cart. With the values for the Secam-unit the glitches got much worse, and games crashed after a few seconds. Then I tried some in-between values (554/621), but those also made things worse than the original values. I'm now testing values below your values - and it seems to be less glitches the lower I go. I'm down to delRD=422; delWR=480; and Dracula plays perfect now! But there are still glitches in Antarctic Tales (random arrows and stuff comes up all over the screen after a little while on first level).It feels good to know that the chips in my Intelli are probably fine 🙂 Do you have any good pointers on how I should go from here to trim in the values perfectly for my unit? Until now I first lowered both by 40, and then both by 20. Should I change one value at the time? Should I keep lowering them both the same? Do you know if there is some sort of test-cart that immediately can tell me if I've gotten the values right?