Curt Vendel Posted October 25, 2003 Share Posted October 25, 2003 Hi all, Here are the HI and LO rom images to 7800 GATO. I have been unable to get the game to work on my 7800, so perhaps someone is willing to have a peak at the code, get it to work and post it for everyone to D/L and enjoy... Curt gato_eproms.zip Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CPUWIZ Posted October 25, 2003 Share Posted October 25, 2003 Cool, what did you try to get them to work on ? A 32K EPROM board like Ballblazer ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt Vendel Posted October 25, 2003 Author Share Posted October 25, 2003 HI CPU.... Yup, on the stock Atari 7800 Eprom boards, the one they were actually on when I got it recently... I am just hoping its a simple issue, the eproms have 2 different dates on them so there may be a coding issue, I just hope they haven't gotten hit with bitrot. Many of my OSS 8bit carts have died recently due to bitrot and I had to wipe the eproms clean and put a fresh image back onto them to get them running again. Curt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CPUWIZ Posted October 25, 2003 Share Posted October 25, 2003 * goes to try something * Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt Vendel Posted October 25, 2003 Author Share Posted October 25, 2003 * goes to try something * Curt awaits CPU's return, cautiously nervous as to what the heck he may be up to now Curt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted October 25, 2003 Share Posted October 25, 2003 Well, the game is unsigned, so that's why it probably doesn't work in your 7800. Let me try working on it, if Cpuwiz doesn't beat me to it. Mitch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt Vendel Posted October 25, 2003 Author Share Posted October 25, 2003 Well, the game is unsigned, so that's why it probably doesn't work in your 7800. Let me try working on it, if Cpuwiz doesn't beat me to it. Mitch and there off.... CPU is out of the gate first, Mitch takes off in a strong pace, he's catching up, oh!!! CPU pulls the old soldering iron to the leg trick.... Mitch is down, no he's back up and catching up once again... whats this, CPU trips, Mitch has tossed something at CPU, its a Multimeter and it seems the leads from the DMM got wrapped around his legs, Mitch is in the lead now.... CPU is back and coming on strong... This race is anybody's guess folks Curt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CPUWIZ Posted October 25, 2003 Share Posted October 25, 2003 Well, I figured out that high and low are reversed but even on my machine that has Eckhardt's BIOS in it no dice so far. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted October 25, 2003 Share Posted October 25, 2003 Well, I figured out that high and low are reversed but even on my machine that has Eckhardt's BIOS in it no dice so far. Same here. I ran it through the 7800 signing program as well and had no luck. I suspect either bit rot or the different dates are the problem. I see that the GATO2 ROM has an internal date of 4/24/87, Curt does that match the date on the EPROM? I guess one of the programmers will have to take it from here. Mitch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CPUWIZ Posted October 25, 2003 Share Posted October 25, 2003 What kind of board did you try it on ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted October 25, 2003 Share Posted October 25, 2003 What kind of board did you try it on ? I used MESS and the CC2. Both my 32K EPROM board and Dev board are out on loan at the moment. Mitch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt Vendel Posted October 25, 2003 Author Share Posted October 25, 2003 Well, I figured out that high and low are reversed but even on my machine that has Eckhardt's BIOS in it no dice so far. Same here. I ran it through the 7800 signing program as well and had no luck. I suspect either bit rot or the different dates are the problem. I see that the GATO2 ROM has an internal date of 4/24/87, Curt does that match the date on the EPROM? I guess one of the programmers will have to take it from here. Mitch Mitch, Check with Matt (Tempest) as I shipped him the physical cartridge for him to also dump and research for atariprotos.com I don't have the cart in front of me right now, so I can't tell you the exact dates, I just recall the chips had different dates. Crt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eckhard Stolberg Posted October 25, 2003 Share Posted October 25, 2003 The reason why GATO is split up into two EPROMS is because the game is 48K large. EPROM 2 goes into $4000-$7FFF, EPROM 1 goes into $C000-$FFFF, and the area from $8000-$BFFF is probably unused in this early prototype. On a DOS command line prompt type: copy /b gato2_eprom.bin+gato2_eprom.bin+gato1_eprom.bin gato.bin Then you have to sign the resulting ROM image with A78sign, and you should be able to use it with MESS, the Cuttle Cart 2 or a 48K EPROM cartridge. The demo is nothing special. With the joystick buttons you can switch between several still images that are probably representing the different game screens. Ciao, Eckhard Stolberg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted October 25, 2003 Share Posted October 25, 2003 Cool! BTW the dates on the ERPOMs are 5/23/87 and 5/11/78 (I assume they meant 87). So now why doesn't the real prototype work? I've tried it on my real 7800 and no dice. From the description it sounds like the GATO prototype that was already known to exist (I believe the Digital Press people demoed it at PC2). Just a very short demo, nothing too interesting. BTW anyone know of a version of MESS that works on Windoze XP? Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted October 25, 2003 Share Posted October 25, 2003 I couldn't get A78sign to work with the GATO eprom. Do you have to do anything special? Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eckhard Stolberg Posted October 25, 2003 Share Posted October 25, 2003 The ROM images don't contain a signature key. If the code on the EPROMs is identical to the images, then a normal NTSC 7800 will treat the protoboard as an unlicensed game and refuse to start it in MARIA mode. It should work on a 7800 with the Asteroids BIOS though. A78sign only checks if the signaure key is valid by default. To force it to overwrite an invalid signature key with a valid one you have to use the -f command line switch like: a78sign -f gato.bin BTW, I think the binary would be more authentic, if it contained only one copy of EPROM 2 and two copies of EPROM 1. Since EPROM 1 is only 16K it probably gets mapped into $C000-$FFFF and $8000-$BFFF. So the command line from above should be: copy /b gato2_eprom.bin+gato1_eprom.bin+gato1_eprom.bin gato.bin Also, if you want to use the GATO binary with MESS, you'll have to genrate an A78 header for it, or copy one from another 48K game. Ciao, Eckhard Stolberg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted October 25, 2003 Share Posted October 25, 2003 I still can't get it to work. Can you post the working MESS rom? Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted October 26, 2003 Share Posted October 26, 2003 Here's my copy without the signature key. I have it blank for the middle section instead of a copy of one of the other banks. CC2 users can run it with the 78quick startup file. Mitch gato.zip Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted October 26, 2003 Share Posted October 26, 2003 I still can't get it to work. Can you post the working MESS rom? Tempest I can get it to generate the signature file but it still doesn't pass the authentication. I'm not sure what's up but I'm still playing with it. Mitch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+-^CrossBow^- Posted October 26, 2003 Share Posted October 26, 2003 BTW Tempest, MESS does work in XP. The trick...is that MESS doesn't like NTFS partitions. Basically, I was getting all sorts of problems with MESS and was about to give up on it. Then I found I had another copy of it on my drive that only holds my downloads from the web. Anyway Mess worked here. So I was stumped...I copied this older version to my other drive were the other one was. Same problem. Solution was to finally install Mess onto my downloads drive which is a FAT32 partition drive. MESS now runs just fine. ROMs also have to be on this same drive. Just try it... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted October 26, 2003 Share Posted October 26, 2003 BTW Tempest, MESS does work in XP. The trick...is that MESS doesn't like NTFS partitions. Basically, I was getting all sorts of problems with MESS and was about to give up on it. Then I found I had another copy of it on my drive that only holds my downloads from the web. Anyway Mess worked here. So I was stumped...I copied this older version to my other drive were the other one was. Same problem. Solution was to finally install Mess onto my downloads drive which is a FAT32 partition drive. MESS now runs just fine. ROMs also have to be on this same drive. Just try it... Hmm, I'm running MESS on a Win XP box with an NTFS partition and it seems to be running OK. What kind of problems did you have? Mitch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ApolloBoy Posted October 26, 2003 Share Posted October 26, 2003 This sounds cool! I'm hoping it's a complete game, and not a demo like the other Gato proto. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted October 26, 2003 Share Posted October 26, 2003 I thought people might like to see some sceenshots of the GATO demo, so here you go. By the way, I still haven't been able to get A78sign to generate a valid signature for it. But I'm still trying different things. Eckhard, do you have any ideas? Mitch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eckhard Stolberg Posted October 26, 2003 Share Posted October 26, 2003 I don't have MESS installed at the moment, so I can't test if this works myself. But if you open the 48K GATO binary in a hex-editor and go to the very end of the file, you can see the bytes "47 5A" right after the space for the signature key. These two bytes should be "FF 47" to tell the 7800 BIOS that a 7800 cartridge is inserted and that it's 48K big. If you change the bytes and then generate a new signature key for the binary, it should pass the BIOS test and play on MESS. Ciao, Eckhard Stolberg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DracIsBack Posted October 26, 2003 Share Posted October 26, 2003 7800 prototypes ... cool! Thanks, Curt! Now if we can just find ELECTROCOP, GAUNTLET ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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