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PiRTO II multicart just published


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Posted (edited)
3 hours ago, mthompson said:

Neat.

 

One correction you might make to the Github page to avoid any confusion: the line "Colecovision flash multicart based on Pico clone" should say "Intellivision."

Thank you, of course i copy&pasted the readme from my previous projects, that's why the typo! 😁

Edited by aotta
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Posted (edited)

I happen to still have one Pi Pico from my 360 modding and may try this.  I am still having a miserable time getting my Teensy based RTO running with my NTSC Model 2609 and I just got a bunch of 74LVC245ANs from DigiKey, so one would hope that those are legit.  Will this iteration of your cart have the same timing problems with setup on an NTSC Intellivision?

 

Edit: I saw on your Github that using a real Pi Pico is a bad idea.  Do you have a link to the proper board that should be used?

Edited by max4677
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23 hours ago, max4677 said:

I happen to still have one Pi Pico from my 360 modding and may try this.  I am still having a miserable time getting my Teensy based RTO running with my NTSC Model 2609 and I just got a bunch of 74LVC245ANs from DigiKey, so one would hope that those are legit.  Will this iteration of your cart have the same timing problems with setup on an NTSC Intellivision?

 

Edit: I saw on your Github that using a real Pi Pico is a bad idea.  Do you have a link to the proper board that should be used?

Last firmware for PiRTO and PIRTO II doesn't use furthermore an hardcoded delay but reads bus cycles from bdir, bc1 and bc2 signals from inty, and there's no timing issue reported since now. Strangely, some approach didn't worked with original RTO.

About the Pico clone, i ordered mine from aliexpress, simply looking for pico 16mb or pico purple.

Different vendors use different flash eprom ICs, but all worked fine until now.

 

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Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, aotta said:

Last firmware for PiRTO and PIRTO II doesn't use furthermore an hardcoded delay but reads bus cycles from bdir, bc1 and bc2 signals from inty, and there's no timing issue reported since now. Strangely, some approach didn't worked with original RTO.

About the Pico clone, i ordered mine from aliexpress, simply looking for pico 16mb or pico purple.

Different vendors use different flash eprom ICs, but all worked fine until now.

 

Sounds good.  I'll look into that if/when I build a new batch.  But, on the Teensy front, I have good news to report.  Tissemon had given me v1.1b of your code that you supplied him with, and so far it is working perfectly with my NTSC 2609 Intellivision 1.  I have been able to play 4-Tris, Astrosmash, Air Strike, AD&D, and Burgertime! without any trouble so far.  This is when using the DigiKey supplied 74LVC245ANs.  I happen to have them socketed into this board, so I might try the Amazon reseller supplied ones and see what happens.  I'm not much of a coder, but I did see that the delRD and delWR variables were commented out.  I'm guessing you were able to apply the same bus cycle reading that is used on your PiRTO?

Edited by max4677
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Thanks for the report about RTO, yes i sent to Tissemon for some test the new version, but never published it because in my RTO it worked worst than the v.1.1. 

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@aotta I noticed that 1N4148 diodes were even cheaper - will one of those work on this cart?

I also have a little question about this sentance on your GitHub-page: "you need only a diode and a push buttons for resetting the cart if needed or want restart." - I get that the reset-button is optional - but do you mean that the diode is only needed if I want to be able to reset with the button on the cart?

 

Also, you didn't mention the transistor in the text on GitHub, but it's in the KiCad-file. But I assume that the BC547 must be on the board as well for the cart to function, right?

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30 minutes ago, aotta said:

@Tissemon you are right, i think i can declare you RTO's expert!  ;)

Yes i used BC547 and 1N4148, and angled push button 6x6x12. Screws for shell are M2,5x16.

 

Thanks 🙂

Well, I've got a collection going here now, so I just ordered all the stuff needed to make some PiRTO II:s as well 🙂

IMG_9120.jpg

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Sorry but i had only a couple of spare carts, and  they're just shipped. I don't intend to order further pcbs, but i think other members are going to built their, and may be they could write here if some more available for selling

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  • 2 weeks later...

Here we go again! 🙂

Before anybody starts sending messages to me about buying:

I'm only making 10 carts and THEY WILL ONLY BE FOR SALE IN SWEDEN - I will not send them anywhere outside Sweden.

 

I've made one cart so far and here are some notes if anybody else wants to make a cart:

The pads for the transistor are very close together on the PCB - I first bridged two of the by accident. Luckily didn't hurt neither my console or the cart - just gave me blank screen. A bit flux and resolder and the problem went away 🙂 Check with MultiMeter that no legs are connected after soldering if you are unsure!

FATfs is a bit limited and won't load ANY games if ONE or more files with bad or too many characters exist in a folder. Bad characters include , : ; ! and a few more. Took a while for me to find them all, Seems that quite a few games have ! in them. Like Shark! Shark! 🙂

I renamed my files and now they all work.

Bad Apple demo won't work on this cart either (only works on original RTO).

Sometimes when I turn on my unit - the image is just totally blank - I then had to first push reset on my Intellivision and then reset on the PiRTO II-cart. Did not work if I did it in reversed order. Might be something that is fixable with a software update, but then again, it's not really a problem since it doesn't even happen all the time.

And lastly the shell fits quite badly for me the screws are 1mm too far apart so I had to cut the plastic a bit to fit the PCB. The shell is also about 1mm too high, so it's a very tight fit into the connector. These issues is probably because I use a 0,6mm nozzle on my 3D-printer, instead of 0,4mm. So I'm redesigning the shell a bit to fit my needs. Printing a new test as I type here now 🙂

 

Great job as usual @aotta ! 

IMG_9298 2.jpg

IMG_9296 2.jpg

IMG_9291 2.JPG

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...
On 6/22/2024 at 10:30 AM, Tissemon said:

First cart done. The RTO family is now complete 🙂

IMG_9415.jpeg

Nice looking artwork! I know you don't export from Sweden, but I was wondering if you had a template for the boxes and overlays that you might be willing to share or sell. 

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Hi there.  I have built a couple now and I managed to get the menu up.  I find I need to reset the console and then hit the reset on the cart to make the menu appear.

I try to load roms and I just get 3 flashed on the PICO.

Going by the PiRTO original cart github 3 flashes means "3 blinks: [mapping] not found in CFG error"

 

Any advice from anyone please?

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33 minutes ago, mamejay said:

Hi there.  I have built a couple now and I managed to get the menu up.  I find I need to reset the console and then hit the reset on the cart to make the menu appear.

I try to load roms and I just get 3 flashed on the PICO.

Going by the PiRTO original cart github 3 flashes means "3 blinks: [mapping] not found in CFG error"

 

Any advice from anyone please?

All good.  Didn't realise I need the CFG files.  

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