Weird atari cartridge I found of trick shot

[vicsretrogames]

So I bought this for 40 dollars. Needless to say I dont know what I have and that's what brought me to here. 

 

I thought it was strange when I saw an atari 2600 cartridge with switches and well a chip that says trick shot on a pacman 2600  cartridge shell and another chip randomly attached to it. 

 

Im hoping someone has the answers to what this might be. Also do you think it's safe to try to play in my 2600

[Pitfall Harry]

It is a homemade pirate cartridge.  Somebody used a ROM copier to copy the game program instructions stored within the ROM chip taken from inside a legitimate Trick Shot cartridge into an EEPROM chip (if this monstrosity was made long ago), or else they copied the game program instructions from a ROM image file (a .bin file) of Trick Shot into an EEPROM chip (if this monstrosity was made within the last 20 years or so). Because the EEPROM chip sits in a socket, it is easy to replace the Trick Shot EEPROM chip with an EEPROM containing the illegally copied program code from any other Atari game as well.  The guy who made this cartridge likely copied the program instructions into many different EEPROM chips from many different games.  You bought the cartridge with the last EEPROM chip he happened to insert into the green socket.  If you pull up on the lever on the left side of the green socket, the EEPROM chip can be easily removed from the socket.  Pushing down on the lever locks the EEPROM chip into place inside the socket.

 

EEPROM is kind of a mouthful, so allow mw to break it down.

 

The EE stands for "Electrically Erasable."   This means that the EEPROM chip can be re-used, just like recording over and over again using the same VHS tape, overwriting whatever may have been recorded previously in the process.

 

The P stands for "Programmable," which simply means that an EEPROM chip can be programmed with video game program instructions, for example.

 

The ROM stands for "Read Only Memory," which means that the game program instructions copied into the EEPROM chip cannot be overwritten or altered in any way during the normal course of gameplay. 

 

Once a game's program instructions are copied into an EEPROM chip, that chip essentially behaves like a plain jane ROM chip, exactly like the ROM chip from which it was copied.  And thus, the game has been pirated.

 

The white sticker on the EEPROM chip that says "Trick-Shot" on it serves two purposes.  First, it identifies the game copied into the EEPROM chip.  Secondly, it keeps UV light from entering the innards of the EEPROM chip once the game code has been copied and the white sticker has been affixed.  This second purpose requires a bit of explaining, so please bear with me while I get all technical.

 

An EEPROM chip is really just a piece of silicon embedded in a DIP (Dual Inline Package). The DIP has two rows of metallic connector pins (legs) that make the EEPROM package look a bit like a centipede.  It's the legs that get inserted into the pinholes of the green socket. On the topside of the EEPROM package there is a little glass window that allows you to see the silicon inside the chip. More importantly, it is through this glass window that electrical pulses from a ROM copier penetrate into the silicon chip to be able to program the chip with copied code. You cannot see this glass window because the white sticker is covering it.  Go ahead and peel the sticker back and you will see the glass window beneath it.  The sticker must be removed to copy code into the EEPROM chip, but it is very important to cover the glass window back up with a sticker when you are done.  Why?  Because ambient light from within a room can ALSO overwrite the game code instructions that have been copied into an EEPROM.  The overwriting of EEPROM stored game code from exposure to ambient light does not happen instantly the way it happens when you use electrical pulses to copy game code to the chip in the first place.  But it does happen.  It may take 10 or 20 years, but it will happen.  Because all it takes is for just one of the tens of thousands of 1's and 0's saved inside the EEPROM chip to flip to the other value to make the game code within it to stop working altogether.  And that is the second purpose of the white sticker: to safeguard the saved game code within the EEPROM from bit rot.

 

 I am guessing that one of the two silver toggle switches can be used to make the cartridge play either Pac-Man or Trick Shot, depending on the position of the switch.

 

I have no idea what the other toggle switch might be used for.  But I hope I answered your question.

 

 

-Ben

 

  

[vicsretrogames]

10 hours ago, Pitfall Harry said:

It is a homemade pirate cartridge.  Somebody used a ROM copier to copy the game program instructions stored within the ROM chip taken from inside a legitimate Trick Shot cartridge into an EEPROM chip (if this monstrosity was made long ago), or else they copied the game program instructions from a ROM image file (a .bin file) of Trick Shot into an EEPROM chip (if this monstrosity was made within the last 20 years or so). Because the EEPROM chip sits in a socket, it is easy to replace the Trick Shot EEPROM chip with an EEPROM containing the illegally copied program code from any other Atari game as well.  The guy who made this cartridge likely copied the program instructions into many different EEPROM chips from many different games.  You bought the cartridge with the last EEPROM chip he happened to insert into the green socket.  If you pull up on the lever on the left side of the green socket, the EEPROM chip can be easily removed from the socket.  Pushing down on the lever locks the EEPROM chip into place inside the socket.

 

EEPROM is kind of a mouthful, so allow mw to break it down.

 

The EE stands for "Electrically Erasable."   This means that the EEPROM chip can be re-used, just like recording over and over again using the same VHS tape, overwriting whatever may have been recorded previously in the process.

 

The P stands for "Programmable," which simply means that an EEPROM chip can be programmed with video game program instructions, for example.

 

The ROM stands for "Read Only Memory," which means that the game program instructions copied into the EEPROM chip cannot be overwritten or altered in any way during the normal course of gameplay. 

 

Once a game's program instructions are copied into an EEPROM chip, that chip essentially behaves like a plain jane ROM chip, exactly like the ROM chip from which it was copied.  And thus, the game has been pirated.

 

The white sticker on the EEPROM chip that says "Trick-Shot" on it serves two purposes.  First, it identifies the game copied into the EEPROM chip.  Secondly, it keeps UV light from entering the innards of the EEPROM chip once the game code has been copied and the white sticker has been affixed.  This second purpose requires a bit of explaining, so please bear with me while I get all technical.

 

An EEPROM chip is really just a piece of silicon embedded in a DIP (Dual Inline Package). The DIP has two rows of metallic connector pins (legs) that make the EEPROM package look a bit like a centipede.  It's the legs that get inserted into the pinholes of the green socket. On the topside of the EEPROM package there is a little glass window that allows you to see the silicon inside the chip. More importantly, it is through this glass window that electrical pulses from a ROM copier penetrate into the silicon chip to be able to program the chip with copied code. You cannot see this glass window because the white sticker is covering it.  Go ahead and peel the sticker back and you will see the glass window beneath it.  The sticker must be removed to copy code into the EEPROM chip, but it is very important to cover the glass window back up with a sticker when you are done.  Why?  Because ambient light from within a room can ALSO overwrite the game code instructions that have been copied into an EEPROM.  The overwriting of EEPROM stored game code from exposure to ambient light does not happen instantly the way it happens when you use electrical pulses to copy game code to the chip in the first place.  But it does happen.  It may take 10 or 20 years, but it will happen.  Because all it takes is for just one of the tens of thousands of 1's and 0's saved inside the EEPROM chip to flip to the other value to make the game code within it to stop working altogether.  And that is the second purpose of the white sticker: to safeguard the saved game code within the EEPROM from bit rot.

 

 I am guessing that one of the two silver toggle switches can be used to make the cartridge play either Pac-Man or Trick Shot, depending on the position of the switch.

 

I have no idea what the other toggle switch might be used for.  But I hope I answered your question.

 

 

-Ben

 

  

Thank you for responding. That's really interesting. So you think those switches are for selecting the game? This won't damage my 2600 if I try to play it? Like if the switches are in the wrong place it won't fry my console

[Pitfall Harry]

Although anything is possible with homemade hardware, your pirate cart is extremely unlikely to damage your Atari console if you attempt to play it.  If the cart was faulty in a way that could damage your console, the guy who made the cart, in all probability, would have noticed. Anyone capable of making that kind of a cartridge undoubtedly had the expertise to know whether the cart was faulty/dangerous soon after he made it and would have fixed it or tossed it out if it was bad.  About the worst that could happen if you attempt to play the game is that the game simply will not play. And though bad code inside the EEPROM chip may cause your console to lock up completely, it's nothing that can't be fixed by simply removing the cart and rebooting your Atari.  If you are operating your Atari console correctly, you reboot the thing every time you turn the power switch off to remove a cartridge and then turn it back on after you pop another game cartridge back into it anyway. 

 

So give it a shot and see what it does.

 

Caution:  If you want to experiment with changing the position of the silver switches on the cart, DO NOT FLIP THE SWITCHES WHILE THE GAME CARTRIDGE IS POWERED UP INSIDE YOUR CONSOLE SLOT!  Doing so is the most likely way you could potentially damage your console, your pirate cart, or both.  Flip the switches on the cart when it is NOT inserted in your console's cartridge slot to avoid that Pitfall!™.

 

 

-Ben

[CPUWIZ]

The toggle switches are for selecting 2K/4K EPROM's, the ZIF socket footprint is 24pin.

 

So, what happens is this:

 

Switch in position for 4K games and you insert a 2K EPROM, blank screen or funky colors and vise versa.  Nothing will get damaged, not on the system or the cart.

 

EDIT: If you are lucky, the switches have 3 positions, one final one for mask ROM's.

[vicsretrogames]

Here is the inside of the cartridge. It only works if the switches are in the down position. I think it's really weird how everything is wired in there

[Pitfall Harry]

On 7/18/2024 at 11:01 AM, vicsretrogames said:

Here is the inside of the cartridge. It only works if the switches are in the down position. I think it's really weird how everything is wired in there

 

Ha! What an amateur.  If I had designed a pirate's cartridge hack, I would have made it only work if the switches were in the UP position.

 

 

-Ben

[danny_galaga]

On 7/20/2024 at 4:36 AM, Pitfall Harry said:

Ha! What an amateur.  If I had designed a pirate's cartridge hack, I would have made it only work if the switches were in the UP position.

 

 

-Ben

I've been thinking about switches positions recently. Apparently UP tends to mean ON,  but in my mind it feels more natural that DOWN is on. What's the story?

[Pitfall Harry]

14 minutes ago, danny_galaga said:

I've been thinking about switches positions recently. Apparently UP tends to mean ON,  but in my mind it feels more natural that DOWN is on. What's the story?

I don't know if this is a general rule (not an industry standard, mind you, just a convention) that applies to all toggle switches, but in North America and most of Europe it has long been a rule for light switches and vertically oriented circuit breakers to be ON when in the UP position and OFF when down.  But even this rule becomes muddied when a light within a room can be controlled by two separate toggle switches on opposite sides of the room.

 

And I was just making a joke.

 

 

-Ben

 

Addendum: And don't ever rely on this convention.  If you are going to tinker with an installed light fixture, do more than gamble your life away on a convention. Always turn the power off at the circuit breaker first and check for voltage with a meter.  Or better still, hire a qualified electrician if you don't know what you're doing.

Edited July 25 by Pitfall Harry
Addendum added

[Windless]

On 7/5/2024 at 3:02 PM, Pitfall Harry said:

Secondly, it keeps UV light from entering the innards of the EEPROM chip once the game code has been copied and the white sticker has been affixed. 

I am curious here: how can one know it is an EEPROM with an UV window ? I didn't do much electronic in the 80s (and I still don't) but I thought you either hade an EPROM with UV window or an EEPROM (Electically Erasable instead of UV erasable) and chips having both erase type are were pretty rare, mainly for transition. Is it a well known EEPROM that can be recognised by the golden line ?

[Pitfall Harry]

I misspoke earlier. It's not an EEPROM. It's just an EPROM (with only one E) that's inside most prototype cartridges.   Sorry for the confusion.

 

-Ben

[danny_galaga]

On 7/25/2024 at 10:50 AM, Pitfall Harry said:

I don't know if this is a general rule (not an industry standard, mind you, just a convention) that applies to all toggle switches, but in North America and most of Europe it has long been a rule for light switches and vertically oriented circuit breakers to be ON when in the UP position and OFF when down.  But even this rule becomes muddied when a light within a room can be controlled by two separate toggle switches on opposite sides of the room.

 

And I was just making a joke.

 

 

-Ben

 

Addendum: And don't ever rely on this convention.  If you are going to tinker with an installed light fixture, do more than gamble your life away on a convention. Always turn the power off at the circuit breaker first and check for voltage with a meter.  Or better still, hire a qualified electrician if you don't know what you're doing.

Yes, in aircraft and vintage cars too. But I grew up in Australia and light and wall switches are down for ON. Maybe it's because we are down under 🤔

[Pitfall Harry]

7 hours ago, danny_galaga said:

Yes, in aircraft and vintage cars too. But I grew up in Australia and light and wall switches are down for ON. Maybe it's because we are down under 🤔

Welll, that's just bass ackwards.  Honestly, I don't know what keeps you down unders from falling off the planet. Do you all wear Velcro soled boots?

 

I believe the phrases "power up" and "power down" owe their origins to the UP = On / DOWN = Off convention of the northern hemisphere.

 

-Ben

Edited July 27 by Pitfall Harry