Cuttle Cart 2 Discussion Thread

[+FujiSkunk]

File is about 8MB big and currently I've taken out the Ebivision ROMs. If anyone feels anything else needs to go, then let me know.

 

Hey, MayhemUK, thanks for the file! This is a great service, and you have my gratitude!

 

One small nitpick: In the file I downloaded yesterday (March 31), the Ebivision Pac-Man binary isn't there, but there is still an entry for it in the menu file.

[Mayhem]

Yeah, I deliberately left the Ebivision entries in the MENU.CC2 file so that should you actually get hold of them yourself, you can just put them on the MMC card with the correct settings for making them work with the CC2 already in place.

[bjk7382]

Mayhem, your menu file is pretty hard to read. You can put multaple tabs in to make it space out evenly.

Here is a pic of mine and yours

[+FujiSkunk]

Yeah, I deliberately left the Ebivision entries in the MENU.CC2 file so that should you actually get hold of them yourself, you can just put them on the MMC card with the correct settings for making them work with the CC2 already in place.

 

Ahh... nnehh-ver mind, then.

 

Again, nice work!

[Mayhem]

Mayhem, your menu file is pretty hard to read. You can put multaple tabs in to make it space out evenly.  

Here is a pic of mine and yours

 

When I originally ran the menu generator program at the start of having my CC2, it produced about 900 entries. I just couldn't be arsed to go through and properly tab them all out

[bjk7382]

When I originally ran the menu generator program at the start of having my CC2, it produced about 900 entries. I just couldn't be arsed to go through and properly tab them all out  

My menu got generated as shown above, and I made my entries to look like the default ones.

 

I have still put many hours into my menu file. With sorting them out by company all by hand. Cutting and pasting full lines over 5-6 hundred times But it is a labor of love I guess

[Mr. PHP]

When I originally ran the menu generator program at the start of having my CC2, it produced about 900 entries. I just couldn't be arsed to go through and properly tab them all out  

My menu got generated as shown above, and I made my entries to look like the default ones.

 

I have still put many hours into my menu file. With sorting them out by company all by hand. Cutting and pasting full lines over 5-6 hundred times But it is a labor of love I guess

 

It is very well laid out IMHO.

I made a "FAVORITES" section at the top to hold whatever I am currently

playing but left everything else alone.

 

Great Job!

[desiv]

FWIW mikesarcade.com has pokey chips for $6 (US).

 

Thanks for the advice...

 

I went to that page and saw that they sold arcade equipment as well (I kind of figured by the name..) and they had coin mechs on sale..

 

Since my CAB needed a few coin mechs, I ordered 2 and a pokey.

 

Great service, got them today and all works fine...

 

Thanx again!!!

 

desiv

 

p.s. There was a brief period of time I thought I fried my 7800 after I plugged in the pokey, but it turns out I had turned off my little TV (to hush the white noise) and forgot. I thought I was just getting a black screen.. Well, I was, but.. :-) :-)

 

Turned it back on, and back came my 7800.. Funny the way these things work. Today I recover a dying server SCSI HD just long enough to mirror it and save some rebuild time, and then this.. :-)

 

p.p.s. Thanx Chad for the great hardware!!

[Mr. PHP]

FWIW mikesarcade.com has pokey chips for $6 (US).

 

Thanks for the advice...

 

I went to that page and saw that they sold arcade equipment as well (I kind of figured by the name..) and they had coin mechs on sale..

 

Since my CAB needed a few coin mechs, I ordered 2 and a pokey.

 

Great service, got them today and all works fine...

 

Thanx again!!!

 

desiv

 

p.s. There was a brief period of time I thought I fried my 7800 after I plugged in the pokey, but it turns out I had turned off my little TV (to hush the white noise) and forgot. I thought I was just getting a black screen.. Well, I was, but.. :-) :-)

 

Turned it back on, and back came my 7800.. Funny the way these things work. Today I recover a dying server SCSI HD just long enough to mirror it and save some rebuild time, and then this.. :-)

 

p.p.s. Thanx Chad for the great hardware!!

 

 

 

I got my pokey there and they delivered it quickly.

Glad they worked for you too.

I'll definitely be shopping there again.

[Gregory DG]

Here's my CC2 review.

[Bruce Tomlin]

There is an audio jack to allow for quicker loading of a project you may be working on.

That's not an audio jack. It's an RS-232 input. And it works at up to 115K baud.

[cschell]

Here's my CC2 review. 

837282[/snapback]

 

Cools. Thanks for the positive review. 100% wow!

 

Chad

[cschell]

Hi everyone,

 

I've decided to make a beta version of the CC2 OS available to those brave enough to try it. Seems to work fine for me and Mitch. If you're timid with computers or electronics I strongly suggest letting others kick the tires first.

 

Anyway, it's a very minor upgrade. All it does is improve the speed of MMC loading times. So large games like Alien Brigade and the 3E demos should now load in about half the time they previously loaded. The other benefit is that scrolling is faster near the end of large menus, so speed is more uniform whether you're at the start or the end of the menu.

 

After the update if you go to the utilties menu the title bar should read version "FAST". Dev mode should read version FAST as well, although there are no speed improvements in dev mode.

 

Here's the link to the zip file with the new OS.

 

http://www.schells.com/cc2utils/CC2BETAOS_FAST.zip

 

To install it copy the BOOTROM.CC2 file to the root directory of your MMC (be sure to select eject before removing your MMC from the computer on Windows operating systems), put the MMC in the CC2, go to utilities, then select "Update Boot ROM" and follow the onscreen instructions.

 

If you give it a try let me and/or the world know how it goes.

 

Thanks,

Chad

[cschell]

Anyone having problems with some of the 2600 games? I get a fatal Error when the CC2 tries to load a couple of games. I have to work through them to see which ones work and which ones don't but I know for sure that Subterranea crashes when loading. Am I the only one with this problem?

827496[/snapback]

 

This problem turned out to be a faulty MMC. In fact it was an RS-MMC. I couldn't read it reliably in any of my flash readers (they choked even worse than the CC2). So hopefully it was a bad unit and not an indication that RS-MMCs aren't really backwards compatble.

 

Anyway, with a new MMC everything works fine. I know rxd already posted this in the "Chad Schell and the CC2! (AWESOME!)" thread, but I just wanted to follow up on it in this thread as well.

 

So does anyone out there use RS-MMCs in their MMC based devices? How about in the CC2?

 

Chad

[Rob Mitchell]

I have two NEW POKEY chips for sale. $7 includes shipping.

 

Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA

[cschell]

I've decided to make a beta version of the CC2 OS available to those brave enough to try it...

 

So no one's brave enough, or no one cares about a speed increase?

 

Just curious,

Chad

[Gregory DG]

So no one's brave enough, or no one cares about a speed increase?

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Both.

 

:!:

[Schmutzpuppe]

I've decided to make a beta version of the CC2 OS available to those brave enough to try it...

 

So no one's brave enough, or no one cares about a speed increase?

 

Just curious,

Chad

840933[/snapback]

I'll give it a try next weekend.

Good to see some improvements

[Merrick Bill]

So no one's brave enough, or no one cares about a speed increase?

 

Just curious,

Chad

840933[/snapback]

 

I downloaded it yesterday and upgraded the bios. It worked. But I didn't test any of the "new features."

 

Bill

[Atariboy]

I haven't figured out how to add games to it yet (Downloaded the file that was posted here and just put it on the MMC card).

 

Don't think I should be trying this anytime soon.

[Mr. PHP]

I've decided to make a beta version of the CC2 OS available to those brave enough to try it...

 

So no one's brave enough, or no one cares about a speed increase?

 

Just curious,

Chad

840933[/snapback]

 

 

Thanks Chad!

 

Load speed has definitely improved! That alone was well worth the effort on my part to install the new OS!

 

It took all of about two minutes to write the file to the MMC and update the CC2

OS!

 

It is tough to tell if the scrolling speed has improved, but then again, all I could find

was an A-Data 64 MB MMC and all the extra (empty) space may be slowing me down.

 

Whatever you did, it was very neato! Load times are MUCH faster!

 

Thanks again Dr. Schell!

[cschell]

Load speed has definitely improved! That alone was well worth the effort on my part to install the new OS!

 

Cool. Glad to hear that you notice the difference. If you get a chance and have the games please give some HSC and Supercharger games (especially multiload) a chance to make sure they still work ok. They require special loading steps.

 

Thanks,

Chad

[Mr. PHP]

Load speed has definitely improved! That alone was well worth the effort on my part to install the new OS!

 

Cool. Glad to hear that you notice the difference. If you get a chance and have the games please give some HSC and Supercharger games (especially multiload) a chance to make sure they still work ok. They require special loading steps.

 

Thanks,

Chad

842875[/snapback]

 

For the HSC:

I tried Asteroids, Centipede, Ms. Pac Man, Joust, Food Fight, and Galaga and they all worked fine. The high scores were recorded and recalled.

 

As for the Starpath games:

I got through all three levels in Dragonstomper and two levels of Escape from the Mindmaster.

Suicide Mission, Phaser Patrol, Frogger, Fireball, Survival Island, Sword of Sauros and Rabbit Transit all seem to work fine.

 

Thanks for the speed boost

Edited April 25, 2005 by Mr. PHP

[cschell]

For the HSC:

I tried Asteroids, Centipede, Ms. Pac Man, Joust, Food Fight, and Galaga and they all worked fine. The high scores were recorded and recalled.

 

As for the Starpath games:

I got through all three levels in Dragonstomper and two levels of Escape from the Mindmaster.

Suicide Mission, Phaser Patrol, Frogger, Fireball, Survival Island, Sword of Sauros and Rabbit Transit all seem to work fine.

 

Thanks for the speed boost 

843236[/snapback]

 

Well, it seems to work you, me, and Mitch. Perhaps I should release it as Version 1.10.

 

I suppose I should test Dev mode a little more first.

 

Chad

[Mr. PHP]

For the HSC:

I tried Asteroids, Centipede, Ms. Pac Man, Joust, Food Fight, and Galaga and they all worked fine. The high scores were recorded and recalled.

 

As for the Starpath games:

I got through all three levels in Dragonstomper and two levels of Escape from the Mindmaster.

Suicide Mission, Phaser Patrol, Frogger, Fireball, Survival Island, Sword of Sauros and Rabbit Transit all seem to work fine.

 

Thanks for the speed boost 

843236[/snapback]

 

Well, it seems to work you, me, and Mitch. Perhaps I should release it as Version 1.10.

 

I suppose I should test Dev mode a little more first.

 

Chad

843418[/snapback]

 

I finished testing ALL of the HSC games and they work fine with the CC2 and the "FASTER OS". All high scores were recorded and recalled.

 

I'm still going through the last of the Starpath games, but everything works so far.

The multiloads are so fast that there is no sound or color during the load.

The new levels are loaded in a blink!

 

For the casual gamer (like me), the update is worth it for the faster loads.

Besides, it is very easy to update the CC2 OS or revert to the old one if you want.

 

Keep up the good work Chad!