Cuttle Cart 2 Discussion Thread

[Atariboy]

They never merged.

[Shawn]

Hey Guys,

 

Just in case anyone who has purchased a CC2 and does not have a POKEY chip yet I thought I would offer up my spare POKEY chip FOR FREE. Just shoot me like 2 bucks to cover the shipping to USA or Canada and its yours. Across the water will be more shipping but what the hell right the chip is FREE!!

 

 

[Paranoid]

They never merged.

 

Seems that way. I *swear* my NFS HS box had an Activision sticker on it. "Distributed by Activision"... is what I thought... but I must have been mistaken.

 

Alright... then... EA sucks for their own reasons, and you shouldn't buy THEIR titles, either.

 

And, maybe Activision isn't *quite* so bad as EA...

 

Well... -nevermind-...

[Shawn]

EA makes the Bond games, I will always buy the Bond games so I guess I'll be buying from EA at least untill the license goes to another company but I doubt it will cause they do a fantastic job making the 007 games. I own every single one of them and have enjoyed them all.

Edited June 26, 2006 by Shawn Sr.

[desiv]

Just browsing around and saw some RSMMC cards on ecost.com. I read in this thread that these are perfect for the CC2 because they just fit.

 

I have an MMC already, but I'm thinking about it.... Oh well, just thought I'd post since it's the first RSMMC I've seen on sale. (Admittedly, I haven't looked though. :-)

 

http://www.ecost.com/ecost/ecdm/search/sea...C)%20Memory.asp

 

desiv

(Just to clarify, I haven't used any RSMMC cards, so I can't verify compatibility.)

Edited July 15, 2006 by desiv

[Paranoid]

Has anybody else had any previous experience with either of the two brands of RS-MMC at this link, used with the CC2?

[rbudrick]

Here's a somewhat off-the-wall question. Two, actually.

 

1, How hard would it be to construct a Game-Genie-ish cartridge for the 2600 and/or 7800?

 

2, Assuming that it would be (relatively) easy to do on the 7800, could the Cuttle Cart 2 be reprogrammed to serve as a Game-Genie-ish device? I'm thinking it would be something along the lines of, load this game, but load it with this (figurative) bit changed to hold this value.

 

Well, Bob Colbert wrote the VCS program Cheetah to use Game Geni-ish codes on VCS games, which I believe can be converted to .wav files and sent to the Supercharger, but I can't remember if it could hack roms that are .bin files and definitely not 7800 games. Then there's the ultra rare PGP-1, but that's another story!

 

I've always wanted a true cheat device for the early Atari systems...I'm kind of surprised no one has made one yet.

 

But yeah, can the CC2 be programmed to do that?

 

-Rob

Edited August 7, 2006 by rbudrick

[128bytes]

Has anybody else had any previous experience with either of the two brands of RS-MMC at this link, used with the CC2?

 

Yeah, I use the SimpleTech RS-MMC. It works perfectly.

[Shaggy the Atarian]

On the subject of the CC2, I need some help. The other day I went to play some games on my CC2 and shortly after turning the 7800 on and selecting my game, it freaks out like the cratridge was loose or dirty (similar to what you get when a 2600 cart is loose or dirty - a lot of squiggly lines, nothing but black, or some other weird output). I checked the cart - it was in tight and it was clean. The MMC was in just fine and not dirty. I try it again and then I get weird output on the CC2 menu or it just goes black a few seconds after shoing the menu screen. After several attempts I can only get this output - it won't select anything, the colors go strange or the resolution of the menu decreases drastically before going blank. I overwrote some of the files on my MMC, such as the MENU.CC2 and the startup files but no change. So I'm guessing at this point it's something with the card. I'm not sure what to do as my warranty is out. Could it be another ROM image that has become corrupt that you can't access through the MMC? Could it be something else? I checked the partition status under Windows XP Disk Management and it says that the partition is healthy. I know it's formatted correctly as I've been using it for several months now without any problem. Please help!

[Paranoid]

Man... that sucks.

 

Just for the sake of being complete, have you checked that another 2600 or 7800 cart will work in the 7800? Personally, I'd much rather find out that my 7800 had gone flaky than my CC2 had gone bad.

 

If you find that it is a problem with the 7800, you can try cleaning the cartridge port, or replace the console. If you find that it still is a problem with your CC2, I'd suggest formatting your MMC card per the instructions available on Chad's website. Then, I would reload only a COUPLE rom images onto the MMC and see if the problem persists.

 

It couldn't hurt to try another MMC card, too, in either case. The way I'm looking at it, there are three components that can fail, and if you're fortunate, it is the console or the MMC card.

 

I'm thinking good thoughts for you. Will Chad repair damaged CC2s out of warranty for a service fee?

[Shaggy the Atarian]

I know the 7800 works - it palys my regular carts fine. I have been thinking similarly to what you said - I'm hoping that it may be the MMC or something easy. I will have to try formatting the card. At least I have backed up my homebrew ROMs. While they are all available here it would be a pain to have to go through and dl them all again. I'll also contact Chad directly. I guess I should have done that first.

[Paranoid]

Well, good luck either way. My guess is that it is a corrupted MMC card. They do that, and I think I've experienced something similar to what you described. I keep a few MMC cards on hand and have a couple of different machines I can format them on, just because of this kind of thing, and always keep a couple images of the MMC on a couple different systems.

 

I've had real bad luck with a my XP machine with a non-sandisk compliant card and a non-sandisk compliant reader. If I format the card on a different machine, and then copy the CC2 files to it by accessing it through my Pocket PC, everything works fine. But the minute I try and look at that card with any card reader on any platform, it corrupts the card so bad I need to format it again (and it will generally only format reliably on my Mac after this happens). Nice, huh? I've got another MMC it (the CC2) won't see it all, doesn't matter WHAT I do. Finally I tracked down a SanDisk card and card reader and that works perfect every time. That would probably be my advice. You might pay a little more, but it is bullet-proof, in my experience.

[Bruce Tomlin]

On the subject of the CC2, I need some help. The other day I went to play some games on my CC2 and shortly after turning the 7800 on and selecting my game, it freaks out like the cratridge was loose or dirty (similar to what you get when a 2600 cart is loose or dirty - a lot of squiggly lines, nothing but black, or some other weird output). I checked the cart - it was in tight and it was clean.

The vertical stripes indicate that the 7800 is in 2600 mode at the time, because it wasn't able to detect a 7800 cartridge at startup. A crash in 7800 mode (IIRC) usually results either in a black screen or total garbage from the Maria display lists getting trashed.

 

If you think it might be the MMC, have you tried starting up without it? The CC2 will bitch about it, but should still give you a stable screen. Then try tapping at it. Like others have said, 1) try other cartridges, and 2) try a different 7800. You already have a power supply, so you might be able to save a few bucks by getting one with no power supply.

[Paranoid]

Oooh. Trying without the MMC was a "no-brainer". Wish I had thought of that.

 

That is going to pretty much instantly narrow it down to the cart or the console. You'll get a stable CC2 screen with "No MMC detected".

[Bruce Tomlin]

Was there ever a 256K banking file made for the CC2? (bank 14 at $4000, bank 15 at $C000)

[+Mitch]

Was there ever a 256K banking file made for the CC2? (bank 14 at $4000, bank 15 at $C000)

 

Not that I ever saw.

 

Mitch

[Shaggy the Atarian]

From my testing so far it seems that it was a bad POKEY. I removed that and the problems stopped. That is a relief though, it's better that a POKEY go out than the CC2 itself.

[progrocktv]

Has anyone updated a MENU.txt file they could post? I'm missing a ton of homebrews and hacks (like Yellow Submarine) and wanted to see if anyone has put together a comprehensive file before I manually enter mine.

 

Cheers!

P

[Phantom]

Hey gang, any advice on the RS MMC? Is this brand ok

 

http://item.express.ebay.com/512MB-RS-MMC-...cmdZExpressItem

 

or should I stick with sandisk?

 

is 256 ok(will it hold alot of games?) or do I need a 512? Bigger?

 

Thanks for any help.

[dark-aleph]

Phantom, I'd stick with Sandisk. I went through three RS-MMCs which either didn't work at all in the CC2, or if they did they went irrevocably corrupt within days of use. Then I got a Sandisk card and have had 12 months of perfect operation.

 

256mb is plenty big. Mine's 32mb, contains 1600 ROMs and is still not half full, even with instructions files and so on.

[Gregory DG]

Shoot, I've got a 64 meg card and I'm nowhere near filling it up. I even put the Smurf sound files on it (not that it would work or anything...)

[Phantom]

Thanks Guys, no use wasting money on a 512 then, now to find a sandisk 128...take care and thankyou mucho

Edited February 1, 2007 by Phantom

[Paranoid]

You found the thread, Phantom. Did you find the instructions on how to insert and remove the RS-MMC card in this thread, too? It is a couple-few pages back...

 

And yeah, I think I'm using a 32mb RS-MMC on my CC2, and it gives me plenty of room left over.

[Phantom]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...item=7619781070

 

Cheap ones here, atleast it seems so to me... Im hving my friend buy me one tomorrow so please dont go buying all 19 ok? LOL Thanks

[Merrick Bill]

Anyways for those of you having trouble finding a machine to create your menu's on. There are people here willing to send the files you need to you. That is what I did. Someone here was nice enough to send it and I just dumped it onto my MMC.

 

Instant 2600/7800 library!!

 

I would love to get a complete MMC image already fine tuned and working with all the games and the correct bank switching and doc files. Is there anyone who has created a complete CC2 package who is willing to post it somewhere?

 

Bill

 

Send me a PM with your email address and I will send you a ready to go MMC image.

 

@ SS - www.yousendit.com works good for sending large files (up to 1gb) And the recipient doesn't need to accept the whole thing, they go to the yousendit site thru a link and download it from them.

 

I am working on getting a host for this file since I am getting sick of uploading it for everyone

 

 

Back in March 2005 when I first got my CC2, bjk7382 sent me an image of his MMC for me to use with my Cuttle Cart. I suspect that in the ensuing 2.5 years many people have tweaked their MMCs to include more ROMs, newer ROMs and maybe even better organized menus. Is there anyone out there who has a "state of the art" CC2 set up who'd be willing to upload it or email it to me so that I can once again be on the forefront of CC2 usage.

 

Bill