EricDeLee Posted February 29, 2004 Share Posted February 29, 2004 Just curious as I just now noticed it. I know that the 5200 was released in order to compete with the Colecovision... so did Atari try to make expansion modules as well? The 5200 I have is the 4-port version. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt Vendel Posted February 29, 2004 Share Posted February 29, 2004 Hi Eric, The expansion bus has pinouts for what equals the SIO port on an Atari 800 computer and some cartridge and control lines. A keyboard had been done as well as music keyboard, but in-fighting between the HCD (Home Computer Division) and the CED (Consumer Electronics Division) caused a memo from upper management not only canceling the keyboard/computer add-on, but slating the elimination of the expansion port all together with a newer smaller version of the 5200 (the 5100) Curt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricDeLee Posted February 29, 2004 Author Share Posted February 29, 2004 Very interesting. Thank you for that information! What about the 2-port 5200s? Do they have the Expansion Bus... or are they all together eliminated? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jnice Posted March 1, 2004 Share Posted March 1, 2004 No, the 2-ports also have the expansion port. If I remember correctly, the NES systems also had an expansion port, which I believe was never used either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ApolloBoy Posted March 1, 2004 Share Posted March 1, 2004 If I remember correctly, the NES systems also had an expansion port, which I believe was never used either. True, except the top-loaders don't have it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bjk7382 Posted March 1, 2004 Share Posted March 1, 2004 Hi Eric, The expansion bus has pinouts for what equals the SIO port on an Atari 800 computer and some cartridge and control lines. Curt So could something be made similar to the SIO2PC adapter for the 5200? Using the expansion port. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Allan Posted March 1, 2004 Share Posted March 1, 2004 Hi Eric, The expansion bus has pinouts for what equals the SIO port on an Atari 800 computer and some cartridge and control lines. Curt So could something be made similar to the SIO2PC adapter for the 5200? Using the expansion port. Great question. I'm not sure myself. I do know that there is no rom software/bios in the 5200 to use an SIO device(I think). Maybe you could write some on a cart in RAM. It sure would be an interesting hack although I'm not sure what you could do with it. You could rewrite the bios (maybe) to include the ability to communicate with the port but then it would probably not be software compatible with any of the games. This is all speculation since I'm not a hardware guy. Any thoughts from anyone else? Allan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bjk7382 Posted March 1, 2004 Share Posted March 1, 2004 Seems like if the expansion port = SIO port on the computer, and the 5200 = 400 w/o keyboard, then in theory you could make an interface to load games onto the 5200. I hope someone says this is possible. Because I am not sure if the Maxi Cart will ever come out. I don't think there has been an update on this site in a long time. http://www.vgwiz.com/products-hw.html#a52MC Edit- I guess they will be coming out with that afterall, I just found this thread that was updated on Feb 18, saying that they are almost ready to ship. Now I just need to come up with $85 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CPUWIZ Posted March 1, 2004 Share Posted March 1, 2004 Even if you hack together a serial cable and write the communication software, you would only be able to upload 16K of RAM, not very useful really. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt Vendel Posted March 13, 2004 Share Posted March 13, 2004 Well, the bigger issue is what to do once you've hooked up something to the port. Making h/w is actually the easiest part of a project, its getting the main component to actually talk to and use that device in a well behaved manner. Paul Laughton (not the correct last name spelling) had explained to me at one point Atari had commissioned him to work on a version of basic for the PAM, later he wrote the Atari 7800 version of Basic. What would be interesting is... hey Kenfused your reading this? Would be to take Atari Basic Rev C. and convert it to work on the Atari 5200. If you could get basic to work on the 5200, then the next step would be to take the Atari 600/800XL keyboard and wire up an interface to allow it to talk through the front joystick ports (which are actually mimicking keyboard inputs re-written for the 5200) and get the keypad & firebutton signals to work in concert with the matrix of a 600XL/800XL keyboard... The reason I say to use the 600/800XL keyboard is then once this is accomplished you could then use an empty 600XL case with just a keyboard and have it wired up with a couple of 5200 joystick cables to go to the 5200 and plug into it. Have a little fun and spray paint the whole case semi-gloss black and you've got a matching 5200 computer keyboard :-) Next step would be to make a simple edge connector-to-SIO cable so you could plug in some disk drives, would make for a nice developers system, thats for sure Curt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Allan Posted March 13, 2004 Share Posted March 13, 2004 then the next step would be to take the Atari 600/800XL keyboard and wire up an interface to allow it to talk through the front joystick ports (which are actually mimicking keyboard inputs re-written for the 5200) and get the keypad & firebutton signals to work in concert with the matrix of a 600XL/800XL keyboard... I always wondered about this expecially with the XEGS keyboard which uses the 5200 controller connector. Maybe it would be easier to modify an XEGS cable? The reason I say to use the 600/800XL keyboard is then once this is accomplished you could then use an empty 600XL case with just a keyboard and have it wired up with a couple of 5200 joystick cables to go to the 5200 and plug into it. Have a little fun and spray paint the whole case semi-gloss black and you've got a matching 5200 computer keyboard :-) Next step would be to make a simple edge connector-to-SIO cable so you could plug in some disk drives, would make for a nice developers system, thats for sure Curt So how much ram would you have left over to program? 8K or 16K Maybe we could expand the 5200's memory to 64K? Allan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt Vendel Posted March 13, 2004 Share Posted March 13, 2004 The XEGS keyboard used some weird arrangement, I remember a couple of people trying to decypher it, but it was a bit of a mystery to figure out how it worked, I don't know if anyone has ever solved that puzzle... Well the 5200 only has 16K so figure 8k left to program, so its a bit, not much but enough. It should'nt be anymore difficult to upgrade a 5200's memory then a 400/800 or XL/XE system. Curt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted March 13, 2004 Share Posted March 13, 2004 It should'nt be anymore difficult to upgrade a 5200's memory then a 400/800 or XL/XE system. The only problem is that the 5200 was designed to be a cost-reduced version of the 8-bits, and it has no mechanism for sharing address space between RAM and ROM. Putting RAM above $3FFF would result in a conflict with an inserted cartridge unless a special circuit was designed to handle the switching. Putting the extra RAM in a cartridge would be nice, but Atari didn't run the R/W line to the cartridge port (I'm still trying to figure out why, after all the lessons learned on the 2600!). No matter what, expanding the 5200 is tricky, and the A8 computers are already available. -Bry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Allan Posted March 13, 2004 Share Posted March 13, 2004 It should'nt be anymore difficult to upgrade a 5200's memory then a 400/800 or XL/XE system. Curt I'm guessing you'd have to modify the 2K OS ROM to except more memory? Allan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted March 13, 2004 Share Posted March 13, 2004 Not really. The BIOS only uses a few locations and doesn't really care how much other memory there is. -Bry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Allan Posted March 13, 2004 Share Posted March 13, 2004 Not really. The BIOS only uses a few locations and doesn't really care how much other memory there is. -Bry But doesn't the computer BIOS have a lot of routines that BASIC uses? Plus I am assuming you would have to ad routines for the SIO port, unless they are built in. Even if so you would still need a DOS to communicate with a disk drive. I would imagine that you would run out of memory at this point because you can't do much with a drive hooked up to a 400/600XL. I wonder if a memory expansion board could be made so that you could run 64K or larger games on the 5200? I know somebody was bulding one for the XEGS a couple of years ago but he never finished it. You were suppose to be able to just connect a couple of wires and that's it. Allan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted March 13, 2004 Share Posted March 13, 2004 Yep. The 5200 BIOS is very simple and doesn't begin to cover all the stuff needed to do serial IO, text mode management, etc.. It just copies some useful hardware values to RAM, jumps to addresses you provide when interrupts happen, and not much more. You can poke through it here: http://www.atarihq.com/danb/files/5200BIOS.txt It's certainly not a real OS. You'd need to include a lot more functionality to communicate with a serial device or get BASIC to run. What was someone building for the XEGS? It already has 64K of RAM. -Bry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Allan Posted March 13, 2004 Share Posted March 13, 2004 What was someone building for the XEGS? It already has 64K of RAM. Whoops, forgot to mention the amount. It was going to be a 1 meg expansion board. Allan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted March 14, 2004 Share Posted March 14, 2004 Since nothing's socketed and there's no expansion bus on the XEGS, I can't imagine how such a thing would connect without some serious soldering. -Bry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slampam Posted August 19, 2008 Share Posted August 19, 2008 So has anyone managed to upgrade the memory on the 5200 in all these years? Or is the 2K OS a no-go from the start? 600XL memory upgrade http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=73013 XL memory upgrade pin-out http://www.isletech.net/atari/ 600XL memory upgrade pic http://krupkaj.ic.cz/showpic.php?show=Xzentrix_X&obr=50 600XL more memory upgrade http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=116756 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
classics Posted August 19, 2008 Share Posted August 19, 2008 A 64k memory upgrade board for the 5200 would be trivial to create. The real problem is, would enough people actually pay for one to justify making them? And of course there is the problem that only specially written new software would even be aware of or able to use the extra ram. Steve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Allan Posted August 19, 2008 Share Posted August 19, 2008 A 64k memory upgrade board for the 5200 would be trivial to create. The real problem is, would enough people actually pay for one to justify making them? And of course there is the problem that only specially written new software would even be aware of or able to use the extra ram. Steve It would make larger-memory 8-bit conversions possible without having to do so much work like Bryan had to do with MULE. If you did a classic 8-bit conversion (or a couple) that would only work with it, it might help sell it. It/they would have to be a game like MULE that a lot of people like though. I know I would buy a couple of them. Allan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jess Ragan Posted August 19, 2008 Share Posted August 19, 2008 The expansion port is a great place to put extra video connections. Past that, there really isn't much use for it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mellis Posted August 19, 2008 Share Posted August 19, 2008 I've been considering the feasibility of developing an ethernet adapter that would connect to the 5200 expansion port. The basic concept is a small, single-board computer (something from Atmel perhaps) that would manage a TCP/IP software stack while accepting data from the 5200 in a fashion similar to SIO. What would the point be? Well, you could play multiplayer games that were programmed to use the adapter with others over the internet. That said, I'm not proposing a voice link or anything like that (that is, I am not proposing Xbox Live here), but it would be nice to be able to play against other humans on your 5200, especially since the console is getting so rare these days. Oh well. Given infinite time maybe... Just curious as I just now noticed it. I know that the 5200 was released in order to compete with the Colecovision... so did Atari try to make expansion modules as well? The 5200 I have is the 4-port version. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Allan Posted August 19, 2008 Share Posted August 19, 2008 How about just creating a small 2-3-4---8 networked system like on the 8-bit. You could do something like Fujiama Run with the Multi-joy but use the expansion port. http://www.mathyvannisselroy.nl/special%20stuff.htm It would be great to have something like Midimaze on the 5200. Allan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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