Deico Electronics

[Cybergoth]

Hi there!

 

As stated in my blog, I found that my H.E.R.O. cartridge died two days ago. Out of curiosity, I just opened it. I thought the conetent was rather surprising, as the PCB read:

 

DEICO ELECTRONICS DEI-1677

 

After some web research, I hit atariprotos here:

http://www.atariprotos.com/2600/software/t...tapperproto.htm

 

So I thought my find might be an interesting info for you proto guys

 

Also Interesting to me (as an electronics idiot) is, that there's just one single chip on the H.E.R.O PCB . At least I thought there had to be more parts involved for an 8K binary?

 

While no EPROM, the chip looks a bit like the AMD(?) one in the tapper proto, but it has only 24 legs instead of 28. It reads:

 

DEI-320NR-HEROPA1

© NCR A8829

609-2230085

A831109

 

Sorry, I don't have a camera or I'd take a picture.

 

Greetings,

Manuel

[supercat]

Also Interesting to me (as an electronics idiot) is, that there's just one single chip on the H.E.R.O PCB . At least I thought there had to be more parts involved for an 8K binary?

932900[/snapback]

 

There are no 'off the shelf' parts which will act as an 8K bankswitched cart. On the other hand, the logic required for bank switching is simple enough that companies making a lot of games have no problem engineering a single chip which does everything necessary.

 

If you buy a game from Albert, the code will be stored in a field-programmable memory device (most likely either an EPROM or an OTP). The chip manufacturers don't have to involve itself with the game code. They just supply blank chips to a distributor, who then supplies them to Albert. He then programs the games as necessary.

 

Field-programmable memory devices are wonderful, but they used to be pretty expensive. If one needed to get many copies of a chip made, it was much cheaper to order "mask ROMs" directly from the factory. These chips have the game's code physically hard-wired into them (a sufficiently-detailed X-ray could read it out). Such chips were and are something of a pain for the manufacturer to deal with so manufacturers normally wouldn't even bother with any order below about 10,000 pieces.

 

If a game is going to use field-programmable memory, it would be outrageous for the game company to call the chip manufacturer and say "Could you give us a few hundred EPROMS that are just like the other ones, but with different chip-select logic?" On the other hand, if a game company is already ordering tens of thousands of custom chips, asking for a tiny bit more customization is no big deal.

[video game addict]

A number of Epyx 8-bit carts for the 400/800 were released on DEICO pcbs & cart cases. Most were also sold in the typical Epyx cases as well. But you find alot of carts around these people were making. I want to say one of the 5200 rarities, Bounty Bob or Meteorites, I think it is Meterites, was using a Deico casing, maybe pcb too?

[Cybergoth]

Hi there!

 

If a game is going to use field-programmable memory, it would be outrageous for the game company to call the chip manufacturer and say "Could you give us a few hundred EPROMS that are just like the other ones, but with different chip-select logic?"  On the other hand, if a game company is already ordering tens of thousands of custom chips, asking for a tiny bit more customization is no big deal.

 

Hm... but with a big industry like 2600 cart production, it might have been interesting for a chip producer to offer dedicated 8,16,32K bankswitched EPROMS, no? I guess it would've been only a matter of time, if the crash hadn't happened

 

A number of Epyx 8-bit carts for the 400/800 were released on DEICO pcbs & cart cases. Most were also sold in the typical Epyx cases as well.  But you find alot of carts around these people were making. I want to say one of the 5200 rarities, Bounty Bob or Meteorites, I think it is Meterites, was using a Deico casing, maybe pcb too?

 

My H.E.R.O. is 100% a regular Activision case, just the PCB is from Deico. I just checked manual and box, but they aren't mentioned elsewhere.

 

Greetings,

Manuel