Tempest Posted March 13, 2006 Share Posted March 13, 2006 Ok this may just be stupidity on my part, but I noticed there are only 127 slots for games. Shouldn't it have 128? Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+FujiSkunk Posted March 13, 2006 Share Posted March 13, 2006 Ok this may just be stupidity on my part, but I noticed there are only 127 slots for games. Shouldn't it have 128? Tempest I don't have it in front of me right now, so I can't remember: Is there a slot 0? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+remowilliams Posted March 13, 2006 Share Posted March 13, 2006 Ok this may just be stupidity on my part, but I noticed there are only 127 slots for games. Shouldn't it have 128? Tempest Slot 128 is occupied by the carts self test program. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
classics Posted March 13, 2006 Author Share Posted March 13, 2006 Ok this may just be stupidity on my part, but I noticed there are only 127 slots for games. Shouldn't it have 128? Tempest Slot 128 is occupied by the carts self test program. What he said, plus the on screen menu software. Steve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+FujiSkunk Posted March 13, 2006 Share Posted March 13, 2006 (edited) Curiousity question: Does the reset button only do a soft reset, and does it require the game to "know" how to reset itself properly? I ask because hitting the reset button after loading the Bejeweled demo only locks the game up, instead of going back to the menu screen. Other games reset properly. Edited March 13, 2006 by skunkworx Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
classics Posted March 13, 2006 Author Share Posted March 13, 2006 Curiousity question: Does the reset button only do a soft reset, and does it require the game to "know" how to reset itself properly? I ask because hitting the reset button after loading the Bejeweled demo only locks the game up, instead of going back to the menu screen. Other games reset properly. The Reset button on the cartridge is provided so you never have to turn the ColecoVision off and then on again when changing games, but wont always bring up the menu itself. ColecoVision cartridges cannot actually reset the entire machine, so if you press the reset button on the cartridge and you are not returned to the menu, simply press the Reset button on the ColecoVision console to return to the menu without switching off. Thanks Steve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted March 13, 2006 Share Posted March 13, 2006 Quick question (and this may have been covered in the manual). Is there an easy way to move a title from one position to another, and have the whole list shift up or down? I know you can click on the number and drag it, but that just switches the two titles. I want to be able to move a title up the list and have the rest of them shift down to make room. Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
classics Posted March 14, 2006 Author Share Posted March 14, 2006 Quick question (and this may have been covered in the manual). Is there an easy way to move a title from one position to another, and have the whole list shift up or down? I know you can click on the number and drag it, but that just switches the two titles. I want to be able to move a title up the list and have the rest of them shift down to make room. Tempest I believe I set it up so you can insert a blank slot by pressing Insert on the keyboard, then you can drag the title to that position. If there are empty spaces you can select 'Compact' from edit menu and it will move rom images up to fill in any blank areas. Steve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruce Tomlin Posted March 15, 2006 Share Posted March 15, 2006 (edited) So I tried it on my usual PC again, this time on the rear USB ports. It's better, but not by much. It usually goes from 10-30 blocks before it gets the "Incorrect device ID" error. Only twice did it go farther than 30 blocks. So there's something weird either about the way the loader does USB, or something weird about the way my PC's USB works. I did manage to reload my configuration by loading one-third of the ROMs at a time. I'd rather have an open-source OS X loader anyhow. So anyhow, for those of you looking for stuff to load on it, I've released a new version of my ColecoVision RPG. All this version adds is background music, but some of you may not have known it was there. EDIT: it may be possible that my problems are USB power related. I tried to hook up a powered hub, but apparently there was something wrong with the hub I picked, and it blew out the computer. :-( I was planning to upgrade it eventually, anyhow, so I guess now is as good a time as any. EDIT: I tried plugging in a powered hub last week and managed to fry my motherboard. The flash cartridge works just fine with the new motherboard. I was needing an upgrade anyhow. Edited March 22, 2006 by Bruce Tomlin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
classics Posted March 15, 2006 Author Share Posted March 15, 2006 (edited) Bruce, I'm thinking there is something wrong with your cartridge, you should probably just return it for an exchange. The 'invalid device id' error is an error returned by the cpu in the cartridge, not a bus error. Steve Edited March 15, 2006 by classics Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lucifershalo Posted March 16, 2006 Share Posted March 16, 2006 got mine in belgium in record time, thanks Steve I had no corrupted cd cos I received no cd at all just an empty cd case;) but it doesnt matter everybody should post of any links to colecovision homebrew, prototypes they know... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omegamatrix Posted March 21, 2006 Share Posted March 21, 2006 Got mine today and after a little tinkering fiqured it out. This is a very cool device. I've tried more Coleco games today then I could have imagined. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pixelboy Posted March 21, 2006 Share Posted March 21, 2006 I haven't received mine yet, which is rather weird... Wasn't it sent my airmail...? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
classics Posted March 22, 2006 Author Share Posted March 22, 2006 I haven't received mine yet, which is rather weird... Wasn't it sent my airmail...? I held back sending the last set of Air Mail packages due to a bug that was reported. I thought it might require all cartridges to be returned, so I didn't mail out any more overseas until I could get it back and verify it wasnt a firmware problem that would require people to send them back from Canada, Europe, etc. There are about 15 carts that were released last week and should arrive in the next 4-5 days, yours probably included. These also include a fixed CD installer. Thanks Steve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pixelboy Posted March 22, 2006 Share Posted March 22, 2006 I held back sending the last set of Air Mail packages due to a bug that was reported. I thought it might require all cartridges to be returned, so I didn't mail out any more overseas until I could get it back and verify it wasnt a firmware problem that would require people to send them back from Canada, Europe, etc. There are about 15 carts that were released last week and should arrive in the next 4-5 days, yours probably included. These also include a fixed CD installer. Ah, very good! Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spector Posted March 23, 2006 Share Posted March 23, 2006 I see that the Flash Cart takes 32K per game maximum. Does that mean that any homebrews made in the future that use bankswitching will not be playable on the flash cart? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacbthPSW Posted March 25, 2006 Share Posted March 25, 2006 I got mine earlier this week, finally tried it last night. Since I had read this thread, I knew to just download the installer from the website right after my CD failed to work. The rest of the install went very well - much more professional/smooth than the couple other flash carts I have (for GBA and Genesis). The flash app was also really easy to use, and I threw the few ColecoVision homebrews I had handy onto the cart - Diamond Dash, Bruce's RPG demo, and a couple other minigames. Out of the whole process, I spent the most time setting up a real CV again - my box of power supplies was hiding behind several other boxes on my shelves. The cart itself worked great - it was nice to see these minigames from the last couple competitions on the real hardware. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spector Posted March 25, 2006 Share Posted March 25, 2006 Out of the whole process, I spent the most time setting up a real CV again - my box of power supplies was hiding behind several other boxes on my shelves. The cart itself worked great - it was nice to see these minigames from the last couple competitions on the real hardware. Yeah that's what excites me about these flash carts for machines that are still being developed for - they'll never date, because there will always be new stuff coming out. But as I said in my previous post, I wonder why the maximum game size is 32K? I know that there aren't any games more than that, but if someone is developing an RPG for that Atari 2600 that will be 64K in size, then you would think that it would happen on the Coleco someday too. But maybe there is a technical reason for this that I don't know about - excuse my ignorance if that's true. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
classics Posted March 25, 2006 Author Share Posted March 25, 2006 I wonder why the maximum game size is 32K? I know that there aren't any games more than that, but if someone is developing an RPG for that Atari 2600 that will be 64K in size, then you would think that it would happen on the Coleco someday too. But maybe there is a technical reason for this that I don't know about - excuse my ignorance if that's true. That is the reason, 32k covers pretty much everything. You are not limited to only 32k though, it is possible for a game to switch to another bank and access the other 126 32k slots, so for an RPG you could use a second slot to get another 32k of storage. Steve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
classics Posted March 26, 2006 Author Share Posted March 26, 2006 I just uploaded v1.4 of the software, to correct problems with reading rom images from read-only media. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruce Tomlin Posted March 26, 2006 Share Posted March 26, 2006 That is the reason, 32k covers pretty much everything. You are not limited to only 32k though, it is possible for a game to switch to another bank and access the other 126 32k slots, so for an RPG you could use a second slot to get another 32k of storage.I find your ideas interesting and want to subscribe to your newsletter... Seriously, though, I would like to know the details of how to make that work, since I could very possibly be going beyond 32K, and it would be good to know so that I can plan my bank switching around it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pixelboy Posted March 26, 2006 Share Posted March 26, 2006 That is the reason, 32k covers pretty much everything. You are not limited to only 32k though, it is possible for a game to switch to another bank and access the other 126 32k slots, so for an RPG you could use a second slot to get another 32k of storage. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't you tell me some time ago that the bankswitching scheme that could theoretically be used with your flash cart was specific to it? In other words, if a homebrew author was to make an actual cartridge out of his bigger-than-32K game, the bankswitching method would have to be adjusted to fit the PCB/EPROM used. If I remember correctly, you told me this when we discussed the special PCB that Eduardo Mello is planning to use for his Pac-Man Collection cartridge. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruce Tomlin Posted March 28, 2006 Share Posted March 28, 2006 (edited) Well, that was interesting. A few things: 1) I don't think I'll be using this method to make a "real" bank-switched cartridge. :-) If I can make things work both ways, that should be enough. It takes 64 bytes of RAM just for the bank switching code, and more is needed for the brains that can flip through the pages to find the right one. What I need is a "half-and-half" bank switch anyhow. I want to switch out data, not code, with a 16K + 4x16K layout. But I could still have 48K or so if I duplicate the core code into both banks. 2) It would be nice if there were some way to query the current bank number so that I could use bank N+1. About the only workable way I can think of would be to have a different combination to read the bank number instead of a cartridge. I could check the RAM data on startup, but that might not be the same with a different menu program. Since the menu program is part of the .MCW file, it's not that hard to replace. The other method is to use signature bytes and checksums to find both banks the hard way. 3) Wow, that Z-80 C compiler makes some nasty code. It has a few interesting tricks, but mostly it just makes a big mess. EDIT: Duh, I guess I could just require flash cart users to use three banks. That would take up 96K for 64K but would give me what I need. And if I identified the bank numbers at startup, I wouldn't even need to download bank switching code to RAM after the game started. Cartridge ROM binary: banker.asm.bin Source code: banker.asm.zip Edited March 28, 2006 by Bruce Tomlin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
classics Posted March 28, 2006 Author Share Posted March 28, 2006 EDIT: Duh, I guess I could just require flash cart users to use three banks. That would take up 96K for 64K but would give me what I need. And if I identified the bank numbers at startup, I wouldn't even need to download bank switching code to RAM after the game started. You could just pick three static slots to use and tell people what byte to change in the rom if they want to move it around. Rummaging through all 127 banks would be pretty slow. Steve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruce Tomlin Posted March 28, 2006 Share Posted March 28, 2006 (edited) You could just pick three static slots to use and tell people what byte to change in the rom if they want to move it around. Rummaging through all 127 banks would be pretty slow. Not really. First of all, a simple signature check would quickly rule out the banks that you weren't interested in, with no need to do checksums, etc. Also, if the extra banks were stored toward the top of the list, they would be found quickly. The only real concern I would have is dealing with duplicate copies of the alternate banks, and version mismatches. If a version ID is included in with the signature information, this shouldn't be a problem. Once the banks are identified at startup, there will be no need for any more scanning. And by putting the bank switch code at the same address in each bank, there is no need to keep any code in RAM. So nobody has wanted to try my spiffy little demo in their flash cart? Just one download of the source so far and no download of the binary? It took me since Sunday afternoon to figure it out, and a whole evening to throw it together. Edited March 28, 2006 by Bruce Tomlin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
AtariAge on Instagram
Watch us on YouTube
Chat on Discord
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.