More Cuttle Carts Available soon

[cschell]

I just thought I would let everyone know that I've started production on the second (and likely final) run of Cuttle Carts. They should be ready to ship in about 4-6 weeks (more likely 4).

 

I am currently accepting paid orders through my webpage. You can also track the status of the production run on the page. All paid orders will ship as soon as the carts are finished.

 

My page is located at http://www.schells.com/cuttlecart.shtml

 

The first run sold out much faster than I expected, so if you know you want one now's the time to place your order.

 

Thanks,

Chad

[Albert]

That's great news! Hope you're able to sell out this second batch as quickly as the first one. Will you be including copies of Stella Gets a New Brain with this batch?

 

..Al

[cschell]

Yes, Glenn Saunders and the Cyberpunks have generously agreed to supply more CDs to ship with this second run.

 

Thanks guys!

 

Chad

[DEBRO]

A second run huh? So what are the chances of someone putting their first run copy on eBay and considering it a collectors item

 

Since some of the exclusive carts from CGE2K1 showed up there recently I'm sure this will show up too.

[Albert]

quote:

---

Originally posted by DEBRO:

A second run huh? So what are the chances of someone putting their first run copy on eBay and considering it a collectors item

 

Since some of the exclusive carts from CGE2K1 showed up there recently I'm sure this will show up too.

---

 

I don't think this will happen with the Cuttle Carts, at least not the first run. Once Chad sells out of his second run then I could see this happening, but I don't know if there'll be any way to differentiate the second batch of Cuttle Carts from the first. My guess would be no (perhaps internally?) Chad could answer this better.

 

..Al

[cschell]

There will be no difference between second run carts and first run carts that have been upgraded to revision 2.

 

So I don't expect to see them on ebay anytime soon. (Unless I put them up there.)

 

So far, to my knowledge, only one Intellicart has made its way to ebay by anyone other than me. It didn't do very well either. Of course that was before I discontinued them.

 

Chad

[Ze_ro]

Sorry, but I have to ask: I know the advantages of the Cuttle Cart over the Supercharger... but is it significantly better for homebrew? I'm in the process of learning to program the Atari, and I've had a Supercharger for a while now... Though I can see an advantage to having a Cuttle Cart (namely, being able to program larger games using the bankswitching), I'm having a hard time justifying spending another $100... especially considering I'm a little low on cash lately (And I'm quite sure that this second run will last long enough for my money problems to disappear).

 

I'm hoping the game I (eventually) write will be quite nice, but I'm hoping to keep it under 4K if possible. Has anyone tried writing games using bankswitching and the Cuttle Cart?

 

--Zero

[cschell]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ze_ro:

Sorry, but I have to ask: I know the advantages of the Cuttle Cart over the Supercharger... but is it significantly better for homebrew?

 

[snip]

 

I'm hoping the game I (eventually) write will be quite nice, but I'm hoping to keep it under 4K if possible.

---

 

If you're only interested in writing 4K or smaller games, there isn't any significant advantage to the Cuttle Cart, especially if you're willing to modify your Supercharger.

 

If you don't modify your Supercharger, the only restriction that you have is that your game must never access $1FF8.

 

The main advantage of the Cuttle Cart is that it can do the bankswitching and extra RAM formats. Other additional features over the Supercharger are the ability to request specific loads in multi-load games, and a loading speed up to 25% faster with good audio connections. But for a game 4K or smaller, the decrease in loading time is negligible even if your audio hardware lets you run full speed - certainly not a reason to purchase a Cuttle Cart.

 

Well there, how's that for a sales pitch?

 

As for developing bankswitched games, the bankswitching logic as seen by the programmer is quite simple. I don't think it would add any significant difficulties to programming. (And in many ways could make it easier by allowing access to more ROM or RAM.)

 

There is a nice (IMO) description of the Supercharger bankswitching and RAM writing techniques in the Cuttle Cart manual though.

 

Chad