Cartridge Dump

[devwebcl]

Hello,

 

I have tried several Cartridge dumper with an Atari 800xl without any success.

anyone knows (and tested) which application is good for this task?

 

(I search in the forum already, but I didn't find any good thread).

 

Kind Regards,

 

Devwebcl

[re-atari]

Hi,

 

I think you should define what you mean with 'cartridge dump' first. Do you want to to dump the contents of a cartridges' rom to disk file, to burn it onto an eprom, or do you want to binload the diskfile from DOS (option 'L')?

If it's the latter you're after, you should look around for a disk called 'The Scanalyzer'. Back in my earlier A8 days (some 20 years ago) I once used it to testdump the Atari Artist cartridge that came with my Touch Tablet to disk. The diskfile worked like a charm.

 

However at this moment I can't see the point of your efforts, as just about every cartridge has already been dumped and is available for DL.

 

re-atari

[Rybags]

I don't know if one has been written to handle all of the different bank-select schemes out there.

 

It's a straight-forward job to dump a classic 8 or 16K type, but the larger types would need the program to detect their type and either dump them in stages, or use the extra RAM of an 800XL or 130XE.

 

Regardless of that, virtually every commercial program and game is available for download anyway.

[devwebcl]

Yes, indeed I was too ambiguous calling only "dump". my mistake.

nevertheless I meant dump the content of a cartridge's rom to a disk file.

 

The cartridge I want to "dump" is a Chilean educational utility software that has not been dump at all.

anyway thanks for your comments and I will look for 'The Scanalyzer'.

 

 

cheers,

 

Devwebcl

[deathtrappomegranate]

The cartridge I want to "dump" is a Chilean educational utility software that has not been dump at all.

 

That sounds very interesting indeed!

 

Do you know the size of the program?

 

An A8 with Omnimon or a similar replacement OS is very useful for dumping ROM carts.

[ijor]

Most cartridges require hardware to be dumped safely. This could be, as recommended, a custom OS like Omnimon. Or a pass-through cartridge like SDX.

 

Without this you still can dump cartridges, using some tool like Scanalyzer. But for most cases this requires to insert the cartridge when the computer is already on! Which is obviously, not a very healthy thing to do. The A8 hardware is robust enough, so most of the times everything would be fine. And the truth is that most of us inserted a cartridge hot more than once. Still there is some risk.

 

You can find if a specific cartridge needs hot-insertion or not by trying to boot DOS (or any bootable disk, for that matter) with the cartridge inserted. If the disk starts booting, then no hot-insertion is required.

 

This of course assumes it is a simple not banked cartridge. Otherwise it is more complicated.

[carmel_andrews]

beware, unless you understand how the cart loads (and all that), and wether it's a standard 8/16k job or a oss/xe bank switch job, just make sure you get all the data and that it load's correctly in memory

 

Also, there are some cart's specifully designed for the XL/XE computers that also use the XL/XE bank switch (d301), Airball, Thunderfox and Gato and various other prime examples...Additionally the cart might have it's own protection system (i.e. switching out the ram by filling it with garbage. you think it's actual data)

 

There are some other protection systems that cart use to prevent them from being copied (esp. if they use the technique used in some tape/disk games by seeing if there's anything unofficial in the c000-cfff region of memory)

[re-atari]

Hi again,

 

In addition to my earlier reply, I should add that Scanalyzer requires that you boot DOS on your A8. After posting my reply I remembered that I had unsuccessfully tried to testdump a couple of gamecarts back then. I just could not get DOS to boot with these carts inserted. As games weren't really my thing anyway, I just left it at that.

 

If you have the opportunity, it might be a good idea to open your cart and post some foto's of its contents (solderside and componentside). There's bound to be someone around here who can give you an estimate about your chances and the method of choice of dumping it to disk.

 

re-atari

[+Guitarman]

Most cartridges require hardware to be dumped safely. This could be, as recommended, a custom OS like Omnimon. Or a pass-through cartridge like SDX.

 

Without this you still can dump cartridges, using some tool like Scanalyzer. But for most cases this requires to insert the cartridge when the computer is already on! Which is obviously, not a very healthy thing to do. The A8 hardware is robust enough, so most of the times everything would be fine. And the truth is that most of us inserted a cartridge hot more than once. Still there is some risk.

 

You can find if a specific cartridge needs hot-insertion or not by trying to boot DOS (or any bootable disk, for that matter) with the cartridge inserted. If the disk starts booting, then no hot-insertion is required.

 

This of course assumes it is a simple not banked cartridge. Otherwise it is more complicated.

 

 

I have both of these options available to me, SDX and Omnimon. Which would be the better way to dump a cart and, since I have never dumped one before, how would I go about doing it with either option??

[+kheller2]

some carts are "copy protected" too.

[Rybags]

I don't know if there's actually a single program that can identify or handle the various bank-select techniques out there, but AFAIK they are all documented.

 

Carts aren't "copy protected" but probably 60% or more have code that deliberately writes to the cart address space, performing a self-destruct type mechanism if you attempt to run the cart from RAM.

 

In the early days, they just used easily found loops like STA $A400,X... later on they changed to more subversive methods to make the code harder to find and remove.

 

But, if you're just dumping so to be able to burn to an EPROM, that's not really an issue.

 

The only issue would be replicating the bank-select scheme where applicable, and ensuring the thing is dumped/reburnt in the proper order.

[carmel_andrews]

There is a problem using 'omnimon' in dumping out cartridges

 

I don't know if there was a specific XE version of omnimon but on the versions of omnimon i've seen (XL and 800) any code loaded in memory at BC18h and higher will get wiped out as soon as you enter omnimon, as omnimon uses this area of memory for it's screen layout

 

As does the following replacement o/s's

 

Speeder o/s, Speedy o/s (not to be confused with a similar sounding mod for 1050), Qmeg and also Supermon (incl the special HTT version of supermon)

 

The only replacement o/s that doesn't place it's screen data in the cart region of mem is the XE version of Ultimon (computer support)

[Rybags]

So, you're saying that Omnimon "wipes out" cartridges?

 

Standard (non-banked) cartridges will always have resident ROM in that area of memory.

 

In such cases, the top of available RAM to the system would likely be $9FFF or $7FFF - and the OS would put the screen there.

 

The only problem using a monitor to copy a cartridge is knowing how the bank-select scheme works, and ensuring the correct one is selected during dumping operations.

[deathtrappomegranate]

OmnimonXL works very well for most carts. As Rybags suggest, bankswitched carts require more work.

 

Anyway, here's a OCRd version of the manual, for those who're interested.

OMNIMONXL.zip

[guus.assmann]

 

I have tried several Cartridge dumper with an Atari 800xl without any success.

anyone knows (and tested) which application is good for this task?

 

Have a look at www.abbuc.de and look up the Freezer-XL.

This piece of hardware will help you do whatever you want.

The manual is available in English.

 

BR/Guus

[+Guitarman]

Has anyone had any experience using CSS' 'The Pill'?? I got one of these in one of my recent acquisitions. It is suppose to allow you to dump carts to disk files and run them that way. Of course, to run the file, you need the Pill cart inserted.

[carmel_andrews]

Was 'survival of the fittest' (by IDSI) a Cart/Rom only game, as the emulator version asks me to insert CSS's 'The Pill' hardware

 

I believe i only have it as either an Atr or Xex (can't remember which)

[Rybags]

AFAIK, The Pill works by switching off the writablity to the $8000-$BFFF region.

 

It doesn't actually copy the carts, that would be done via seperate software I'd imagine.

 

Problem is, it would be useless for bank-select carts. Plus, cracked versions would exist for just about every non-banked cart ever produced, rendering The Pill obsolete in some ways.

 

Still, it would be a handy gadget to have for development purposes.

[deathtrappomegranate]

Was 'survival of the fittest' (by IDSI) a Cart/Rom only game, as the emulator version asks me to insert CSS's 'The Pill' hardware

http://www.atarimania.com/detail_soft.php?...VERSION_ID=5204

[+Guitarman]

AFAIK, The Pill works by switching off the writablity to the $8000-$BFFF region.

 

It doesn't actually copy the carts, that would be done via seperate software I'd imagine.

 

Problem is, it would be useless for bank-select carts. Plus, cracked versions would exist for just about every non-banked cart ever produced, rendering The Pill obsolete in some ways.

 

Still, it would be a handy gadget to have for development purposes.

 

 

You are correct. The Pill is a software/hardware setup. You use the software to dump the cart to a file on a floppy. If I'm not mistaken, you have to create the floppy with the software as it writes some sort of a menu. The stored files (cart dumps) on the disk can only be used with The Pill hardware inserted in the cart slot.