Re: [stella] smart multicart

Subject: Re: [stella] smart multicart
From: emooney1@xxxxxxxx (Erik K Mooney)
Date: Sat, 23 Aug 1997 23:23:50 -0400
>I don't believe the 2600 is, for the most part, equipped to handle 
>menu
>driven multi-carts.  There are a few cludgey ways to make multi-carts
>though.  Using dip switches is the most common.  Using a timer like 
>the
>32-IN-1 cart is another.  I believe there were a couple of menu driven
>multicarts released by HES in Australia.  I believe they used a 16K
>bankswitching scheme and used 2K for the menu, 8k for one of the 
>games,
>4k for another game and then another 2k for the last game.  Kevin 

I think that was correct... It'd be difficult to make a multicart of
any appreciable size with bankswitching.. the largest "standard"
design is 32k: eight 4k games or sixteen 2k games... and figure
subtracting
one from each of those for the menu system.  You'd have to design
custom hardware to do anything larger than that.  Dip switches are a
little kludgy, but definitely easier to design than a software system.

>Horton
>has a more detailed explanation in his file sizes.txt on his web page.
>I wonder if this method could be used with the 128K super cart?

If you mean Chris Wilkson's design, not as designed right now... the
topmost 1k of the ROM is always in the upper 1k of the 2600's
address space.  Could be possible to use it for 2k games though.

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