Eckhard Stolberg wrote:
> At 19:11 06.07.99 -0800, you wrote:
> >I think I have mentioned this here before... but here it goes again.
> >Anyone who has a Supercharger Demo unit can test the fact that data can be
> >loaded throught the joystick port successfully. This is how the SC Deno unit
> >works. It must initialize the joystick port by an initial "boot-up" string
> >through the earphone jack. Once this is done the SC Demo unit continuely
> loads
> >the demos through the joystick port. The earphone jack can be disconnected
> >without affecting the demo. I want to dump the roms in my unit, however,
> given
> >how rare these things are, I am nervous about reverse engineering it. Now, if
> >someone has a spare...... :-)
>
> But where does the SC demo unit load the data from through the joystick
> port, if it's not the tape?
The demo unit is a "self contained", "self loading" piece of hardware. I
originaly thought the reason it had to plug into the joy port was to control the
games in self play mode. Little did I know at the time that data could be
transferred through the joy port (duh!). I should have known this, because the
Coleco "Smurfs and Berstein Bears" games do this as well with the tape recorder
that plugs into the joy port.
>
>
> If the demo unit has to load a "boot-up" string first to be able to
> load data through the joystick port, then the ROMs in it migh
> possibly be the same as the ones in a regular SC. Those have already
> been dumped and are available on the net. And if it's the joystick
> loading code that interests you, you can simply sample the "boot tape"
> into a Windows WAV file and convert it into a binary with Bob Colbert's
> MAKEBIN program. That wouldn't require to take the unit apart, right?
Actually, I have tried doing just that If someone would like to take the time to
look at the code, they are more than welcome. I just don't have time to program.
I still need to learn alot about assembly programming, so this would take me some
time that I don't have at the moment to examine and figure out.
Take care,
Lee
--
ResQsoft - Check out the Atari 2600 CD Compilation for play on your Supercharger:
<http://home.earthlink.net/~resqsoft/wtw.htm>
ResQsoft : <http://home.earthlink.net/~resqsoft>
"No Atari; no fun" <==> "Know Atari; know fun" /|\
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