Re: [stella] Networkable Atari.

Subject: Re: [stella] Networkable Atari.
From: slapdash@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Russ Perry Jr)
Date: Sat, 10 Jul 1999 23:46:26 -0600
Eckhard Stolberg wrote:
>Lee Krueger? wrote:
>>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. [...]

>But where does the SC demo unit load the data from through the joystick
>port, if it's not the tape?
>
>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 might
>possibly be the same as the ones in a regular SC. Those have already
>been dumped and are available on the net.

I think you misunderstand the Demo Unit a little.  Basically, there are NO
tapes, and the ROMs inside are almost certainly different since the Demo
Unit still requires a Supercharger to run.

The bootstrap code tells the 2600 how to load data (4 bits at a time, I
guess) via the joystick port into Supercharger memory, and displays a
little movie about the Supercharger.  The ROMs hold the bootstrap code,
and the movie.

I'm curious how it's done though -- I assume it loads code continuously
as it's playing the movie, but isn't that a bit difficult?  I'd expect
some "loading" time here and there, but it doesn't do this as far as I
know (I haven't seen one in action, though Kevin says he WAS able to fix
mine -- yay!).

>>I want to dump the roms in my unit, however, given how rare these things
>>are, I am nervous about reverse engineering it.

I'm asking Kevin to send me copies of the ROM images; I think Sean Kelly
already has a set as well.

//*================================================================++
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