If the chips have clear windows on the top (usually round) then they are
EPROMS, programmable ROMS that are erasable. If they don't have the window
then they are either PROM, ROMS that can only be programmed once, or mask
programmed ROMS which is what is in the original carts.
As someone else pointed out, a cart like this that took the normal ROM chips
from real carts wouldn't make much sense, since it would be hard to get the
chips without thier carts. The ones that took EPROMS where made for the
purpose of piracy. One person would buy the original cart, dump the data,
and program it into as many EPROMS as they wanted, then all you would need
was one of these ZIF socket carts to play the games.
Dan
>
> Dan said:
> These aren't actually that uncommon. Are the chips ROMs or
> EPROMS? I found
> one at a flea market a couple years ago that took EPROMS, along with a
> handful of EPROMS. Either way the cart should let you play
> any 2 or 4K game
>
> I'm not sure if these are ROMs of EPROMS as I don't really
> know how to tell
> the difference. If you, Dan, or anyone else can tell me how
> to identify
> them, I will try my best. I'm not real good with the inner workings of
> electronic devices but I am a fast learner if I have a good
> teacher. I
> think I should be able to play any game made for Atari that
> didn't need
> extra stuff on the board (like Pitfall II's sound chip.), but
> I'm not going
> to rip apart my good carts just to find out. I'm just
> thinking about the
> ones that have NEVER worked no matter what I've tried. Those
> would be worth
> the loss (after all they're already half dead anyway!) Who
> knows I may even
> be able to salvage a couple of the bad ones with some of the
> new chips.
>
>>
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