Subject: [stella] Dumping ROM images From: Adam Wozniak <adam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 23:39:28 -0500 |
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 I got an email from someone new to the hobby, asking me how to dump ROM images from carts. The first method I tried was a custom piece of hardware run by a microcontroller. This is probably the most painful way to do this. Connectors are hard to find (mine never fully connected; you had to hold it and apply pressure), and you need to know lots about bankswitching. I got mine working, but I don't recommend anyone ever do this unless they really like programming microcontrollers and designing hardware. The second method I tried, which I recommended to this fellow, was to pick up an old 7800 on E-Bay and mod it out with Stolberg's DEVOS. I did this to my 7800 and I love it. It does still require some soldering, and access to an EPROM burner. A special cable connects between the 7800's right joystick port and the parallel port on a PC. Then I got to thinking, there might be another way to do this. (All hypothetical from here out, so please point out problems if this isn't possible.) Take the same cable you use with a 7800 and DEVOS, and move it over to the 2600. Make a new 2600 cart. This new cart copies a short (less than 128 byte) chunk of code into the 2600 RAM, and jumps to it. While we're running from RAM, we don't need to access the cart at all. Pull it out. Insert a cart you want to dump. Tell the chunk of code in RAM you're ready somehow (push the left fire button? Game select button?). The chunk of code in RAM can now start reading the cart ROM and dumping out the right joystick port. Is this possible? If it is, then someone like AtariAge could sell ROM dumping kits with the RomDumper cart, the cable, and software. No soldering required. Unanswered questions: Will inserting and removing carts cause any noise on the bus lines? Can the reader code be made to fit into 128 bytes? - -- adam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://cuddlepuddle.org/~adam KG6GZR http://cuddlepuddle.org/~adam/resume.html -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFCMQ+EyvXf5Z0z5zERAj3uAJwPgkmFwv3mhRyJexhjTkmqFYCjRQCgwPbZ y2inVAARc7e0shCyykLQRdk= =vyLN -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- Archives (includes files) at http://www.biglist.com/lists/stella/archives/ Unsub & more at http://stella.biglist.com
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