EPROM cartridges
Andy
Has anyone out there successfully built an EPROM cartridge for the Vectrex
that can deal with 16k and 32k EPROMs?? If any one can give me the necessary
pin to pin connections necessary between the chip and the cartridge
connector it would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
Andy.
ra...@lineone.net
http://surf.to/retro-nest - The Raven's Retro Nest - For everything Vectrex
Christopher L. Tumber
>Has anyone out there successfully built an EPROM cartridge for the Vectrex
>that can deal with 16k and 32k EPROMs?? If any one can give me the necessary
>pin to pin connections necessary between the chip and the cartridge
>connector it would be greatly appreciated.
This isn't quite what you're looking for, but, you should be able to work
from it....
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From: gn...@oliven.UUCP (Gary Traveis)
Newsgroups: net.micro,net.games.video
Subject: Vectrex ROM to EPROM
Message-ID: <1...@oliven.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 23-Mar-84 16:03:08 CST
Date-Received: Mon, 2-Apr-84 20:05:05 CST
Organization: Olivetti ATC., Cupertino, Ca
Lines: 97
(sacrificial line)
The following is a first stab at documenting Vectrex
hacks that have been implemented. This is mainly for
encouraging the interchange of ideas and/or programs
for a unique and yet endangered species - the Vectrex.
*******************************************************
Ok, so you want to run EPROM resident stuff on the
Vectrex! First, lets define the EPROM.
The EPROM I have been using in these tests have been
Intel 2732-2 4K x8 MOS EPROMs. Anything slower and
there may be problems.
1) Open the cartridge by taking the single screw out
of the bottom. Then, carefully unsnap the top and bottom
halves of the cartridge case.
2) You now have a little green and gold printed circuit board
with a 24 pin (Sharp or GI) ROM mounted on it.
You now have two routes possible. You can try to remove the
chip from the board unharmed (not really too bad with a good
solder-sucker tool) or simply cut the little guy out with a
sharp pair of diagonal cutters. I removed the chip, the leads
of the chip were formed such that they didn't really retain
too much solder. Ie: didn't cause any problems when removing
the chip from the holes.
3) Remove the chip. Remember that the PC board is the more
important part here.
You will notice that all but two of the traces on the
component side hook up sequentially to the edge connector
pads (gold). The order of pins 10 and 16 (remember, the
component side of the edge connector has all even #s!) seem
to be reversed.
The reason for this is because GCE (the Vectrex manufacturer)
initially designed the PC board to accept a chip with an
Intel 2732 pinout. Later, they swapped 10 and 16 (to make
them out of order) to acomodate a different pinout for Sharp
and/or GI mask-programmable ROMS.
4) So, in order to make it cozy for a 2732 again, one must
re-reverse the wiring! The way it should look, when you
finish, is -
Edge pad # 24pin EPROM pin #
-----------------------------------------
10........................21
16........................18
If you are clever, you can cut the trace, peel it
back with an exacto knife and, where the trace goes
past the correct pin, scrape the coating off the copper
conductor and solder it to the pad where the EPROM
socket will be soldered in.
The best socket to put on it is either a ZIF (Zero
Insertion Force) socket (by Textool) or a barrel-pin
socket (from Augat). Remember, a cheap chip socket
will be a real pain to replace later!
5) Solder the socket onto the pad where the ROM used
to sit. Be careful to orient it properly (socket
pin 1 to pad 1) and not to have solder bridges between
pins. You may have to bend the socket pins to get them
to sit well on the printed circuit pads.
Now, if you have no EPROM to test it with, there is
a quick procedure that will not only test your board,
but also make your old game ROM usable!
Get an extra Augat socket and mount the ROM in it
after lifting up pins 21 and 18 of the ROM chip.
Next, (tricky) wire pin 21 of the rom to pin 18 of the
socket and visa-versa.
Now your old ROM has the same pinout as a 2732! Yeow!
Plug your Augat/ROM into the socket on the board and
plug the whole assembly into the Vectrex.
Be sure to plug it in COMPONENT SIDE UP!!!
Pin one of the ROM/socket should be facing you (when
looking at the front of the Vectrex.
Now you are ready to pop in EPROMs from new and exotic
lands.
ACTSEARCH
VERY concise and informative -- Thanks!
Tom Sloper
Former Vectrex game designer (Bedlam and Spike)
Now with Activision (Shanghai)
tsl...@activision.com
acts...@aol.com
Chrissalo
>Thema: Re: EPROM cartridges
>Von: acts...@aol.com (ACTSEARCH)
>Datum: 01 Jun 1998 01:03:08 GMT
>
>VERY concise and informative -- Thanks!
>Tom Sloper
>Former Vectrex game designer (Bedlam and Spike)
>Now with Activision (Shanghai)
>tsl...@activision.com
>acts...@aol.com
Hi!
You wouldn't per chance still have the source of your vectrex games?
If documented properly they could provide a wealth of information
for other vectrex programmers.
Copyright should (hopefully) be no problem, since the games are
(sort of) freeware now...
Chris
ACTSEARCH
>From: chri...@aol.com (Chrissalo)
>You wouldn't per chance still have the source of your vectrex games?
Sorry, Chris, but no. I was just the designer (the guy who told the programmer
what to make the game do), not the programmer. So I don't have any source
code.
But if I DID have any source code, it would be on huge 7" floppy disks for some
kinda 8080 CP/M computer and I wouldn't be able to read it anyway!
(^_^)
Tom Sloper
Former Vectrex designer (Spike & Bedlam)
Now with Activision (Shanghai)
j.a. macdonald
In article <199806040406...@ladder03.news.aol.com>,
ACTSEARCH <acts...@aol.com> wrote:
>>From: chri...@aol.com (Chrissalo)
>
>>You wouldn't per chance still have the source of your vectrex games?
>
>Sorry, Chris, but no. I was just the designer (the guy who told the programmer
>what to make the game do), not the programmer. So I don't have any source
>code.
I like Bedlam and my wife likes Spike.
How about designing some more games!!
>But if I DID have any source code, it would be on huge 7" floppy disks for some
>kinda 8080 CP/M computer and I wouldn't be able to read it anyway!
8" floppies on a S100 Development system.
Chris Romero
ACTSEARCH wrote:
> >From: chri...@aol.com (Chrissalo)
>
> >You wouldn't per chance still have the source of your vectrex games?
>
> Sorry, Chris, but no. I was just the designer (the guy who told the programmer
> what to make the game do), not the programmer. So I don't have any source
> code.
> But if I DID have any source code, it would be on huge 7" floppy disks for some
> kinda 8080 CP/M computer and I wouldn't be able to read it anyway!
> (^_^)
> Tom Sloper
> Former Vectrex designer (Spike & Bedlam)
> Now with Activision (Shanghai)
Well perhaps you still have some note on the unreleased games. Maybe these
could be used to create the games that never made it out.
A good programmer is always required but games design and project management is
required too.
Hey PCJohn, want to be managed? I know you have always accepted good ideas
for games.
Chris
cro...@romero.org
Todd Baumann-Fern
Heh. I had one of those beasts. I gave up all the programs I wrote (in BASIC).
Those drives were massive. Dual 8 inch beasts. No HD of course. What did those
disks hold? Was it 180k? It was a while ago.
ACTSEARCH wrote:
> Chrissalo wrote:
>
> >I like Bedlam and my wife likes Spike.
> >How about designing some more games!!
>
> Well, I'm kinda busy designing and producing games at Activision. But thanks
> for the compliment and the kind thought!
>
> >But if I DID have any source code, it would be on huge 7" floppy disks for
> some
> >kinda 8080 CP/M computer and I wouldn't be able to read it anyway!
>
> >8" floppies on a S100 Development system.
>
> OK, 8" then! (^_^)
>
> Tom Sloper, Activision
> Senior Producer, Shanghai
> tsl...@activision.com
> Acts...@aol.com
> Now available: SHANGHAI: DYNASTY -- check our website for a preview and free
> demo:
> http://www4.activision.com/games/dynasty/
ACTSEARCH
ACTSEARCH
>From: Chris Romero <cro...@romero.org>
> Well perhaps you still have some note on the unreleased >games. Maybe these
>could be used to create the games that never made it out.
Sorry, Chris, but all the Vectrex games I worked on got released.
Stephen Platt
You too? My old seagate drives bit the dust some
time ago.
SSSD CP/M 8" floppies held around 243K apiece. Enough
for the OS, a C compiler, and an editor.
SSSD got you around 500-700K, depending on the blocking
you used. (I had 512 byte sectors and got around 600K
per disk). Endless storage.
But then I added a Seagate 5M 5 1/4" full height
SCSI drive, interfaced via parallel port to a Xebec
controller. Now *that* was endless!
Todd Baumann-Fern wrote:
>
> Heh. I had one of those beasts. I gave up all the programs I wrote (in BASIC).
> Those drives were massive. Dual 8 inch beasts. No HD of course. What did those
> disks hold? Was it 180k? It was a while ago.
>
> ACTSEARCH wrote:
>
> > Chrissalo wrote:
> >
> > >I like Bedlam and my wife likes Spike.
> > >How about designing some more games!!
> >
> > Well, I'm kinda busy designing and producing games at Activision. But thanks
> > for the compliment and the kind thought!
> >
> > >But if I DID have any source code, it would be on huge 7" floppy disks for
> > some
> > >kinda 8080 CP/M computer and I wouldn't be able to read it anyway!
> >
> > >8" floppies on a S100 Development system.
> >
> > OK, 8" then! (^_^)
> >
Todd Baumann-Fern
I used to dream of getting a 5M Hard drive. Sheesh. Now I won't settle for less than
5 Gig. The times they are a changing......