Subject:	Announcement: Atari 2600 development system you can build yourself!
From:	bushwick@ix.netcom.com (Pete Rittwage)
Date:	3 Nov 1995 04:33:20 GMT


Dear fellow collectors/tinkerers...

I am in the final phase of completing a home built Atari 2600 development 
system.  The unit consists of two parts: 1) the base unit which plugs into a 
standard PC parallel port, and 2) an SRAM cartridge which resides in a 
standard 2600 cart shell.  The cartridge is backed up by a lithium cell 
battery so that once the cart is programmed, it will hold it's code for up to

10 years (theoretically).  The cart supports up to 8k, which can consist of 
either one 8k game, or 2x4k games (hardware switchable). This design won't 
currently support 4x2k games, only 2x2k.

The unit is based in part on a design posted by Randy Smith in the summer of 
1994, but I have rewritten the software and made slight changes to the 
hardware to assist in dealing with various bank switch methods used by 
psychotic 2600 programmers.  I have been unable to locate Randy to thank him 
for his help last year, so if you're out there, e-mail me!


Features!
---------
The unit can dump cartridges into files on your PC in several formats:
	A) My own .VCS format, with a header including fields for cart name,
           manufacturer, copyright date, label variation, bank switch
	   method, and dump date.
	B) "Atari Action Pack" .BIN format (for use with the Activision
	    emulator)
	C) Raw binary files with no header.
	D) 16 column hex dump files.

The unit can also transfer files from your PC to the SRAM cart (up to 8k).
This lets you assemble and dump your own code to the unit for quick
turnaround tinkering.  It will also read/write the .VCS format, the "Action
Pack" format, raw binary, and hex dumps.  (Yes, you can play some of the 
action pack games on a real 2600-- sort of...  They don't all work for some 
reason, but I am working on why.  Probably bank switching problems)

You can also modify the games before they are sent to the SRAM cart to
modify number of lives, etc. similar to the way the "Game Genie" works.  
Functions are being added to aid in finding key addresses. 

Anyway, to make a long story short.  I will be setting up a web page to
detail 
all of this, including schematics, support software, example code, etc.  
Please understand I am not a 2600 programmer (read: torture), so the example 
code is crude, but I have developed a basic 6502/6507 assembler just to mess 
around with it.  The entire development cycle takes about 1 minute total.

This design could probably easily be altered to work with ColecoVision carts,

since they are similar in nature to the 2600 carts, but I will leave that to 
other fellow hardware hackers out there as my wife is probably tired of my 
obsession with these things.  Plus I beleive the ADAM already provides this 
functionality to the Coleco if you're creative.

So, I'm done with my ramblings for now.  E-Mail me if you're interested in 
helping along with expanding the compatibility with more 8k carts.  As soon
as 
I draw up the schematics I will post them.  Total cost is about $10 for the 
base unit, and $10 per SRAM cart at the most... plus about 8 hours of 
soldering!

Pete Rittwage
bushwick@ix.netcom.com


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Pete Rittwage

E-Mail:	bushwick@ix.netcom.com
WWW:    www.io.com/~kgk/pete
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