VIC-20 Multicart

RobertBe · Post by **RobertBe** » Sat Jul 14, 2007 4:34 pm

Ah, no longer "Denied"! As a newbie here on this board, I wish the best to all VIC-20 Multicart developers. The prototype that I saw at the May C4 Expo was enough to whet my appetite. I'm ready to buy... money in-hand.

CommVEx v3 info at http://www.portcommodore.com/commvex
or http://www.commodore.ca/forum
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://videocam.net.au/fcug

6502dude · Post by **6502dude** » Sat Jul 14, 2007 5:42 pm

RobertBe wrote:Ah, no longer "Denied"! As a newbie here on this board, I wish the best to all VIC-20 Multicart developers. The prototype that I saw at the May C4 Expo was enough to whet my appetite. I'm ready to buy... money in-hand.

CommVEx v3 info at http://www.portcommodore.com/commvex
or http://www.commodore.ca/forum
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://videocam.net.au/fcug

Hi Robert, welcome to the best Vic-20 Forum on the net!!!

I which could have made it to C4 expo to do demo of my version of "multi-cart".
I had work commitments which prevented me from being there.

After tossing arround a few name ideas for the project, we settled on "Mega-Cart"

A side thread got started here:

http://sleepingelephant.com/ipw-web/bul ... php?t=2037

There have been numerous advancements & the number of supported rom images (games + utilities supported) has grown from 150, when you last saw this.

Currently there are 201 games & utilities running on "Mega-Cart"
For all of the images which presented a hardware problem (11) or software problem (3), a resolution has been found.

I think all offically released known images are included. NBLA000 has done an extraordinary job organizing this.

Use of 3K ram expansion (in addition to the 32K that you saw), is now supported.

The final (I hope) hardware revision is in progress this weekend which will add ability to store user's favourite games / utilities selection to the cartridge.
This feature currently exists as a save to disk option

Plus there are a couple of hardware enhacements are in progress that will posted, once tested and verified as functional.

Carlsson did an exceptional job, in a very short period of time before C4 Expo, to develope a menu.
There have been many improvements along the way. Info is in this thread,

http://sleepingelephant.com/ipw-web/bul ... sc&start=0

There a bunch of new tricks and ideas are being worked on by NBLA000, as well as a couple of easter eggs

We have a thread on buy/sell for those to express interest in Mega-Cart purchase, but I think someone already put your name in the hat.

http://sleepingelephant.com/ipw-web/bul ... php?t=2073

I don't play games, (and I do have a bit of a personal bias

), but I think the hardware / software combination for this project is phenomenal and I have had the privilege to work with some extraordinarily bright people.

eslapion · Post by **eslapion** » Sat Jul 14, 2007 7:38 pm

davidv_ wrote:The other question (suggestion) is, will the PCB fit in a Omega Race shell,
with space for the screw hole. That would totally rule as well.

I can see mine sprayed black with custom sticker already.

That was clearly a problem with the Ultimate Expander not fitting in a standard VIC cart case easily.

It has been made an imperative requirement for the PCB of the flash multicart to fit in a standard cart case.

If you want paint that will adequately stick forever to the polystyrene cart case, I recommend that you use specific plastic paints for your "Darth Cart"!

Added edit:
=============================================
Such as this type of paint that contains volatile compounds that slightly melts the plastic's surface to create a very good surface bond.

davidv_ · Post by **davidv_** » Sun Jul 15, 2007 7:03 am

eslapion wrote: If you want paint that will adequately stick forever to the polystyrene cart case, I recommend that you use specific plastic paints for your "Darth Cart"!

Good to know!

Centallica · Post by **Centallica** » Tue Aug 14, 2007 8:03 pm

I just got my KIM-1 Kit in the mail today and the board looks really nicely done

I can't wait to add this Multi-cart to the collection as well

eslapion · Post by **eslapion** » Wed Aug 15, 2007 11:13 pm

There only one thing right now that makes it impossible to make a kit like that for a VIC-20 computer... the video chip!

Centallica · Post by **Centallica** » Thu Aug 16, 2007 6:47 am

eslapion wrote:There only one thing right now that makes it impossible to make a kit like that for a VIC-20 computer... the video chip!

Ya that would be a interesting kit to assemeble if there were one for the Vic-20. Is there an alternative chip that could be used with slight board modifications?

ral-clan · Post by **ral-clan** » Thu Aug 16, 2007 7:27 am

I thought that someone already did a complete VIC-20 in FPGA...

Wouldn't this mean that someone has already reverse-engineered the VIC chip then?

Bacon · Post by **Bacon** » Thu Aug 16, 2007 7:41 am

Centallica wrote:I just got my KIM-1 Kit in the mail today and the board looks really nicely done

Got mine the day before yesterday and built it last night. Worked on the first try! Sweet...

Tonight I'll try and hook it up to my PC's serial port and see what happens.

Centallica · Post by **Centallica** » Thu Aug 16, 2007 11:54 am

I thought that someone already did a complete VIC-20 in FPGA...

Wouldn't this mean that someone has already reverse-engineered the VIC chip then?

I'd be interested in some more info on this if they did...

Got mine the day before yesterday and built it last night. Worked on the first try! Sweet...

How long did it take you to solder it? Was there any difficult areas to mention? Any tricks?

ral-clan · Post by **ral-clan** » Thu Aug 16, 2007 6:23 pm

Centallica wrote:
I thought that someone already did a complete VIC-20 in FPGA...

Wouldn't this mean that someone has already reverse-engineered the VIC chip then?
I'd be interested in some more info on this if they did...

A quick search found this:
http://home.freeuk.com/fpgaarcade/vic20_main.htm

It looks like it's a re-creation of a PAL machine.

eslapion · Post by **eslapion** » Thu Aug 16, 2007 10:12 pm

ral-clan wrote:I thought that someone already did a complete VIC-20 in FPGA...

Wouldn't this mean that someone has already reverse-engineered the VIC chip then?

The answer to that, actually, would be yes. Someone did in fact reverse engineer the VIC chip.

And I did contact the guy who created the FPGA VIC-20 concerning the potential production of VIC substitutes. However, it seems that running the VIC on an FPGA is a lot less complicated than redoing the complete real thing as FPGA development boards have VGA outputs.

Also, the real chip has both analog and digital components for the generation of NTSC signals.

I strongly suspect, if there ever was a VIC-20 kit, the video output would have substantial improvements over the original machine.

Bacon · Post by **Bacon** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 12:10 am

Centallica wrote:How long did it take you to solder it? Was there any difficult areas to mention? Any tricks?

Took me around 4.5 hours, including the time to first sort out all the resistors. No real difficulties for anyone who's ever built a kit or repaired something like a VIC before (my own experience consists of building an EPROM burner kit and two ZX81 kits, and doing simple mods and repairs on a few vintage computers).

The only slightly difficult part would be the 7805 regulator since it's surface mounted (plus it takes a lot of heat to solder the "base" part of the regulator to the large patch of metal on the PCB), but it's not that difficult. Just follow the instructions in the excellent manual and it should present no problem.

Oh, a couple of more things. Vince's advice that you should solder all keys at the same time and hold them in place with a piece of board didn't work for me; instead I bent the pins on each key slightly outwards before placing them so they held themselves in place when I turned the PCB over to solder. You should also definitely follow the advice to position all displays before soldering them, otherwise you may have trouble making them fit.

Centallica · Post by **Centallica** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 7:08 am

I strongly suspect, if there ever was a VIC-20 kit, the video output would have substantial improvements over the original machine.

Sounds like another project for the group or someone alone, once the Mega-cart is done

Bacon-Thanks for the couple of tips they will definitely help! I hear surface soldering can be a b*tch...my Lord of the Rings Pinball Machine is all surface mounted

6502dude · Post by **6502dude** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 8:04 am

Now that we've seen the bare board, I'd be interested to see pictures of completed Kim-1 projects boards.