The DIY cartridge: JOLLY CARTRIDGE!

[doug_in_nc]

Thanks! I guessed it wouldn't be totally obvious because of the complexity

[orion70]

New version of spine and label, with less spaced and slightly bigger characters. Meanwhile, i have news from Max (Mces) that the game cartridge works

[doug_in_nc]

It looks much better with the lower spacing of the lettering.

Did you use a pre-written downloader or write one yourself? I would love to make myself a Bonzo cartridge...

[orion70]

Sorry, I don't get the question... Max "Mces" is putting the game inside the cartridge for me, and I'm having fun imagining how the cart box would look. I have a spare old Avenger shell to put the pre-programmed Jolly cartridge into, and a good laser color printer. As for the font of the game title, it's not a font in fact, I just copy-pasted it from the PDF of the original manual. All in all, it's just a matter of taking screenshots of actual boxes and a lot of GIMP .

EDIT: doing a "WhatTheFont" search, it comes out the title is some sort of re-elaboration of a "Arnorld Böcklin" font. Very nice site indeed!

[Lechuck]

Did you use a pre-written downloader or write one yourself? I would love to make myself a Bonzo cartridge...

Have a look here:

http://sleepingelephant.com/ipw-web/bu ... 11&t=10234

Doing that cartridge shouldn’t be dificult

Cheers

[doug_in_nc]

Thanks, but that wasn't quite what I was asking. What I was asking about was storing a non-cartridge games in a cartridge and then having the cartridge transfer the code to the correct place in RAM on boot and then run it, not burning an EPROM of an existing cartridge. Bonzo was only produced on cassette AFAIK.

[doug_in_nc]

Sorry, I don't get the question... Max "Mces" is putting the game inside the cartridge for me, and I'm having fun imagining how the cart box would look. I have a spare old Avenger shell to put the pre-programmed Jolly cartridge into, and a good laser color printer. As for the font of the game title, it's not a font in fact, I just copy-pasted it from the PDF of the original manual. All in all, it's just a matter of taking screenshots of actual boxes and a lot of GIMP .

EDIT: doing a "WhatTheFont" search, it comes out the title is some sort of re-elaboration of a "Arnorld Böcklin" font. Very nice site indeed!

I must have got confused. I thought sorcery wasn't a cartridge game, and you were doing what was done with the 3.5K games earlier in the thread and using the cartridge to store it, and copy it to wherever it ran in RAM normally on boot.

[orion70]

Yes, it isn't a cartridge game, and yes, that's exactly what happens. Mces has explained it in this thread: Sorcery is 12.5 Kb, it's stored in a ROM, and copied on the fly to the RAM upon usage. See Mces' earlier post here.

Bonzo may be flashed to ROM too, as long as it's a single file and <12.5 Kb.

[MCes]

Yes, it isn't a cartridge game, and yes, that's exactly what happens. Mces has explained it in this thread: Sorcery is 12.5 Kb, it's stored in a ROM, and copied on the fly to the RAM upon usage. See Mces' earlier post here.

Bonzo may be flashed to ROM too, as long as it's a single file and <12.5 Kb.

Yes!
in this configuration, the JOLLY CARTRIDGE have 2 functions:

1) a +24k RAM expansion which will be used for games that have to be loaded on a RAM (games not compatible with "run on ROM")
2) an automatic ROM boot which copies the game from the ROM to the expanded VIC20 memory

The limits are:

1) RAM can't be placed on RAM1,2,3 or BLK5 or I/O2,3 (it is normally not a problem)
2) the game has to be not bigger than 12.75k (51pages)
3) the game has to be a single .PRG file: no multi loading games.

[limit 1) and 2) are removed on "DREAMCART", and a possible solution to 3) can be performed]

"Bonzo" would have to be loaded on RAM and it respects all previous limits (it occupies 34 pages of memory), so a JOLLY CARTRIDGE can be done, and also with a simple HW configuration (no diodes or wire required) because it is smaller than 9.75k (39 pages).

[orion70]

Now I'm eager to see how a Bonzo cartridge and box would look like . Doug?

[doug_in_nc]

I will have a go I have the cassette art, so I can base it on that. I would plan to 3d print the case too, so I think I will probably create a case design based on one of the other cartridge designs I have rather than just using the standard one. I wanted to do that anyway, but this seems like a good reason to do so. As I mentioned in another thread, I store my cartridges in sleeves rather than boxes, and got the Commodore ones from here - https://www.oldcomputr.com/product/comm ... commodore/
and have my non-Commodore ones in sleeves I designed (much less skillfully) that are loosely based on their original packaging. I can come up one of those, and then just superimpose the design into a standard Commodore-style box design to see which looks better.

Any suggestions for the cartridge case design? Of the ones that look distinctly different to the Commodore cartridges, I have Sega, Tronix, Thorn EMI, 20th Century Fox & UMI that I can reproduce.

Once I get a Jolly Cart, I will create a Commodore-style cartridge case design with access for the button, jumper, switches etc, but as this card wouldn't need those, I will just create one for now that has the internals to fit a standard commodore pcb. I already reverse-engineered one of the standard Commodore cartridge prints available on Thingiverse so that I have a CAD-model I can modify easily.

[doug_in_nc]

Yes, it isn't a cartridge game, and yes, that's exactly what happens. Mces has explained it in this thread: Sorcery is 12.5 Kb, it's stored in a ROM, and copied on the fly to the RAM upon usage. See Mces' earlier post here.

Bonzo may be flashed to ROM too, as long as it's a single file and <12.5 Kb.

Yes!
in this configuration, the JOLLY CARTRIDGE have 2 functions:

1) a +24k RAM expansion which will be used for games that have to be loaded on a RAM (games not compatible with "run on ROM")
2) an automatic ROM boot which copies the game from the ROM to the expanded VIC20 memory

The limits are:

1) RAM can't be placed on RAM1,2,3 or BLK5 or I/O2,3 (it is normally not a problem)
2) the game has to be not bigger than 12.75k (51pages)
3) the game has to be a single .PRG file: no multi loading games.

[limit 1) and 2) are removed on "DREAMCART", and a possible solution to 3) can be performed]

"Bonzo" would have to be loaded on RAM and it respects all previous limits (it occupies 34 pages of memory), so a JOLLY CARTRIDGE can be done, and also with a simple HW configuration (no diodes or wire required) because it is smaller than 9.75k (39 pages).

That would be great! I love the idea of taking cassette games and giving them their own cartridges. I grew up in the UK and had some games on cassette as a kid that were released on cartridge here in the US (specifically Amok and Grid Runner), so it's great to be able to do that with other games too.

A lot of the versions of Bonzo that I found online don't work well with NTSC systems, even though the cassette version I have which I bought on a British web site works perfectly on my NTSC VIC, so I will post a modded variant that works on both PAL and NTSC once I get to my home PC (along with the credits to the Denial member who did the mods, who's name I can't remember right now).

[MCes]

That would be great! I love the idea of taking cassette games and giving them their own cartridges. I grew up in the UK and had some games on cassette as a kid that were released on cartridge here in the US (specifically Amok and Grid Runner), so it's great to be able to do that with other games too.

A lot of the versions of Bonzo that I found online don't work well with NTSC systems, even though the cassette version I have which I bought on a British web site works perfectly on my NTSC VIC, so I will post a modded variant that works on both PAL and NTSC once I get to my home PC (along with the credits to the Denial member who did the mods, who's name I can't remember right now).

On the Zimmers database there are 3 "Bonzo" games,
but only one allows you to center the screen to work on both NTSC and PAL machines,
I used that "Bonzo"....

[doug_in_nc]

Now I'm eager to see how a Bonzo cartridge and box would look like . Doug?

Here you go. This is my first attempt with a commodore style sleeve as well as something more like what I would normally do for a non-Commodore cartridge

[orion70]

Very very nice . I like the original looking label, and the character you used for the BONZO title on the box. Are you planning to print a foldable box on thick paper, or print front/back/spine separately, and slap them on a suitable box?

Also, make sure no one has used the s/n 2021 before (I don't think so).