Rebirth of the Behr-Bonz multicart... interested?

[eslapion]

If Behr-Bonz had a simple 32K memory expansion mode, I'd buy one. Is that one of the options on the menu?

Putting 32k of RAM on the Behr-Bonz, as discussed before, would be anything BUT simple.

Since the Behr-Bonz offers a wide variety of game cartridges that occupy different memory areas, itself has to occupy all these areas and that conflicts with any RAM expansion.

[Barney]

Is 127 games the limit the cartridge can hold? How did you come up with that number?

[eslapion]

Is 127 games the limit the cartridge can hold? How did you come up with that number?

Keep in mind the largest cartridge based games from the 1980s era that were commercially sold use up to 16k of space. All of them need to have at least 4k of code present in the $A000-$BFFF area.

The real limit of the architecture of the Behr-Bonz is 256 different pieces of software. However, the largest single EPROM I found which could be made compatible with the 8 bit parallel bus of the VIC-20 is the M27C160 which has a capacity of 2 megabytes or 128 times the largest VIC cart game. Since the menu has to occupy at least one of these 16k cells, there are 127 left for games.

Of course that leaves a certain amount of space unused when a cell contains a 4k or 8k game, the problem is then to have the unused portion of the cell be presented to the VIC at the right memory range, the unavoidable $A000-$BFFF area.

I think in the future, I may come up with an upgraded version of the Behr-Bonz that offers up to 200 games by toggling which half of the selected 16k cell is presented to the VIC in this critical area.

[Barney]

Is there any way you can remove all the educational / match games and put in various other games such as Robin Hood and Ghost Manor....to name a few. I had to ask, figured it was worth a shot.

[eslapion]

Is there any way you can remove all the educational / match games and put in various other games such as Robin Hood and Ghost Manor....to name a few. I had to ask, figured it was worth a shot.

I could relatively easily make you a custom version of the Behr-Bonz. I would have to consider the amount of work required to reconstruct the binaries for the EPROM and menu to know how much extra I would charge for that.

Back in 2008, I sought people's feedback in order to decide what I would put in there and got little so I used my own judgement. There are some games I didn't put in there even if I knew some people liked them very much because I couldn't figure out how to play them. I had to fill in the empty cells with potentially less interesting games - there was a demand for some educational games by a few people to get their young kids interested in the VIC-20 so that was the avenue I took.

[Barney]

I would pay a little extra for a few of my favorite games added and some of my dislikes removed. There are approx. 10-15 games I like that are currently not on the Behr Bonz cart. Just curious, what would the cost be to have them added? Thanks.

Barney

[eslapion]

@Barney
Lets say 2$ for each replaced game.

You tell me exactly which games you want removed and exactly what to replace them with. Make sure the binaries for the new games are available on Zimmers and work in your video standard.

Putting a PAL only game on an NTSC version of the cart or vice versa would kinda not be a good idea.

[Barney]

Sounds good. I will get the list together and send it to you. Thanks.

Barney

[eslapion]

It seems the new batch of Behr-Bonz will have blue circuit boards.

[TLovskog]

The new Behr Bonz PCB has made it all the way from the factory in Shenzhen to Sweden ... soon on the way to Canada ...

Behr Bonz PCB

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[eslapion]

Unlike clones of the Behr-Bonz, genuine carts have a screw hole... and its gold plated!

[jeux397]

Merci Eslapion !!!

J'ai bien reçu ma "Behr-Bonz" et je l'ai mise à l'intérieur d'une mémoire 16K #vic-1111 .... Voici les photos et vous remarquerez que j'ai aussi positionné le bouton "reset" sur le haut de la cassette !!!









Bye !!!