PAL Atari Carts

[Salvo B]

Hello Everyone...

Theese days i've been engaged searching a working PAL version dump of several Atari cart games like Donkey Kong and DigDug without any success...
I can run cart dumps on my VIC20 (PAL of course) thanks to a dip-switch customizable ram expansion that can load data into the cart reserved blocks, so you have just to load the file, reset the vic and the game will start, the expansion works fine with the majority of the gam, anyway I wasn't able to run many of the Atari dumps found on zimmer and in the tosec.

When I reset the machine I just get a blue border and white screen with some "@" character at the beginning, I've already tried the several version of the dumps ($A000, $2000, ecc.) but I just can't get it working.

I believe that this isn't related to the NTSC/PAL thing but i'd like to give a try, plus I find unbelllivable the fact that many PAL games wasn't dumped yet!

Anyway I believe that there is something on the dump itself that have to be fixed (some sort of memory location related issue). Unfortunately, even if I'm not a totallt newbie on this things, I don't have the experience to identify and debug this kind of issues, so I'll be glad if someone could point me a solution or a path to find one.

Thanks in advance

[mrr19121970]

The Penultimate cartridge has both DigDug an Donkey Kong on it. I am also faily sure that Behz Bonz does too.

I am not sure there is a PAL/NTSC version. You simply reposition the screen with the cursor.

[Mike]

I've already tried the several version of the dumps ($A000, $2000, ecc.) but I just can't get it working.

Those are not "several versions" of the dumps, these are the two *parts* of the ROM dump!

For Donkey Kong, you have to load the $2000 part into BLK1, and the $A000 part to BLK5, perform a reset and then it works.

Take a look at "boot.prg", how it's done (download).

[Mayhem]

I don’t think are PAL versions of the Atarisoft carts per se, the code is probably the same as the NTSC releases.

[Scope1]

Hi,

I loaded the blk1 $2000 and blk5 into $A000 and autostarted the boot.prg file as a normal disk/tape in VICE. It was running way too fast until I turned off warp mode and then the sound worked fine and the game worked as you'd expect. I only had Donkey Kong working, I didn't see Digdug options though.

I'm only new to using VICE so it would be great to find other Atari cart dumps I could use in VICE. Can anyone point me in the right direction? Thanks.

[Mayhem]

Download Gamebase20, you'll get them all and around 2000 other games...!

https://robert.hurst-ri.us/downloads/

[Mike]

I loaded [...]

boot.prg performs the load operation of the files blk1 and blk5 already by itself. No use in loading those two files manually beforehand.

[Scope1]

Hi guys,

Mayhem I will definitely enjoy checking that link - thank you very much.

Mike when I say I loaded them I followed what you had indicated --> attached cartridge image --> add to generic cartridge --> 4/8/16k image at $2000 and $A000 respectively for blk 1 and blk5 but as well as resetting, I also loaded the boot.prg as an autostart disk/tape image and that got it going like the reset.

Was there any option to get digdug functional at all?

Thanks very much for the help, much appreciated

[Scope1]

Ah I see a few Atari roms is there and I understand what's going on now - found digdug

Now I just have to find a good joystick to use...

[Mike]

[...] I followed what you had indicated --> attached cartridge image [...]

That was not quite that clear from your first post.

I did however not strictly refer to VICE, and attaching cartridges there. The *.zip file I posted also works on real h/w (preferably, with a SD2IEC) with a RAM expansion in BLK1 and BLK5. In any case I'm glad you got it working either way in VICE.