Cartridge PCB Source

[chysn]

Since my last order in August, the VIC-20 cartridge PCB from The Future Is 8-Bit has increased in price by 50%.

Does anyone know of an alternate source for cartridge PCBs?

[MCes]

At similar price...
may I suggest "jollycart"?
It's not only a PCB, it's also food for SW/HW developer!

viewtopic.php?f=11&t=10235#p114570

[chysn]

I do want to order some Jollycart boards for the wAxPander project.

At similar price...
may I suggest "jollycart"?
It's not only a PCB, it's also food for SW/HW developer!

I do want to order some Jollycart boards for the wAxpander project. I'll PM you.

Actually, if I move entirely over to wAxpander and discontinue game cartridges (i.e., ZEPTOPOLIS), I might not need to do anything else....

[doug_in_nc]

At the moment at least, the post from Italy is pretty slow. I ordered some that were shipped 4 weeks ago, and they just got to the US today and probably won’t get to me for a while. Obviously the holidays are slowing down post as usual, but Covid clearly isn’t helping.

[chysn]

At the moment at least, the post from Italy is pretty slow. I ordered some that were shipped 4 weeks ago, and they just got to the US today and probably won’t get to me for a while. Obviously the holidays are slowing down post as usual, but Covid clearly isn’t helping.

Thanks for the heads-up! I'm planning at least one "normal" (i.e. 8K ROM) cartridge release this year, so I'll need to get ahead of inventory with a big TFW8B order. If I take full advantage of their discount structure, I might be able to hold the line on pricing.

When the Jollycarts come in, and I get a chance to play around with one, I'll decide how they'll fit into my catalog.

[doug_in_nc]

If you want plain vanilla 8K cartridge pcbs, you could get a quote from PCBWay or one of the other custom board manufacturers for the design shown here:

http://sleepingelephant.com/~sleeping/i ... =11&t=8724

I’ve used PCBWay in the past for some other boards, including the magic cart for the C64 and the PI1541, and been pleased with the results.

[chysn]

Thanks, Doug. I considered something like PCBWay, but I'm a bit intimidated by the whole process. For example, on the Online Quote page on PCBWay, there are about a million questions to answer, many of which I do not understand. And for lots of the questions I do understand, I don't know the correct answers. I don't know what a Gerber file is, but the .brd files provided on the other topic don't seem to be Gerber files. I should dive in and order a small quantity for the experience of it.

Most of what I need is, in fact, plain 8K PCBs.

[doug_in_nc]

At least with PCBWay, they can convert the .brd files to Gerber for you pretty easily on the web site, so the design I linked to can be sent to them without any real effort.

https://www.pcbway.com/blog/News/New_fe ... nline.html

When you get a quote from them, it actually comes from a real person (amazing, right?), so you can ask them questions, and sort out exactly what you need before ordering. They had a question about one of the designs I sent them ( a publicly available Atari 800 cartridge pcb) and we were able to resolve it easily. As I said, I don't have any experience with any other pcb houses, but you may well get the same service from them too. I don't know where MCes ordered his Jolly Cartridges from, but you could probably ask him for advice on what to order too, as what he delivered is very professional and even includes surface mount chips and passive components from the manufacturer, so he clearly knows how to specify what he wants.

[chysn]

Thanks for the info! It doesn't look like that converter is there any more. PCBWay suggested that I use an application called Eagle to convert the file. I checked out Eagle, and it's pretty pricey for the volume that I do. I'll ask on the other thread if anyone has a Gerber file.

[doug_in_nc]

Eagle is the commercial pcb design software that uses .BRD files (pronounced bird for obvious reasons), but the Kicad which is free, will import them, and can produce gerber files. How good the result of the conversion is I couldn’t tell you, but as the software is free you are only investing a little time to check.