Mega-Cart

[allst-half]

Hello

I've been trying to contact Brian Lyons, and although he seems a very nice chap, he oughta respond my emails.

Another person I'm been trying to contact at this forum, even with post-
mails is fsporsche. He did have a project that he stated was going to be finnsihed and released this year, Ultra-card I think it was named.
I did try to order 2 of them, but didn't get any OK on this issue from fsporsche.

About the childish remark, I'm sorry. Just a bit frustrated that's all.

[justarb]

I hoped he would reply or respond in some way, but perhaps you're all
just children playing here, and wont allow adults on this playing ground.

Sorry for my burst-out!

fporsche has posted here recently, so you should have no problems getting in touch with him via PM or email. I think Brian posted something recently about how busy he was and that he was trying to restructure things to help him be able to respond to orders more quickly.

These guys (and many others here) are just hobbyists. They are not professionals - the carts and other peripherals people are so kind to offer to make here are done largely as a favour to the community. People do have lives outside of hacking away on retro-computers. I see that you only have one other post on these forums, so you don't appear to have spent much time trying to find out what is happening with either of the projects you are interested in - in fact, this is especially obvious in your post here. Accusing the people here of being "children playing here" is certainly not going to endear you to them, nor make them particularly inclined to help you. If anything, you are the one exhibiting childish behaviour with your outburst.

[allst-half]

Thanks for your reply, at least someone did care to give me an answer

I'm a newbie here, just like yourself, and since I have gotten the feeling this base was just ment for a few invited and accepted persons
not very willing to reply to my emails, I have not posted much either.

Of course I'm not winning any friends here, because if a person feels
frustrated and bypassed he will always be the one that has to "attack" so to speak, and therefor the others feel mistreated in some way and turning against this person. It's the way humans are.

I'm not the bad guy, just a bit frustrated that's all. Wouldn't you be after waiting nearly a year? About the help factor - what help are you refering to - I haven't got any help this far - except perhaps your reply and your need to "Push back" for my accusations. I guess you'll be better treated, since you're spoken out for the other persons here. But if I'm not mistaken, that was your purpose anyway, wouldn't you say?

[rhurst]

I don't think you're the bad guy... but this thread is over 3-1/2 years old and yes, obtaining a Mega-Cart is a special treat. You will have to remain more patient, like the rest of us.

I ordered four Atari USB replicas from Atari Age's Legacy Engineering and waited 14-months for that order to be filled; and I only just recently received my 1541 Ultimate II after a similar process, although that shipped from Nederland. And you have an alternative to order Final Expansion, requiring know-how to operate your VIC to tap the library you supply on SD card, like an Atari Harmony cart.

Mega-Cart is worth the wait. I have one, and I would very much like to get this updated second one.

[justarb]

Thanks for your reply, at least someone did care to give me an answer

I'm a newbie here, just like yourself, and since I have gotten the feeling this base was just ment for a few invited and accepted persons
not very willing to reply to my emails, I have not posted much either.

Of course I'm not winning any friends here, because if a person feels
frustrated and bypassed he will always be the one that has to "attack" so to speak, and therefor the others feel mistreated in some way and turning against this person. It's the way humans are.

I have hardly got the impression that this was a closed club. Sure, I have not posted much, but I have read this forum extensively over a long period and I have found the interactions between members, both new and old alike, to be open and welcoming.

Of course I'm not winning any friends here, because if a person feels
frustrated and bypassed he will always be the one that has to "attack" so to speak, and therefor the others feel mistreated in some way and turning against this person. It's the way humans are.

I have found in my time on this Earth, that you get much more helpful responses by being polite and not ranting or accusing people of being childish. The post I replied to was only your second post on this board - if you had a history of half a dozen or more posts requesting help or feedback I might understand getting snarky, but this was your first public post about the MegaCart.

I'm not the bad guy, just a bit frustrated that's all. Wouldn't you be after waiting nearly a year? About the help factor - what help are you refering to - I haven't got any help this far - except perhaps your reply and your need to "Push back" for my accusations. I guess you'll be better treated, since you're spoken out for the other persons here. But if I'm not mistaken, that was your purpose anyway, wouldn't you say?

You haven't got any help from this forum because this was only your second post. Sure, I do not know how many emails or PMs you may have sent, but for your first MegaCart post to include name-calling is not the route I would take to get some answers or help. I know it can be frustrating when trying to order purchases like these, but as I said in my initial reply to you, these guys are just doing this as a hobby - it is not their full-time business - and sometimes real life intervenes, be it work, illness, family matters etc. I'm sure that Brian is not particularly happy himself that he has not been able to provide carts to everyone as soon as they order them and he posted about a month ago stating how he hoped to be able to better organise his time. I see you have edited your initial post and removed the childish remarks - that is, IMHO, a good step. You're not a bad guy, just frustrated, but try not to insult people before they have a chance to help.

[dabone]

On a side note, is the Final Expansion 3 out of production also?
(Yes I know the Megacart is not out, just a long lead time )
Later,
dabone

[Jeff-20]

I'm a newbie here, just like yourself, and since I have gotten the feeling this base was just ment for a few invited and accepted persons
not very willing to reply to my emails, I have not posted much either.

That was your 2nd post here! I think you'll find we are a friendly group. I'm the founder of this site, and I wasn't even aware of you yet. I would have welcomed you if I had been. There is an Introduction thread. If you post more than once (and longer than one sentence), members are more likely to acknowledge you.

For what it's worth, welcome. I hope you don't judge an entire hobby or community by the busy lives of a few individuals.

[e5frog]

Sorry for the "noob" question, but can existing mega-carts be upgraded to this firmware rev? I seem to have R.19.

This is probably the best piece of HW I've received for any of my old computers, I absolutely love it.

~telengard

If there's no other changes in hardware (are there?) then it should be possible to desolder the two original PLCC circuits, program a pair of new and solder those on instead. I've gotten a pair of new circuits but with no firmware to program into them there's no use doing much more...

I don't know if there's enough room left over but it might be possible to solder the new set on top of the other and disable the Chip Enable signals, maybe even put a switch to swap between the two.


What about FROGGER'07, it has been updated but not mentioned among the updated games.

[16KVIC20]

Hi, I'm another newish member. If Megacarts are still being made, I probably would like to order one at some point over the next few months.

Does anybody know if they are still in production? I don't mind if there is a waiting list, from what I've seen it is one guy with a soldering iron, so I feel pretty sorry for him.

[Pedro Lambrini]

They're definitely still being made. And I can tell you that they're more than worth the wait. Especially now with the added functionality brought with the latest firmware. Best money I've ever spent on a retro computer accesory!

PS: Boxed up that thing for you.

[16KVIC20]

They're definitely still being made. And I can tell you that they're more than worth the wait. Especially now with the added functionality brought with the latest firmware. Best money I've ever spent on a retro computer accesory!

PS: Boxed up that thing for you.

Excellent Pedro, thanks for that. Looking forward to having a play.

I'm pleased they are still being made, thankyou for letting me know. It does look like a really good device, so once I'm up and running, and I've beat my old high score on Omega Race , I'll probably make contact via the site and get one.

[telengard]

Sorry for the "noob" question, but can existing mega-carts be upgraded to this firmware rev? I seem to have R.19.

This is probably the best piece of HW I've received for any of my old computers, I absolutely love it.

~telengard

If there's no other changes in hardware (are there?) then it should be possible to desolder the two original PLCC circuits, program a pair of new and solder those on instead. I've gotten a pair of new circuits but with no firmware to program into them there's no use doing much more...

I don't know if there's enough room left over but it might be possible to solder the new set on top of the other and disable the Chip Enable signals, maybe even put a switch to swap between the two.


What about FROGGER'07, it has been updated but not mentioned among the updated games.

Ah, I see. I'm not sure about any HW changes, I'm hoping not. I can handle something like this (will probably just need a way to program the new chips).

thanks for the info!
~telengard

[allst-half]

Yes, I did get up with the wrong foot, and I started out here making myself unpopular and perhaps disliked. But the meaning was not ment harshly, just in a sort of playful tone. I did forget the smiley face, but I edited the first message after I was corrected by another newbie member. So, thanks for your information and I will continue with less irony and with more politeness to everyone.

I'm the child here, and I'm in a way proud of it!

[Jeff-20]

No worries. All is well.

[nbla000]

I must have missed some discussion somewhere, so forgive my ignorance... but why were these removed?

Hi, sorry for delay in my reply but I was and I'm very busy with real life

For the new firmware version I needed space in ROMs and for each item removed there is a good reason.

I believe Ghislain asked for his game to be removed (Realms of Quest II).

I don't remember that btw...

And of course, I'm against dropping ROQ II

It has a bug with Mega-Cart that I'm not able to fix, nothing else.

Perilous Caverns was the subject of a discussion about its difficulty recently.

It uses a lot of space in ROMs and no one was able to play it properly.

how could you get rid of "Tower of Hanoi"?

Sorry but I needed to remove an item from the EXTRA section to add a very rare unreleased prototype... TAC-SCAN

What about FROGGER'07, it has been updated but not mentioned among the updated games.

Sorry, I forgot that, yes I've updated it with the last fixed version.

External boot feature, via ESC key on boot or by option on Boot Menu (full SJLOAD support for both PAL and NTSC systems)

That in itself is the best feature. "Unlimited" expansion with uIEC/SD card, like the Harmony cart for Atari 2600.

Yes it's exactly what I think, now by using an external uIEC, SD2IEC or the C64-SD drive, with the integrated file browser (F8 on boot) you may start any program/game (unexpanded, 3k, 8k+), automatically and quickly !

Sorry for the "noob" question, but can existing mega-carts be upgraded to this firmware rev?

Unfortunately no.

This is probably the best piece of HW I've received for any of my old computers, I absolutely love it.

Thank you very much.

I just placed my order for the new Meg cart Rev.20...
Cant wait to get it.

Thank you, Brian is on track again and he shipped new Mega-Carts from February btw the order's queue is very long so be patient

I clicked order after all my details, but saw this painted in a header row on the HTML page: SMTP Error! Could not connect blah-blah-blah error message. But the body of the page "suggested" the order went through with details on future communication from the order I can expect.

Eeek, what to do?

Hi Robert, don't warry for this message, orders are safe (yours too ) I need to change the PHP code of the page but I need time !
The web host does not accept automatic mails anymore to prevent spam.

If Megacarts are still being made, I probably would like to order one at some point over the next few months.

Does anybody know if they are still in production?

(Yes I know the Megacart is not out, just a long lead time )

Yes exactly btw since we received some emails about this question, I wish to "officially" confirm that the Mega-Cart project STILL ACTIVE and we still receive new orders of course but since it is an hobby project you must be very patient, when you place an order, the wait could be very long btw you will pay when your cart will be ready for final assembly and not before.