Cosmic Cruncher not autoloading

jokker · Post by **jokker** » Mon Oct 13, 2008 5:48 pm

Hi All,

Pretty new to the VIC-20 but certainly eager to learn all the in's and out's (or perhaps better said poke's and peek's) of this mighty little computer.

So I've got the Cosmic Cruncher cartridge and it doesn't appear to autoload, as I just end up at the standard READY screen when I power on the VIC.

I tried messing around by peeking at the addresses for cartridge roms (40960-49151) and checking to see if there are values to read from and it's getting a varied set of values. Mostly 0's, 128's and 64's so I'm wondering if there is a problem reading the cartridge. I did clean the contacts with a business card and some isopropyl alcohol but still no luck.

I'm assuming it's supposed to autoload since I couldn't find any instructions to use a SYS command to load it (ala Scott Adam's games).

So any help is much appreciated!

Mayhem · Post by **Mayhem** » Mon Oct 13, 2008 6:08 pm

It should autoboot. Sounds like it could be dead if you've already cleaned it. Maybe someone else here can suggest something to check...

6502dude · Post by **6502dude** » Mon Oct 13, 2008 6:12 pm

The socket receptacle on Vic-20 (the female part) may have some oxidization on edge card contacts.

As time passes, this is becoming an increasing problem for a couple of reasons:

a) Some Vic-20s have seldom had cartridges installed. Just inserting and pulling out from female part a few times helps keeps things operational

b) Even with Vic-20 with regular use of cart in expansion slot, not all contacts are present on many low budget carts. This does not allow opportunity for some signal edge card connections (IO2, IO3, R.W, etc) to have periodic abrasion to remove oxidation.

With your cart, try inserting into female part several times - in an out, this may help to remove oxidation and resolve your problem.

jbuonacc · Post by **jbuonacc** » Mon Oct 13, 2008 7:32 pm

6502dude wrote:... Just inserting and pulling out from female part a few times helps keeps things operational.

... try inserting into female part several times - in an out, this may help to... resolve your problem.

where's Centallica when you need him?

jokker · Post by **jokker** » Mon Oct 13, 2008 8:08 pm

I will give that a try, thanks!

Is it possible to copy the contents of a cartridge to a floppy or cassette? I have both drives and could try it that way as well.

jbuonacc wrote:
6502dude wrote:... Just inserting and pulling out from female part a few times helps keeps things operational.

... try inserting into female part several times - in an out, this may help to... resolve your problem.
where's Centallica when you need him?

Yes he would have a field day with that wouldn't he? I know him from the MAACA boards of which I also frequent. Always has the most interesting selection of avatar images.

Speaking of which what game is the screenshot that orion70 uses an avatar?

jbuonacc · Post by **jbuonacc** » Mon Oct 13, 2008 8:27 pm

jokker wrote: Speaking of which what game is the screenshot that orion70 uses an avatar?

i believe it's an updated version of the game 'Sorcery'? i think he had something to do with resurrecting it, can't recall the details. more info HERE.

orion70 · Post by **orion70** » Tue Oct 14, 2008 12:28 am

6502dude wrote:... Just inserting and pulling out from female part a few times helps keeps things operational.

... try inserting into female part several times - in an out, this may help to... resolve your problem.

jokker wrote:Speaking of which what game is the screenshot that orion70 uses an avatar?

Yep like jbuonacc said it's Sorcery. A turn-based RPG for expanded VIC, by Brendan Jones.
I created a map for game "B" (see manual). A debugged version 1.1 was at alpha stage about two years ago, but no evolution since then.
Very fun, and it covers a game genre - Bard's Tale like games - never touched on the VIC.

carlsson · Post by **carlsson** » Tue Oct 14, 2008 5:57 am

jokker wrote:Is it possible to copy the contents of a cartridge to a floppy or cassette?

Yes, you could read the memory contents and save as a file. See Mike's tips in this thread:
http://sleepingelephant.com/ipw-web/bul ... =9779#9779

In your case, start_lo and end_lo should both be 0 while start_hi is 160 (40960/256) and end_hi is 192 (49152/256). However you need a RAM expansion in block 5 to read it back, or if you transfer it to a PC and load it from the emulator. I'm afraid your Cosmic Cruncher cartridge may read out most garbage though. You could read the first ten bytes or so to see if you still have the A0CBM signature:

FOR I=0 TO 10:POKE 7680+I,PEEK(40960+I):POKE 38400+I,0:NEXT

The second POKE is to make the text black in case you have the default white background.

jokker · Post by **jokker** » Tue Oct 14, 2008 8:24 pm

Yeah I'm certainly not getting that signature sadly, oh well I guess no Cosmic Cruncher for me then.

Thanks for the info everyone and that Sorcery game rocks!

_Troy

carlsson wrote:
jokker wrote:Is it possible to copy the contents of a cartridge to a floppy or cassette?
Yes, you could read the memory contents and save as a file. See Mike's tips in this thread:
http://sleepingelephant.com/ipw-web/bul ... =9779#9779

In your case, start_lo and end_lo should both be 0 while start_hi is 160 (40960/256) and end_hi is 192 (49152/256). However you need a RAM expansion in block 5 to read it back, or if you transfer it to a PC and load it from the emulator. I'm afraid your Cosmic Cruncher cartridge may read out most garbage though. You could read the first ten bytes or so to see if you still have the A0CBM signature:

FOR I=0 TO 10:POKE 7680+I,PEEK(40960+I):POKE 38400+I,0:NEXT

The second POKE is to make the text black in case you have the default white background.

carlsson · Post by **carlsson** » Wed Oct 15, 2008 1:58 am

A0CBM should appear as shifted letters (i.e. upper case if you switch with C= + SHIFT). CBM should also appear in reversed video.

If nothing of this shows up.. do you own another cartridge that works on your VIC so we can be certain it isn't a computer problem? You cleaned the edge connector. Perhaps one or a few traces are broken somewhere, or .. somebody once upon a time hacked the cartridge so it goes to another memory block, thus making it not autostarting and not executable at all. The odds are quite low for that though.

eslapion · Post by **eslapion** » Wed Oct 15, 2008 4:52 am

AFAIK, one of the best ways to remove dirt (carbon build-up and oxydation) from the contacts of a cart is to rub the contact with a white (plastic type) eraser.

It works with pretty much all old computers/consoles cartridges that I know of.

nbla000 · Post by **nbla000** » Wed Oct 15, 2008 6:40 am

6502dude wrote:... Just inserting and pulling out from female part a few times...
... try inserting into female part several times - in an out

Be careful, use some protection

orion70 wrote:Yep like jbuonacc said it's Sorcery. A turn-based RPG for expanded VIC, by Brendan Jones.
I created a map for game "B" (see manual). A debugged version 1.1 was at alpha stage about two years ago, but no evolution since then.

Sorcery is in the MegaCart Tape/Disk games list too...

jokker · Post by **jokker** » Sun Oct 19, 2008 12:43 pm

Yeah I wasn't getting anything at all from the cartridge sadly.

I have other cartridges and I did test them and there's no problems with them at all, just Cosmic Cruncher.

I did open up the casing to see if there was a cold solder joint or something that could be jumped or fixed but it looked perfectly fine. I did notice one thing I have a question about, there was a section on the circuit board that could be jumpered. It was connected on one set of terminals but not the other. I'm sure I can get a pic shortly to clarify but some of you folks may already know what I'm talking about. It looks like something you jumper to enable read/write mode or perhaps a new starting address?

carlsson wrote:A0CBM should appear as shifted letters (i.e. upper case if you switch with C= + SHIFT). CBM should also appear in reversed video.

If nothing of this shows up.. do you own another cartridge that works on your VIC so we can be certain it isn't a computer problem? You cleaned the edge connector. Perhaps one or a few traces are broken somewhere, or .. somebody once upon a time hacked the cartridge so it goes to another memory block, thus making it not autostarting and not executable at all. The odds are quite low for that though.

jokker · Post by **jokker** » Sun Oct 19, 2008 12:45 pm

Yeah I find a folder business card words amazing well for that and is a little easier to use. It cleans things right up and I have a tonne of business cards left over from my days at various tech companies, glad I finally found a use for them!

eslapion wrote:AFAIK, one of the best ways to remove dirt (carbon build-up and oxydation) from the contacts of a cart is to rub the contact with a white (plastic type) eraser.

It works with pretty much all old computers/consoles cartridges that I know of.

carlsson · Post by **carlsson** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 9:39 am

The jumper indeed sounds like where you select which memory block the cartridge should load into. Does it look like somebody has hacked it?