RE: RATbox interest

You should be able to use it on any 6502, 6809, 6800, or Z80 game. (or
computer - apple II, Atari, commodore, etc)
Anything the processor can get it, the RATbox should be able to get to.
Checksums on ROMs is pretty straight forward. If your getting a bad checksum
on a ROM it's usually a bad ROM, decoder, or buffer. If you have a logic
probe (we are also thinking of building one on the RATbox) you can look at
the chip select pin on the ROM and toggle the ROM through the software (the
toggle ROM button turns it on for 1 sec then back off)
There are also ways to check the data pins (everything will be described in
the docs)
With the game board in the machine, you will be able to monitor all the
inputs (coin, buttons, trakball, etc) and toggle any of the outputs (coin
counter, start led, etc)
You will also be able to populate video memory with data and see it on the
monitor. (we will have some built in ones for vector monitors so you won't
have to figure a pattern out by hand or worry about sending the beam off the
screen)

This is also why we will be making the source code available for the
software, so anyone can customize it anyway they want.

-jeff

-----Original Message-----
From: Tom Cloud [mailto:computerspace@hotmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, September 29, 1999 10:18 AM
To: vectorlist@lists.cc.utexas.edu
Cc: jhendrix@Quark.Com
Subject: RE: RATbox interest

Jeff, I too would be interested in one. I have a few questions about
it though...

Can it be used for b/w raster games (or raster games in general or
   only for vectors?
Can a non-assembly programmer like myself use one pretty easily to
   debug a dead board? Or do we have to be assembly lang. hackers
   to make sense of its output?
If it finds errors in the checksums, will it point out a possible
   piece of bad hardware? (i.e. location of the bad chip or whatever)

Thx for any info...looks to be very cool.

Regards,
Tom Cloud

From: jeff hendrix <jhendrix@Quark.Com>
>Reply-To: vectorlist@lists.cc.utexas.edu
>To: "'vectorlist@lists.cc.utexas.edu'" <vectorlist@lists.cc.utexas.edu>
>Subject: RE: RATbox interest
>Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1999 15:26:42 -0600
>
>Currently our target price is $199 (that will include an assembled board,
>the parallel cable and the power supply to run it)
>
>I used visual C++ 6.0 to write winRAT.
>The API library will be generic, so controlling programs can be written on
>any platform.
>Currently the board requires a parallel port, but once we get it done we
>are
>thinking about building a serial adapter so it will run on all the other
>platforms in the world.
>
>-----Original Message-----

From: Christopher X. Candreva [mailto:chris@westnet.com]
>Sent: Tuesday, September 28, 1999 3:11 PM
>To: 'vectorlist@lists.cc.utexas.edu'
>Subject: Re: RATbox interest
>
>
>On Tue, 28 Sep 1999, jeff hendrix wrote:
>
> > I know this might be a little premature,
> > but I'd just like to get a head count on how many people might be
>interested
> > in the RATbox?
>
>I'ld be interested. How much do you expect it to cost ? And just what chip
>IS that on the board ?
>
>While I'm bugging ya -- what did you write the Win 9x software in ? I'm
>trying to guess how hard it will be to port. I don't knomally keep a Win 9x
>capable machine in the workshop.
>
>-Chris
>
>
>
> >
> > -jeff
> >
> > I'll probably have pawn off one, or both, of my girls to help pay for
>the
> > initial run. I just want to make sure we make back enough so I can get
>them
> > back. ;-)
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: jeff hendrix [mailto:jhendrix@Quark.Com]
> > Sent: Tuesday, September 28, 1999 11:28 AM
> > To: 'vectorlist@lists.cc.utexas.edu'
> > Subject: CATbox? RATbox!
> >
> >
> > I guess I'll let the CAT out of the bag.
> > Here is the project Anders and I have been working on.
> > I threw this web page together in a matter of seconds, just so we have a
> > brief description of what this thing does.
> >
> > http://www.diac.com/~jeffh/rat/
> >
> > We are VERY close to having it working, we get something like a 1% error
>on
> > RAM writes when we write all 1's to a memory location. So we are trying
>to
> > nail it down.
> >
> > -jeff
> >
>
>==========================================================
>Chris Candreva -- chris@westnet.com -- (914) 967-7816
>WestNet Internet Services of Westchester
>http://www.westnet.com/
>

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Received on Wed Sep 29 11:51:01 1999