Main > Main Forum
Atari Cat Box, can we build an emulator ?
ChadTower:
Yeah, I did too, when the thread first started. IIRC that wasn't produced by Atari, it was third party.
Level42:
What Fozzy writes is only partialy true. Basicaly, this could be used on ANY arcade PCB. The thing missing is signature files for these games.
Now, if you'd built a "general" "Cat-box" (in-circuit tester) that is running on a computer people who have acces to working PCB's can make these signature files in a snap. Remember that a cat box didn't have any mass-storage device. If they would have, they could have created signature files of the full address range of each game. It's strange they didn't hook up an Atari 800 to do something like that...
And yes, I am mostly interested in late 70's, early 80's games...I think most of us are. I am not interested in fixing a HOTD4.
Anyway, the majority of PCB's from that age run on either a 6502 or Z80. So you would just need adapters for those processors.
I am not a hardware desinger, but I think the required hardware to do this is VERY limited. It would not cost the world.
The main thing is someone who is clever enough to write the software for it...
But aside from this all, I think it would be an interesting project. I may be a bit of a dreamer sometimes. I think it's a bit sad that an idea like this gets a "useless" rating right away....especialy on a creative forum like this ::)
ChadTower:
It's a "how often will you use it" against "how much time will it take to build" issue.
Fozzy The Bear:
--- Quote from: Level42 on April 12, 2007, 04:31:17 pm ---Now, if you'd built a "general" "Cat-box" (in-circuit tester) that is running on a computer people who have acces to working PCB's can make these signature files in a snap.
--- End quote ---
That's very true.... But that wasn't the premise proposed. What was proposed was to emulate that specific ATARI Cat Box. In that respect my answer was accurate.
If you want a general Cat Box, then you can buy one off the shelf.... It's called an oscilloscope..... It'll do 100 times more than an ATARI cat Box would ever do and you can buy programable ones that can have specific chip and component signatures loaded into them. You can even buy PC based ones that just drop into a card slot. If you want to go this route, that would be a very good place to start.
Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)
ChadTower:
I know what oscilloscope is, thanks... there are two of them on my test bench. :)
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version