atari supercharger

[coinheaven]

what the hell is this thing? i found a tape in my parents basement called "escape from mindmaster" and it had atari supercharger on it. was this a computer version of the atari 2600? is the game rare?

[Tan]

"Description: An add-on device that improves the Atari VCS memory, graphics, and sound capability. By plugging the Supercharger into the VCS and connecting its wire to a standard cassette tape player, games could be "loaded in" to memory. The Supercharger unit contains 2K of ROM, but more importantly it adds an additional 6K of screen RAM to the VCS (a huge improvement over the hardware's 128 bytes). Initially retailed for $44.95."

From the Digital Press "Classic" Guide.

this is from the online rarity guide, if your wondering where i got it.

[coinheaven]

wow, that is pretty retarded, but way cool.

[rbudrick]

Actually, the Supercharger was an underused, but impressive tool for the VCS at the time...it could take the VCS way beyond it's limits and gave programmers a way to make much more impressive games. The media, cassettes, weren't the most weildy thing, but they were cheap as hell, albeit slow.

In a way, it was sort of what ther Super FX chip was to the Super NES (not that the Supercharger was another processor, but you getthe picture), or what some complex mappers were for the NES. Maybe the Alladin for NES is more fitting?

Many hackers and developers in the 90s (before?) found ways to put roms onto a Supercharger like a flash cart by turning the bin files into wav files and feeding them into the Supercharger via the audio out on their computers, or burning them onto CDs and loading them via their stereos or portable CD players. Pretty weird and cool at the same time. I believe years ago DP had some special CD they put out to take advantage of this...or was that someone else?

There is alsoa simple hack you can do to pump much larger files into it that what was originally allowed.

Very versatile tool, that Supercharger.

-Rob

[ClubNinja]

wow, that is pretty retarded,..

Wow.

[thehistorian]

I believe years ago DP had some special CD they put out to take advantage of this...or was that someone else?
-Rob

"Stella gets a new Brain" (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Stella+gets+a+new+brain)

[slapdash]

Yeah, not DP but a group of individuals -- including myself -- called CyberPuNKS. There were actually two runs -- the first was non-profit and limited. The second saw some profit (not much though), and was "unlimited", but I believe there were enough discs leftover that there probably won't be any more produced. The second run has more stuff on it, but we had to leave off a few things too, so the two runs are different.

I believe Randy Crihfield still has copies of the second run available for the insanely low price of $5; if anyone wants ordering details I can double-check and get contact info. Just email (or PM, but I prefer email) me.

[Mr.FoodMonster]

I have Supercharger, but I never once used it.

[Pantechnicon]

wow, that is pretty retarded, but way cool.

Res ipsa loquitor, my friend.

[rbudrick]

So is he retarded, cool, or both, Pantechnicon? LOL LOL
Oh, and it's loquitur, not loquitor, heh heh
-Rob

[Pantechnicon]

So is he retarded, cool, or both, Pantechnicon? LOL LOL
Oh, and it's loquitur, not loquitor, heh heh
-Rob

Well, he's presumably a teenager who, upon stumbling across a piece of retrogaming history, is both completely baffled and condescendingly dismissive of the technology, yet retains enough curiosity to see if it might be worth some money.

I would say that he's perfectly normal.

p.s. - Thanks for the spell check. Latin has never been my strong point.

[Schenley]

Yeah, not DP but a group of individuals -- including myself -- called CyberPuNKS. There were actually two runs -- the first was non-profit and limited. The second saw some profit (not much though), and was "unlimited", but I believe there were enough discs leftover that there probably won't be any more produced. The second run has more stuff on it, but we had to leave off a few things too, so the two runs are different.

I believe Randy Crihfield still has copies of the second run available for the insanely low price of $5; if anyone wants ordering details I can double-check and get contact info. Just email (or PM, but I prefer email) me.Yup, I just ordered this from Randy a month or two ago. I sent an email to the address on this page (http://webpages.charter.net/hozervideo/), and he replied quickly. I had the CD in a matter of days. It's very impressive - I really like the effort put in to squeezing all that 'power' out of the 2600.

Oh, and I found the Supercharger at the local Goodwill store. Of course, the guy at the register had no idea what it was or what it was worth. I just chucked in on the counter and he looks at it - front and back, with a bewildered smirk, and asks "How about a buck?" He then rings it up and asks for 1.06 with tax. I had no change on me, so he only took my buck. So, I got it for .94!!

Anyway - it's worth picking up the CD if you have the supercharger.

[Videogamerdaryll]

I've always loved this thing..

http://videogamecollectors.com/albums/Videogamerdaryll/2005_0504_183631AA.sized.jpg

[vintagegamecrazy]

Those of you who have it and haven't used it are in the dark. That thing had some of the best games available for the 2600, I love Fireball, blows Breakout away, Rabbit Transit, Suicide Mission and Dragonstomper are great too.

[Mayhem]

http://62.168.142.47/~mayhem/images/supercharger.jpg

;)

[rbudrick]

Mayhem, wtf!? Very cool score.

Any differences over the released version (besides the really weird shape..probably better shape, actually)?

-Rob

[Mayhem]

Yep that's the demo unit. The Supercharger itself was still inside the Phaser Patrol box when I took that pic.

On the other hand, here's the PAL version for you:

http://www.mayhem64.co.uk/interview/supercharger.jpg

I've only got 3 PAL Supercharger games (Phaser Patrol, Dragonstomper and Frogger) so I defo make them harder to get! Indeed two of them came from Australia, so I'm wondering if they got a reasonable release down there...

[rbudrick]

I believe you're referring to the demo unit shown in the upper-left (?). From DP:

A demo unit that connects to a Starpath Supercharger, this box contains a demo “movie” of various Starpath games. Much different than the game previews normally seen at the end of their game tapes.

Ok...did it also need a tape player attached to it? I hope the info on it is backed up somewhere...

Could it still function as a Supercharger if erased and rewritten?

-Rob

[Mayhem]

Ok...did it also need a tape player attached to it? I hope the info on it is backed up somewhere...

Nope, it's a self-contained unit, in that it supplied the data to the Supercharger itself.


Very cool! Is the label the same as on the box (which is different from the NTSC version)?

Sadly not, the label on it is exactly the same as the US one, just with a small white sticker saying "PAL version" somewhere.

[Mitch]

You've got a PAL copy of Phaser Patrol? You should record it to a wav file and convert to a BIN, the one of the Stella CD is buggy.

Mitch

[RangerG]

You can also modify the Supercharger and play many more games (see this link):

http://home.earthlink.net/~resqsoft/wtw.htm

I have an extra set of the CDs with all the documents. $30 (includes shipping) -just like the original price- Paypal and it will be sent to you. Just pm me.

Take care,
RG

[Mayhem]

You've got a PAL copy of Phaser Patrol? You should record it to a wav file and convert to a BIN, the one of the Stella CD is buggy.

Really? Well of course it could be a poor PAL translation ;)

Still, what do I need? Yeah yeah, I know a tape player, I got that. What should I connect from it to the PC? And then how do I convert to BIN?

Hopefully I might get some time to unearth the tape player (not used in about 5 years!) out to run it through. Yeah I've not actually tested any of the PAL tapes I have, but now might be as good a time as any to see...

[slapdash]

I can't stress how cool Stella Gets A New Brain is... $5 including shipping (US) would be a bargain even if it was a crappy product, but it's not. I guess it's not perfect (I'm not sure I knew about the PAL Phaser Patrol being buggy), but it's cool. And if anyone gets it, don't forget to check out the data portion of the CD, which is full of images and the like!

[Mitch]

Yeah, the Stella CD is cool, I have the second rev BTW. :)

Mayhem, yeah if you've got an old walkman tape player (or similar) just plug a cord in the headphone jack and the other end into the line-in jack on your soundcard. Turn the volume on your tape player somewhere in the middle and then just record it as a wav with whatever sound recorder program you have on your PC. Then use Makebin (http://members.cox.net/rcolbert/makebin.htm) to convert it in to a BIN file.

That should be it. Incidentally, the BIN on the Stella CD randomly crashes during gameplay. I was finally able to complete one game after having it crash on my five times.

Mitch

[slapdash]

Very weird. I'm not sure how that happened. It might be interesting to byte-compare the BINs to see how much is off. I assume the PAL version of the game isn't that crash-happy normally?

[Mayhem]

Well best put me down to try and make a new BIN then at some point for people to try :)