[Coco] Conversion utility for Program Pak Images

[Ron Klein]

Perhaps this is only related to 32K ROMs?

On Tue, Feb 14, 2017 at 9:59 AM, Ron Klein <ron at kdomain.org> wrote:

> Hi John,
>
> I may have misunderstood an older email comment from Robert Gault.  You
> can see his comments toward the bottom of the post.  I was looking for
> information prior to my posting and came across this...
>
> Robert Gault <robert.gault at att.net>
> 1/26/16
> to CoCoList
> OK, after writing an ml routine to print data to the screen I can report
> what a Coco3 sees in the external ROM with 16k / 16k internal external and
> 32k external.
>
> The most reasonable way to present this is that the 32k ROM always exists
> from $8000-$FF00 and when the Coco3 is in standard 16k internal 16k
> external mode, it sees the second half of the external ROM.
> So my program when using 16k/16k saw the Extended Basic ROM at $8000 and
> the second half of the cart ROM at $C000. When the program set 32k
> external, then it saw the first half of the external ROM at $8000 and the
> same data (second half ROM) at $C000.
> Can I prove that a ROM reader would see the same thing? No I can't, but I
> expect it would. It makes sense because it is the only way a 32k ROM would
> not get lost when switching from 16k/16k to 32k external.
>
> And then how does this relate to .ccc files? These files do NOT present
> the ROM as seen by a Coco3. The halves are reversed with the second half
> preceding the first!
> This makes no sense to me but someone must have decided that one of the
> emulators JVC, MESS, or VCC could handle a 32k ROM cart more easily in this
> fashion. That format then became the standard for .ccc files regardless
> if it was reasonable.
>
> On Tue, Feb 14, 2017 at 9:36 AM, John W. Linville <linville at tuxdriver.com>
> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, Feb 14, 2017 at 07:01:48AM -0600, Ron Klein wrote:
>> > Hello,
>> >
>> > Does anyone know of a way to convert Program Pak images (*.ccc) to a
>> > standard ROM file?  I heard the *.ccc format is mainly designed for
>> > emulator use and not something that can be burned (or flashed).
>> >
>> > Thanks!
>> >
>> > -Ron
>>
>> AFAIK, the *.ccc format is just a flat binary -- the same as what
>> you would burn into an EPROM.
>>
>> If you have other documentation, I would love to see it!
>>
>> John
>> --
>> John W. Linville                Someday the world will need a hero, and
>> you
>> linville at tuxdriver.com                  might be all we have.  Be ready.
>>
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>
>