Accurately Dumping an Astrocade ROM ----------------------------------- April 23, 2007 By Adam Trionfo This process describes how to dump the Astrocade ROM using only an Astrocade and software (no EPROM/ROM reader needed). This technique can be used to archive versions of the Astrocade ROM that have not been dumped or for dumping the ROM for use with an Astrocade emulator (such as MESS). This article is based on Astrocade Yahoo message board posting #3809 made in April 2007. Step 1 - Dumping the ROM to "Tape" ---------------------------------- No tape will be used in this process at all; a computer will be used instead. Hookup the Astrocade to the microphone input of the computer. Then, while recording on the computer, use this command in AstroBASIC to dump the 8K ROM: :PRINT %(0),4096 This command dumps 8193 bytes to "tape" (including the one byte checksum). Save the recording as a WAV file. Step 2 - Converting the "Tape" to an ASCII BML File --------------------------------------------------- After dumping the program to a computer as a WAV file, use Ballybin 2.0 beta to create a BML file. Use this command on the command line to create a BML file: ballybin -v2 -i1 astrocadeROM.wav This creates a BML file that reads the WAV file as plain data (i.e. not as a BASIC file, which would have read only every other byte as data). Delete all of the extraneous BML syntax to leave only the binary data (though, for now, in ASCII format). Using Microsoft Word, if you have it, delete the data surrounding the ROM data. ALT-right-click to delete the data to the left and right of the binary data that needs to be kept. If Word isn't available, then the extraneous data will have to be deleted by hand in another editor. Step 3 - Converting the ASCII BML File to Hex --------------------------------------------- After only the 8192 bytes of ASCII data are left in Word, place the text into the clipboard and then pasted it into the hex editor WinHex (available on the Internet). This hex editor allows data to be imported in seventeen different ways: chose ASCII-Hex. Win-Hex creates an 8192-byte binary file which must be saved as binary. The next step can be skipped if dumping the Astrocade's ROM for use with an emulator. If dumping your Astrocade's ROM to check if it is an un-dumped version, then continue with the next step: comparison. Step 4 - Comparing the Dumped ROM to Previously Archived ROMS ------------------------------------------------------------- Using a file compare program called HowDif (available at Ballyalley.com), compare the new 8192-byte file to the already dumped 3159 Astrocade ROM or the White ROM (both available on the Internet). If the newly dumped ROM is byte- for-byte identical with either previously dumped ROM, then try dumping another Astrocade. Regardless if the ROM is identical or not, this process has allowed the dumping of a ROM without the need for extra hardware. End of Article