Dedicated Cart. Mode

The menu searches for an ‘AUTOSTART.BIN’ file at the root of the volume and, if found and valid, it starts it in a special way: pressing the Vectrex reset button does not exit to the menu anymore. If a 6809 Vectrex cart. is used upon power up no 6809 code whatsoever by the menu is injected before it so this is one way to perfectly test code to be burned onto an eprom. Or to temporarily convert a VF into a specific game cartridge.

As of v2.28 this has been expanded to also support native applications (copied to the root of the volume and renamed to AUTOSTART.BIN) and everything in the /System/Apps folder, so esp. all emulators, are supported now. This is mostly for myself, I’ve got no idea if anyone out there ever is going to use this but I plan to finally build a whole bunch of dedicated cartridges using this feature for myself and over the years I have already drawn labels for almost all arcade games to do so.

So the AUTOSTART.BIN now is just a defined way of loading something for a special purpose – as a dedicated cart. and the VF is hiding – and supports Arcade games (or e.g. also a way to convert the VecFever into a VecFLASH).

The question of how to access the options of the main page games, during normal operation these are entered via the button 3: via the menu (if enabled), needs to be mentioned, though. In the past I’ve used an options Vectrex button during attract mode to do this in a lot of cart., and in principle the ‘fast exit’ expert option for button 1: could be reused for this, but I myself like the idea of having a distinct, new service button for these arcade games, just like the original cabinets. So at the moment this is what I am using myself – pressing this button at any time will enter the options, automatically expanding the game’s options with a ‘VF Systems’ option to be able to define the necessary things needed (e.g. language, Vectrex geometry, delays…).

So this is how I’m planning to build a personal, dedicated cart. from now on real quick: hooking up a VF button and using a micro sd VF with an autostart.bin of… whatever takes my fancy. E.g. this is a Star Wars cart. to complement the package and overlay Chris Parsons sent me a while back (thanks again !):