.CAR File Format – Cartridge types

The list

The type is the 32-bit number at offset 4 of the header. This table is the table of the atari5200 emulator on this machine (CART_TYPES in cartridge.ts), which says it follows atari800’s cart.txt; the page test compares every id, name and size here with that source. The list ends here: the source defines the ids 1 to 112, 159 and 160, and nothing between 113 and 158 or above 160. Machine: 8-bit is the 400, 800, XL and XE; 800 is a cartridge for the 400/800’s right slot; 5200 is the Atari 5200. Sizes are in KB (1024 bytes) of ROM after the 16-byte header; the checksum is not part of the size. The last column says how the cartridge switches banks only for the families whose code was read; an empty cell means the scheme is not described here.

Not described

Known, not yet covered

• Reference: how most of these cartridges switch banks (an empty last cell); the code of that emulator implements many of them, and its comments could be turned into text.
• Reference: types the source does not list (see above).

Unknown

• Reference: the 5200 types (4, 6, 7, 16, 19, 20, 71 to 74, 159) are named in the table but the emulator’s 8-bit cartridge code does not run them; their layout here rests on the site’s 5200 emulator’s own map only.