List of hardware bugs that affected consoles?

[7800fan]

For example, Dreamcast had anti-piracy protection but due to an oversight, it only checks if GD-ROM is genuine or not. It did not check CD-R or CD-ROM so people who were able to rip the original GD-ROM could play illegal burned games on CD-ROM. Larger games were hacked to fit smaller CD-Rs.

 

Commodore 64's slow disk transfer were also the result of a bug and a bone headed mistake. Originally it was to have a burst speed transfer like 128 has but when designing the board, an important high speed line was accidentally deleted, along with an interrupt bug mean Commodore was forced to bit-bang data communication with disk drive at SLOWER rate than V-20. (on top of serial port design because of last minute switch from parallel to serial interface with V-20 because IEEE-488 cables were expensive and hard to find) Source: http://www.lemon64.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=628303&sid=447dcca1ad181f4b3dac08935a2041e7#628303

 

We there other hardware design idiosyncrasies that wasn't discovered until too late that proved a problem later or a benefit for hackers?

[Britishcar]

The only one that comes to mind is the purposeful code that Mattel inserted into the Intellivision II's EXEC to cause Coleco's (mostly) crappy titles from playing. It accidentally nuked Mattel's own "Word Fun" on the system and, of course, didn't last long as Coleco and others quickly figured it out and worked around it.

[Lost Dragon]

There was 'talk' in Atari User back in the day of Atari using 3 different types of disk drive (3 different suppliers?) causing issues with early ST games like Q-Ball etc due to copy protection methods used and drives only tested at certain speeds etc.But it's been years since i even glanced over the article.

 

I do remember Sony's firmware updates for the PS3 fooking up their own in-house games, one of the Uncharted's would'nt load as a result, also was'nt there an instance of a bug in the hardwares internal clock or something?.

 

Also (again been years since i read the claim) Dave Perry, developing EWJ on MD/Genesis, discovered a hardware 'bug; that in effect let him as he put it, kill the MD and bring it back from the dead, but Sega got wind and were NOT happy.

 

It was always a vague claim, would have loved to know just how he killed it :-)

[Lost Dragon]

Not a hardware bug as such, but it was due to the poorly written Japanese Mega Drive development documents (lots of typo's etc) and Dave Perry miss-understanding some of what was written, lead to Dave sending data through the system at twice the speed you were supposed and and as Dave proclaimed...

'Holy Shit, it worked'.

[Tempest]

The original Atari 400 & 800's used the CITA graphics chip rather than the GITA. It had some bugs and wasn't compatible with some games (most notably Galaxian). They phased the CITA chip out pretty fast though so they're hard to come by.

 

The original C64 run had the 'Sparkle' bug due to a bad chip IIRC.

[CatPix]

An interesting story, tho it didn't affected the machines : early models of Sinclair ZX Spectrums were using faulty RAM chips, because they were going to scrap, and so were cheaper than buying tested RAM chips; so only half of the memory chip was used to avoid memory errors of course, but still... Think about it

 

Not an hardware bug too, but an hardware issue causing bugs : the first models of Thomson TO7 computers were fitted with a large power supply, that was getting very hot, to the point that you could get slight burns if touching the radiator. Those machines tended to overheat and would stop running or behave strangely due to the overheating.

 

 

Tho overheating is a rather common issue in older machines. Some Intellivision suffer from this, and the Bally Astrocade is notoriously prone to overheating (and unfortunately, unlike those other, prone to overheating damages).

[Tempest]

the Bally Astrocade is notoriously prone to overheating (and unfortunately, unlike those other, prone to overheating damages).

 

I hear this all the time but I've never experienced it. I have mine running for two solid days (8 hours a day) every year at MGC and it's always fine. Maybe they fixed it in the later production runs?

[Seob]

Didn't the original c64 sid have a few bugs? That where cleverly used by programmers to give the sid extra's. It was fixed in the later sid-2 giving it a different sound or stopped games from running.

Edited February 23, 2015 by Seob

[CatPix]

 

I hear this all the time but I've never experienced it. I have mine running for two solid days (8 hours a day) every year at MGC and it's always fine. Maybe they fixed it in the later production runs?

It's more that you keep it well vented, and/or you removed the metal shied but left the strip of metal on the main chip?

From what I read, as soon as you removed the metal shielding and sticked passive radiators on the main chips, the Astrocade is going to be fine.

[Lost Dragon]

There were issues with later SID chips were there not on the C64, been years again here, but did'nt Martin Galway used to test his music on both the 'Breadbin' C64 and C64C models as there was an issue with filters or something?.

I do know the Breadbin C64 powerpack used to over heat, mine pretty much melted and being a tight fisted sod and not paying the £4.99 for a proper reset switch, just using the 'paperclip' method was a human bug on my part, i fried the poor ba*tard C64.

Lesson learnt that day.

[7800fan]

Forgot about Intellivision II. EXEC used on Intellivision II blocked a few Coleco games and in the process fubared a few of their own game. A few games had issue with sound and one game won't work. Oops.

[Tempest]

 

There were issues with later SID chips were there not on the C64, been years again here, but did'nt Martin Galway used to test his music on both the 'Breadbin' C64 and C64C models as there was an issue with filters or something?.

 

I think they just made a revision to the SID and it sounded slightly different. Not wrong or bad, just different. Most like the original SID, but some like the later one.

[Petran79]

there was also an issue with the ps1 version of umk3 I think. Or so I heard. That game, depending on what you did, could damage the console. They meant probably the disc lens.

[Goochman]

Jaguar had a UART bug which made networking almost impossible

[BassGuitari]

 

I hear this all the time but I've never experienced it. I have mine running for two solid days (8 hours a day) every year at MGC and it's always fine. Maybe they fixed it in the later production runs?

Rub it in, why don't ya?

 

On-topic, isn't the Colecovision's power switch often the culprit behind graphical glitches and crashes?

[CatPix]

The power switch, then the PSU and the RAM chips can go flaky on the Coleco.

[Nebulon]

I recall some of the 32K versions of the TRS-80 Color Computer actually having 64K in them. However, for the initial machines, the second set of RAM chips were potentially faulty (hence not actually used). Then the later 32K models actually included good RAM throughout, so people started hacking them to use the full 64K.

 

 

Something else that comes to mind isn't actually a hardware issue (unless the problem resides in the OS ROM. And that is the annoying Checksum error that happens when you completely fill up an Amiga hard drive. It goes into an error loop and essentially locks you out of the drive. I've been able to bypass this by copying the contents of the full hard drive to a larger separate hard drive. This happens even in Amiga OS 2.x (and I think also in 3.x). Other than that one issue, I really like Amiga OS 2.x and newer.

[+FujiSkunk]

 

I think they just made a revision to the SID and it sounded slightly different. Not wrong or bad, just different. Most like the original SID, but some like the later one.

 

My understanding is, there were some things about the SID that could vary wildly from chip to chip. The frequency filters apparently were more art than science, not quite what the spec defined them as, and often not quite what you found them to be on a previous SID. The later "official" revision of the SID, the 8580, has more consistency from chip to chip, and follows the published spec more closely. However, the 8580 doesn't handle a certain method of playing digital samples as well as the earlier 6581, because of another "bug": changing a volume register on the 6581 produces an audible artifact. Change it quickly enough and those artifacts can be used to play digital samples. The 8580 "fixes" the artifacting, or at least squelches it very effectively, and so this method of playing digital samples doesn't work as well.

 

More info on the Wiki, and in this article.

[FastRobPlus]

One original Xbox revision (accounting for about 25% of all Xboxes) cannot support progressive mode in some games, unless the game took a special update. 480p was released mid-cycle to the console and some games like Arctic Thunder, Battle Engine Aquila, Fable (first release),Commandos 2, GunValkyrie, Jet Set Radio Future, Panzer Dragoon Orta and others can only play in 480i on these consoles. Technically not a bug since the console wasn't officialy marketed as 480p.

[Geotrick]

FYI: incase anyone is looking for a power supply for a Messiah Generation Nex power supply this is the model number:

TPI TSA9-090066WU I.T.E AC DC Adapter 9V 0.66A POWER SUPPLY

 

positive on the inside.

 

I tried to posted this over at Nintendoage but I can not get login.

[Lost Dragon]

RVG have secured an interview with ATD's Fred Gill...

Now given ATD had the job of bug testing the Jaguar Hardware (and had 12 weeks to do it), i've had a few questions put on my behalf, regarding this is subject.I.e did they need more time, what did they find, what did Atari change as a result etc etc.

Just thought it was about time questions were asked as ATD never seemed to really say much on the entire process and the bugs are often fcited as resason so many coders struggled with the hardware, so lets see what answers, if any come to light.

[Greg2600]

There's the 3 games which won't run on a 2-port Atari 5200 (Pitfall, Mountain King, K-Razy Shoot-out)

 

Also, you have the case where SMS (Power Base Converter) won't run without mod on the Nomad or via 32X. SMS II of course got rid of the card slot, disabling those games and the 3D adapter.

 

On the Genesis, the early models which don't display the TMSS screen won't work with games Budokan, Ishido, Onslaught, Populous, and Zany Golf.

 

One original Xbox revision (accounting for about 25% of all Xboxes) cannot support progressive mode in some games, unless the game took a special update. 480p was released mid-cycle to the console and some games like Arctic Thunder, Battle Engine Aquila, Fable (first release),Commandos 2, GunValkyrie, Jet Set Radio Future, Panzer Dragoon Orta and others can only play in 480i on these consoles. Technically not a bug since the console wasn't officialy marketed as 480p.

 

Yes the last revision (1.6) featured a different video chip. There is a workaround to get those Sega games to work in 480p, if you're Xbox is soft-modded.

[+-^CrossBow^-]

"On the Genesis, the early models which don't display the TMSS screen won't work with games Budokan, Ishido, Onslaught, Populous, and Zany Golf."

 

Greg2600 you have this backwards. Those games ONLY work on the earlier model Genesis that doesn't display or contain the TMSS. I know as I sought an early model 1 Genesis just to play my copy of Zany Golf... :-)

 

[copper20]

The Nintendo Entertainment System had that 10NES chip that caused the system's light to blink, which I took care of right when I bought my Nintendo and replaced the pin connector as well, since that also was a common issue with that bad boy.

[CatPix]

The 10NES doesn't cause bugs. It exactly does what it's mean to be preventing import games and unlicences games to work on your system

I tried : if a game display a grey screen and blinks, with the 10NES chip disabled, it still goes grey.

blinking on a NES is caused by two things :

- poor contact between the cart and the ZIF slot, either caused by bent pins and/or corroded contacts on the ZIF pins or cart pins.

- Unlicenced or wrong region cart.

 

Sometime you may have the right game region and it will display a title or a picture but it blinks, it's STILL a poor contact; it's just that the consoel was able to load the boot screen.