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Did anyone ever look at the original Atari Basketball to see if trakball code could be added? Since the arcade game that it is based on used a trakball it would seem to be a good candidate.

The game looks simple enough, so I suppose we would find the time required. But I doubt it is really worth a hack.

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The game looks simple enough, so I suppose we would find the time required. But I doubt it is really worth a hack.

 

I don't remember arcade Atari Basketball using Trak-Balls but I certainly remember arcade Atari Football using them. Now that would be a definite improvement to the 2600 version... Retroactively suck it, George Plimpton! :)

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The game looks simple enough, so I suppose we would find the time required. But I doubt it is really worth a hack.

 

You could enhance the game by having the player 'shoot the ball' by spinning the trak-ball a certain amount for the shot distance while holding the button, instead of simply holding the button to shoot. Of course then, you'd almost *need* two trak-balls or the trak-ball player would likely have real disadvantage.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Surprised nobody in our awesome AA community has taken the opportunity to try this... but I would surely pay good $ for a new custom awesome Trak-Ball controller design to play these awesome new Trak-Ball conversions.

 

Surely there is a buyer's market for a few hundred+ new Trak-ball controllers to play these awesome games. Plus if they were marketed in the AA store along with the games, it would be a natural. Right?

 

Are there any techno-savvy entrepreneurs around here that have thought about this? This also seems like a great opportunity for Edladdin as well (hint hint).

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Surprised nobody in our awesome AA community has taken the opportunity to try this... but I would surely pay good $ for a new custom awesome Trak-Ball controller design to play these awesome new Trak-Ball conversions.

 

Surely there is a buyer's market for a few hundred+ new Trak-ball controllers to play these awesome games. Plus if they were marketed in the AA store along with the games, it would be a natural. Right?

 

Are there any techno-savvy entrepreneurs around here that have thought about this? This also seems like a great opportunity for Edladdin as well (hint hint).

Considering arcade trackball encoders (with full size 2.25" cue ball) cost a pretty penny, there are some pretty nice trackball mice made for Windows PCs. If you could plug a ps2 or usb mouse into an adapter for the 9-pin controller port, it could convert it into trackball movement. Button 2 could map to pin 9 with a pull up resistor to be readable like a Genesis button C.
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Surprised nobody in our awesome AA community has taken the opportunity to try this... but I would surely pay good $ for a new custom awesome Trak-Ball controller design to play these awesome new Trak-Ball conversions.

 

Surely there is a buyer's market for a few hundred+ new Trak-ball controllers to play these awesome games. Plus if they were marketed in the AA store along with the games, it would be a natural. Right?

 

Are there any techno-savvy entrepreneurs around here that have thought about this? This also seems like a great opportunity for Edladdin as well (hint hint).

Define "good money". It wouldn't require much technical wizardry to produce a controller that would work with these games. The quickest run to daylight would be to use off-the-shelf arcade parts but, as mentioned above, they're not what most of us hobbyists would call cheap.

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Surprised nobody in our awesome AA community has taken the opportunity to try this... but I would surely pay good $ for a new custom awesome Trak-Ball controller design to play these awesome new Trak-Ball conversions.

 

Surely there is a buyer's market for a few hundred+ new Trak-ball controllers to play these awesome games. Plus if they were marketed in the AA store along with the games, it would be a natural. Right?

 

Are there any techno-savvy entrepreneurs around here that have thought about this? This also seems like a great opportunity for Edladdin as well (hint hint).

Two problems with your idea:

 

1. There are still ample supply of existing and working new old stock and lightly used CX-80 and CX-22 trak-balls available for reasonable prices in the secondary and auction market.

 

2. You're way overestimating the potential market for these.

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Two problems with your idea:

 

1. There are still ample supply of existing and working new old stock and lightly used CX-80 and CX-22 trak-balls available for reasonable prices in the secondary and auction market.

 

2. You're way overestimating the potential market for these.

 

Thanks for the feedback.

 

1. I know.

 

2. Who is to say who will buy what these days!? I've seen many angel investors / buyers pay crazy prices to many artists and entrepreneurs. If it's good and a benefit, a market will be found.

 

Just putting the idea out there into the universe :)

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Thanks for the feedback.

 

1. I know.

 

2. Who is to say who will buy what these days!? I've seen many angel investors / buyers pay crazy prices to many artists and entrepreneurs. If it's good and a benefit, a market will be found.

 

Just putting the idea out there into the universe :)

i understand your idea is honest and good natured. My only point is that the gaming world in particular has a problem with over stuffing the market with redundant "retro" products from new small companies that have a tendency to lack quality and fail financially. It would be nice if the kind of designers you speak of focused on products that are needed or in short supply, rather than causing a glut in the market for something that is readily available.
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  • 1 month later...

Surprised nobody in our awesome AA community has taken the opportunity to try this... but I would surely pay good $ for a new custom awesome Trak-Ball controller design to play these awesome new Trak-Ball conversions.

 

Surely there is a buyer's market for a few hundred+ new Trak-ball controllers to play these awesome games. Plus if they were marketed in the AA store along with the games, it would be a natural. Right?

 

Are there any techno-savvy entrepreneurs around here that have thought about this? This also seems like a great opportunity for Edladdin as well (hint hint).

Buying a compatible original Atari controller is a way better option.

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Just wanted to let you know that you can use your Atari Trakball also on a Vectrex, just in case you own such a gaming console and did not know already. Glad I got my CX-22 working and it is fun to use it for both my Atari 2600 and also Vectrex.

If you want to see one of the Vectrex trakball hacked games, you can find it at the end of my video here around 37:40:

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  • 2 weeks later...

i understand your idea is honest and good natured. My only point is that the gaming world in particular has a problem with over stuffing the market with redundant "retro" products from new small companies that have a tendency to lack quality and fail financially. It would be nice if the kind of designers you speak of focused on products that are needed or in short supply, rather than causing a glut in the market for something that is readily available.

A fullsize trackball and pro arcade endoder inside a custom sturdy enclosure with the necessary conversion circuitry to convert the signal to CX-22 standard would cost a pretty penny. Much moreso than an old controller in pristine condition.

 

It's going to be cheap and poorer quality compared to the original controller, or nicer and very expensive!

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A fullsize trackball and pro arcade endoder inside a custom sturdy enclosure with the necessary conversion circuitry to convert the signal to CX-22 standard would cost a pretty penny. Much moreso than an old controller in pristine condition.

 

It's going to be cheap and poorer quality compared to the original controller, or nicer and very expensive!

 

You can't do CX-22 easily, but you can do the Atari Mouse using something like the TOM2 or Rys MkII inexpensively, as it already exists.

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With the availability these days of cheap microcontrollers, the hardware cost of circuitry to decode and translate the quadrature signals wouldn't be my biggest concern.

 

A sub-five-dollar Arduino Nano can handle decoding and translating two quadrature signal streams with plenty of resources to spare. Though, there would be the additional one-time cost of developing the software and per-unit cost of programming the devices might be a meaningful cost factor for production.

 

I think the mechanical portion of encoding of ball motion would be the hurdle that I couldn't affordably get over.

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  • 1 month later...

I recently bought a new in box old stock unused CX80 Trak ball. It doesn't work in TB mode. It does work in JS mode on other regular 2600 games. I'm testing it with the Atari age trak ball hack series. The game cycles through the game variations number at the title screen, graphics glitch, it's unplayable and then it freezes with vertical lines. I can return the trak ball and get another one. There are two other new in box ones but I'm a bit paranoid that they will be from the same faulty supply. Has anybody experienced this? Does someone offer repairs?

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I'm using the actual carts from Atari age: Centipede, Millipede, Star wars and Missile Command. The Star Wars cartridge doesn't work at all but the cart itself is causing the issue because without the TB plugged in, it doesn't work either. I also thought it might have been modded for Atari ST but that can't be the case because Centipede and Missile Command would autodetect an ST mouse

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I'm using it on my Atari Jr modded for RGB. I don't have another 2600 or Atari sysem for that matter but I could hook the TB up to my Master System or Genesis and see if it has the same issues. On Saturday I could go to a retro store where I live and ask to hook it up to their 2600. So you think the TB itself isn't causing the issue? Why does it work in JS mode thën, does that require less power?

T

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I'm using it on my Atari Jr modded for RGB.

I only know about one RGB mod for the 2600: https://etim.net.au/2600rgb/

 

And, I guess we have the culprit.

 

That mod include the ability to mount an "extra" switch on the left joystick for additional functions (palette select and remote "reset" and "select" switches functionality). The extra button activates the inputs normally used for left and right direction of the joystick at the same time. This is an "impossible" combination for a joystick, but not for a trackball in real TB mode, which therefore randomly activates the extra features of your RGB mod (in particular, it activates the reset and select switches repeatedly making the game impossible to play).

 

You have to modify your console to disable the "extra" button functionality, either permanently or with a switch.

I'm not an expert, but by looking at the diagram, a simple switch to break the wire going to either pin 3 or 4 of the "extra" 7 pins connector on the RGB board might be all that you need.

Edited by alex_79
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  • 3 weeks later...

Some games should get the "Paddle Controller Treamtment"...I think game like space invaders, galaxian, and mega-mania would be awesome with a paddle controller. Basically any game with 1-dimensional movement and the fire button. Pheonix wouldn't work because of the shield button press and down on the joystick required. Would these games be easy to hack to work with paddles??

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