RetroN 77

[Andromeda Stardust]

 

 

Hmmmm. You know, the idear of preserving the system for posterity never really occurred to me, even realizing that the hardware has a limited shelf life. So whats the semi-permanent solution for this? I m not trying to be a wisenheimerhere, but I m somewhat curious if the software could be preserved on vinyl. Might make for an interesting supercharger conversion.

I like the idea, but any dust or scratches resulting in hiss and pops might cause errors in the program...

[Andromeda Stardust]

Once again, I (regrettably) clicked the "view it anyway" tab and found nothing of sustenance.

 

Mr SQL, do you mind if I take a moment to read your fortune?

 

 

 

[Andromeda Stardust]

 

Hah, neat!

 

Now I just need to get their posted build environment/toolchain to stop arguing with me and compile, and maybe I can change that stupidly useless 'Fry button' to be an actual 'reset' ...

That would be amazing. I also felt this button was too close to the aspect ratio toggle. I might accidentally hit it and ruin my game.

 

Of course toggling the power switch like back in the day also functions as a reset of sorts. Perhaps a revamped menu with a "load cart" icon, and the previously useless "fry" button always takes you back to the main menu whether a cart is inserted or not.

 

Thanks to alex_79 in the retron 77 comparability thread, can now make a reset cart to get back to the menu w/o power off.

 

IMG_20180719_175720.jpg

Is that an functional label-less game cart or a "dummy" pcb? Inserting and removing any game cart will make the menu reappear. I bet it's an ET or Pacman.

[Keatah]

I guess Stella is the only easy to use plug and play emulator for 2600 that I ve ever tried. I fooled with Mame and Mess years ago and got them to work after much tribulation, but again, I m not really a software type guy. I ve still yet to find a dedicated 5200 emulator that was simple to setup for windows.

You may want to look up Altirra, it is on my personal 5-star emulator list. From the moment you drag and drop something on its icon you can be gaming. It is a bit more complex than Stella, but then again its scope and breadth is much wider. It supports all Atari 8-bit computers and the 5200. Because the 5200 is really an 8-bit computer minus the keyboard, you know?

 

It's really Top-Flite stuff. And I wouldn't recommend it if I thought otherwise.

 

The latest beta-test version can be found here, or further on down.

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/273633-altirra-300-released/page-23?do=findComment&comment=4073151

Edited July 20, 2018 by Keatah

[Sneakyturtleegg]

Can we please put out the dumpster fire that this thread has become? I was hoping it wouldn't be like the Kevtris FPGA thread. There is a lot of good information in here, but it is getting to the point of not worth sifting through.

 

I bought the R77 to play paddle games on my flat panel. I cleaned the pots on both sets of my paddles and they are still very jittery. They work fine on my OEM 2600 and 7800. Anybody else having the same issue? Hyperkin, please help!

 

Thank you Stephena and Thomas for all of you hard work with Stella. No R77 without you!

[onemoretime]

You may want to look up Altirra, it is on my personal 5-star emulator list. From the moment you drag and drop something on its icon you can be gaming. It is a bit more complex than Stella, but then again its scope and breadth is much wider. It supports all Atari 8-bit computers and the 5200. Because the 5200 is really an 8-bit computer minus the keyboard, you know?

 

It's really Top-Flite stuff. And I wouldn't recommend it if I thought otherwise.

 

The latest beta-test version can be found here, or further on down.

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/273633-altirra-300-released/page-23?do=findComment&comment=4073151

 

Thank you. I will certainly try it.

[gorfcadet]

Can we please put out the dumpster fire that this thread has become? I was hoping it wouldn't be like the Kevtris FPGA thread. There is a lot of good information in here, but it is getting to the point of not worth sifting through.

 

I bought the R77 to play paddle games on my flat panel. I cleaned the pots on both sets of my paddles and they are still very jittery. They work fine on my OEM 2600 and 7800. Anybody else having the same issue? Hyperkin, please help!

 

Thank you Stephena and Thomas for all of you hard work with Stella. No R77 without you!

 

Nothing we can do about the jittery paddles right now. Its not just you. Mine do it as well. As far as I understand it is a software problem with the unit. Hopefully, they'll address it in an update. I could still play Video Olympics just fine even though the jitters were a bit distracting at first.

[SIO2]

 

 

Is that an functional label-less game cart or a "dummy" pcb? Inserting and removing any game cart will make the menu reappear. I bet it's an ET or Pacman.

 

I have video but I am the worst with video so I didn't post it. Plus when I try to upload it (about 40mb) it takes for ever. I gave up on waiting for the upload.

 

But it seems you question my integrity sir. How dare you! (slaps you with a glove full of NES controllers) I will have none of this! Let the drama commence. We shall put these budding belligerents to shame and show them how far afield real men can throw a conversation. By the time we are done, they won't know what they are reading but they will know they need to kick the dog. Before we begin though, lets for decency sake take a moment to each station a box of bandages at the ready.

 

Just kidding KS. We are all good.

 

P.S. it is a regular cart. I just installed a spring in the bottom of the retron to push the cart back out every time I slap the top of it.

Edited July 20, 2018 by SIO2

[dashv]

Hah, neat!

 

Now I just need to get their posted build environment/toolchain to stop arguing with me and compile, and maybe I can change that stupidly useless 'Fry button' to be an actual 'reset' ...

That button was very useful for compelling me to read the manual. I was like wtf is fry?

 

Then I read the manual and was like “oh, okay. ... why would I want this?”

[Keatah]

Nothing we can do about the jittery paddles right now. Its not just you. Mine do it as well. As far as I understand it is a software problem with the unit. Hopefully, they'll address it in an update. I could still play Video Olympics just fine even though the jitters were a bit distracting at first.

 

I do know that by version 5.x, the paddle routines in Stella have been entirely re-done. And if any work on improving paddle operation with R77 happens, it should begin there. With 5.x.

[Keatah]

That button was very useful for compelling me to read the manual. I was like wtf is fry?

 

Then I read the manual and was like “oh, okay. ... why would I want this?”

 

YOU want it because someone in product design thought it would be neat.

 

I can't imagine, as good as Stella is, that it gets the "fry operation" right. In the real world there are so many other variables that aren't taken into account. For one, the end-result is somewhat repeatable, in Air-Sea Battle I almost always get 2 vertical bars. Back in the day I never saw that exact style of "fail". And it's repeatable.

 

And then there's Quantum physics. Each and every VCS ever made is going to be infinitesimally different, or grossly different. So there's that.

 

I say repurpose that fucker into a reset button, not necessarily by software modification, but hardwire the button to the cartridge port instead of having a "reset cart".

Edited July 20, 2018 by Keatah

[SIO2]

I am not against repurposing the fry button. The reset cart is not a bad option IMO. I think it should also be possible to add the reset switch at the cart port (board itself) and not interfere with normal cart operation. I just didn't want to hack my newish Retron 77. We are what 12 whole days from release though.

 

Time to make sure we have enough cutting wheels for the Dremel hey Stardust?

Edited July 20, 2018 by SIO2

[Andromeda Stardust]

 

YOU want it because someone in product design thought it would be neat.

 

I can't imagine, as good as Stella is, that it gets the "fry operation" right. In the real world there are so many other variables that aren't taken into account. For one, the end-result is somewhat repeatable, in Air-Sea Battle I almost always get 2 vertical bars. Back in the day I never saw that exact style of "fail". And it's repeatable.

 

And then there's Quantum physics. Each and every VCS ever made is going to be infinitesimally different, or grossly different. So there's that.

 

I say repurpose that fucker into a reset button, not necessarily by software modification, but hardwire the button to the cartridge port instead of having a "reset cart".

 

I am not against repurposing the fry button. The reset cart is not a bad option IMO. I think it should also be possible to add the reset switch at the cart port (board itself) and not interfere with normal cart operation. I just didn't want to hack my newish Retron 77. We are what 12 whole days from release though.

 

Time to make sure we have enough cutting wheels for the Dremel hey Stardust?

I have yet to see an NES emulator mimic the wide variety of effects caused by dirty pins. It seems the Stella emu was meant to simulate lifting the cart out of it's socket slightly? I noticed the Famicom carts almost flawlessly have all the PPU pins on one side and the CPU pins on the other. I once lifted a game cart out of the Famicom on one edge so that the graphics garbled up but the game kept on running. And reseated the cart so that the graphics came back.

 

Fun stories of NES connector failures abound. One memorable time, I had a friend over and was struggling to get Castlevania to work (which did not work on my crappy but more reliable Yobo clone). I ran Qtips across the contacts completely saturated with rubbing alcohol and put the still wet cartridge into the NES. It worked flawlessly, with the title screen booting up glitch free. I started the game and by the time I got to the area vertical staircase, things started going south. Minor glitches started appearing in the horizontal scrolling area but it was stable. As we progressed into the game, the graphical corruption got worse and worse, until finally the screen was so garbled I couldn't see my own character or what was pit or floor, enemies were only recognizable as formless blobs which moved and animated, etc, and finally I got hit and fell into a pit. Instead of respawning, it just went, "eerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr..." with an unbroken tone emitting from the rectangle generator, so I hit reset and was greeted by a solid white screen (I had long disabled the lockout).

 

Another time a couple years earlier, we were playing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and we progressed into the game to the point where we had the water scene. I handed my friend the controls because he had more experience and could beat this area. That's when we noticed some corruption taking hold (another instance where I put partially cleaned contacts still wet with alcohol into the NES - the alcohol temporarily improved the electrical connection but dried after a few minutes eventually leading to failure of the game cart) but were too invested into the game at this point. The corruption got worse as we loaded into the turtle van. Finally my friend entered an area with rolling conveyor belts, and as soon as leonardo jumped onto the platform, "blammmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm..." froze again. I yanked it out of the deck and tried blowing in it. Put it back in and blank screen. My friend said, "go clean your freaking games again," but it was late and we were done for the night.

 

Another time I was playing Duck Hunt with severe graphical corruption that managed to trigger the bankswitch somehow, I was in the game and managed to start a round, shot the duck and instantly reset to Super Mario Bros with severe garbled screen and "2020" Duck Hunt sprite graphics. I knew of codes which cased Super Mario to spaz out and warp to Duck Hunt, but never happened the other way around. My fiance (girlfriend at the time) laughed at me because she thought it was comical.

 

I bought 3rd party replacement connectors and trashed three of them in five years time before becoming a proud backer of the Blinking Light Win. Now with a secure connection and proper cart cleaning hygiene, my NES boots games reliably the first time every time. But now I just use my AVS mostly.

 

Back on point, I have never seen an NES emulator reproduce the gradual decay of a freshly cleaned NES cart inserted into a well worn ZIF connector, while still wet with isopropanol, as sprite corruption gets progressively worse and eventual game crash as the alcohol dries up, simultaneously increasing resistance of the oxide buildup by reducing the fluid's beneficial dielectric properties. Too much chemistry and physics going on with dirty connectors and stray resistance/capacitance/inductance impacting the real world electronics, that can never be duplicated by console emulation. Worse, dust/oxidation is like random white noise, always fleeting, never the same spec on the same connector pin twice, so the effect it has on games is always different and unpredictable.

 

I'm probably also fortunate my NES never caught on fire in the unforseen event of "spark inside the connector gap" igniting the alcohol vapors. That would be a story for the grandkids for sure, if I lived to tell it. Perhaps gasoline would have made a more appropriate cart cleaner...

[Keatah]

@Kosmic

 

That's funny about the unit almost catching fire. And frying effects, yes, include many disciplines of physics. And back in the day it was pretty brutal, applying signals with no clock, or conflicting clocks and logic levels at inappropriate times. Mis-reading the data was final result and who what the exact outcome would be for each attempt.

 

I once made a styrofoam base from television box padding, and I glued straws together in a rough "Radio Telescope" manner and covered it with aluminum foil. It was for a science project in school. And I got the idea of hooking it up to random stuff inside the VCS. I didn't know what to expect or anything. Maybe transmit to aliens or something. But not all the games worked reliably and this weird garbled shit appeared on the screen. Not unlike those music demos that are full of vertical rolling static and lines. And I loved to pretend I was getting signals from those aliens. So. Yes, to 10 year old kid this was "Big Science"! All inspired by the early videogames and the mystery behind them.

 

I would later go on to get a degree in Radio & Telecommunications, to which to this day I still attend seminars and read papers to stay abreast of new developments.

[Andromeda Stardust]

It never "almost caught fire." I honestly believe the chances would have been incredibly slim given the signal levels. Just addding drama to my posts as usual. What were we talking about again? Oh yeah, aliens. I'm honestly shocked with how in bed Warner and Universal were at the time the ET deal was made, that E.T. did not use an actual Atari in the movie as part of his intergalactic telephone apparatus. That would have been awesome. Someone should totally Photoshop that!

 

Oh, snap. Guess he must have time traveled into the 21st century, because that's not the late 70s model!

 

I couldn't find an actual photo of the Retron77 online with a top down perspective that would fit this scene, so I literally snapped a photo of the top of my console which was conveniently sitting here by the PC (I was messsing around with the file system again...) and hastily threw this together in GIMP.

 

EDIT: Like a dumbass, all that effort wasted. I forgot to include the ET cart. Someone else can edit it in. Time for bed...

[SIO2]

And I got the idea of hooking it up to random stuff inside the VCS. I didn't know what to expect or anything. Maybe transmit to aliens or something. But not all the games worked reliably and this weird garbled shit appeared on the screen. Not unlike those music demos that are full of vertical rolling static and lines. And I loved to pretend I was getting signals from those aliens. So. Yes, to 10 year old kid this was "Big Science"! All inspired by the early videogames and the mystery behind them.

 

 

Sounds like weird science there. You should have put a bra on your head - maybe some alien women would talk to you on your VCS.

Edited July 20, 2018 by SIO2

[SIO2]

So Retron 77 is supposed to be powerful enough to run Stella 5.x Is it also powerful enough to run Altirra? Any chance of that in the future?

[mr_me]

Altirra is a windows only program and unlikely to get ported. There are other Atari 800 emulators that are more portable.

 

I literally know nothing of programming, other than sleeping at a Holiday Inn the other night, but....maybe someone that doesn t know anything about it might give more of a bit of insight to what some of the average users want? Just my opinion, which has no tangible value...... I don t much care what kinds of doodads you stuff in the cartridge, as long as when I plug it into my Atari it works without me troubleshooting it and failing miserably. I seem to remember how great I thought Solaris and Pitfall 2 was the first time I saw them. I understand the point made where someone was stating that additional onboard game processing was kinda cheating, but if it works it don t much matter to me. ...

I didn't think Solaris has any special hardware on the cartridge and should work on the retron77. It's an impressive Atari 2600 program. Just to clarify. A game like Pitfall II is essentially an Atari 2600 program since the main game program is executed inside the Atari 2600. The "display processor chip" on the cartridge makes it an expanded Atari 2600 system.

 

In the case of the arm processor cartridge, the main game program is running on the cartridge. It's a foreign computer attached to the Atari 2600, using the 2600 as a display processor, a power source, and for controller inputs.

 

Not everyone cares but it's still good to know what cartridges use native Atari 2600, and what add-ons other cartridges have, whether it's ram, coprocessors, or cpu. Is this relevant to the Retron77? It might be, as some of these new cartridge technologies might make it near impossible for the Retron77 to dump the rom.

Edited July 20, 2018 by mr_me

[Andromeda Stardust]

 

Sounds like weird science there. You should have put a bra on your head - maybe some alien women would talk to you on your VCS.

Until you forget to hook up the Barbie doll and a giant rocket jettisons up through your roof. My mom bought me the VHS tape when I was teenager one year. I probably watched it like 30 times. Love that 80s hair, Lisa (Kelly Lebrock) was a fox...

 

Maybe I plug in Beat Em and Eat Em (or Custer's) and connect the probes up. That would be interesting...

[Andromeda Stardust]

Altirra is a windows only program and unlikely to get ported. There are other Atari 800 emulators that are more portable.

 

I didn't think Solaris has any special hardware on the cartridge and should work on the retron77. It's an impressive Atari 2600 program. Just to clarify. A game like Pitfall II is essentially an Atari 2600 program since the main game program is executed inside the Atari 2600. The "display processor chip" on the cartridge makes it an expanded Atari 2600 system.

 

In the case of the arm processor cartridge, the main game program is running on the cartridge. It's a foreign computer attached to the Atari 2600, using the 2600 as a display processor, a power source, and for controller inputs.

 

Not everyone cares but it's still good to know what cartridges use native Atari 2600, and what add-ons other cartridges have, whether it's ram, coprocessors, or cpu. Is this relevant to the Retron77? It might be, as some of these new cartridge technologies might make it near impossible for the Retron77 to dump the rom.

ISn't Solaris the same bankswitch as Jr PAcman? Jr PAcman runs on my Retron77 no issues. I also have Solaris, have not attempted to play it yet on the Teron.

 

I played it some time a couple years ago after picking it up. My play session lasted an hour or so. IT is a very deep game for a 2600.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Solaris works too.

[alex_79]

A game like Pitfall II is essentially an Atari 2600 program since the main game program is executed inside the Atari 2600

[...]

In the case of the arm processor cartridge, the main game program is running on the cartridge.

Did you at least read Spiceware's reply? The code he posted is 6502 code executed by the cpu in the Atari. Some of the constants in that code are actually datastreams provided by the arm cpu on the cartridge (that means, the arm change those values on-the-fly).

 

Also what you mean with "main program"? In the case of the 2600 many would agree that the kernel (the code actually drawing the screen) is the main program, and that's because of the design of the TIA that needs to be fed with data in real time as the image is being drawn ("racing the beam").

 

The code posted by spiceware draws (a portion of) the screen and it's executed by the 6502 AND the ARM, working together in sync.

 

 

It's a foreign computer attached to the Atari 2600, using the 2600 as a display processor, a power source, and for controller inputs.

For the record, the arm has no access to the TIA (the display processor), nor to the I/O of the console. You're right that it takes power from the console, tought.

 

 

 

Not everyone cares but it's still good to know what cartridges use native Atari 2600, and what add-ons other cartridges have, whether it's ram, coprocessors, or cpu. Is this relevant to the Retron77? It might be, as some of these new cartridge technologies might make it near impossible for the Retron77 to dump the rom.

It's not that the Retron77 cannot play those games because they're not "native" Atari games, but because the Retron77 is not a "native" Atari hardware!

 

Those games run fine on real hardware. And on Stella (that is, unless you use a 5 years old version ), since it is modeled after the real hardware. It's not a question of using "new" cartridge technology either. Some "old" cartridge technologies like a Supercharger or a Compumate don't run on the r77 and not because of the presence of a cpu on the cartridge (none of those has a CPU, btw). The reason is that the Retron doesn't really "play" cartridges, it just gives the illusion of doing so by dumping them and then feeding the rom to Stella. The "trick" works most of the times, but there are exceptions. It's a trick, after all.

Edited July 20, 2018 by alex_79

[Lord Thag]

ISn't Solaris the same bankswitch as Jr PAcman? Jr PAcman runs on my Retron77 no issues. I also have Solaris, have not attempted to play it yet on the Teron.

 

I played it some time a couple years ago after picking it up. My play session lasted an hour or so. IT is a very deep game for a 2600.

Solaris works, as does Xenophobe and Ikari Warriors.

[+SpiceWare]

The code posted by spiceware draws (a portion of) the screen and it's executed by the 6502 AND the ARM, working together in sync.

 

 

Specifically that code draws this portion:

 

of the screen:

 

 

 

It's not that the Retron77 cannot play those games because they're not "native" Atari games, but because the Retron77 is not a "native" Atari hardware!

bingo!

[+SpiceWare]

I suspect people don't quite grasp that Stella's actually emulating multiple things when you play a game. Obviously it's emulating a console, but not so obvious to the layman is it also emulates the cartridges which contain hardware of their own. Other things it's emulating are controls(joysticks, paddles, etc) and the display.

 

The following are the source files and size for the cartridge emulation. Simplest is for 2K and 4K, anything else has additional hardware in the cartridge that must be emulated. That additional hardware's typically controls bankswitching, and/or extra RAM (which doesn't work the same in a cartridge as it would in the console) but can be other things as well like the coprocessor in Pitfall 2 (check the file size for CartDPC.cxx vs the others).

Cart.cxx 2794
Cart.hxx 8188
Cart0840.cxx 6140
Cart0840.hxx 4747
Cart2K.cxx 3713
Cart2K.hxx 4383
Cart3E.cxx 8212
Cart3E.hxx 6295
Cart3EPlus.cxx 11834
Cart3EPlus.hxx 6793
Cart3F.cxx 5894
Cart3F.hxx 5125
Cart4A50.cxx 14027
Cart4A50.hxx 7255
Cart4K.cxx 3028
Cart4K.hxx 4164
Cart4KSC.cxx 4646
Cart4KSC.hxx 4195
CartAR.cxx 20006
CartAR.hxx 7046
CartBF.cxx 4523
CartBF.hxx 4692
CartBFSC.cxx 6212
CartBFSC.hxx 4733
CartBUS.cxx 21906
CartBUS.hxx 8186
CartCDF.cxx 19090
CartCDF.hxx 8883
CartCM.cxx 6716
CartCM.hxx 8653
CartCTY.cxx 14607
CartCTY.hxx 10683
CartCTYTunes.hxx 177149
CartCV.cxx 5238
CartCV.hxx 4459
CartCVPlus.cxx 6980
CartCVPlus.hxx 5217
CartDASH.cxx 11816
CartDASH.hxx 11053
CartDF.cxx 4523
CartDF.hxx 4690
CartDFSC.cxx 6210
CartDFSC.hxx 4733
CartDPC.cxx 14136
CartDPC.hxx 6399
CartDPCPlus.cxx 21643
CartDPCPlus.hxx 8075
CartDetector.cxx 31679
CartDetector.hxx 8757
CartE0.cxx 6525
CartE0.hxx 5243
CartE7.cxx 9133
CartE7.hxx 6189
CartEF.cxx 4520
CartEF.hxx 4804
CartEFSC.cxx 6207
CartEFSC.hxx 4913
CartF0.cxx 4676
CartF0.hxx 4734
CartF4.cxx 4557
CartF4.hxx 4614
CartF4SC.cxx 6357
CartF4SC.hxx 4723
CartF6.cxx 5253
CartF6.hxx 4613
CartF6SC.cxx 6933
CartF6SC.hxx 4722
CartF8.cxx 5409
CartF8.hxx 4691
CartF8SC.cxx 6540
CartF8SC.hxx 4718
CartFA.cxx 6704
CartFA.hxx 4697
CartFA2.cxx 11520
CartFA2.hxx 6400
CartFE.cxx 5080
CartFE.hxx 5814
CartMC.cxx 7234
CartMC.hxx 8827
CartMDM.cxx 5965
CartMDM.hxx 5647
CartSB.cxx 5925
CartSB.hxx 4892
CartUA.cxx 5190
CartUA.hxx 4696
CartWD.cxx 9782
CartWD.hxx 7162
CartX07.cxx 5348
CartX07.hxx 5045