RetroN 77

[RevEng]

But it would possibly tell us the limits of the TIA itself ... no? Can one change the color on a pixel boundary if it were to write fast enough to the TIA?

If so would that allow a manner of soft-sprites on TIA?

(again not sure the lack of explicit HBLANK signal [RDY on the 2600] would be cause for the whole exercise to just not work)

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't believe you have that the right way around. Unlike vertical blank/sync, TIA generates the horizontal blank/sync outside of the control of the 6502. The reason TIA is physically connected to the 6502 RDY is to implement WSYNC - if a game hits the WSYNC register, TIA will pause the 6502 until the scanline ends. (WSYNC=wait for sync)

 

I don't see why you couldn't write to the TIA background color register every color-clock/pixel-boundary, but sure, there might be some unknown limit in the silicon. Assuming there aren't such limits, then yes an ARM framebuffer with soft-sprites could be output to the screen by just hitting the TIA background color register over and over.

 

Aligning the ARM pixel output with the TIA color clocks (relative to horizontal blank) might be tricky, but it could just be a matter of hitting RSYNC. Hopefully TIA is consistent enough from revision to revision in how long it takes to recover from RSYNC, but if not there are ways around that too.

[Keatah]

Wow the thread was on fire for a while, now it's dead. And even the last few messages aren't strictly R77.

[SIO2]

Yup. Doesn't seem to be much going on with it. Hyperkin hasn't said anything about it for a while. It seems like they want the community to pick up some of it but everyone has their own projects or worry about the licenses or just think Hyperkin should fix their own mess.

 

It would be nice to know what Hyperkin's plan is for the console. A lot of people have indicated that they don't care about the dumper. It is a pony show but one I paid to see.

[+remowilliams]

I too would like to know what their plans are if any. Personally I haven't had time to go back and attempt to straighten out the compile environment.

 

Also I massively lost interest in this thread when it became a 65% rambling one man side show about 'if this were that, like it was, in the olden days, why can't it be, this is all wrong, the olden days were fine! this is the way to do it! I don't understand the difference in market segments! I think it should be like this! get off my lawn!'

[adamchevy]

I remember hearing about this about a year and a half ago. Why doesn’t this run the current version of Stella? My old laptop from 2005 with a Centrino chip runs it fine. I’m thinking about buying one of these now that it supports more than 18 roms on the Sd card. I don’t own any Atari hardware at the moment. I went all emulation about a year ago, but this has me interested.

[Keatah]

Things should just work. Like they did in the old days. Not necessarily "like" they did back then. But they should work, as in work right out of the box without the user having to fix things.

 

Maybe I'm completely mistaken. Maybe people actually like to have to fix and patch things when they buy them?

Edited July 27, 2018 by Keatah

[adamchevy]

Things should just work. Like they did in the old days. Not necessarily "like" they did back then. But they should work, as in work right out of the box without the user having to fix things.

 

Maybe I'm completely mistaken. Maybe people actually like to have to fix and patch things when they buy them?

I don’t mind patching hardware to make it better. I do agree that it should just work out of the box. I know they are revising the controller, I wish they would fix all of the other little problems at the same time.

[mhodgeshvs]

Does anyone know if this console will work with any HDMI cable? The one included is super short and so I need to buy a longer one, just wondered if anyone knew if any type would work?

[reallybrett]

It should work with any cable. I am using just a random one I had laying around that was longer and it is fine.

[+Atari_Warlord]

Does anyone know if this console will work with any HDMI cable? The one included is super short and so I need to buy a longer one, just wondered if anyone knew if any type would work?

 

I used my own cable and it worked fine.

[mr_me]

I remember hearing about this about a year and a half ago. Why doesnt this run the current version of Stella? My old laptop from 2005 with a Centrino chip runs it fine. Im thinking about buying one of these now that it supports more than 18 roms on the Sd card. I dont own any Atari hardware at the moment. I went all emulation about a year ago, but this has me interested.

This ia good question. It seems that they wanted to avoid the gpl license of current stella; but why?

 

Things should just work. Like they did in the old days. Not necessarily "like" they did back then. But they should work, as in work right out of the box without the user having to fix things.

 

Maybe I'm completely mistaken. Maybe people actually like to have to fix and patch things when they buy them?

Obviously it was not hyperkin's intention for it to unexpectedly lose it's configuration and break functionality. However, they should have mentioned in the specifications that only certain types of cartridges are compatible. Edited July 27, 2018 by mr_me

[Mr SQL]

I've been having a lot of fun with mine.

I did notice an occasional glitch playing WARPDRIVE off of the latest microSD image update Stephena had posted that causes intermittent tearing in about 10% of the screen.

The game is still very playable and looks great - by comparison there is continuous tearing on the Atari Flashback Portable but it's minor and creates a very pleasant effect. Stella tearing is harsher when it occurs so thankfully only occasional:

It may be completely absent from one game and then show up in the next round, and will only show on one sentence out of several when displaying messages from Starfleet.

The tearing is caused by the soft screen rendering routine falling behind drawing the screen, it's so intermittent probably only needs minor optimization, perhaps the hotspot could be rewritten in assembly (like OpenGL and DirectX) to resolve.

I'll upload the game later so players without a Retron77 can try it too.

[+stephena]

This ia good question. It seems that they wanted to avoid the gpl license of current stella; but why?

 

This is not correct. They were initially going to use Stella 1.1, which is 15 years old! That one wasn't under the GPL, and they did seem to want to avoid the GPL at one point. However, I guess they were convinced by myself and others on AtariAge that using such an obsolete version of Stella would be useless (if you think the 5-year-old 3.x version is old and not compatible, consider what it would be like if they went with the 15-year-old 1.1 version).

 

So they decided to abide by the GPL and use a newer version of Stella. Now, I cannot say why they went with 3.7.5 and not to the latest, but I have a very good guess. Getting Stella 4 and above working on this device requires more work, as detailed under "The Future" here.

 

So it's probably an issue of manpower or lack of knowledge. But it isn't because of avoiding the GPL. In releasing 3.7.5, they have already accepted that they will release under the GPL.

[+stephena]

Wow the thread was on fire for a while, now it's dead. And even the last few messages aren't strictly R77.

 

We now know how the system works, what its strengths and weaknesses are, and how to go about fixing them (as detailed in a wiki I posted earlier). What else is there to say? Unless Hyperkin or someone else steps up to do the work, what we have is all we're going to get.

[atarifan88]

 

I did notice an occasional glitch playing WARPDRIVE off of the latest microSD image update Stephena had posted that causes intermittent tearing in about 10% of the screen.

The game is still very playable and looks great - by comparison there is continuous tearing on the Atari Flashback Portable but it's minor and creates a very pleasant effect. Stella tearing is harsher when it occurs so thankfully only occasional:

It may be completely absent from one game and then show up in the next round, and will only show on one sentence out of several when displaying messages from Starfleet.

The tearing is caused by the soft screen rendering routine falling behind drawing the screen, it's so intermittent probably only needs minor optimization, perhaps the hotspot could be rewritten in assembly (like OpenGL and DirectX) to resolve.

 

What is tearing and what does it look like? I use Stella and I don't think I've ever seen it...

[atarifan88]

 

We now know how the system works, what its strengths and weaknesses are, and how to go about fixing them (as detailed in a wiki I posted earlier). What else is there to say? Unless Hyperkin or someone else steps up to do the work, what we have is all we're going to get.

 

This to me as a consumer is not acceptable. While I highly appreciate all that you do for the Atari Community stephena, I don't think it's your job to have to fix Hyperkin's short-comings. They lazily put out a product that has some major bugs and compatibility issues and then expects the community to clean up their mess. This is why I will not be buying one.

[+stephena]

What is tearing and what does it look like? I use Stella and I don't think I've ever seen it...

 

It's not present in newer versions of Stella. This is one of the main reasons why Hyperkin should get the latest version of Stella on this console.

 

This to me as a consumer is not acceptable. While I highly appreciate all that you do for the Atari Community stephena, I don't think it's your job to have to fix Hyperkin's short-comings. They lazily put out a product that has some major bugs and compatibility issues and then expects the community to clean up their mess. This is why I will not be buying one.

 

Not saying it's acceptable, just stating the facts. I fixed a pretty major bug (fire button stopped working), did the release, then stepped back. I won't be working on this again in the immediate future; maybe not ever. All I am stating is that I'm finished working on it. If someone else wants to, or Hyperkin wants to, then I have no opinion for or against. I am done; that's all I wanted to say.

[Keatah]

Pretty much that. Hyperkin would gain respect and a load of goodwill if they themselves did all the work to make to stella 5.x operational.

 

I always find it interesting that a future or soon-to-be-released console is marketed at being open source and ready to accept user-created upgrades. That's fine in theory. In practice it is something entirely different. Hard realities enter the picture. There are few people qualified with the right mix of skills and knowledge to do any sort of modding and improving. Literally a handful and that's it. Then there are other issues, like listening to the community and actually doing something. It's all very time consuming.

 

I don't see something being touted as open source being all that beneficial, unless that open source thing, whatever it is, has a boatload of active developers and is an already thriving ecosystem. Emulator Stella has a small group of devs, and is rather niche. Though it commands presence in its niche.

[Jagaroth]

I need some help with the software update I found here on the forum. It appeared that I merely had to copy and past over the files on the micro SD card included, but when I copied all the .bin format games to the games folder, I couldn't scroll past the first screen of 15 games. I read I have to hold down to get it to scroll, but it doesn't work. Any hints would be appreciated!

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

Screen tearing looks like two pieces of gameplay were spliced together vertically and they're a little off from each other, usually by a frame or two. You can see it fairly clearly in pipes from the footage of me playing Flappy on the Retron 77 here (@2h18m2s):

 

Screen Tearing: Screen tearing is a visual artifact in video display where a display device shows information from multiple frames in a single screen draw.

 

 

What is tearing and what does it look like? I use Stella and I don't think I've ever seen it...

 

[Mr SQL]

 

What is tearing and what does it look like? I use Stella and I don't think I've ever seen it...

 

 

Stephana is correct, on Windows the newer version of Stella uses DirectX/Direct3D or OpenGL, highly optimized and accelerated graphics subsystems.

 

But if you select the option to use software rendering even with the latest version you will still see tearing in my games that push the classic hardware. Turning on phosphor will cause related observable issues under any configuration as well.

 

I suspect the hardware for the Retron77 may simply need to use software rendering mode and cannot support OpenGL. If that is the case optimizing Stella's software rendering algorithm could fix the issue - it's so close I thought it was using OpenGL so the Retron hardware doing the software render must be pretty powerful.

[Jagaroth]

I need some help with the software update I found here on the forum. It appeared that I merely had to copy and past over the files on the micro SD card included, but when I copied all the .bin format games to the games folder, I couldn't scroll past the first screen of 15 games. I read I have to hold down to get it to scroll, but it doesn't work. Any hints would be appreciated!

Nevermind, I figured it out!

[tremoloman2006]

Nevermind, I figured it out!

 

Would you mind explaining how to do the upgrade? I've been up and down this thread and still haven't found solid instructions.

I'm sure they are there. I just can't find them.

 

Best regards,

Trem

[+stephena]

See post 2100: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/266544-retron-77/page-84?do=findComment&comment=4074223

 

Use Win32DiskImager to install the image: https://sourceforge.net/projects/win32diskimager/

[DirtyHairy]

 

What is tearing and what does it look like? I use Stella and I don't think I've ever seen it...

 

 

Tearing causes visible "rifts" in the picture, in particular during fast horizontal movements. The problem affects every application that renders a video stream (not just Stella) and is caused by missing synchronization between frame drawing (by the application) and screen refresh (by the video hardware): the application draws a new frame while the hardware is halfway done rendering the old frame to the screen, and the result is an image that shows parts of the old and parts of the new frame.

 

The solution is simple: the application needs to wait until the hardware has finished displaying before it renders the next frame --- that's what is called vsync. Old versions of Stella (like the one used by Hyperkin) use SDL1 for video display whose vsync support was patchy. Newer versions (>= Stella 4) use SD2 which uses hardware acceleration and support vsync much better. The Retron 77 has a Mali video core that supports hardware acceleration, but the way Hyperkin rigged it up the system doesn't use it --- SDL1 renders directly to the linux framebuffer and does not do vsync. The problem should be void as soon as someone gets hardware acceleration and SDL2 running and ports current Stella to the device. It has nothing to do with performance.

Edited July 27, 2018 by DirtyHairy