Funny Jumpy Warlords Cart..

[Joel D. Park]

See if anyone can explain this:

 

Warlords is pretty common so I have 5 or 6 dupes in my Trade pile. I've noticed the screen jumps on one of them. The screen doesn't roll like a PAL game and there is no P on the end label.

 

The whole time the cart is in the atari, the screen jumps about once a second and it jump about 1/2 and inch on my 19 inch TV, none of my other copies do this. I've also tried it in 2 different Atari's on 4 switch and a 6 switch.

 

I'd like to rip it open and look for a Eprom inside, but it's label is really nice. But on the other hand, I'd never want to sell it to anyone, the jumping can get pretty annoying.

 

?? Anyone ever experience this ??

[+-^CrossBow^-]

Joel,

 

Join the club, Yes I too have several Carts that as of late have started to do this.

 

The carts I have which generate the exact "Jumping" condition you speak of are the following.

 

US Games :

Sneak n Peak - Jumps occasionally but not consistent.

Space Jockey - Fine when I pop it in and power the Atari on. Once I press fire to actually start playing...it goes into the "Jumping" bean mode and is a constant jump just like Joel described.

 

CBS Games:

Wizard of Wor - Jumps as soon as it is put into the console and then powered on.

Gorf - No jumping yet witnessed

Solar Fox - Intermitten Jumping from time to time.

 

Those are just some of the games I have been having this happen to me on. There are a few interesting things to note about this though.

 

None of my true Atari games themselves jump at least none that I have tested.

 

The jumping problem began when I first bought Wizard of Wor about 6 months ago. Mine also is not Pal that I know of. Although I hated to do it...I did open up the Wizard of Wor cart (Mint Label...*sigh*) and noticed that my cart didn't have the standard eprom on it...instead it was just the dob of black epoxy over the chip. Also no RF shield installed in the cart.

 

I have a few theories (nothing more) that I think are causing this.

 

1: It is possible that something in the carts is starting to finally give out. However, most of the ones exihibiting the jumping behaviour do not contain any additional resistors etc...on the pcb of the cart.

 

2: Something in the Atari itself is beginning to fail perhaps in the RF modulation (ie. bad ocillator). However, this doesn't explain why only certain carts do this. Further it doesn't explain why both my 6 switch heavy sixer Sears unit and my 7800 do this on the same carts. My heavy sixer is 10 years older than my 7800.

 

3: Something about the way the video signal is being generated by the game is pissing the TV off. I think this one may be the most probably cause. Since the condition looks like a v-hold that is just a tad off...it may be that the strange vid tricks the games are doing are upsetting the TV. I have a really old 13 inch Magnavox that my stuff is plugged into. However, there is one problem with this theory as well. Activision were the masters of video trickery on the 2600 and yet none of my Activision games exhibit the "Jump" screen behavior. Joel is the first person to even mention an actual Atari Cart doing it. Of course to test this...simply connect it to a differnt TV or if possible, play with the v-hold adjustments on the TV to see if it corrects the problem.

 

Anybody with any other ideas as to what the deal is?! Please share...the above problem could be something simple...or the start of things to come for all of us.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Use an emulator, which displays the number of scanlines (z26 with -n parameter). Then check, if the games which are jumping, are using much more or less than 262 (NTSC-standard) scanlines.

 

Other companies than Atari, Activison and Imagic produced some games, which used up to 290 scanlines (newer Atari games too!). Some people have reported problems with those games.

 

If there is an relation, then I would guess, the oscillator or your TV is having problems.

[+-^CrossBow^-]

Joel,

 

You have all but confirmed that it has to be isolated the carts themselves. But now we have to figure out...what on the cart is at fault? I mean we have a pcb with some traces...a rom and that is about it...some 2600 vcs games have an extra chip and or resistors sometimes. We are gonna have to crack into the carts to find out what the heck is going on. This could bode evil for all of us if we have found out there is a lifespan on atari carts...I should think not.

[Joel D. Park]

Maybe I'll get the old Atari 2600 Jr. out and see what happens.. Then I might just take the chance and cut that puppy open.

 

Are their any good ways to remove the label so I don't damage it??

 

Thanks,

Joel D. Par

[+-^CrossBow^-]

Not sure about the label removal. I am talking to others now about this jumping cart thing. And it could be something to do with the seaons or a possibility with deteriation in the pcb loosing conductivity in increased humidity. Err...lets hope not. I am going to have to go home tonight and fire up every cart and come up with a complete list...and look for a common ground with them jumpers...

[Nostalgic]

Add Pole Position to the list of Atari-made carts that can cause screen jumps. I bought a sealed one from a toy store at an outlet mall a few years back. The screen started jumping as soon as I turned everything on.

 

(The outlet mall was too far away and the $2 I paid for the cart too little to bother returning it. )

[Joel D. Park]

Thomas Jentzsch I recognize that name... Thrust Rules!!! My brother won it at the Philly Classic this year.. The commodore 64 rules as well. :-)

 

Also, Back on the topic. I was mentioning trying the game on 2 differnt Atari's, a 6 switch and a 4 switch. The Atari's are also on 2 different TV's. The 4 switch is on a Sony 19'' very old color TV. The 6 switch is on a Commodore 1702 Monitor and ran though a Broken VCR so I can Split the audio and video channels..

 

So that sort of eliminates the broken TV thing.

[Joel D. Park]

Also, along with the message above. You can check out my 2 atari configurations here:

http://www.atari2600.net/aspConfession.asp

 

I tried once on the "Repair Station" and the "Console Center", same results.

[Eckhard Stolberg]

I think this is more of a software problem. On the VCS the games have to syncronize with the TV in every frame. The suggested procedure for this is to turn on the sync signal, don't do anything for exactly three scanlines, and then turn off the sync signal again. In an attempt to squeeze every bit of processing power out of the VCS, some games use these three lines to already set up some things for the next frame. All games mentioned in this thread are offenders in this respect.

 

What might be the problem is that the VCS doesn't have enough power to generate a proper sync signal when too many other chips are in use. Therefore the TV might not be able to syncronize and looses a frame, which results in a jumping picture. At least this theory might explain why different cartridges of the same game would or would not show this problem, as they might be using different ROM chips.

 

I had this problem with several homebrew games when played on my PAL Supercharger. Those games that did anything during the sync period would just not show a stable picture on my TV. Eventually I managed to tune the VHOLD know in such a way, that it would allow my TV to sync to these games as well as to the normal PAL TV broadcast. So it might be possible that tuning the VHOLD on your TV a tiny little bit would cure the problem for you too.

 

 

Ciao, Eckhard Stolberg

[+-^CrossBow^-]

Eckhard,

 

I actually found the V-hold, H-hold, V-Lin, etc in my TV last night...but adjustments of them all would not cure the problem. I am fairly certain that it must be a problem with my TV in this case as I cracked the carts open and nothing seems anomolis (SIC) with them. I did manage to better the focus and adjust the picture back over to the right again though.

 

My next course will be to test the same games on my other 19inch TV I have and see if the condition continues. I did crack open both Wizard of Wor and Space Jockey again to see what was actually on the PCB and Space Jockey appears to have a resistor on it and the RF shielding over the rom. I will replace that resistor today and see what happens. As for Wizard of Wor...I am not sure. It has just the RF shield...but no rom..instead it has that blob of black epoxy over the chip but no resistors or anything additional. So far all the games I have by US Games, and CBS exihibit some sort of jumping. So I still suspect something with the TV just not liking these titles.

[Joel D. Park]

Like I said though, I tried this on 2 different TV's and one was actually a Split Audio Video Montor and even was fed through a VCR.. I'm amazed that if it's a TV problem, the whole Monitor/VCR/SplitAudioVideo wouldn't have fixed the issue in some way.

 

I hate to rip open the jumper but I might just...

[+-^CrossBow^-]

I am looking at my Space Jockey cart's pcb right now...and I notice that it actually appears as if there is a moddling effect going on in the layers of the pcb. I didn't think it possible...but there it is. I also tested all my carts last night..and only the US games and CBS games have this jumpin problem. The Activision's seem fine and my Park Bros do not do this either.

 

Onto the TV theory again, I have made some observations...I fired up Towering Inferno today...which doesn't Jump for the most part...except...that sometimes when I get hit by a flame...there is a small screen flash and then the screen will Jump...and then be normal again. Strange...

Also..I did find one Parker Bros game which jumps...

 

It is StarWars:TAG. On the tower level...when ever there are more than 3 towers...and I shoot my lasers..the screen will jump once...but that is it.

 

Again, I suspect my TV here..and not the carts..if there were a true problem with the carts and some bit getting corrupted in the rom somehow...then I would think it would jump all the time from a power on...and not only within the game...or after gameplay has started. Wish I had capturing ability so I could camcord it and make an AVI to show it to compare etc...