Room 34 Posted May 16, 2002 Share Posted May 16, 2002 I just got a copy of Activision "Space Shuttle" complete in box with the cardboard overlays and everything on eBay. I was very excited! However, when I plugged the cart in, I got the rapid "rolling" problem, like the horizontal hold is out-of-whack. (However, I am playing the Atari on a TV made in 1985, one of the first with electronic tuning, so there's no horizontal hold knob.) I have NEVER had this happen on another cartridge, and I don't know what else could cause it other than this possibly being a PAL cartridge that my NTSC TV doesn't like. I e-mailed the seller and she claimed the game had been tested and worked, and was definitely NTSC. She suggested that I should clean the cartridge, but I really don't see how this could be the problem. The picture is perfectly clear, and I don't get the vertical lines (in place of the game) that are common on a dirty or loosely-plugged-in cart. It is JUST the rapid vertical rolling. Does anyone have an explanation for this OTHER than a PAL/NTSC incompatibility? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malix Posted May 16, 2002 Share Posted May 16, 2002 Yes do not take the pills with the mercedes symbols on them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+-^CrossBow^- Posted May 16, 2002 Share Posted May 16, 2002 Hmm...you wouldn't happen to be using a 7800 to play this one would you? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Room 34 Posted May 16, 2002 Author Share Posted May 16, 2002 quote: Originally posted by -^Cro§Bow^-: Hmm...you wouldn't happen to be using a 7800 to play this one would you? Actually, I would happen to be using a 7800. Is that the problem? My 2600 is in a box in the closet because I don't have a power adapter for it. But I just got a mint 6-switcher Sears Video Arcade that I haven't hooked up yet. Maybe I should give that a try. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+-^CrossBow^- Posted May 20, 2002 Share Posted May 20, 2002 Actually yes...the later model 7800s will roll the screen or lockup...or get nothing on some Activision games...The games effected are Space Shuttle, Decathalon, Robot Tank, and one other I believe. If you search the 7800archives here...you will see a fix for this. However, it will require that you clip a capacitor on the 7800 mainboard. But this fix has allowed the supercharger, the CuttleCart and those Activision games to work again. Apparently the change was made because the original run of the 7800 didn't play some of the newer Atari released games correctly... Those games in question I believe are 2600 Dark Chambers, and maybe Secret Quest. So...your carts are probably fine. I suspect you have a later production 7800 that has the small 8% or so imcompatibility to the 2600 library of games. Hope that helps... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted May 20, 2002 Share Posted May 20, 2002 Wasn't there an incompatibility with the bankswitching (FE) Activision first used? AFAIK we are still searching for a NTSC dump of Space Shuttle with the special Activison bankswitching. Can you dump that cart? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+-^CrossBow^- Posted May 20, 2002 Share Posted May 20, 2002 Thomas...as I understand it. That earlier Bankswitching is the problem...yes. And so those games will give the odd results mentioned. I thought Space Shuttle was the same...but your telling me that Activision released a fixed version of this game? How do we know which uses the old Bankswitching scheme? I have a copy of shuttle and mine is the old 83 copyright picture label one. I can dump that if you wish and send it to you? But again, I don't know if it contains the odd bankswitching or not. I also have Robot tank and mine is most definetly the first release version. Maybe that would yeild better results? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted May 21, 2002 Share Posted May 21, 2002 quote: Originally posted by -^Cro§Bow^-: I thought Space Shuttle was the same...but your telling me that Activision released a fixed version of this game? Eckhard Stollberg (z26) told me, that all Space Shuttle NTSC versions he knows of are fixed, while all PAL versions still use the original Activision method. But he is quite sure, that there must be also NTSC carts with the original bankswitching. quote: How do we know which uses the old Bankswitching scheme? I have a copy of shuttle and mine is the old 83 copyright picture label one. I can dump that if you wish and send it to you? That would be fine, I can check it. Or you can do it yourself with z26 and trying the -g parameter. quoteI also have Robot tank and mine is most definetly the first release version. Maybe that would yeild better results? Sorry, I don't understand, what "better results" do you mean? AFAIK, Robot Tank uses the Activision bankswitching and therefore should have problems too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eckhard Stolberg Posted May 21, 2002 Share Posted May 21, 2002 @Crossbow: Yes, Activision seems to have fixed the bankswitching for some of the games that have problems on the 7800. I have a HES version of PAL Decathlon that uses Atari's 16K bankswitching type. Also the ROM image of NTSC Space Shuttle that is floating around the net uses Atari's 8K bankswitching method. But since the PAL version of Sapce Shuttle uses Activisions FE bankswitching I'm pretty sure, that a NTSC version like this must also exist. It just hasn't been found yet. But your picture label version might be worth trying. There doesn't seem to be a way to tell which version you have, except for playing it in a newer 7800 console, or dumping the ROM. Therefore it would be nice, if you could try to read out the ROM from your cart. If you are still using the 7800 based cartridge reader, make sure that you have a version of 7800ctrl, that can read 26FE bankswitching. If you don't have that version, let me know, and I'll send you a new one. Fixed versions of the other games, like Robot Tank haven't been found yet either. So if anyone has a version of Decathlon, Robot Tank or Space Shuttle (PAL) that works on the newer 7800 consoles, I'd like to hear about that too. Thanks, Eckhard Stolberg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Room 34 Posted May 21, 2002 Author Share Posted May 21, 2002 quote: Originally posted by Eckhard Stolberg: But since the PAL version of Sapce Shuttle uses Activisions FE bankswitching I'm pretty sure, that a NTSC version like this must also exist. I can confirm that an NTSC version exists, because I have it! That was what started this whole thread! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted May 21, 2002 Share Posted May 21, 2002 quote: Originally posted by room34: I can confirm that an NTSC version exists, because I have it! That was what started this whole thread! [/QB] Eckhard means a NTSC version with the orginal Activision (FE) bankswitching. The fixed version is well known and can be downloaded here at AtariAge. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+-^CrossBow^- Posted May 21, 2002 Share Posted May 21, 2002 Okay...I now have an oldskool P200 running nothing on it..but DOS 6.22 as the OS. This is the perfect platform to dump the cart info to. Later tonight I will get the cable out and grab a disk with the newer 7800cntl program on it and dump both my shuttle and Robot Tank roms. My question is: If Robot Tank was never fixed, then why do we need an older shuttle that has the older Activision FE bankswitch method? Robot Tank would have this already. Or are you simply wanting it dumped for complete rom archiving? If we only need it dumped so that we can see the differences...then I would suspect that Robot Tank would tell us the same thing. And since you state again, that Robot Tank was never fixed AFAYK, then the image of Robot Tank that is on AtariAge should feature the old FE Bankswitching...right? or...am I totaly lost and hence confused you guys now as well?! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eckhard Stolberg Posted May 21, 2002 Share Posted May 21, 2002 There probably isn't much information to be learned from the FE Space Shuttle ROM. We basically want it dumped to confirm it's existance, and because the emulators and the Cuttle Cart software need to special case FE games with a checksum to be able to support them properly. The FE Space Shuttle ROM would help us to complete the collection of the released games with this bankswitching method, and therefore allow us to support them all automatically. For the same reasons we could use a ROM image of the NTSC version of Ewok Adventure BTW. Thanks, Eckhard Stolberg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KAZ Posted May 22, 2002 Share Posted May 22, 2002 Since he played this game using the Atari 7800, I vote that the moderators move this to the 7800 forum immediately! Do not soil this golden 2600 forum with filth such as this!! j/k, I like the 7800. But move it, cuz I said so. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+-^CrossBow^- Posted May 23, 2002 Share Posted May 23, 2002 KAZ, Despite the fact he is using a 7800 to play this game...the fact remains that the ultimate topic of this discussion is regarding a specific 2600 series of games. Therefore it is still on topic in the 2600 section. Besides, while the focus may have shifted back to old incompatibilities regarding the newer 7800 consoles, we are now talking about the presevation and study of a 2600 game that has not yet been dumped or proven to exist in NTSC. Now if we were talking about 7800 games or just focusing on the 7800 console issue...then I too would have recommended that it be moved to the 7800 board. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+-^CrossBow^- Posted May 23, 2002 Share Posted May 23, 2002 Okay Eckhard, I have dumped my shuttle cart 3 times and here is the result of what I get. When I use the version 2.0 of the 7800ctrl program it sees the game as a 4k rom. That of course isn't correct since the game is actually 8k in size. But it also did this when I dumped my Robot Tank. On the new version of the 7800ctrl you sent to my email this morning, the program now sees Shuttle as a 26FE cart...same for Robot Tank... However, something odd is going on here... My Robot Tank dumpe comes up fine in Z26 with and without the -g option... but Shuttle gives me some odd stuff. If I try to use the 4k image of shuttle from the older 7800ctrl program...I see the window of the shuttle looking into the stars in the emu...but it is rolling constantly... does it also with the -g option... I assume this is because of the incomplete data. But when I use the newer 7800ctrl program and get the whole 8k of the dump...then here is what happens in z26. I either get the rolling window screen with the stars again...or I get what looks like a brown screen with some odd colored dots on it... Hell..I should do screenshots of this...or perhaps give the rom images to you. Let me work on this...maybe I am getting bad dumps of shuttle...but then robot tank is working great... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+-^CrossBow^- Posted May 23, 2002 Share Posted May 23, 2002 Okay...I compile some screengrabs in Z26 to show you what it does more or less on the screen when I load up these roms. Keep in mind it doesn't matter if I use the -g option I get the same results. Here is the screen when I run the 4k version from the old 7800ctrl program. This also happened once when I dumped it with the new version as a proper 8k size: And here is what I usually get with the new dump being reported as a 26FE cart with the new 78ctrl33.exe you sent me: So there it is then. I will of course be sending you these rom images via email Eckhart to confirm if these dumps are any good. If they aren't, then what do I need to do to get one? As I said just using the defaults it does show up as a 26FE cart type as did Robot Tank which worked fine. Hope this helps... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eckhard Stolberg Posted May 23, 2002 Share Posted May 23, 2002 As I've also told you in email, the 8K ROM you sent me seems to be a valid FE version of Space Shuttle, so that proves it's existance. To get it working on z26 you have to use the -g5 option. I'll add the checksum to z26 and PlaybinCC for the next release, so that it's bankswitching type will be detected automatically. And as your first screenshot shows nicely, the game will produce a rolling screen, when it can't access it's second bank of data. Since the bankswitching dosn't work on a newer model 7800, this also answers the question of the original poster. Ciao, Eckhard Stolberg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted May 23, 2002 Share Posted May 23, 2002 Cool, we found the missing link. Can somebody send me the ROM too, please? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted May 24, 2002 Share Posted May 24, 2002 Have you tried to use -g5 as parameter for z26? The Robot Tank version is recognized, because z26 identifies the game by a checksum. But if your Space Shuttle version is NTSC with FE bankswitching, it is yet unknow to the emulator and you have to tell him the bankswitching it has to use. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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