Trebor

To add a bit to the NTSC perspective... Under a traditional NTSC CRT display, the display resolution is typically denoted as 240p. There is, on average, 8 scanlines 'cropped' from the top and bottom portions of the screen. 240 - 16 = 224. Consequently, many NTSC 8-bit and 16-bit consoles advertised the 224p as part of the main or available number of lines of resolution, even when the system actually outputs 240p or some other value. A great test thread was created on this topic a while back: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/261266-testing-crt-screen-size/#entry3676087 It also confirm the majority average of ~224 visible lines for NTSC: From a retail title perspective, the two titles that utilize exactly 224 lines to completely show the intended display (if centered properly) are from Froggo - Tank Command and Water Ski. As karri mentioned, indeed, NTSC and PAL can show the playfield without large margins. From @RevEng post: The actual output resolution of the 7800 MARIA graphics chip for NTSC is 243 lines and PAL is 293 lines. Depending on code efficiency and how much 'action' is on the screen will better determine if 224 lines is optimal for any game. Also, just because any giving title utilized a certain number of scanlines, does not mean the system could not handle more. The difference between retail Ms. Pac-Man and Donkey Kong, and Ms. Pac-Man under Pac-Man Collection Remastered Edition, as well as Donkey Kong PK, demonstrate this very nicely. Any critical/statistical information needs to avoid the outskirts of the display though, as clearly there is a significant number of NTSC CRT displays that show considerably less than 224 lines. RevEng's Screen Safe is excellent for this demonstration:

Likely they had to do not a thing to the Supercharger or their console. Several have posted throughout the years of the Supercharger fitting and playing just fine - including some individuals utilizing multiple 7800 consoles without issue. Here are a few examples: https://forums.atariage.com/topic/117221-just-grabbed-a-7800/#comment-1419095 https://forums.atariage.com/topic/74550-fell-in-love-with-the-7800/#comment-912879 https://forums.atariage.com/topic/14673-supercharger-compatibility/#comment-147016 Not denying your experience or what was necessary to make it work (fit) for a particular console; however, the need to modify the plastic cartridge sleeve is not an absolute must for all units.

Indeed related, as RetroArch utilizes the ProSystem emulator as its plug-in for Atari 7800 emulation (Unfortunately). Either way, the option is ProSystem emulator standalone, or ProSystem emulator via RetroArch.

*UPDATE* Current Release: 3.0b10 Below please find links to download the latest beta release, for Windows, MacOS, and Linux platforms. Windows Installer (EXE) x64 Package (ZIP) ARM64 Package (ZIP) MacOS DMG Image (requires MacOS X 10.15/Catalina or later) Linux x64 Binary (TGZ, requires SDL2)

Per this site, the archaic ProSystem emulator has been ported, and runs under it: https://retrogamecorps.com/2020/08/23/guide-how-to-load-games-onto-the-rg350-home-consoles-and-handhelds/ Download and source code available at the aforementioned site. The same is mentioned and available for download as well, here: https://github.com/retrogamehandheld/OpenDingux

See this thread:

A couple of items to keep in mind as NTSC palette colors are being chosen, what is currently referenced above is fine under a CRT when the system is within its first couple of minutes of being powered on. After the system has warmed up, this is closer to what is experienced under an NTSC CRT: The big change to note is Hues 14 and 15 ($Ex and $Fx). The other changes are subtle to none. Also, under a modern display, Hue 1x appears more green/chartreuse rather than the intended gold range, unfortunately. After the system has warmed up, this is closer to what is experienced under an NTSC modern display:

Attached is some captures (*.png) and the schematic (*.pdf) for the CO24926 32K PCB, thanks to Dan Boris. It demonstrates the various revisions of the board, including the latest with the resistor in place. This helps to visualize the issue and differences, showing exactly where the extra resistor was mounted. C024926.pdf

Sorry, @CPUWIZ, quality was way too high from the get-go. Maybe an inferior build quality would need replacing, but all of mine are still minty fresh.

It's as if the 400 Mini was released months after the 2600+, it didn't have a holiday crunch deadline to meet, and the company picked up some additional experience from the prior product released. I'm sure we all can agree that life in general, whether professionally or personally, teaches us things, and hindsight is 20/20.

Perfect. Slowing the tempo to how the melody plays currently, is spot on for the game.

How about a bonus game where squadrons of enemy ships may alternate entrances without attacking the player, with the player's goal of a perfect kill score? Similar to the bonus rounds of Galaga, but the screen is rotated 90 degrees and a group of ships may enter behind how the player's ship is currently facing as well. To help distinguish it from the main game, the background is just a starfield, no Dreadnought.

There is - but it is not pretty. POKEY support only engages when the header tells it so. If the POKEY setting is stripped from the *.a78 ROM header, it will not look to leverage and enable POKEY sound. If you have access to it, editing the 7800.ini file to enable autoframe skip may help here. 1-2 frames skipped won't be so bad. The section is under '# CORE PERFORMANCE OPTIONS'. Change the '0' to '1' under 'autoframeskip'. The emulator will skip frames until performance hits 100%. If there's too much fluctuation with it, the option below, 'frameskip' can be modified instead. If using 'framekskip' keep 'autoframeskip' at '0', and then hard set a number of frames to skip, like '2' next to the 'frameskip' option. This option will always just skip two frames for every game regardless of performance.

Thanks to Atarimania's database: RX8031 CA400068-031 Same port as the original 8-bit/400 release. Just an updated label and packaging.

Glad to read that. The ROM is included in the Hacks folder of Trebors 7800 ROM PROPack. Sourced from @RevEng posted work.