Sceptre_JLRB

Interesting! Sometimes the simpler way is the best. I'll try it! Thanks for the suggestion.👍

None of that worked to me, the jittering is still present.

Thanks again for this detailed and concise explanation and for sharing your knowledge. The best part of the issue is learning new things about it, for sure. 👍

Thanks for your comments and advice, @-^CrossBow^-. Maybe it's relatively normal, they allow me to play paddle games, after all. I'm just curious about this behavior not occurring on other Atari 2600s, possibly related to TIA 'exhaustion', as you indicated.

Hi! Thanks for commenting on your case. I haven't found the cause of the problem yet, but I'm convinced it could be due to some electronical components damaged in the console itself, typical issues of a 45 y.o. piece of hardware. Don't have the proper knowledge to afford or fix the problem, though.

Thank you very much for testing! I tried moving the DIP switches repeatedly and readjusting the cart, but nothing changed. Sometimes the game lets me play a couple of minutes but eventually the glitches start appearing, ending up in total freezing. However, I managed to test the 4-in-1 cart on an Atari 2600 Jr. clone console which, despite being incompatible with paddles except for their fire button (maybe due to a lack of potentiometer-response elements on console PCB), allowed me to run each of the 4 games, included Video Olympics, with no issue. I was able to check the different game variations with no glitches, whereas on my original 4-switch Atari VCS this operation results in glitches+freezing. So I think my 4-in-1 cart is OK and the problem could be my console. Maybe, it could be related with a 'basal jittering' all paddle controllers show when connected to this console (and perhaps with some dirty-picture issues) I also asked about on this thread:

Hi there, After a long time struggling with 2 pairs of jittery paddles, I've tried a brand-new CX30+ ones, released for the new Atari 2600+ console and thus expected to work perfectly. However, I still have the very same issue with them. In all 3 paddle pairs (2 old CX30, thoroughly cleaned and repeatedly checked, and 1 new CX30+) I have kind of a light 'basal jittering' when the knob is untouched, although the movement can be accurately controlled when moving the knob. This occurs equally on both controller ports and with the 2 paddles of every paddle pair. It is noticeable in a number of games (Breakout, Canyon Bomber, Video Olympics, Kaboom!) but imperceptible in some others (Warlords, Tac-Scan, Night Driver), though. Here is a video showing the issue: https://mega.nz/file/Pc9BmRBI#Z95BfVxucgo5CYk8Z6KGtofTelE1x1BDo_-94wezwR4 My console is a recently adquired NTSC 'woody' 4-switches Atari VCS (1980). Not sure if related, but I noticed (originary by RF and later by composite video mod) the video signal has some artifacts (i.e., dirty colors; image has kind of a 'shadow' effect at sprite edges, being somehow 'splitted' into two different images imperfectly synchronized) which I'm not completely sure even if they are normal, as showed on this topic including photos: https://forums.atariage.com/topic/355896-possible-problem-with-atari-vcs-composite-av-mod/#comment-5336284 So my questions are: 1) Could this paddle 'basal' jittering be due to the console itself? Maybe to a damaged component (perhaps a resistence) in the PCB, responsible of processing the signal from the paddle potentiometer? Or could it be rather caused by some defect in the TIA chip and so related to the aforementioned picture issues? 2) Has anybody experienced this kind of problems? Are there any possible solutions? Thank you very much in advance for your help. Any comments, suggestions and ideas are more than welcome!

That would be great. Thank you!

Yeah, absolutely. That was the very first I tried, including blowing the cart contacts, but no way. The problem is still present in the same way. 😞

Looking for a brand-new pair of paddle controllers to use on my original Atari 2600 console, I've just purchased the Atari 2600+ paddle set which includes the new 4-in-1 cartridge featuring Breakout + Canyon Bomber + Night Driver + Video Olympics, selectable via DIP switches. When testing this cart on my original NTSC 4-switch Atari VCS from 1980, the first 3 games work flawlessly... But Video Olympics, after a few seconds of gameplay, starts showing graphical glitches such as double computer rectangle and double ball, and then all the screen becomes corrupted showing a sort of all game modes graphical mixture followed by distorted random sounds and finally screen freezing. I don't own the new Atari 2600+ console, so I have no way to test whether this could be due to a corrupted Video Olympics ROM on my 4-in-1 cart. However, I've tested the Video Olympics USA ROM loaded via Harmony Encore flashcart and the game works great, so the issue seems not to be caused by the console itself. What do you think it could be happening? Has anybody tried the 4-in-1 Paddle cartridge on original systems and found any issue? Could it be that this cartridge was built with the new Atari 2600+ hardware in mind and now some old Atari 2600 models show issues when dealing with it? Maybe I broke the cart when using it for the first time with a non-allowed DIP switches configuration?

Hi there, As I commented several weeks ago, I acquired an NTSC 4-Switch woody Atari VCS. Given that I'm in a PAL region and all my TVs are PAL, I felt a composite AV mod was the best option to enjoy it. So I ordered the mod to an store offering that service, since I lack proper soldering abilities and equipment at the moment. They performed the standard transistor-based composite AV mod, eliminating the RF module and cable, and adding a mini-jack AV connector to output the signal. Finally, I got my modded console back and am currently testing it. However, it seems to me that the picture shows excessive artifacts. Concretely, the image has kind of a 'shadow' effect at sprite edges, being somehow 'splitted' into two different images imperfectly synchronized. In fact, this seems to occur in every pixel on screen, which shows this gray shadow on its right. In bigger sprites, this shadow on the right is more evident. Besides, horizontal black lines on the screen left edge typical of many games show these gray tracks on their right. In smaller sprites, the image turns out to be a little confusing (i.e., Harmony menu text). As a consequence, all colors in general are somehow dirty. There are no clean hues, what can be easily appreciated in yellow colors. Neither are there pure whites. (Please, find attached some pictures taken from my CRT TV showing the described issues, as well as some images of the aforementioned mod.) I've tried adjusting the color potentiometer on the console PCB and tweaking the TV image settings, of course, but the defects still persist. I'm aware that composite video isn't the best picture signal, though, but when comparing this case with other retro systems I also use via composite video, it gives me the impression that there is something wrong here. So my questions to all the users having this AV mod or experience with it are: Is this composite video signal, with all these image artifacts, normal? What could be wrong? Any way to get a better composite picture quality? Any suggestions are welcome. Thank you very much in advance!

Perfect! So I'll be able to use my extra-long, hyper-informative filenames, as I'm used to do, in order to explore different game versions obtaining as much information as possible from them! 🙂 Thank you very much, Thomas, for you prompt and precise answer. 👍

Hi there, Just ordered one of these awesome Harmony Encore cartridges and was preparing my ROM files to be copied to the SD card. AFAIK, Harmony menu shows the first 23 characters of the file/folder name, but by holding the fire button on a menu entry, be it a folder or a ROM file, the complete filename is shown. Is this right? So in this case, my main question is: Is the whole long filename shown in a displacing marquee? And more importantly, is there any character length limit for filenames or otherwise they can be as long as it's allowed by Windows (or your computer OS)? Thank you very much in advance for your help!

Thank you very much again! I was just starting to search when I noticed about another possibility: The RF Switch Box of the PAL Master System (MK-3092), whose computer RF input is a female RCA and then has the typical European Belling-Lee RF connector: However, I don't have one of those, so I'll go for the metallic adaptor.

Thank you so much for this valuable piece of info! So I'm gonna look for such adaptor. Please, let me know if you have some links to purchase. Regarding the NTSC tuning, I've never tried to tune NTSC consoles via RF on my CRT TV (a Sony Trinitron), but being a (relatively) modern model and having no issue at all with composite and RGB NTSC signals, I'm pretty sure it could (hopefully).