My Harmony Cart arrived yesterday.
Since, I have started reading up on DPC+ bankswitching.
I bought the HC simply because I wanted to see the games I am developing on real hardware, but now I see that the features I want to add to Broomball will be so much easier (or even possible) with DPC+.
Quite frankly, I like the idea of writing the difficult logic parts of the game in C code rather than in assembly anyway.
Edit: Oh yeah - I forgot... I don't have my Atari system here. My mo
I work at Univ of North Dakota, and I know one of the archaeologist who participated in the ET Dig in the New Mexico landfill. http://www.thenorthwestern.com/story/entertainment/2015/01/09/archaeologist-donates-atari-cartridge-dig-university/21516519/ Not long after the movie about the dig was released, we had a screening on campus, which featured not only a discussion with the archaeologists, but also a good portion of my Atari collection... All of which was setup for people to play. Xenophob
After some additional hacking on the USB today, I have created a definition for the Atari VCS Modern Controller. So now both the Classic and the Modern controllers work with the 2600/7800.
Here's a link of me playing Baby Pac-man on the 7800 using the Modern controller. I apologize for the video. It's just to demo the fact that it works. It was hard to film one-handed, so I apologize for the controller covering the TV half the time.
USB Packet Payloads
Wher
It's nice that Atari made its VCS Classic and Modern game controllers backwards compatible all the way back to the 2600 and 7800 systems.
Got it working! There were a number of various problems:
bad 9 pin cable
power issues (not fully resolved)
realized that my analysis of USB data packets was wrong.
my poorly written C code for the Rpi Pico
Here is the USB adapter in action:
So my biggest problem was that I had done th
The last week was a source of frustration, as I could not get the ADG715 SPST switches to behave as expected. When the switches were closed, they worked just fine, but when they were open, they intermittently "closed". There was voltage bleed over, which meant that the Atari 7800 was seeing random JS input.
Come to find out, the Raspberry Pi GPIO power was bleeding into the switches. The solution, was to double-ground (one ground to Atari ground, one ground to GPIO ground) 1 of the 8
Well... I'm using my 7800 for this demo, but... it's a 2600 cart... so... same thing right?
Attached is a video of me testing 4 player Paddle support with 2 x Xbox One S controllers (via Bluetooth) and 2 x Logitech Dual Action controllers (via USB). Once I have the chips for two more ports, I'll be able to test these controllers with Castle Crisis on my 4 port 5200.
Those with a keen eye might notice me tapping the "xbox start" button toward the beginning of the video. Th
Not sure what I accomplished with this...
An example of getting the Pico to control the Atari 7800... and trying to get my Bluetooth for free.
Basically, I'm just trying to learn how to use the Pico to control the Atari while I wait for David to update the schematic for the joystick PCB.
This will also work with a standard SNES controller. Not counting the controller, or the wires, this is about $6 in parts including the Pico.
And, unlike the Pi Ze
I have been working on all-in-one Rpi Pico joystick design. However, in the meantime, David and I have also designed a new PCB that provides enhanced joystick features without needing a Pico. We gave up on the previous iteration of a Rpi Zero because of cost... and I got overburdened at work... and because the Pico was released. Yadda yadda yadda.
Anyway, here is a PCB design that does not require any kind of microcontroller or driver to use. I have built this on a breadboard and it
My goal for my Pico based game controller is to make a USB interface so that I can use an 8BitDo SN30 Pro USB controller with the Atari.
The Pico C++ SDK supports TinyUSB, which should make it possible. In an earlier release, it did not have a USB game controller example, and with me not really understanding how USB works, I was at a loss on how to implement the Pico as a USB host.
However, sometime in the last few months, someone created code to for the Pico to serve as
Posting my Pico controller code (see the bottom of this post for text file attachments) for SNES-to-2600 controller if anyone wants to look at it. When I have time, I'll add comments to it... sorry, I know how much everyone loves code with no comments.
I should really make a GitHub project for this. This was previously written for a single controller version (pic below), which I tested with multiple games an my local Retro game café - Replay Games.
The latest 4-cont
Well, David and I made some mistakes. And the boards we ordered didn't work as expected.
A - Probably somewhat too ambitious
B - And there was some miscommunication (we do live in two different cities).
Sent David a copy of the board and he tried a couple things to figure out why it didn't see to be working... and no luck.
At least all the pads and board holes lined up with the hyperkin joystick case. And the directional stick worked.
But we w
The replacement boards for my hyperkin joystick have arrived. And they fit. I was really worried that they wouldn't fit.
Still waiting on the extra button PCBs to arrive. I also still need to do some 3D printing and some minor case modification.
See attached video.
js01.mp4
js02.mp4
I had to do some hardware adjustments, and there is still more code development to be done, but I was able to compete two new controller modes. Actually, I have a fifth mode completed, but because I need to write Atari assembly code to test it, it'll be a bit before I know that it is really working. Code refinement is next, and then I might have a PCB made so I don't have to worry about my prototype falling a part while I write Atari code for it.
That said, attached are 4 video for f
Attached is a video of my experimentation using the Rpi Pico to convert SNES controller input into 2600/7800 joystick inputs. I apologize for the video not being better. But you can see how I can use the SNES shoulder buttons to control the flippers on 7800 Baby Pac-Man. I also tested it with 7800 Xenophobe, but I didn't record video for the xeno test. Though it worked great. Better than the actual 7800 controllers I have for it. It was also like playing the arcade version.
This time
Tonight we printed out the PCB pattern to scale, and tested how it fit in the case. Surprisingly accurate alignment considering that I can't focus on close up items any longer. However, we did realize that we forgot about the front post. So we will likely have to move some components to the underside of the PCB.
Here is the paper version taped onto the original board with the holes aligned and the directional js buttons laying on top of design. The components at the top center will n
Reading about the Amico system inspired me this week.
Looking at all the specs I could find, I think it's possible that I add support for not only the Intellivision controllers and ECS Keyboard, but also the Colecovision controller.
Based on this image of the Cvision controller, it looks like all the switches are in the Boehm, but I'll have to spread each Colecovision controller across to Boehm ports because there are so so so many diodes.
https://i1.wp.com/www.retro
Spent tonight re-familiarizing myself with the re-design of the Mr. Boehm and going over the data sheets of the new chips with David.
Parts are significantly cheaper than the previous version. Though re-writing all the controller code will be a bit daunting. Hopefully, sometime soon, I'll have a new demo ready.
Finally caught up at work. Returning to the redesign of the bluetooth/usb adapter. Luckily, David has been working on the redesign this whole time. Ordering the parts today for the breadboard prototype.
According to David, the chips in this design are significantly cheaper. I just need to rewrite the python code handling the gamepad/keyboard input to make it work with these new chips.
Just to show people we're still working on a cheaper redesign of the BT/USB adpater, I'm posting a render of a board that David has been developing while I'm dealing with my day-job duties.
You can see the old design on the left side of this board, and the newer design on the right.
Instead of the 1 x AD5242 digital pot chip and 4 x ADG715 digital switch chips of the previous design, the new design will use 1 x GPIO extender chip and 2 x Digital to Analog chips. With fewe
After deciding on a new configuration for the USB/Bluetooth Adapter, I've been sidetracked by work. Specifically, I'm over a week behind on a paper I need to write, I'm way past the due date.
But I have severe writers block, and mostly I just stare at the computer screen for hours on end trying to type something, anything... and not having much success.
As such, I've had no free time to put into the redesign. Although, David and I talked about the new design a couple of w
For a guy who hasn't even manufactured his PCBs yet, I have too many ideas.
Something like this will probably never come to fruition, but looking at my consoles, and my newly arrived INTV 2 I thought to myself, "Wouldn't it be cool if I could replace the broken controllers with a MrBoehm BT/USB adapter that also included a wireless controller charger? Something that has a case that is 3D printed to fit into the INTV controller bays?
Of course, you'd still need a power sup
Ordering PCBs is about as much fun as shooting yourself in the foot.
At least it is for two guys doing it for the first time.
David and I spent about 4 hours today trying to navigate the different PCB ordering websites to get quotes.
I'm biggest gripe, PCBWay wouldn't upload our Gerber files. We wasted about a half hour on that until we decided that since it was "under review" it didn't matter. In the meantime, we went on to a couple of other websites to get q
I have been a bit tired of my old profile icon, so I decided to update it with a photo of the pick guard that I have on my custom acoustic guitar.
I hired Bill Brunton, of Brunton Classical Guitars, to make a dreadnought for me. Bill also happens to be a member of my thesis committee and one of my Anthropology professors from back in the day. It's good to have a guitar made by one of your mentors.
There is a long backstory to this guitar, but I'll skip it for now.
After doing some testing, and now understanding why I couldn't get my chatpad to work. I'm planning supporting the following devices on the MrBoehm. Or at least I will take a meaningful stab at all of these controller types.
Atari VCS (BT and USB)
Modern Controller - (sad, no chatpad support)
Classic Controller - I will go the extra mile & beg/borrow/steal to make this one work, as it's the one most care about.
Intellivision Amico
Ami
I decided to put a VCS on pre-order.
I'm not really a big video game player. I play games with my kids, mostly Minecraft, but other things too. It's good family time. As such, I've put an Amico on pre-order as well.
For myself, I really liked Red Dead Redemption 2, and I sometimes play Rocksmith 2014. That's what XBox is for.
But I'm more of a tinker-er, and I don't play a lot of games. I won't elaborate exactly what I'm going to do the VCS, because it would b
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