alex_79
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Posts posted by alex_79
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3 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:
Like I said some weeks ago when the store got purged: The end of an era.
It really is.
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4 hours ago, alex_79 said:
I have zero attachment to the Atari brand itself, or any company that owns that brand (or any past company that owned it), and whether this product is a success or a failure doesn't affect me in any way.
I'm interested in this community that shares knowledge and creates new games and hardware for an old console I had as a kid.
I didn't imagine it a few hours ago, but I guess it's a bit ironic that I posted that on this particular day...😶
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26 minutes ago, Photek1000 said:
Thanks, Don't think I installed the switch as it wasn't a requirement when I did the install, may have to add it in.
The mod also provides a way to install an "extra" switch on the controller (instead of the "palette" one on the console). For that there's a 7 wires ribbon cable that you solder to some pins of the left controller port, as well to pins connected to the RESET and SELECT switch (see the diagram).
If you installed that ribbon cable, independently from the fact that you actually put the extra switch on the joystick, note that it will cause issues with some controllers (e.g. trackballs) and also with games that use the ports as output. E.g. "Track & Field" is unplayable with those extra wires installed.The solution is to either
- do not install those extra wires
- put a toggle switch between pin 3 (or pin 4) of the left controller port and the mod board. With the switch open, you disable the extra functionality and you can use the problematic games and/or controllers.
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4 minutes ago, Photek1000 said:
Do the colours still get messed with if you are using a RGB modded 2600?
The RGB mod bypasses the TIA color generation and supports both PAL and NTSC palettes. It will autodetect which one to use based on the game framerate. If the game is in PAL60 format, it will be detected as NTSC and have wrong colors, but you can always manually change the colors using the "palette" switch of the mod.
7 minutes ago, Photek1000 said:Also is there a bulk buy option for the Champ Games Homebrew,
Best way to figure it out is to contact them directly and see if it can be arranged.
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2 hours ago, juansolo said:
To bring it back to topic, do I think that this makes the 2600+ desireable? No, because it won't play a lot of the new games that I own on cartridge where as my 7800 and 2600 do. So there is simply no justification for me to buy one as it offers me less than I currently have. Simple as that. No shade to be thrown on people who do think this thing is a good idea. But for me it's just another uneccessary novelty.
For people outside of AA it may be more appealing, but it requiring carts and not coming loaded with all their favourite games, I feel it might not appeal as much either as it's not the quick fix then throw it in a drawer never to be seen again like the flashbacks. For the people inbetween who want something to play old games on and aren't bought into Atari as a brand, the Evercade does a way better job...
I agree with all that.
I think that it's mostly aimed to collectors who also buy the new cart releases form Atari. Compatibility isn't much of an issue in that case, as often both the carts and the console will end staying on a shelf. Sealed, to keep their value.
I'm not interested in the 2600+ either. I know exactly what it is and I didn't thought it would have been anything different the very moment I heard about it. I have zero attachment to the Atari brand itself, or any company that owns that brand (or any past company that owned it), and whether this product is a success or a failure doesn't affect me in any way.
I'm interested in this community that shares knowledge and creates new games and hardware for an old console I had as a kid.
And because I care about this community, and I know that those who are not into the technical things don't understand the limitations of this device, and will keep hoping that a firmware update will defy the laws of physics and turn the 2600+ into a real console compatible with everything, I think it's important to keep pointing out those limitations.
Over and over.
Because an informed customer can make an informed choice.
People who just like the fact that this thing has an Atari logo on it, and that is an "official" release could just stop reading these threads (what for? they'll buy it anyway), instead of complaining.
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17 hours ago, James45 said:
Couldn't you make the harmony cart appear as a normal cart if a particular file is found on the filesystem, such as default.4k or something would put the cart into 4k mode and appear only as the cart specified with no menu. You could then load at least a single cart into the emulator.
The Harmony can already do that.
There are two ways:
- Put a rom in the root directory of the SD card named AUTORUN.bin (firmware up to 1.05) or AUTOROM.bin (firmware 1.06). Then the cart will load automatically that rom when you power on the console. Anyway, loading the rom happens after the 2600 is powered on, and you'll see the spinning "ying yang" logo animation while loading. That won't work with a cart dumper.
- Use the Harmony software and flash the cartridge in single image mode through usb, which overwrites the normal firmware. In this case the cart behaves like a standalone one and, as long as the cart type is among those supported by the dumper, it could work with it (timing differences compared to a real console might be an issue, though). I used that method to test my 2600 cart dumper with bankswitching types for which I don't own any physical cart. And it worked.
17 hours ago, James45 said:You might even be able to build a single cart image that has multiple games, you would be limited to just one cart mode however. I think this is how the KROCKODILE cart works to generate a multicart.
The dumper must be coded to recognize and dump that type of multicart, which is difficult. And the emulator must be coded to then emulate that too. Consider that such multicart should likely lock the bankswitch once a game is loaded, to avoid that the game code itself triggers an hotspot of the multicart bankswitch scheme. So the dumper's hardware would have to be designed so that it can power cycle the cartridge. And autodetection would be even more difficult and slow in that case.
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I think that to trigger FE you do something like this:
- put $01FE on address bus
- set bit 5 of the data bus: 1 = bank 0, 0 = bank 1 (*). The other bits are not relevant.
- change address bus (but keep the value on the data bus) to trigger the bankswitch
Not sure if the last step is all you need to latch the bank number, or if you have to closely match the timing of a real console for it to work.
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(*) the order of banks in the "standard" FE rom used by emulators and flashcarts is reversed compared to the logical order they have according to the patent. The scheme also allowed up to 8 banks, but no game ever used more than 2.
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6 minutes ago, John Stamos Mullet said:
Untested means untested. You're inventing a scenario to support your beliefs. The reality is, they are untested, meaning more than likely they simply don't have access to a known working copy.
Please!
The list of games marked with "pass" includes lots of extremely rare or even never released ones.
They obviously never tested all those games. And anyone who knows a bit about Atari 2600 bankswitching schemes can easily see a pattern that indicates exactly what games the cart port can dump or not (also those that are not on that list).
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They could have used an existing "F6" board design, but with an 8k eprom(or rom) instead of a 16K one (same pinout, except for the A13 pin which is unused on a 8k memory).
Then all four hotspots would work: $fff6 and $fff8 would both select the 1st bank and $fff7 and $fff9 would both select the second one. It would just be up to the programmer's preference which ones to use in the code.
Now I'm curious to see the board too!
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I only have limited knowledge about the 7800 and its cartridge types. You have to search what scheme each game in the list uses to have an idea about what is supported.
For the 2600 side, as already said, currently the dumper software seems to be as capable as the R77 one (which isn't much).
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41 minutes ago, Giles N said:
I see people pointing out that emulation isn’t like true hardware reading cartridges, but if it’s using emulation, and emulation already exist to successfully read all officially launched 7800-titles (…often the prototypes in addition), then I still wonder why it would be a problem to get the 2600+ emulation software to do the same…
The problem is the cartridge dumper, not the emulator.
Obtaining a correct rom trying to autodetect the cartridge type is difficult and prone to errors.
And if you don't get a proper rom, even if you have the most accurate emulator in the world, you won't be able to play the game.-
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54 minutes ago, Trebor said:
Any PAL game with a scanline count that does not equal 313 runs a similar risk.
Correction: that would be 312.
Because of how a PAL TIA generates the signal, PAL 2600 games must have an even number of scanlines, else they cause color issues on many PAL TVs (I think the phase ends up being wrong on every other frame). On CRTs you typically get either a B&W image ("PAL color loss") or wrong colors in the upper area of the screen, depending on the age of the TV. Newer digital TVs might not be affected by this, but I don't have much experience in running 2600 consoles with those.
Again, this only applies to 2600 games. PAL Maria always outputs 313 scanlines and has no color issues.
EDIT. And the color issues would only happens on RF, composite and s-video. RGB is not PAL anymore, and there's no "phase" of the color carrier that matters in that case.
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18 minutes ago, batari said:
I assumed that Retron and Atari had done their diligence in figuring out how to autodetect and dump most of the known cartridge types, as we did more than a decade ago in an old thread about how to use your Harmony as a cart dumper.
I built the adapter cable back then and I remember that auto-detection worked well and I could dump my original carts correctly with it. (link)
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6 hours ago, bent_pin said:
Continuity between ground pins?
Not all carts have both gnd pins connected. The Retron 77 relies on that and as a result fails to detect some carts that in theory it could dump.
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5 hours ago, Giles N said:
So - if Atari wants to make it compatible with as many 2600 games as possible, they’d need to use the same sort of code as is used on Retron 77 firmware updates ?
Or are the lists from the most recent firmware that can be run on a Retron 77 ?
The Retron 77, with the community build, can play everything that Stella can play (so, almost any known game) through the sd card.
The 2600+ ships with the latest Stella, so it would do the same if it could load roms (and if there was a way to access the emulator settings that you might need to tweak in some cases). But it doesn't offer that possibility out of the box.
The cart port is the issue and the R77 one is no better than the one on the 2600+ by looking at the compatibility list they provided. The 2600+ cart dumper is apparently upgradable, so there's the possibility that things might improve a bit. But do not expect it to work with everything. It's just not possible.
5 hours ago, Giles N said:I think they’d be able to sell much more of if they could firmly say by November 17th - all 7800 titles will work, - even better - it will run just like a true 7800, but via emulation, and the same for 2600 games.
That's an inherent contraddiction. Cannot happen. It has been repeated basically on every page of this and the other 2600+ threads and also on the R77 ones: emulators don't play cartridges.
5 hours ago, Giles N said:It may be that’d have to make exceptions if they don’t use universally reading emulation software ‘it plays everything released for the 2600 with exception of 3 rare titles…’
Anything in this direction would sound much better.
And should this be very hard?
Not hard. Impossible.
5 hours ago, Giles N said:How common are emulation-softwares running/playing any 2600 or 7800 ROM?
As long as the emulators are mantained (to add support for new cart types and controllers/accessories) and you keep updating them, they'll play basically every rom. But the 2600+ pretends to play cartridges. That's the problem.
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36 minutes ago, DiskDoctor said:
I saw no settings to alter this on Harmony splash screen...
There's no setting. the Harmony does NOT sort the files, but read them in the order they appear on the card.
You need to use a program on a PC to sort the files. There are several of them for every operating system.
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I don't have a R77, but if you can select the "Event Mappings" tab of the input settings, you'll find another "Defaults" button there that might fix your issues.
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On 8/31/2023 at 11:03 AM, alex_79 said:
I actually have a working unit (just the board, not the cabinet) somewhere...
After a bit of digging, I found it!😀
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9 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:
I suppose the cart pins will do that, no?
That's something we will discover after the units start shipping, I guess.
Unless there's some way to physically detect the extra pins (like a mechanical switch, or an optical sensor), I imagine you'll have to try to read some areas where a 7800 cart can be mapped but a 2600 cannot (with A12 LOW). That would be easier if the dumper has the pull-up resistors mentioned earlier in this thread, so that when the cart does not drive the bus you get a constant, known value.
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Another aspect that needs to be considered is that the dumper in the 2600+ is shared for 7800 games too. And it has to detect those as well!
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1 hour ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:
Stella's properties should be used (for controller types and swaps, phosphor, PAL-60...). Since they are based on a MD5 checksum, we would need a 1:1 dump of the existing one:
- problem #1: hotspots in ROM area return random values (F8, F6, F4, FA, E0, E7, F0, BF, CF, EF... are all affected by this; 3F, UA, WD, FE... are not)
- problem #2: dumped cart RAM will be random (affects all ..SC types, FA, E7, WD... where RAM is part of a ROM bank)
I imagine another issue are overdumps: 2k games will most likely result in a 4k rom with the data repeated twice. Stella should detect those as well and recalculate the checksum for 2k. (or the dumper has to detect them, but it's probably better to leave all the non strictly necessary calculations to Stella to avoid too much slowdown)
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46 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:
It is labelled 4:3 and 16:9.
Yup.
An option button would have been much more useful IMO. (the aspect ratio could have been just one of the options you could access...)
1 hour ago, Defender_2600 said:Then there's the color/black-white switch but I guess it keeps the original function even if it could be used for something else, a useful function would be the ability to pause the game, in fact the pause button is available on the 7800 console.
The console switches are just generic inputs that can be read by the processor. It's the game that determines their function. And as time passed, and their original function wasn't needed anymore (on screen menus were used instead of difficulty and select switches, and B&W TVs were less common) they were often reused for other purposes, including pausing the game.
So they need to stay generic inputs that the emulated game can read. If they're removed or repurposed for something else, you'll break compatibility.
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E.g.
When the Flashback 2 plug'n'play console was released, it had 5 big push buttons on the front panel (the retro gaming scene was much smaller back then, and the product had to also appeal kids too)
The TV Type switch wasn't one of them, as B&W TVs were a thing of the past, and customers would probably have just considered it weird. But Curt Vendel knew that the switch might have been needed (especially if the cartridge mod was performed), so he still included it on the back of the console.
With the Flashback 3 AtGames took over Curt Vendel's company to design the console and they switched to an emulator based device. They mostly copied the case design, including the big colored switches, but they had the brilliant idea to remove the TV Type switch ("who needs that?").
The result was that "Secret Quest", a game that was included in the Flashback 3 console was unplayable, as it requires the TV Type switch for gameplay (it's used to access the weapon selection screen and to display the code for the current level so that you don't have to start from the beginning each time).
Modifying the case and PCB is expensive, and in subsequent versions they just added a key-combo to simulate the TV-Type switch, which is less than ideal but at least allowed the game to be played.
With the Flashback X, after the success of retro-consoles like the NES classic, they finally redesigned the case to more faithfully mimic the original 2600 and....
WTF!
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So, long story short (too late!), to get good compatibility you need all the console switches just like a real console, and a separate way to access the emulator settings.
If only there was a place where people who are interested about these old consoles reunite and discuss and share knowledge about them, and where companies could ask for advice and suggestions before putting these devices into production...🙄
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6 hours ago, Defender_2600 said:
I was wondering the same things. So this brings us to several important questions about the new cartridges (Berzerk Enhanced and Mr. Run and Jump) and Atari 2600+ consoles for sale in Europe.
- Will the new cartridges sold in Europe be PAL50, PAL60 or NTSC? Or will these new cartridges be region free (as for example the cartridges manufactured by Retro-bit for the NES, SNES and Genesis)?
They are all definitely NTSC only so far. They work fine on the 2600+ but they will display in PAL60 with wrong colors (or no colors, if the scanline count is odd/unstable) on a real PAL 2600 console.
I'd be extremely surprised if Atari would release PAL cartridges, honestly. And multiregion Atari 2600 games cannot exist. The max you can do is to have a game that is switchable between PAL and NTSC using, for example, a console switch(*), but that is to be handled by the game code. Hacking existing/classic games is difficult and requires skills and it's easy to introduce bugs in the process. Another way is just to make every cartridge a "2in1" multicart with both versions selectable by an external switch. Easier to do, but it's not gonna happen (and it would be a cheap solution), IMO.
6 hours ago, Defender_2600 said:- And, will the Atari 2600+ consoles sold in Europe be compatible with PAL50, PAL60 and NTSC cartridges? Or will European consoles only support PAL50 cartridges (which would be a disappointment)?
Stella supports NTSC, PAL and PAL60 (and SECAM😄), and the HDMI output works with all region TVs. So there doesn't need to be a specific European version of the 2600+. And I bet there isn't.
Stella autodetects the format of the game by looking at the framerate (which on a 2600 is coded in the game itself, as the vertical synchronization is under software control) and defaults to NTSC if the game is 60Hz and to PAL if it's 50Hz.
So NTSC and PAL cartridges will work fine on a 2600+. (if they can be dumped, that is)The problem is with PAL60.
PAL60 cannot be autodetected reliably and Stella will default to NTSC (So you'll play the game with wrong colors, because of the different palette between PAL and NTSC TIAs).On the PC version of Stella, for existing games there are properties in the internal database.
For new games it is possible to
- include a property file with the rom itself (they can be in a zip archive together with the rom and you don't need to unpack it to play the game)
- Include the string "PAL60", "PAL-60" and variants in the rom filename.In case the above fails, after starting the game you just hit "TAB", change the format to PAL60 yourself, and the emulator will remember that settings every time you play that game.
On the 2600+, the hash of the game might change in some cases (if the cartridge has ram, for example), which will prevent from recognizing the (existing) game in the internal database.And by dumping the cart, assuming that the dump succeed, you don't get a filename (nor a property file, of course).
So you need a way to access the emulator settings, and it doesn't seem that they included a button to bring up a menu on the console (it would ruin the illusion 😉)For the 7800 side, I guess you also need a way to tell the emulator that you want to emulate a PAL machine in order to play PAL 7800 cartridges. So, again, you'd need a way to access the settings. Or maybe there's a way to tell if a cart is PAL or NTSC from the dump? (I have very limited knowledge/experience with the 7800).
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(*) By including a timer in the cartridge, you can measure the clock frequency of the console and tell if it's PAL and NTSC. This is done in some ARM games (the ARM has its own clock independent from the 2600 one) to automatically switch to the correct format. Of course that doesn't work with a dumper.
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12 minutes ago, Spriggy said:
Really only for Warlords.
Video Olympics has 4-players variations for each of the games. QuadraPong is actually 4-players only.
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Atari acquires AtariAge
in Atari 2600
Posted
I'm happy for Al, and grateful for running the site in all these years and hosting this great community. And I wish him all the best for the future,
But the site being owned by a corporate is incompatible with my idea of this community, and I think after 17 years this is the right time for me to move on.
It's been a ride!