Draugr

I'm building a Raspberry Pi image for my Ultimate Atari Flashback project. I had an idea to make a folder with all the arcade ports released on the 2600 (Defender, Ms. Pac-Man, etc...). I then wondered if it might be possible to somehow save high scores for these games so when I go back to play the same game next time, my previous High Score would still be showing. I know the games themselves can't do this, but that is when I thought about the emulator (Stella). Perhaps it has some ability to store the high score data similar to how MAME did it for arcade games (via a high score text file per game. Ex: dkong.hs). I know you could probably set Stella to save a snapshot on exit, then auto load that next time the game is started, but that can get messy. For example when you exit the game in the middle of a play. The next time you'd launch that same game, you'd be back at that same point in the middle of the previous play, not at the start screen, or title screen as normal. Anyhow, I'm not aware if it is possible, but it would be great if there was some way to store high score files or data automatically for games like Defender, Kangaroo, Gyruss, Popeye, Missile Command, etc. If anyone has any info or knows of a way to achieve this, please let me know. Thanks, John

Just stumbled upon this thread. Can't wait to see this completed. I loved the 5200 release which I picked up as soon as it went on sale. I'd do the same for this version as well! Any further progress since December?

Double Post

This looks great. I'll definitely be checking it out once I finish up my Ultimate Atari Flashback project. Question, I see mention above about having the paddle fix for 2600. Does this mean the game currently, doesn't use the paddles?

Guess I'm a little late to this party. I just saw this thread while reading through the Intellivision Ultimate Flashback thread. I have one quick question. Is there any preference regarding which model of the Atari FB we use? I have 1-5 and can get 6 or 7 if necessary. Thanks, John

I can't wait for this release.

Baaa....BOOM!

Thanks for the info everyone. I'm a step closer to getting the TC. Having a good Atari 8-bit core makes the choice to purchase the TC that much easier.

Hi folks. I'm thinking of getting the Turbo Chameleon from icomp.de. Obviously I'm interested in it for the C64 core, but for the price I was hoping for more and see it also supports a few other cores one of which is the Atari 800/XL. Does anyone here have a TC and have you tried the 800/XL core? If so how close to using the real thing is the 800/XL core? I guess I mean how complete is it? I assume you can mount cart and disk images to load, but is there support for Atarimax Flash Carts, SIDE2, U1MB, etc... Also how is the implementation of the actual system? Is it on a level similar to the completeness of the C64 core, or is there still alot of work to be done? If the Atari 800/XL core is far enough along and usable that would make my choice of picking up the TC a lot easier. Any info is appreciated. John

I dug out my 600XL and XEGS yesterday and find out that I have to send both my U1MB boards to Lotharek to be updated as they apparently have very old firmware or chip data. My SIDE2 cart was not allowing me to mount .atr files. Anyhow, so now that I am without a working physical system, I turned to emulation until my boards will return to me. I have a few questions that I hope some of you might be able to answer. I am using Altirra 2.70 64-bit I'd like to know how I can use Altirra to emulate the U1MB and SIDE2 features so that Altirra emulates my physical setups that I had before dismantling the U1MB boards to ship to Lotharek. Is this possible? I already copied over all the data on my CF card that is in my SIDE2 cart and have it on my local PC. If anyone can let me know how I can setup Altirra to emulate the U1MB and SIDE2 loader, I would truly appreciate it. Thanks, John

Hi everyone. I'm hoping some of you might be able to answer a question for me regarding disks and the Atari 400/800/XL/XE system. Back in the day I had a Commodore 64 and didn't get an Atari 8-bit until the early to mid 90s when a friend in college sold me his 130XE and disk drive. I remember thinking "What the hell did I miss back in the 80s?" Now, I'm not saying I wish I had an Atari 800 over a C64, but I was shocked to see how great the Atari computers were and had I known about them back in the 80s I would have done my best to have gotten a 800 or XL/XE to go along with my C64. For some reason everyone I knew in school and who I traded games with, hung out with, etc... had Commodore 64s, and one or two had a Crapple II, but no one ever had an Atari 8-bit hence why I had no real clue about the wonderful Atari 8-bits until I entered college and made some new friends who lived in different areas than myself. Anyhow, enough of my history... My question has to do with multi disk or side games and the Atari computers. On the C64 many games were multi disk or multi-sided. Unlike MS-DOS on a PC you couldn't simply use a hard disk on the C64 (CMD HD for example), create a partition, then a folder and dump the contents of a multi-disk/side game into the single folder on the hard disk. When the game came to a point where a swap was needed it would read a header to make sure the proper side was inserted in the drive. This wasn't possible if the contents were all in a single folder on a hard disk. What I wanted to ask is if there is a similar rule on the Atari computers? Essentially, are Atari multi-disk/side games like the C64 where you cannot simply copy all the contents of all disk sides into a single folder on a hard disk and have the game work, or is the Atari closer to an old DOS PC where you could typically just copy the data from all the diskettes into a single folder on a hard drive and have the game work fine. Any info is appreciated. John

Thanks, that must be where I saw mention of fixing the flickering.

I saw a mentioning of this a while back when reading through a bunch of websites about emulationStation, RetroPi, JZINTV, etc... but I cannot find the information anymore. Basically on my Raspberry Pi using the latest version of JZINTV certain games have an issue where sprites disappear and reappear every few seconds. I'd say its like flickering. D2K does it a lot to the point where you lose sight of the barrels, hot pies and flameballs. Anyhow, I remember reading that there was a setting or option to correct these issues, I just can't find that info anymore and don't know what to do to resolve this issue. Can anyone point me to any information or tell me how to resolve this issue on the Raspberry Pi? Thanks in advance. John

Ha! Thats a first. When I was younger people always told me I looked like James Hetfield (especially with my long hair) even though I never saw it.

I ordered mine (4 controllers) that first day and they arrived on Monday. Check that. I ordered my 4 controllers on Thursday the 25th and got them Tuesday the 29th according to the tracking info I just checked. I could swear it was Monday though. Either way, was a quick turn around time.

I actually thought these games on the CV like other systems (Ex: Atari 2600, 7800, etc...) were legally licensed. I mean I'm surprised this hasn't come to a stop years ago if the new homebrew releases built on popular arcade games, etc weren't licensed as I'm sure these companies must have some clue as to what is going on. I always figured that is why these games sell for full game prices (aka $50-$60, etc...). I thought the licensing was what probably cost the most and thus caused the prices to be what they typically are. Anyhow, for now I'm going to look for OPCODE's SGM, no need for the speech chip on this other SGM module if there are no games supporting it.

How? By alerting the companies to illegal activity? Won't they (Namco, etc...) support Collectorvision and Team Pixelboy who as far as I understand are the licensed developers of these games for the CV or am I missing something?

You know I've been reading through this thread and I'm glad I did as I was going to buy his SGM module. Regarding his illegal selling of Collectorvision and Pixel Boys games I think we should go one step further than notifying eBay. Why not notify the official IP holders such as Namco, etc... Let them know this guy is selling illegal CV copies of their property. I'm sure they will be interested in knowing this and then contact eBay which I'm sure eBay will act much faster if it hears from a major publisher/developer, especially since the games are illegal copies. Then the companies can go after juice personally as well for creating these illegal versions or copies of their IP. Just a thought.

Dragonstomper was a KILLER RPG on the 2600. My brother & I played it many times back in the day and I still play it on the emulators. If there was an Atari 800 or 8-bit release, I'd love to see it.

Is the only difference between the FB 6 and FB 6 Deluxe just the paddle controllers? If the difference is only the paddles will the regular FB 6 games work with the paddles if a set is purchased separately from the AtGames website or are the games controlled or programmed differently on the paddle-less FB 6 than on the deluxe version? Thanks, John

I agree totally and really respect Intellivision Productions for how they work for/with the community. I too would love to see more like this on the CV side. I also immensely appreciate companies like AtGames in bringing these retro units to the masses, even though for the most part I have the original units, I still pick them all up. I like the fact that companies like AtGames make it possible for newer generations to get a taste of what we all experienced first hand. My niece will be 5 next month yet last summer I had her over and we played MAME games on my arcade cabinet. She was so excited playing and I was amazed how a 4 yr old could actually do pretty good with the joystick control. Next visit I'll be showing her the 2600 and Colecovision and the great video games we had as kids. If she really enjoys it I may get her the Atari Flashback 6. John

I knew that would happen hence why I grabbed 4 before it was sold out. Regarding the number of controllers they had made or available for sale, it makes me think it could have been 1 of 2 possibilities. 1. They produced a small supply not sure how popular they would be to the overall Inty community or 2. If the Flashback did not sell as well as expected they may have had crates and crates of stock sitting around and figured they could make at least some of the money back by separating the controllers from the complete Flashback systems and selling them individually to the Inty community for their Flashbacks, emulators like the Ultimate Flashback mod, and of course to those who would like to get them for their original units with the adapter cables. Those are the two thoughts that just came to mind, nothing factual, just an assumption.

ouch that sux!

Maybe no plans at AtGames, but at least Intellivision Productions answered the call! I'm just glad they are available now!

I just ordered 4 and it went through