DanBoris
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Posts posted by DanBoris
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8 hours ago, videopac.is@live said:
Maybe this schema can help?
That for the production version of the voice (I actually drew this). It's quite different from what is seen in this version.
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On 4/5/2024 at 2:23 PM, Jess Ragan said:
Dan Boris, Dan Boris... the Odyssey2 emulator guy? Thanks for chiming in, and for your work on that.
I'm aware that the screen on my system is probably borked... that's an inevitability, like caps going bad on a Game Gear. Thing is, my system doesn't do ANYTHING with a fresh battery in it. It doesn't even make sounds! There would at least be audio if it were functioning, right? That's why I'm wondering if it's the cartridge that's the problem. I tested the power switch and that seems to function. It's just that nothing else does.
Yep, that me, still not used to being a "celebrity"
Yeah, it's possible the cartridge went bad, I assume you only have one?
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Are we sure this is an April Fools joke? The game is actually a perfect fit for the graphic capabilities of the O2.
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16 hours ago, Jess Ragan said:
About (counts on fingers) six years ago, I bought a Microvision game system from a thrift store. When I got it home, I discovered to my annoyance that the previous owner had left in a pair of batteries... batteries which dated back to the late 1970s. Uh oh.
I haven't been able to bring the system to life with new batteries. Is it possible that the Microvision is too affected by corrosion to ever work again? Could the cartridge (Vegas Slots) be at fault here? I understand that with this system, the CPU isn't in the Microvision itself, but rather the cartridges.
I'd like to revive this console, but it's pretty primitive. I'm not sure that it would be worth spending all the money I'd throw at it to get it fixed. I'd just like to know if there are any diagnostics I can perform to make sure that it's dead, and if there are any common issues with Microvisions that may prevent it from working... burned out resistors and the like.
The weak link in the Microvision is the display thy go bad a lot. There is a thread here from someone who is doing replacements...
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3 hours ago, Kirkland said:
Continuing on trying to clarify things..
On sections 6-14 and 6-15 at the bottom we get the attached page.
It says to Swap A201/A200/A202.. but then is has NO-> go to Signal Tracing Cartridge, or Yes-> go back to the beginning.
After swapping, shouldn't there be another decision box saying "Does this fix [the problem]?" which would lead to sections D and A, and for this section how would I word that?
Just as "Are gray bars now displayed correctly?" Seems simple, don't want to be incorrect.
I would say something like, "swap A201/A200/A202, testing after each, did this fix the problem?"
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6 hours ago, Kirkland said:
Thanks- these are perfect. Slotted them right into the oscilloscope and audio test pages. I'm still a little dicey on the gray bars/color bars test- I've attached what I currently am using- screen grabs slightly modified from this post..
Still need to figure out better replacements for this page:
Atari 2600 Field Service Manual (USA)_098.tif 413.31 kB · 1 download
Atari 2600 Field Service Manual (USA)_096.tif 1.41 MB · 1 download Atari 2600 Field Service Manual (USA)_047.tif 381.48 kB · 1 download Atari 2600 Field Service Manual (USA)_048.tif 158.81 kB · 1 download Atari 2600 Field Service Manual (USA)_049.tif 353.15 kB · 1 download Atari 2600 Field Service Manual (USA)_050.tif 361.44 kB · 2 downloads Atari 2600 Field Service Manual (USA)_051.tif 566 kB · 1 download
For the STC waveforms I would just use what is already there. Unless someone has that cartridge they will not be able to reproduce those wave forms.
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3 hours ago, Kirkland said:
Dan, thanks for the input. Always helps to have a knowledgeable 2nd set of eyes.
My big fear was bothering to rebuild 172 pages and then have people shrug their shoulders and say, "It's like Jerzy Soboda's stuff- looks good but there are obvious mistakes, so don't use it"
Latest progress attached (made it through the flowcharts of Section 4) 🤯
Cool project, looks good so far. When I do projects like this I do them for myself, and if other get's benefit all the better.
As we can see, original documents can have mistakes, at least with a new version any mistakes that are found can be corrected to make a better document.
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On 3/24/2024 at 11:32 AM, Kirkland said:
More progress, more questions..
From section 4-18:
I'll take a wild stab and say "Check for and repair opens between RF module pin 1 and J101 pins 6 and 10 (ground)."
Yes, that seems right. Both pins 6 and 10 on J101 are ground.
On 3/24/2024 at 11:32 AM, Kirkland said:And then I'm scratching my head a bit at Section 4-21:
At first look, the question on CR200 is asked identically twice in a row. Now is the 2nd one simply a typo and should just be CR201? (Which is what I think is correct)
OR, (and I'll show my ignorance to subject material here)
After replacing the defective CR200, should it be re-checked, and it there is still a signal, the CR201 is then defective.
but I feel that the lower left "open or shorted trace to diodes" would catch that. And an extra step like the above should have been mapped appropriately, which is why I lean towards just typo.
I think the second block should be CR201, but I also think the yes and no are reversed. If CR200 was for example shorted, it would pull the cathode to ground so you wouldn't get a signal. So if there is No signal it is defective. Same with the second block.
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On 3/22/2024 at 9:06 AM, Kirkland said:
Ok, some questions for the experts while I'm muddling through all these flowcharts:
1) On section 6-26 of the Atari 2600 FSM, is the 2nd box supposed to be: "Is there -5v at one end" or "Is there +5v at one end"?
Even with my better scan I'm not entirely sure if it's -5v or +5v.
Looks like a mistake, it should be +5v.
On 3/22/2024 at 9:06 AM, Kirkland said:2) Which is the most correct way to label the Φ0 and Φ2? I assume #1, but my last electrical engineering work was 30 years ago.
#1 is ok. This signal would be pronounced "Phase zero", do you have the Greek letter Phi and then the number zero.
On 3/22/2024 at 9:06 AM, Kirkland said:3) Next questions refer to next/attached image from section 4-7:
3a) Ok, same sorta deal with 0v.. Any complaints about my slashed zero volt in yellow on the right side?
Slashed zero is fine, but not really needed since it's unlikely to be confused with a letter O.
On 3/22/2024 at 9:06 AM, Kirkland said:3b) middle box: "Is there an open between J201".. should that be "Is there an open trace between J201"? Unless something else would make it open?? The resolution is to "Repair open trace"
so that seems more fitting.
Doesn't really matter but "Is there an open" is proper terminology.
On 3/22/2024 at 9:06 AM, Kirkland said:3c) Can anyone explain the reference for "I" in the middle? No other flowchart references it as far as I can tell. Section 4-8 is "H", section 4-9 is "J".
Should the "G" in the lower left corner actually be an "I"? Or should that step truly take you back to identifying bad switchboard/motherboard instead of where "I" is?
And if "I" is really a starting point, it wouldn't need a page number- which is why I'm confused.
Looks like a mistake, I don't see why you would jump back to the point in the troubleshooting.
On 3/22/2024 at 9:06 AM, Kirkland said:3d) Similarly, is it proper/OK to have two arrows pointing to "A" like I have in blue on the lower right?
Typically, the arrows will run to an existing connection (like the original on the left side) with only one terminating at a symbol.
And if it is OK to have two results hit the same symbol, should I tighten up the arrows to the box for "Swapout A200-A202"
I'm thinking no, but I'm asking for clarification.
Looks like they always tried to have everything that goes back to A be joined to a single A node unless it has to cross another line. Sort makes sense since A is start back the start.
On 3/22/2024 at 9:06 AM, Kirkland said:3e) Yeah, I know referring to other sections should be using the "home plate" symbol instead of a circle. I'm just trying to maintain some look & feel of the original.
** Anyone with an oscilloscope willing to take some pictures of their screens to match what is shown on sections 4-44 and 4-46?
Thanks in advance for assisting.
I could take a shot that.
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19 hours ago, pboland said:
But some characters can overlap. Killer Bees is a great example of this. The beebots were made using two different standard characters overlapping. I don't know how it was done (I'm not a programmer) but, I remember reading about this "trick".
I will have to look into that one. My assumption is the "corruption" that occurs when you overlap characters is predictable so certain interactions may be useful. Someone actually created a utility to figure this sort of thing out.
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17 hours ago, Kurt_Woloch said:
Yes, indeed, it does. But I've noticed something interesting with the fuse in this game... if you set a bomb to the right of a wall, the fuse forms a black rectangle which will obstruct the right part of the wall. I don't know why this happens... could this be one of the limitations of the VDC, such as if you put two characters next to each other, they just won't overlap, but the whole 8-pixel rectangle of one character will obstruct the other one? Is that how it works? If so, this would also prevent multiple dots in different colors from being set next to each other to form a background. Instead, they would have to be at least 8 pixels apart in order to fully appear on screen.
If two characters are touching, even if the pixels are blank, it will mess up the character graphic.
I would like to play around with that interaction some more to see if I can figure out how the VDC hardware handles this and maybe even find a way to emulate it. Internally graphics data has to move into a shift register so it can get clocked out onto the screen one pixel at a time. Since sprites can overlap each other, there is likely one shift register for each sprite. With the characters, my assumption is that there is a single shift register that is why characters cannot overlap.
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1 hour ago, johannesmutlu said:
so it says that 4 8x8 sprites are definible by the user does it mean that the user could create their own sprites without having to rely on it’s internal 64 character set???it also says 12 8x8 chraracters in single color wich must be one of those 64 shapes inside that bios as well as being able to stack 4 quad characters next to each on a row,
It also talks about 8x8 background grid,dots,lines,solid blocks etc,,,
wich makes me wonder are characters and sprites the same thing or is it something different from each other in this case???
if sprites and characters means the same thing,then i conclude that the O2 is technically just a dead on a rival system with no way of doing famcy tricks to get around those graphical restrictions but who knows,
anyway thanks alot for testing this out now i know the hard truth about the O2 in wich in my opinion shouldn’t,ve be that restrictive,wich is a huge shame,now if it was just an exercising game developing program (for whether system) to let users learn how to make their own games,or if it is a console with builtin games, then i can respect and accept that such limited 64 character set inside it,but why making a cartride based ‘hybrid’ console with such graphical restrictions to not allow programmers costumize their own graphics, is just waaay beyond me,even the not less powerful channel f from 1976 wich came 2 years earlier then the O2,did gave you more freedom,
But still,am curious about whether sprites/characters are costumizible on the O2 or if they have to rely on the same 64 tile sets from the O2,
but again thanks alot for testing it out,i definitely appreciate that👍
Sprite and characters are different things. Sprites have a user definable shape and can overlap any other object on the screen, sprite of characters. Characters have to come from the internal character set and can not overlap other characters. The O2 clearly wasn't "dead on arrival" since it has a good sized library of decent games. It was not as flexible as the 2600 but the programmers managed to do some cool stuff with the hardware. The Channel F did have more flexible graphics, but it O2 had a higher resolution and a little more color flexibility. The Channel F also has a pure bit-mapped display so the CPU had to do all the drawing work which would have made if difficult to go more complex arcade style games like the O2 did.
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On 2/12/2024 at 7:59 PM, johannesmutlu said:
Can’t wait to hear about those end results some day👍
I did verify on the actual hardware that if two characters overlap, even overlapping blank pixels, you get strange results. Here is a picture of what happens when I try to put two character 27s right next to each other. You can see one on the left but the other becomes garbage.
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6 hours ago, atari2600land said:
It's not 4 8x8 sprites per scan line, it's 4 8x8 sprites on the whole screen.
Yes, but you can re-use a sprite as you go down the screen so you can have more the 4 moving sprite objects.
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1 hour ago, johannesmutlu said:
WoooW if that’s true then more could be done on the O2 in terms of sprites,so instead of using that man,tree or letter or number like many O2 games do,they should from now on costumize their own sprites once making/porting games to the O2,for instance ,imagine an improved version of popeye on the O2 with all the levels along with all the costumized sprites for it because that would be great,so let a homebrewer stand up for doing this😁
There are only four 8x8, one color sprites. You could stretch them by reusing the down the screen, but you couldn't have more then four on a single line.
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16 hours ago, johannesmutlu said:
Yes they are sprites,but since those sprites are not inside that 64 character set,i need to know from somebody how they were actually done.
Sprite shapes are custom defined, they don't come from the internal character set.
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21 minutes ago, johannesmutlu said:
How did you designed those crabs,did you used dot tile 27 and stack them on top of each othet or did you just used pixel art??
i ask this because as far as i do know you can only choose between 64 tiles inside the odyssey 2 for both sprites and backgrounds,and while those tiles are allowed to overlap on top of each other for sprites BUT not for backgrounds,so am really curious how those was done,also since the odyssey cannot flip sprites ,you have to reverse those commando signals to reverse an sprite i suppose,right?
I am not the author but I assume they are just sprites.
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1 hour ago, R.Cade said:
As I understand it, the O2 is built from "off the shelf" chips made for video game companies. For this reason, the specs were the specs.
Blame Intel.
No, this is not true. The chip that does the audio and video was custom designed by Intel for Magnavox. Good article about that here:
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=5223987
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1 hour ago, johannesmutlu said:
It was. Forward for it’s time with it’s builtin keyboard along with education stuff in mind aside from being a game console,BUT personally they should,ve added atleast a bitmap mode sothat that dot tile 27 could,ve be placed next to each other to create your own background that way just like the commodore pet or trs80 etc,,,,
it’s just too bad that there isn’t any free mode like the intelevision does have,
now if we ever want to the O2 into a serious business computer system,well how about a word prpgram wich you could save,store and print stuff with it just like ms basic for the videopac+ BUT in this case for the O2 to do more with it then only playing games or doing educational stuff with it because it derserve it,so let’s just hope for more😁
Adding a bit mapped mode would have required a lot of extra RAM which was very expensive at the time.
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18 hours ago, johannesmutlu said:
/magnovox/philips should,ve never decided to implement a limited character set inside the odyssey2 but if they wanted per se a character set builtin,then they should,ve added a free mode option to allow game developers costumize their own tile sets for their games,wich they sadly just didn’t🥲
It's easy to say this in hindsight, but at the time their design decision probably made more sense. This system went into development in probably early 1977 if not late 1976. The console industry, including Magnavox's own products, was all dedicated consoles playing pretty simple games and the 2600 was still close to a year away from release. The O2 even with it's limitations, was a major leap forward for their product line.
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1 hour ago, Flojomojo said:
Seems weird to see hand-written labels on a mass-production game console, right? Maybe it was someone's amateur hobby project to modify the innards.
This is definitely not a production unit. The board is made by General Instruments who made the voice synth chips. The production unit used serial ROMs for the voice data which would be difficult to use during development, so this board allows you to use stock EPROMS instead. Games could also contain additional voice roms in the cartridge so this may be been used to develop new voice games.
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1 hour ago, johannesmutlu said:
If that’s the case with a background,then we might could try do such trick with sprites (since sprites are allowed to be overlapped over each other) and emulate a background with it with desired shapes,by alternating trough different sprites per frame in order to virtually fill up the screen,since the
O2 could only view 4x 8 by 8 sprites atonce,it may result in huge flicker it should give us hopefully more freedom that way,right?
I really need to get my O2 development system set back up so I can test some of these ideas.
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2 hours ago, johannesmutlu said:
Interesting,if it is true, that’s that portions of each bg character set can be displayed by using the scan line trick,sothat even if those bg tile sets are not allowed to be overlapped on top of each other,we still might could just create all kinds of shapes that way,
so if we take for example tile 2F wich is a square tile,we could view different portions of that block per scan line and per different positions of each block (thus basically turning on or off each pixel from that tile block)we could create all kinds of shaped albeit somewhat monochrome,but it’s better then nothing i suppose as it could give us atleast more freedom to create what we want,even if the cou isn’t up to the task,an external power powerful cpu could take over the main cpu and do all that dirtt task😁
but now on,it’s just a theory,if only a homebrewer will stand up and port certain games to if wich makes use of this scan line trick to create all kinds of shapes with it,would be great.
You might be able to change the image from scanline to scanline, but it's unlikely you could change it on a single line. The hardware probably works by loading the bit pattern for each character line into a shift register which is then shifted out into the video signal. If that is the case then once the character has started to be drawn you wouldn't be able to change it.
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18 minutes ago, Doc4 said:
I didn't open the Voice Module, everything in the images is in the main Odyssey2 body. There does appear to be something in the Voice Module though.
The board with the ROMS has pretty much all the voice circuitry. The SP0256 is the voice synthesize chip, and the ROMS hold the voice data. The other large is a parallel to serial converter which is needed to convert the eprom data into a serial interface that the SP0256 uses. The production version uses serial ROMS so doesn't need that chip and takes up less space. The other board in the case appears to be a voltage regulator that is being used to power the voice board. The only thing that is missing is the audio amplifier. If the PCB is still in the voice module it might be using the one in there.
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Odyssey Vault Cartridge
in Odyssey 2 / Videopac
Posted
Looks great, what emulator are you using?