[Flashback Portable VS GamePort ?]

Thanks for the input.

[New Nintendo DS: the "DSi"]

My opinions and personal questions on the DSi. These are simply rhetorical, and do not need answering. I would even consider them predictions without straight answers.

 

1. Loss of GBA bad is bad.
   
2. Gaining SD slot is good
   
3. Having the Virtual Console is "eh" with me as I can already emulate with Flash cards like Games N Music
   
4. The camera? Come on! I am camera-fied out! I have a digital camera, a Digital video camera, and a camera phone. My game system does NOT need a camera.
   
5. SD cards may offer the ability to open the doors to homebrew wider. Especially if data transfer rates are fast.
   
6. The new "features" have already been seen and done. Browser? I don't want to surf a water downed internet. I do that enough with my cell phone and Palm TX
   
7. Bigger screen...barely. The DS Lite has a 3 in screen, where the DSi will have a 3.25in screen. Whoohoo...
   
8. Smaller size? Barely. It is millimeters thinner.
   
9. DSWares shop? Could be promising for opening up downloadable content for future games.
   
10. Is Nintendo going to end up forcing current DS Lite owners to "upgrade" in order to take advantage of the Shop, if some games come out "requiring"it? Give us some sort of GBA slot cart that can substitute the need of an SD card!
    
11. What will the lack of the GBA port do to some of the Game Makers with their titles, such as Guitar Hero? Are they going to just abandon the DS?
    

 

I have a decent NES emu, ColecoVision Emu, Atari 2600 and 800xl emu, and a GB/GBC emu all on my DS Lite via the Games n Music card. Unless this virtual console delivers titles for the TG-16, Genesis, SNES, and other such consoles with perfect emulation, then why bother? The route is easier and much cheaper.

[Flashback Portable VS GamePort ?]

The closest I have come to a portable Atari 2600 is the DS emulator based on Stella (which doesn't work all to well thanks the menu unable to support long name rom files, and with the rom collection I have, I do NOT want to rename them all!).

I just wanted to comment on this. I'm not sure of the reasoning for not wanting to rename the ROMs. If it's because it would take too long to manually do it, then be aware that there's a ROM renamer built into the latest versions of Stella that can do that automatically. Of course, if there isn't a technical reason for wanting to keep the long names, then Stella is inadequate for showing them at this point.

 

I actually decided to go back and create a new folder that I re-labeled all of my atari 2600 roms to a shorter, yet identifiable name. The emulator has a bit of slow down, which is sad considering the DS is a significantly more powerful system than the 2600 was. However, the games are still very playable. It is a nice twist as a way to have 2600 games on the go. Now if only there was 5200 and 7800 support.

 

There is atari 800xl emulation for DS by the way. Alekmaul did a fine job, and I strongly recommend it. Closet I will come to an atari xl laptop LOL, games work very well, however, sound is a bit "off". Again, very playable and enjoyable.

 

For colecovision fans, Alekmaul also has a ColecoVision emu for DS. From what I can tell, the games work beautifully, as I have not encountered any real issues. He even emulated the keypad on the bottom touch screen!

 

In order to use these emulators, you need a DS flash card. You can get one from most stores in the Form of the Games n Music card by Datel. It is the cheapest out there, but far from the best. I would recommend CycloDS. But if you do some research, you could find one you like more. All seem to use the MicroSD card standard.

[kat5200 build testing]

Sad to say, it didn't work in Vista at all. Said that it failed to load the Side-by-Side configuration file. Considering I love the version I have...version 0.4.0, which I am behind the times obviously...I am anxious to see the finished product. In my opinion, the best 5200 specific emulator out there.

[Why is Rampage popular?]

For me, it is the simplicity of the game. My 8 yr old Son, my 6 yr old daughter, and myself can sit down and just go all out and have family fun time without complicated controls. This is a party game. Definitely not a single player game. Granted, it can kill time when bored, but the real fun is when playing against others.

[Atari Club membership card]

I saw it once in a google image search, and just can not find it for the life of me. If anyone has a scan of the Atari Club membership card, or whatever it was called officially, please direct me to a link, or just reply here. I would like to have an image of one. Thanks.

[MyAtari Social Network]

For all the Atari fan boys and girl, I created a social networking site for us! Granted, it also is about retro gaming, but its main focus is on all things Atari. I am inviting everyone to come on over, check it out and join in.

 

Now, don't get me wrong. I am not trying to steal AtariAge's thunder. Especially since I adore this site and have a very special place in my heart for it. I always will. I just want to give retro gamers a place to go, have fun, trade, and experience. My profile is up and available to view if you want to see how a profile looks.

 

Here is profile - http://myatari.ning.com/profile­/EricTSchuetz

 

So, come one, come all!

[Flashback Portable VS GamePort ?]

Nevermind, I guess. It seems I found my answers.

 

Below is quoted from 2007 in regards to the Portable Atari Flashback system. Now, as a huge Atari Fanboy, I was wondering if this will ever be a reality? Obviously, a full year+ has passed and not a word more has been released. Can anyone give me more input on this device? Is it actually available anywhere? Did it become vaporware? I just recently was given an Atari Flashback 2 and love it. It is a wonderful addition to my overall Atari Collection (which includes a VCS CX2600 Sunnyvale Edition, 4 port 5200, ver. 3 7800, Jaguar, and Lynx II). The closest I have come to a portable Atari 2600 is the DS emulator based on Stella (which doesn't work all to well thanks the menu unable to support long name rom files, and with the rom collection I have, I do NOT want to rename them all!).

 

Thanks for the help on this one folks.

 

 

Hi,

I am involved with the project and will bring up a few answers here.

 

The first thing is that due to quite complicated circumpstances, the web site and everything that goes with it went live much earlier than expected and a lot of information is still not on it, this will come.

 

The plastic case was also a preliminary test, it was designed and made in a matter of days for a TV appearance and the proper one is currently being worked on; rest assured it doesn't look like a Gameboy, you will see that the design is surprisingly small.

 

To clear the legal aspect, copying roms you own is not legal in the US, this has been tried in court already; however there is a lot of legitimate use to the product as well, which makes it legal; even under the new law proposal. Now, I am not going to get into the ethics of things (VCRs and MP3 players would be the first guilty devices); if you want to buy again the software you bought 25 years ago, go ahead.

 

The system uses a CPU and a FPGA; the game systems run on the FPGA, the CPU is there mostly to assist with the I/O, setup, etc, although this is not an obligation.

We are not really competing with Curt's portable system; he has a product that caters to the 2600 crowd and I am sure he will take care of the details that matter to the community. We are into the 80s, the 2600 is only one of the platforms supported and we are making decisions based on numerous consoles, therefore we will not address wish lists at the same level of detail as he does.

The GamePort runs literally thousands of games, it is a very different product with different constraints as well.

 

Because we are on AtariAge.com, I can address the 2600 specifics:

The first thing is that the reproduction of the 2600 is as perfect as it can get. There is only one difference in the CPU (I will cover it later). At any time, the values on the bus are identical as the ones for a real machine; we had the 2600 hooked to a logic analyzer, it is a perfect reproduction.

There is NO software emulation for the 2600 BUT for the paddles.

All the known bankswitching modes are supported but the Arcadia/Starpath. This includes fancy cartridges like BurgerTime, etc. For the Starpath games, they can be made to run, but no logic was ever put in the menu system to address the loading of the next part. We document the menu system hardware, so if someone feels like it, it is possible to implement.

Before someone asks: yes, Pitfall II runs. So do GI Joe and Cosmic Ark; and this involves no hacks of any sort, just fidelity to the original.

The 2600 games are not run from storage memory, they are copied to the main RAM, then flags are set to determine the mode in use; Pitfall II and Burgertime have their own modes; Pitfall II has additional logic and BurgerTime a unique bank switching system if I recall correctly.

This brings me to the CPU's difference, one (originally illegal) opcode was changed: the 6507 has two set of registers; execution of that instruction toggles the set in use and, while one set points to the 2600's context, the second one can access the 2600's ram and storage memory in the menu system. one the second context, the CPU runs at 4x the speed but there are a few caveats as this was used primarily to interface with the menu. But this allows things such as unlimited lives (you can lock a certain number of memory addresses) or any kind of cheats.

There is a screen overlay system used for all consoles to emulate the keypads; Due to the nature of the 2600, there is no way to pause a game and keep the display active, so when used the background of the screen goes black. On most other systems, the background just dims and the game is frozen while you do your selection.

 

The video output is very clean with a 12 bit R-2R DAC; while the sound system is stereo, it doesn't affect the 2600 as both channels output the same for this system. The audio output is a 1-bit sigma delta DAC at 28mhz.

 

The tools will be open source; they are currently written for Windows (VC++), so if there are people interested to do Linux/Mac ports, you can contact one of us on the site. We did not invest much time on the software side, most of the tools are pure command line so far. Same for the menu system in the GamePort, it has similar specs as the SNES for the video and plays samples like the Amiga for the audio, yet the menus are simple text mode with no sound for now, this will eventually change.

 

We originally announced the 2600 and Coleco/MSX as those cleared legal hurdles easily; Things are changing very fast; some systems will never be made, such as the Vectrex due to their architecture, but most of the 80s will be there!

 

We are going to set up a Q&A bulletin board on the website and a mailing list for those that want to be updated with the release date, etc. (target is for fall)

[Flashback Portable VS GamePort ?]

Below is quoted from 2007 in regards to the Portable Atari Flashback system. Now, as a huge Atari Fanboy, I was wondering if this will ever be a reality? Obviously, a full year+ has passed and not a word more has been released. Can anyone give me more input on this device? Is it actually available anywhere? Did it become vaporware? I just recently was given an Atari Flashback 2 and love it. It is a wonderful addition to my overall Atari Collection (which includes a VCS CX2600 Sunnyvale Edition, 4 port 5200, ver. 3 7800, Jaguar, and Lynx II). The closest I have come to a portable Atari 2600 is the DS emulator based on Stella (which doesn't work all to well thanks the menu unable to support long name rom files, and with the rom collection I have, I do NOT want to rename them all!).

 

Thanks for the help on this one folks.

 

 

Hi,

I am involved with the project and will bring up a few answers here.

 

The first thing is that due to quite complicated circumpstances, the web site and everything that goes with it went live much earlier than expected and a lot of information is still not on it, this will come.

 

The plastic case was also a preliminary test, it was designed and made in a matter of days for a TV appearance and the proper one is currently being worked on; rest assured it doesn't look like a Gameboy, you will see that the design is surprisingly small.

 

To clear the legal aspect, copying roms you own is not legal in the US, this has been tried in court already; however there is a lot of legitimate use to the product as well, which makes it legal; even under the new law proposal. Now, I am not going to get into the ethics of things (VCRs and MP3 players would be the first guilty devices); if you want to buy again the software you bought 25 years ago, go ahead.

 

The system uses a CPU and a FPGA; the game systems run on the FPGA, the CPU is there mostly to assist with the I/O, setup, etc, although this is not an obligation.

We are not really competing with Curt's portable system; he has a product that caters to the 2600 crowd and I am sure he will take care of the details that matter to the community. We are into the 80s, the 2600 is only one of the platforms supported and we are making decisions based on numerous consoles, therefore we will not address wish lists at the same level of detail as he does.

The GamePort runs literally thousands of games, it is a very different product with different constraints as well.

 

Because we are on AtariAge.com, I can address the 2600 specifics:

The first thing is that the reproduction of the 2600 is as perfect as it can get. There is only one difference in the CPU (I will cover it later). At any time, the values on the bus are identical as the ones for a real machine; we had the 2600 hooked to a logic analyzer, it is a perfect reproduction.

There is NO software emulation for the 2600 BUT for the paddles.

All the known bankswitching modes are supported but the Arcadia/Starpath. This includes fancy cartridges like BurgerTime, etc. For the Starpath games, they can be made to run, but no logic was ever put in the menu system to address the loading of the next part. We document the menu system hardware, so if someone feels like it, it is possible to implement.

Before someone asks: yes, Pitfall II runs. So do GI Joe and Cosmic Ark; and this involves no hacks of any sort, just fidelity to the original.

The 2600 games are not run from storage memory, they are copied to the main RAM, then flags are set to determine the mode in use; Pitfall II and Burgertime have their own modes; Pitfall II has additional logic and BurgerTime a unique bank switching system if I recall correctly.

This brings me to the CPU's difference, one (originally illegal) opcode was changed: the 6507 has two set of registers; execution of that instruction toggles the set in use and, while one set points to the 2600's context, the second one can access the 2600's ram and storage memory in the menu system. one the second context, the CPU runs at 4x the speed but there are a few caveats as this was used primarily to interface with the menu. But this allows things such as unlimited lives (you can lock a certain number of memory addresses) or any kind of cheats.

There is a screen overlay system used for all consoles to emulate the keypads; Due to the nature of the 2600, there is no way to pause a game and keep the display active, so when used the background of the screen goes black. On most other systems, the background just dims and the game is frozen while you do your selection.

 

The video output is very clean with a 12 bit R-2R DAC; while the sound system is stereo, it doesn't affect the 2600 as both channels output the same for this system. The audio output is a 1-bit sigma delta DAC at 28mhz.

 

The tools will be open source; they are currently written for Windows (VC++), so if there are people interested to do Linux/Mac ports, you can contact one of us on the site. We did not invest much time on the software side, most of the tools are pure command line so far. Same for the menu system in the GamePort, it has similar specs as the SNES for the video and plays samples like the Amiga for the audio, yet the menus are simple text mode with no sound for now, this will eventually change.

 

We originally announced the 2600 and Coleco/MSX as those cleared legal hurdles easily; Things are changing very fast; some systems will never be made, such as the Vectrex due to their architecture, but most of the 80s will be there!

 

We are going to set up a Q&A bulletin board on the website and a mailing list for those that want to be updated with the release date, etc. (target is for fall)