Atari A/V mod update

[Atari A/V mod update]

In my talks with Longhorn about circuit design, I identified three resistors that IMHO would be better replaced with pots. Two of them are to deal with differences between the 2600, 5200, and 7800. The remaining one needs to be very precise. Longhorn says that this would put people off having to do such adjustments. I say that if someone's keen enough to install one of these things, that someone should be just fine with adjusting some pots, particularly if the instructions are "set it to the middle and wiggle it around until the picture looks right". Opinions?

[Atari A/V mod update]

Here's Longhorn's circuit with the resistors mounted vertically. The resulting board is 2 inches by 1.5 inches. That should be small enough to tuck into a Jr.

[Atari A/V mod update]

Just for fun, here's a layout I did from Longhorn's schematics. The board is a bit smaller than his and could be a bit smaller still if the resistors are mounted vertically. Is there enough vertical clearance in a Jr to do that?

[Atari A/V mod update]

I still have to clean up the boards silk screen as it would be very hard to read all that mess.

 

It's not clear to me what's going on at R6 and R11. Are those ranges of values? Perhaps trimmers should go there?

 

Are you sure that C9 should be unpolarized?

[Atari A/V mod update]

Thanks for the files, as it forced me to upgrade Eagle to open them, and I found that Eagle 5 is so much nicer!

 

It looks great except for one little thing - you've got a surface mount component on the board, which makes it so I cannot actually build one of these.

 

I realize it's a very important component that is not available in a through-hole package, but it does beg the question: if you have one SMT device, you might as well make the whole board SMT and have them assembled, as most of us cannot actually solder SMT so it doesn't make much sense to sell a board that we can only make 95% complete. That is, unless you are a soldering wizard and will sell the boards with the SMT device already on.

 

As SMTs go, a SOIC is by far one of the easiest to solder. Wipe off most of the solder from the iron and tack down a corner pin. Move the opposite corner pin into position and tack that down too. The rest of the pins should now be aligned. I can deal with a single SMT.

[CPUWIZ]

What's wrong with atariservice.com? Every time I've viewed it (for the past couple months) it's "Down for Maintenance".

[Adventure II for 2600]

The way I did mazes in 5200 AdvII, I had North/South/East/West tables. Screen 4 for example is the first kingdom Castle screen. It leads south to screen 7, and has null values in its N/E/W table entries ($FF literally) which means you can't go that direction from that screen.

 

I stored A and B versions of the hedge mazes in 5200 RAM (which the 2600 doesn't have nearly as much of course). When the minotaur shifts the maze by touching you, I change the pointer to point from the A maze to the B maze. Lighting fast because I am not really checking each screen change which maze I'm on. The pointer handles that. 2600 has less RAM, but there'd probably be less screens too.

 

So there are only two possible hedge maze layouts? That simplifies things. Has anyone recently done anything with 2600 carts that carry their own RAM?

[Adventure II for 2600]

If recursion is available to the 2600 programmer (I don't know if it is), then solvable mazes can easily be generated on the fly with minimal memory usage. There's a very old X11 graphics demo that does this.

[Adventure II for 2600]

There are hedge mazes that have a minotaur patrolling them. If the minotaur catches you, you are ejected from the maze and the hedge maze changes to a different configuration. I'm sure it's doable but not by me.

 

I'd handle that by having several different configurations of hedge mazes. Upon passing some tripwire point just before entering, a random configuration is loaded. That's how I handle a lot of randomized things in Inform games. Given the huge amounts of memory one can command nowadays on the 2600, that should be easily doable.

[Anyone have this rare item?]

Funny that Foghat would pop up here... I did Shakespeare some years ago with one of the ex-members. "Cow Tipping" looks like it could be doable.

[Adventure II for 2600]

Yep. Adventure II was the reason I got a 5200. From there I got a maxicart and a CIB Robotron. Untill we get Adventure III, I'm done.

 

But I don't see why AdII couldn't be 'ported' to the 2600 with some clever hacking. The 5200 gameplay with 2600 graphics. Possible? Nukey? To this day I have't played AdII enough to know if there's major differences in gameplay.

You could probably do the kingdom map layouts okay, but I'm not sure how you would do the minotaur and the shape shifting hedges, although I bet Nukey could do it all right. It would take a fair amount of work.

 

Can you describe the minotaur and shifting hedges and why those would be troublesome? I wonder how it would work in a 7800...

[Where to get something made?]

If you can't do it yourself, I suggest you lay down all your ideas here and hope someone WITH the skills gets interested. Managing a project like this isn't a simple endevour. If you get in over your head, you run the risk of being branded like 8bitdomain.

[Adventure II for 2600]

... and I'm not that interested in the 5200 ...

 

There's yer problem!

 

Yeah, yeah... I'll get a 5200 one of these days. It's backseated to some other projects like getting an AV mod into my 2600 and finishing some Midibox gear.

[homebrew banking schemes]

The prospect of being able to have 64k of rom is quite salivating. I have something that would be great for that.

[Remedial circuit design?]

Try these:

 

http://www.aade.com/ check - the links page, check the soldering how-to link

http://www.electronics-tutorials.com/ - tutorials starting with basic electronics

http://www.morsex.com/building/atoz.htm - electronics construction how-to

http://www.eio.com/ - besides the surplus stuff, check the technical forums

http://www.play-hookey.com/ - Great primers on AC, DC, analogue, and digital.

http://electronics.wisc-online.com/ - Primers and more advanced stuff.

[PCB made?]

Thanks batari for the site! I will be using them soon to get some prototype A/V mod boards.

 

Do you have any pics exported from the PCB software?

[dipswitch multicart]

I'm thinking about making myself a dipswitch-style multicart. I found a 512-in-one design here: http://www.xs4all.nl/~rdemming/Atari/MultiCart2600/index.htm which does only 2K or 4K roms. Does anyone here know how to make a simple dipswitch multicart that handles bankswitching?

[Adventure II for 2600]

So I know Adventure II is for the 5200, but I've never had a 5200 and I'm not that interested in the 5200. Is it possible to port Adventure II to the 2600?

[Return of the CyberTech AV Mod (2600)]

I voted "yes", but I'd like to also see what Longhorn eventually comes up with. In particular, I'd like to see some sort of cross-pollination going on between the two designs.

[TG-16 + CD, RGB/region mod, PC-E Flashcart, cont ext, ArcadeCard Pro SOLD!]

I remember drooling over this machine when I saw an article on the PC Engine in "Video Games and Computer Entertainment". When I got an SNES, I lost interest and never quite regained it.

[restoring switches]

I got some contact cleaner from Radio Shack and that seemed to mostly fix the problem. The select and reset switches were still grinding, so I popped one open to more thoroughly clean it. I couldn't get it back together, so I desoldered those two switches. Then something occured to me -- the footprint of these switches seems fairly generic. Why not replace the switches with a standard tilt-bat toggle? Of course, one can get easily get exact replacements, but what do you guys think?

[restoring switches]

I wonder if some sort of sheath can be concocted to prevent dust from creeping in the sides.

[restoring switches]

I'm thinking about what would be the Right Way to restore the switches on my light-sixer. Currently they're very mushy and stiff. Blowing with compressed air doesn't do anything. A local hobby shop sells tubes of grease for lubricating the throttle switches of RC cars. Would I be safe popping off the tops of the switches and using that grease?

[omg...i just discovered the Atari Label Maker]

[Atari A/V mod update]

Yay! How does this thing compare with, say, the Cybertech AV mod?

 

Never seen the Cybertech in person.

 

Hmm... Well, how about compared with the CD4050 mod? I'd like to see this as a two-sided through-hole unpopulated board. Given all the jabbering about AV mods here and elsewhere, you could easily and cheaply sell 200 boards with no more labor than designing your prototype and stuffing envelopes.