maiki

A year ago I was recommended a cheap USB TV analogue tuner sold on Ebay over here and it works very well for capturing Atari 2600 games provided you use capable software like Virtual dub. There is no more noise than standard CRT TV if connected directly from console to USB even via splitter.

What makes you think it is the CPU and nothing else? I am just curious...

I am not an expert but it seems there is something wrong with the console itself (capacitors?...).

Retron is for people who do not care. People who use improper TVs. Real retro gamers use real consoles on real CRT TVs. Topic closed.

Cartridges upside down? I know the 2600 label design has been wrong from the '77 but they could have tried something more acceptable than upside down look. Anyway, if it is FPGA I am not interested. No matter whether it is emulation, simulation, configuration, whatever, the thing is: you can always easily rewrite the whole chip to a completely different system - so it has nothing to do with the real hardware, with the real mark. If they want to impress me, they need to come up with custom SoC solution manufactured by an electronic company for them. If for whatever reason I need anything else than real Atari on real CRT, I can always easily hookup my laptop and fire up Stella - for no cost - with much better results. And with money left to spend for some real 2600 hardware stuff.

It seems that Atari's cartridges are some of the most rugged data storage devices made. I think I have only run into two dead carts my whole life, one being a Berserk cart that never worked. Well, it may be well truth. I have only experienced troubles with Sega Mega Drive cartridges, not Atari 2600. I still want to warn that in my opinion it is all similar technology which might be quite sensitive to various electrical magnetic episodes coming up... Back up your data before it's too late :-)

Hardwired? What do you mean by hardwired? Plus you say "next best thing to printing". Static electricity is everywhere any time. You say chips are here to save data for centuries...?

It could be the console and its cartridge connector as well couldn't it? I think Atari 2600 has far less cartridge failures compared to other consoles. My Sega Mega Drive has frequent problems - I need to blow the cartridges often. And I have at leadt one cartridge that is dead. Not sure what the cause is, but it might be well the poor life of ROM chips themselves? I don't know, but I would not expect all those chips to hold electric data for very long periods. The same applies to SSDs. Not good for archives in my opinion.

That is the culture of internet communication. Not to follow grammar but shorten every second word so that smilies and corresponding nonsence can be used instead. I have been forced to search for these "abbreviations" dozens of times to understand what the hell they are talking about.

I don't know. What is a SCART modded Atari? Composite? If yes, why don't you use a composite video grabber? Myself I bought an analogue TV USB grabber and that is what is needed to record 2600. No VCRs, no DVD players, no HDMIs... does not make any sence at all... Just plug the Atari straight into the USB device and use a reasonable software like Virtual Dub. As easy as that.

I do. It is considerably worse than Commodore 64. Even Super Mario Brothers flickers whereas Giana Sisters does not. NES is one othe the most flickering consoles ever released. It makes you think twice if such a design was even right in 1983 (Atari 7800 anyone?).

I actually understand the use of flicker on 2600. But what makes me mad is when I see this technique on 16-bit consoles like Genesis (Gunstar Heroes, Contra The Hardcorps 2 players modes to demonstrate). If 16-bit developers used the amount of effort of the 2600 guys.. there is no excuse for this.

Roc 'n' Rope is not a good translation to Atari 2600. But it should never be as the system is simply not designed to run games like this. I mean, I don't have it in my Harmony, deleted. There are some promising platformers like Gingerbread Man that work well.

PS4 is no real value in today's measures. It's more or less a multitasking PC with online requirement to live on. Atari 2600 was something like non existent Emotion Engine v2 now back then.

LAGSTATION... the ultimate solution to modern gaming

This must be true. I have TVs that produce RF interference, and TVs that are clean. Running the signal through external antenna box also eliminates the interference.

Honestly, it does not matter. Plug the console into TV and play a game. It will sound OK no matter which version. Only retards at Sega 16 needed to come creating a "problem". They cannot make a good game for Genesis, design a new cartridge with ADPCM... but they will ultimately mess around with the nonsence...

Seriously, how many times you need to cycle with power switch? Unlike with 32 in 1 crap, you select ONLY games you want to launch...

Keep the CRT or get a smaller one. You never know. You might even want just the tube for an arcade machine... If I had a dedicated storage room I would have collected more than just my 6 brand new 15 inch flat CRTs and other 7 14 inch CRTs. CRTs are soon going to be exclusive high quality visual gaming vintage stuff not seen in normal life. This guy: scarthunter.blogspot.com/

14 inch classic rounded CRT TV, preferably older models (pre-2000), they seem to handle the brightness (white to black) display changes better (less ghosting). Bigger CRT screens tend to display pixels more blurred and honestly, SD resolution, or actually anything below 1080p, do not give enough details to require anything large. Flat screen CRTs have problems with geometry and do not look that authentic.

It was only NTSC Jrs that failed...

It is sad there is no real deal for CRT purists. Of course, if you are using an LCD, which I have no doubt majority of people do, you have no reasons to care. The image is going to be distorted either way, the lag input is going to be either way. But there is no kernel mode OS available for really optimized stuff and MS DOS is long dead. Xbox is kernel mode but noone has managed to get custom video timing on it - it is all distorted image at fixed interlaced resolution (laughing at people claiming Xbox emulators looking like original...). And there is no advantage of Linux over Windows - it is the opposite. Windows was proven to have much faster input lags - it is simply much more geared towards real gaming although far from my view of a realtime powerhoused kernel based system. Lately I have seen some improvements on Raspberry Pi firmware to output 240p over composite but it is actually no significant improvement for the community. The image is very much distorted like on Xbox or Wii by the fact the output is still fixed, especially no custom horizontal resolutions... And the weak performance of Pies can hardly match that of desktop CPUs often needed for MAME and other emulators. I guess even good old Xbox can sweep the floor at least with older Pies. Sadly, the only reasonable solution is Windows + GroovyMAME + CRT Emu driver + 15 kHz ATOM BIOS card... what a mess isn't it. I hope one day we will see a proper compact device with the power of desktop CPU to do the proper job.

I don't mind when new technology is used to replace old one, but only if it is done properly and professionally. Certainly not the case of Raspberry Pie and related. Atari 2600 is designed to display 15 kHz non interlaced video. Raspberry Pie does not allow that. That pretty much translates it into the same category as any generic mobile device or computer that can do exactly the same. Mimic Atari 2600 not properly not professionally. Please do not argue with use of external video converters - the properly built system would never ever require such thing.

Can you specify which ROMs the Harmony does not recognize? All the ROMs I have launch succesfully and as I said, I don't use any extensions.

Are you sure NES outputs 224 scanlines? I read everywhere that it is 240 actually. Of course not all 240 are used for active playfield - due to those reasons.