maiki

My Chinese Junior runs perfect. And what more, there has not been a single failure of cartridge inserted! It happens regularly on my Mega Drive II, having to blow them off so often. But not a single failure over here! I do not know if it is due to simple contacts design or anything else but Atari 2600 cartridges are so perfect in this...

I have stopped using my Mega Drive controllers because I forget holding down the B button 90% of the time and it began frustrating having to re-power the console each time. Also, there are games like Astro Blast that won't work with Mega Drive pads and it made the whole concept a bit messy. So till I get original Atari joysticks and paddles, I am stuck with CX-78.

And the best thing you don't have to use extensions at all - the Harmony Cartridge will recognize them all (somehow). I have the ROMs all renamed to capital letters without extensions to make the menus as simple and readable as possible.

I can honestly say modern games do not bother me at all. I stopped buying new games in 2006 after discovering that Xcrap 360 was nothing but a hidden online pseudo PC with RRoD flavour. These games won't work in 5 to 10 years because they require online service. No sence to invest in PS4 or Xbox One either. The last video games generation was PS2 / Xbox / Gamecube. Better spend my money on gold plated Atari controllers or new Cartridge from Atari Age for sure.

For serious purpose to achieve excellent visual authenticity, connecting any device that was designed for 15 kHz CRT screen to LCD screen does not make any real sence to me. Instead of using the real Atari 800 and then distorting the picture through an LCD screen, you could easily just emulate the computer using your laptop and have exactly the same incorrect picture. In other words, if you invest in real hardware you need to invest not only on the input but on the output as well.

BASIC makes sence when creating office applications that absolutely do not require precize timing and low level access. An Atari 2600 video game is a completely different story though.

I can only support the fact that without the real CRT TV the Atari 2600 experience will never be perfect.

Software sprites... It is a funny term considering Atari 2600 has only hardware objects that are all rendered in software...

I want a smooth side-scrolling BD...

It would be really interesting to see Off The Wall being reprogrammed for paddles - if that is even possible...

I have always seen similar problem with that Commodore 64 games designer (forgot its name). Dozens of worthless "shooters" that all play the same. All the same crap due to fact no one bothered to program the game from scratch bt rather used some preinstalled scenario (meaning program to design that sort of games).

If they knew the insides of the 2600, that it all relies on 128 bytes of RAM, counting bits rather than bytes, etc... some of them would have changed their minds. But most of the newcomers do not know that and they simply judge by the graphics and gameplay. What I have always likes about Atari 2600 was the minimalism and simplicity. And when I later discovered what the hardware is about I started to like it even more. I do not say it has no bugs, but compared to more advanced systems its design is more or less clean and it serves well and gives good programmers simple but rather flexible platform to develop interesting assembly language based games that always sync to display... You know, you have systems like Sega Genesis that are far less balanced and far more bugged than 2600... in case of Genesis you get 2 scrolling planes but only 320 pixels of sprites on a scanline. That is totally unbalanced. Not to mention all those bugs in VDP concerning colors, scroll registers etc...

I have noticed that not only the console itself, but also the TV you are using affects the quality of RF signal. I have now 2 portable CRT TVs: Philips and Luxtronic. When I connect my Junior to Luxtronic, there are often horizontal linels flying around (interference). It does not happen on Philips TV though. But, if I connect my Junior to indoor antenna box (set to minimum-no gain) that leads to Luxtronic TV, the RF signal is fine. So this leads me to this question: Is there a device (or rather a small component) that will filter off the RF interference? I know I can use my indoor antenna box but I would prefer a more compact solution.

I do not need 480p to play 15 kHz 240p games. Absolutely not. Also, it's ridiculous to think I am going to collect dozens of console revisions to match someone's "recommendations" to find out I have a different view. Sega did what they did. I still find my VA0 board pretty much OK and have no need to hunt for another one. It plays, looks and sounds authentic and exactly like it should.

I agree that Genesis / MD have really bad composite video output. And I think it is actually the same signal used for RF out too, hence the similar quality. For instance on my Mega Drive II VA0 there is Fujitsu MB3514 video encoder and... nothing else than RGB is acceptable. Also, that Dreamcast emlator seems to be outputting an interlaced image hence the totally wrong visual experience. Old school gaming need 240p video modes. That's why running emulators on Xbox (which cannot output 240p at all) does not make real sence to me.

Thanks for the tip. That is just what I need! VirtualDub forever...

I had to upgrade from Atari800 to Atari 800 Win Plus because the older one just does not run well in Windows 10 under Intel HD Graphics driver... no matter what settings are used. My big complaint about Win Plus is the way it behaves when emulation crashes. It pops up that monitor command line window and that is it. You are stuck and the only way to move on playing is kill the process in task manager! But next time you start it it tends to delete (!!!) all settings or recall the crash state. I mean what the hell is that? Is this program aimed for casual gamers or serious Atari developers? I have absolutely no interest in typing anything in any monitor. The only reason I use the emulator is to test and play games. Period. Please, how do I set the Win Plus emulator so that if it crashes it does not call that monitor and simply allows me to select another game or at least normally quit instead of going to task manager and killing it by force...? Thank you!

Thanks for info. I will try Best Electronics even though I am in Europe. I see they also offer some Sega Genesis controller adapter. Might be good option if it works. I hate presing the B button every time I start Harmony Cartridge plus games like Astroblast do not work with standard Genesis controllers at all. I am also thinking about getting a joystick from them. I hope they do not put any sort of micro switches inside them. I hate micro switches. They make noise. So much noise!

In the end I deleted the 2600 version from Harmony Cartridge. The game just felt more like a prototype not only because of the graphics. As a comparison, I still keep Amidar but that game is also far from "balanced state". I know there is a speed hack of Amidar by T.J. but that makes the game play too fast.

OK, I have been thinking about getting the real analogue controllers for some time. But I am really suspicious about the quality of these aging controllers. Can anybody recommend me a good retro gaming workshops that sells high quality Atari paddle and driving controllers without jitter? Thanks.

Yep... really far... I bet most people from US will not bother since RGB is sort of a luxury out there...

I am aware of that test pattern program. I have Harmony cartirdge so no problem running anything. I want to set geometry specifically for my 2600 so I need a 2600 program.

I was wondering the other day: Is there any recommended game or test program that could be used to calibrate TV screen geometry? I know many games use different timing and different screen layout... so it is not easy to determine the ideal general screen settings. But perhaps someone has done some research and found "the most representative" game/ROM to be used for TV screen geometry setting?

Great! We have 3 versions of Commando Raid now! Thanks guys!

That review is far from professional. I can understand that for being a 1982 article is has its own value but the writer had hardly any deeper knowledge of Atari 2600 capabilities... Because otherwise he wouldn't have just bashed anything in the game... IMO Pac Man for the Atari 2600 has a very good gameplay mechanism but it lacks more optimization in sprites handling (see Ms Pac Man)... You just cannot do graphically the same sort of game on this system (stock Atari 2600)...