jarreboum

I'm a bit concerned by the palettes now, after comparing your pictures with Stella and my own Pitfall on my RF console. The palette 1 seems identical to Stella's palette. Your screenshot is like NTSC Pitfall and Tim's screenshot is like PAL Pitfall. I thought that Pitfall was too green simply because I'm used to PAL Pitfall, where the floor is like sand and the bark is dark brown.The palette 2 looks like PAL Pitfall in that sense, even though the cart is NTSC (NTSC cart in a PAL console has blue trees and grey floor, so you didn't load the PAL palettes by mistake.) Palette 1 seems accurate in terms of hue to my console. The tone, however, is much lighter than my real console. If I compare Tim's to the poorly screenshot I just took, you can see the differences. (PAL games) (My screen should also be much brighter / vivid, but you get the idea) The megadrive also outputs super bright RGB that needs to be dimmed with a 75ohm resistor and a 220µF cap for each colour pin to get the correct brightness and colours. I wonder if the same is happening here? I do have Megadrive cables with and without the resistors and capacitors, and I'm planning to install a 9pin mini-din on the 2600, so I guess I will be able to test it myself. But not before something like two months as I'm modding a 2600Jr and Tim has yet to have adapter boards for this model.

Which one is the default palette? Your first image seems very green. Also RGB is dimmer on your Pitfall Harry comparison pic, do you know why?

You would have to restore the colour switch function. It seems easier said than done. If you do manage it, please tell us and show how you did it!

They should. RGB, even when converted to Component, is a massive improvement over Composite and SVideo. Many of your later CRT TV sets had Component in with 480i, it's simply the second best (besides a professional display) to get the best looking picture if you're living in North America. It's also very cheap as everybody is discarding their old tubes.

It's not lossless. There is some theoretical colour degradation because we're dealing with analogue signals but it's literally imperceptible. And the colour separation is just as good, which is the main problem with Composite and Svideo and their bleeding pixels. I have a CRT that can accept both inputs and I've been able to compare Component and Scart on Gen 6 consoles and I found no differences with SD sources. Component allows for 480p though so it's better for these consoles. I don't use a transcoder because I don't have to, but if I were in the US this is what I would do. Regardless of whether it's equally good or slightly less good than RGB, it's a massive improvement over Composite and SVideo.

For all intents and purposes, Component is as good as RGBS. If you had both inputs, I would tell you to use RGBS and skip the useless step of encoding a video signal then decoding it one metre later. But you will get the same picture quality with a Component cable, and I strongly suggest you to use it since you can. In a similar vein, you can get Scart to Component transcoder. They only convert the colour space from RGBS to YPbPr without any upscaling, filtering or buffering. They allow you to enjoy your consoles with RGB quality, and on a CRT you can also use lightguns and 3Dglasses, and rock the rhythm games with no input lag at all. Going from Composite, your mind will be blown.

You need exactly what I listed. You can find everything on ebay or amazon for quite cheap. The only thing I would suggest not going cheap on, is the Genesis Scart cable. Cheap Scart cables are unshielded and tend to have crosstalk between the wires, resulting in a buzzing sound (video signals are more robust and aren't much affected by the crosstalk). The buzzing is mainly heard when there is no music though and I know some people aren't bothered by it. But if you are, I would suggest cables sold by retro_console_accessories on ebay and get her coaxial option. The best way to make your carts working is to clean them. Open them with a normal screwdriver or a gamebit screwdriver and rub the contacts with a pink eraser. After a good strong rub, your games should be good as new. there are chemicals cleaners if the eraser doesn't work, but I would save them for a last resort, because chemicals.

I got mine less than a month ago, and apart from the four bundled games (Bowling, Pitfall, Enduro, Missile command), my first order was to get a bunch of homebrew games: Medieval mayhem, Lead, and Juno first. Actually I bought and received the games before even getting the console on eBay, so I guess they truly are the first 2600 games I ever owned. I regret nothing.

Modern TVs in the USA don't have RGB inputs. I don't know what is the standard RGB RCA plug you are talking about. You could get a cheap Composite cable to see if the console still works (but there is no reason it wouldn't). What you need if you want to give your grandchildren the better visual quality, you need to get a Megadrive Scart cable and a Scart RGB to Component transcoder. Some transcoders don't have audio pass-through, so you may want to use an adapter with audio out in between. Don't forget to put the TV in "game mode" and disable any picture enhancement it can have. Please don't use an HDMI upscaler box. Unless it's called Framemeister, they are utter crap.

Oh yeah, the mixing itself is the easy part. I'm more concerned with the potential conflict with the second controller.

Is it possible to internalise the AtariVox? As in, solder it inside the 2600 and do the mixing directly on the board. Or would there be a conflict when both the AtariVox and a second controller are plugged in?

Yes, if it were a simple on/off switch between the two original pal and ntsc palettes I would have put it in place of the useless channel switch. But as it's automatic and I don't have pal60 games anyway, I won't install any switch. People with a lot of Pal60 games would probably have preferred the option of a manual two position switch, as it would give a tactile feedback of what palette you are using. A push button may be confusing sometimes. I would have liked if there was an audio in pad, so it could mix the AtariVox internally. The two audio pins do confuse me though, especially since I expected to have the video and audio through the mini din8. Also why do we have to replace the regulator? And the extra capacitor is an oversight of the original design or does it need to be put as it is?

Where do the alternate palettes come from? What do they look like?

The Composite and Svideo are passthrough or are they reencoded from your RGB out? If the latter is there a significant difference between the old mods and yours?

The palette automatic switch is the unexpected bonus of this mod. It's not only an RGB mod, it's also literally a region mod for the 2600. With it you can play any NTSC/PAL cartridge with any NTSC/PAL console without restriction or limitation, with the correct speed and colour. Europeans don't need to import a console any more (except for the French and their shitty SECAM VCS). You still need a good display though. I know American CRTs can have trouble displaying 50Hz. European CRTs have no problem with 60Hz however, and that's cool. Digital TVs and upscalers should have no problem with either frequency either.

That reminds me of this discussion here, where cwilkson used the CyberTech VGA mod to output RGB on the VCS. He never got around to say how it was done however. I wouldn't have asked etim to work on it but considering his knowledge gained from the NESRGB mod, he clearly was in the best position to come up with it. And I'm glad he did! I'll be waiting for the inevitable adapter board for the 2600jr now.

How did you achieve it? It's not quite my field of expertise but I'm interested in your method. Comparatively this is how Tim managed it for the NES: http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=47617. If I understand correctly, he's using an FPGA to monitor the RAM for colour data and to emulate the colour output part of the PPU. You were talking about "upconverting" the TIA output, I would assume you would monitor the analogue colour output and approximate it to its nearest digital value from the original palette? Considering the 2600 palette is fixed and has a low number of different colours, this would effectively clean up the signal without adding much artefacts.

Is it real RGB for the French 7800 though? The French NES had a fake RGB out in the form of a Composite signal converted to RGB: the PPU only output chroma and luma. Nintendo couldn't be arsed to make a new RGB chip just for the French and instead added a board to convert Composite. Needless to say the "RGB" picture of the French NES is quite ugly, possibly uglier than original Composite. I'm surprised you couldn't find support for RGB out, having RGB is all the rage in retrogaming nowadays. People hunt for PVMs and BVMs, threads with hundreds of pages are made on forums dedicated to get the best of your old consoles, how to mod them to get RGB (a very complex and expensive NES mod has been out since last year and is selling very well), and how to pass RGB to modern TVs through expensive upscalers. The Japan-made Framemeister costs around $300 and is the goto upscaler for retro-enthusiasts, even though they have to import it from Japan. Europeans enthusiasts hunt Trinitrons as supposedly the prettiest looking non-professional monitor, as all European tubes had RGB Scart inputs.

Where can I find more information / where to buy this mod? I'm quite new on the 2600 scene and I was under the impression that Svideo was the best it could to with mods. Does your CyberTech VGA have a RGBS/Scart option? (15kHz with csync, unlike 31kHz VGA with distinct hsync and vsync)

What mod did you use?

No one has ever tried this before?

I like modding stuff. I think it's interesting from a technical point of view, to know the technical differences between local variations and if they can be overcame easily. The question isn't really "should I" but "can I". The question has been asked before but never quite answered. These threads have valuable information nonetheless: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/203273-convert-atari-2600-jr-long-rainbow-pal-to-ntsc/ http://atariage.com/forums/topic/39196-atari-2600-tia-ntsc-and-pal/ http://atariage.com/forums/topic/214203-atari-2600-6-switch-pal-can-i-convert-it-to-ntsc/ I have yet to take a closer look to the PAL board, but looking at TIA pinouts, I only need to reroute LUM0, LUM2,merge AUD0 and AUD1. I'm assuming BLK is internally merged to COLOR in PAL; in NTSC, BLK is merged to COLOR via a 680ohms resistor, which I sould put back on the PAL system.

What are the differences between PAL and NTSC systems? according to some quick research, different TIAs are responsible for the video output and timing. If I were to replace the PAL TIA for an NTSC TIA and rewire accordingly, would it be enough or are there more shenanigans? What does BLK (pin6 NTSC) do? My idea was to have two TIAs piggybacking in a PAL console, wired correctly and with a switch on Vcc so I would be able to choose between PAL and NTSC output. has it been done before?