Nathan Strum

Wow! Absolutely beautiful animation and incredibly charming too! Terrific use of color as well - the trees look gorgeous. There was a game (many years ago) called "Pop!" about a balloon dog that hopped around various puzzles. Your animation reminds me very much of that.

Whole lotta Updates: 2-11-23: Added new Homebrew project: "Calidac's Revenge" (code name) 2-11-23: Gorf Arcade, Qyx, Galaxian (7800), Pac-Man Collection 40th Anniversary Edition (7800), UniWarS (7800) all moved to Completed Homebrews. 2-11-23: Boom!, Elevator Agent, Turbo Arcade, Zeviouz entries all updated to reflect packaging artwork in "early sketches" phase. 2-3-23: Elevator Agent nominated for Best Work-In-Progress (2600 Port), for the 5th Annual Atari Homebrew Awards. 2-3-23: Boom! nominated for Best Work-In-Progress (2600 Port), for the 5th Annual Atari Homebrew Awards. 2-3-23: Gorf Arcade nominated for Best Homebrew, Best Graphics and Best Music + Sound (2600 Port), for the 5th Annual Atari Homebrew Awards. 2-3-23: Qyx nominated for Best Homebrew, Best Graphics and Best Music + Sound (2600 Port), for the 5th Annual Atari Homebrew Awards 1-23-23: Gorf Arcade, Qyx, Galaxian (7800), Pac-Man Collection 40th Anniversary Edition (7800), UniWarS (7800) are all now available in the AtariAge store. 1-13-23: Final Gorf Arcade ROM now available for purchase at Champ.Games. 1-13-23: Final Qyx ROM now available for purchase at Champ.Games. 12-31-22: Elevator Agent demo ROM now available for download at Champ.Games.

Wow... $1000?! I can think of so many other things I'd rather spend $1000 on. Like... 50 pizzas. Maybe if these were new games (not in a million years - Atari is a logo and a handful of IPs, not a developer)... but even so - it takes a lot of Audacity to ask for that kind of money.

HDMI cables are notoriously fragile. At the college I work for, we keep spares on hand because we know they're just going to fail (particularly with faculty plugging laptops into projectors and monitors). It doesn't take much either - the wires inside are incredibly thin, and the connectors are susceptible to getting bent. Intermittent problems are not uncommon. It's likely not the length - just the fact that you changed cables. (Unless you're using a ridiculously long HDMI cable.)

ARM games aren't supported on the Concerto at the moment either. But it's planned. A Harmony cart will run on the 7800 just fine for 2600 ARM games.

Might wait for the 7800 Game Drive... see how that stacks up. I already own a Concerto, but I'm still going to pick up a Game Drive anyway.

Seems so, although since I don't have those original Activision carts, it's hard to say what the results would've been without it. I like to think that it would make a difference. That said, I probably could've just disconnected it and called it done. I don't think John is a die-hard Robot Tank must-play-on-an-original-cartridge-at-all-costs obsessive fanboy. At least, not that I'm aware of. Anyway... Radio Shack! It's got a Radio Shack switch! That has to up the nostalgia value on this console alone by what... four or five bucks? Totally worth it.

I've tried Robot Tank, Space Shuttle, Kung Fu Master and Dark Chambers; on an original Harmony Cart and an Encore. All work with the switch in either position. I have none of those games on original carts. However... ! Pitkat only works with the switch in Bypass (on the Harmony and Encore)! So the switch does indeed work. At least in one case. So I'll take it. Bypass: Normal (one of several ways it fails - sometimes it's this, sometimes it's a garbled mess):

I think I am. We ran out of Daves. I could really go for a burger right about now.

Possibly not helpful, but I've been recently running into an issue where much of the internet would simply disappear. I'd get "server no longer responding" or "site unreachable" errors, but not for everything, and only once in awhile. Flushing the DNS cache did nothing. Restarting always fixed it, but that was really annoying. Ultimately, I tracked it down to the VPN software I use to remote in to my office computer at work - it was switching over to my work's DNS server rather than my ISP's. As soon as I disconnected from the VPN - bam! The DNS went back to my ISP and the internet reappeared. Maybe you're seeing a similarly-weird DNS-related issue.

Unfortunately - I don't have real carts of either Robot Tank or Space Shuttle, and as far as I know, my ROMs aren't patched. The Parrot bus ROM (attached) that I have works fine on my Harmony and Encore with the switch either way. Maybe it wasn't one of the affected consoles in the first place... (Or maybe it was somehow hacked by the previous modder.) It'd be nice if there was a diagnostic ROM that could detect the presence/absence of that circuit. I tested continuity, so I know the switch is connecting/disconnecting that capacitor leg. But maybe it's really doing nothing. Anyway, the Radio Shack switch gives that console way more street cred than it used to have. parrot_20161231_NTSC.bin

I have yet to reconnect anything to an HDTV. Maybe someday. I'd highly recommend a Tripp Lite Isobar Ultra, as well: https://tripplite.eaton.com/isobar-6-outlet-surge-protector-6-ft-cord-3300-joules-diagnostic-leds~ISOBAR6ULTRA They make them in different sizes/flavors. But we've used these at work for years and I've never lost a piece of equipment that's been plugged into one. I use them at home for my computer/videogames/work area. Pricey, but worth it.

I thought you already had a modded 2600 for that. The UAV mod instructions for the Jr. aren't encouraging. But at least I don't have to undo any damage first. Just one minor repair (which I've already done). And lots of cleaning... You're welcome! Here's hoping you don't have any more lightning strikes, or bad eBay sellers!

A friend and I decided to check out a place the other night that reportedly had classic arcade games: Let's Play Cafe in Monroe, WA. Admission was $20 and everything was set to free-play. I was pleasantly surprised by the number of actual classic arcade games they had there - most of which actually worked! I played: Joust, Defender, Robotron: 2084 (all three part of a Williams multi-game cabinet), Qix (which had a slightly wonky joystick), Gorf (very reassuring to see that we nailed the blue-background in Astro Battles for the Champ Games version), Scramble (which had a very unresponsive joystick - it felt like there was a super-stiff spring preventing it from moving), Centipede, Asteroids (there's nothing like playing on a real vector monitor!), Popeye (I don't recall this having a strict four-way joystick, but it made playing it really difficult), Roadblasters (which crashed with a "Bankswitch error" not far into the game), Pac-Man, Hydro Thunder, and possibly a few others I don't recall. But they had a good selection, especially comapred to what passes for most arcades these days. They had some newer games (and by newer - I mean 1990's), as well as quite a few pinball machines. They had a few unusual games in there too, including a Starblade which was under repair, and a true rarity: Baby Pac-Man - a fully working one at that! Having played Bob and Kurt's version for the 7800, I couldn't resist trying to play the original. We spent over two hours at Let's Play, and I spent much of that time on Baby Pac-Man (along with Qix and Gorf). Man... that is one addictive (and incredibly hard) game. After countless attempts, I finally managed to clear the first maze. I probably got my 20 bucks worth out of that game alone. We'll be going back again at some point. Hopefully they can expand their selection (would love to see Battlezone and Tempest), and make a some repairs to their existing games. Anyway... speaking of the 7800 and making repairs - let's wrap this project up! How's that for a segue? Time for some cablin'. Here are the donors, plus the Molex connector I'll be using to hook them up: The video cable is a leftover S-Video cable from a patchbay I had at work (from Clark Wire and Cable), and the audio cable is a 3.5mm stereo to dual RCA cable from Monoprice. However - I'm not using it for stereo audio. I'm using it for mono audio + composite video. The reason I'm using that particular audio cable, is because the UAV mod only outputs mono audio, so instead of having two cables hanging out of the back of the 7800 for a superfluous "stereo" output, I'll use one connector for audio, and I'll repurpose the other for composite video. John can add a "Y" cable if he should need to plug the 7800 into stereo inputs. He wanted composite video in addition to S-Video (since not all of his monitors have S-Video), and this provides a second RCA connector in a compact form factor. The only downside? The right audio connector is color-coded red. Yellow is typically used for video. But we can fix that... Presto! Composite video, mono audio, and S-Video! Job done! (As an aside, I tested an S-Video to composite adapter to see if it would be an acceptable substitute for a dedicated composite output - it wasn't. The picture was terrible.) Just to make sure everything worked end-to-end, I used a terminal block to temporarily hook everything up and test it: Composite works! And S-Video works! (Audio also worked.) In previous mods, I've used Molex Micro-Fit 3.0 connectors to connect the mod wiring to the output cables, but have always had trouble crimping the pins. The connectors are tiny, and I had bought a crimping tool that did not cost $400. The tool I had could (in theory) crimp the conductor and insulation at the same time, and was a ratcheting-type crimper (which I've used at work for other connector types), but I could rarely get the pins in exactly the right position to crimp them, and it was a massive source of frustration. While starting on the 7800 wiring , I completely trashed multiple pins in the attempt and finally gave up and did some more research on finding an alternative crimping tool. And, I found one: It's not a ratcheting crimper, and you have to crimp the conductor and insulation in separate passes, but it works. I can align the pins in the tool every time, and it crimps them solidly with a very reassuring "click". Well-worth 1/10 the cost of Molex's tool. All crimped up and ready-to-go! The reason I use the Molex connector is so the main board can be unplugged from the output cables, in case the 7800 has to be taken apart (again) and repaired. The 7800 board has to be tilted up at the back in order to be removed, so the output cables need to be completely out-of-the-way for that to happen. Since they're going out the back of the case right above the main board, the only way to do that is to make that cable fully removable. The excess cable fits through a hole in the side of the RF shield (originally intended for the non-existent expansion port on this 7800). The blue heat-shrink tubing is there to protect the wires as they go through the shield. The output cables are held down to the board with a twist-tie where the RF modulator used to be. I'd usually use a zip-tie for this, but I didn't have one that skinny, and this does the job just fine: When I get around to modding my own 7800, I'm going to have to route the cables differently because I won't be removing the RF modulator or drilling any holes. Fortunately, someone has already solved that problem. One more job to do. See capacitor C64? Of course not! Because its label is hiding underneath it. But disconnecting its right leg should improve compatibility with certain games (mostly Activision games and the SuperCharger). ' -^CrossBow^- made the suggestion of adding a switch to enable/disable it. I checked with John and he liked that idea, so I decided to add one. But I wanted a small, unobtrusive switch (unlike the toggle switch used for the previous HDMI "mod"). So what better brand to use than Radio Shack? You can still buy their stuff from Amazon! It seems completely period-correct to add a Radio Shack switch to an Atari 7800 too. Man... that brings back memories. Now if I could only find my Battery Club card! Score! I even still have eleven free batteries remaining! Time to cash this puppy in! So first, some very careful measuring, followed by some very careful drilling, cutting and filing: Perfect fit! Found C64 yet? Hint: it's mounted horizontally. I desoldered the right leg, and re-soldered the left one to more firmly anchor it to the board: More Molex! I tidied up and reinforced the connections with some heat-shrink tubing. Also, it will protect the wires when going through the RF shield: Here, I bent the orange heat-shrink tubing while it was still hot, so it cooled and stayed at the angle I wanted it at. The blue tubing just keeps things untangled and tidy. All hooked up! Again - the Molex connector keeps the main board easily removable. One finishing (P-)touch: Before final reassembly, it's time to clean off the solder blob on the RF shield leftover from the previous mod: And to clean up the solder blobs and adhesive gunk on the inside of the shield: Also, I needed to make a small notch for the Compatibility Switch™ wire to feed through: I covered the notch from both sides with electrical tape to protect the wires, and cut a slot for the wires to feed through: On the expansion port side, I did the same thing, but left a larger area for the wires: I removed the solder and cleaned up the adhesive, then polished up the whole thing with some more Flitz. Shiny! It took a lot of solder wick to get the blobs off. I couldn't get rid of the fingerprints though - they're etched through the finish into the bare metal beneath. I'm wondering if this happened at the factory when it was first assembled? With everything ready to be put back together, it's time for some final testing: Thanks to Trebor for adding a POKEY 4000 version of the 7800 Utility Cart to his ROM pack! I can see the POKEY in my Concerto cart now: And it works! (You'll have to pretend to hear it.) 2600 video looks good: 7800 video looks good! Right - time to put this back together! But first... I'm missing a screw. Rather, the 7800 is. Fortunately, Atari used the same sized screws for other things - in this case, CX-40 joysticks. So I grabbed a spare screw from a broken joystick, colored the top of it black to match the rest, and NOBODY WILL EVER KNOW!! Unless they read this. So, like... five people. Cables are routed... RF shield is reattached... time to button 'er up! Underneath, showing where the cables exit. Also, in case anybody wants to add this to the list... The Magic Switch of Compatibility™! FWIW - every Activision game I've tested works with the switch in either position. However, I've been testing them on a Harmony cart, since my real carts are still packed away. But hey - it has the switch! One more thing to add... it's always driven me up a wall that Atari didn't even care enough to label the difficulty switches. They barely even get mentioned in the manual, and even there they got them backwards! So this fixes that little problem: And the final, finished console! All cleaned up, fixed up, re-modded, and ready to play all of the awesome 7800 homebrews, Food Fight, and... well, the rest of the 7800 library is pretty-much crap. But it plays 2600 games, too! One final thing to check... how does the S-Video output look scaled up to HDMI? For reference, you can revisit Part 1. The RetroTink 2X-Mini: And the Gefen GTV-COMPSVID-2-HDMIS: And since I got to play the real Qix the other day... I just had to fire up the Champ Games 2600 version - Qyx: And of course, Baby Pac-Man: Looks great in HD, too! And yes... my HD monitor is having some light leak issues at the corners. Guess I'm going to have to get a new one pretty-soon. Edit: Whoops! Forgot to show what the finished console looks like in action, featuring the not-blinding-plain-old-red-LED: Much better! Well - that wraps up the 7800 Mod Mixedup Messup Whatever Fixit Thingy! Special thanks to -^CrossBow^- and alex_79 for their help with this project - working on a 7800 is new territory for me, and I really appreciated their insight, experience and advice. That kind of support from the AtariAge community is one of the reasons I've stuck around here for over 20 years! But we're not done with John's consoles just yet. Stay tuned... as next time I fix (and mod) a 2600 Junior! Hopefully, that one will be a lot shorter. Published 1/29/23, 2:22 PM

Glad you're enjoying it. I hope it's of help to others as well! The final chapter is coming up just about... now!

That's a pretty cool idea. I'd considered going over the rainbow stripe with some iridescent pinstripe tape, but I figured that would've been more in keeping with the obnoxious rainbow LED that had been removed. The "slightly beat-up stock" look will do. Coming soon to a Patreon page near you! (No... it's not. But I should probably get back to the strip someday.) Thanks! I think that's a really nice way of putting it.

Get comfy! These next two entries are going to be a bit on the long side. There's some saying in some profession or something somewhere where they say something like, "the first rule of whatever is to do no harm". Or something. This poor 7800 has been through enough grief without incurring any more damage. But as they say, "You can't break any eggs without making an omelette". Or something. As I was cleaning up the case of the 7800, I decided to try to polish some of the marks and scratches out of the aluminum, using Flitz (which is a non-abrasive metal polish I've used before). Unfortunately, I inadvertently removed a little bit of the red ink from the rainbow stripe in the process: Now, this wasn't meant to be a "bring it back to like-new condition" restoration, but it was still a bit of a bummer. Fortunately, John was cool about the whole thing, saying he liked the "vintage, faded" look. If I had an airbrush, I'd take a shot at repainting it. But the metal is all scratched and dented anyway, so it's never going to look "factory fresh" unless you go to some pretty expensive lengths. Not gonna happen. Anyway, there are a lot of other issues with the case besides the aluminum plate - namely a bunch of holes drilled into the case that I won't be reusing. John really didn't like the location of the previous mod's three RCA jacks, plus there was a gaping hole for the HDMI port (formerly where the RF out was), the now-unused channel switch hole, and more holes where a previous mod had apparently been. Oh, and a hole for the "HDMI on/off" switch. So... yeah - the case was far-from new. But again, this isn't a restoration. It's a repair. And while I'm intent on fully undoing the horrible mod that was done, the scars are a part of the history of the console. So I'll replace/repair/patch what I can, but the goal is to get the console properly functioning. But these are pretty bad. So we're going to do at least something about them. Besides the holes, two of the screw posts in the top of the case are in bad shape. One is completely broken: The other has a massive spiral crack running around it: So it's time to bust out my favorite plastic-repair kit: J-B Weld and paste wax. Johnson doesn't make their paste wax anymore (for some reason), so I had to find a lemony substitute (my old can got lost in a recent move): For the half-missing post, I made a mold out of painter's tape: Filled it with epoxy: And screwed the wax-coated screw into it: For the other post, I filled it with epoxy and troweled some epoxy into the crack from the outside: And drove in the other waxy screw (neatness doesn't count as much as strength): For the other holes, I cleaned up outside where they were drilled, and covered them with painter's tape: And filled them up with epoxy from the inside: After they dried, and the tape was removed, I had some nice, solid patches: I did the ones on the back in a separate pass, since they're at a 90° angle to the first ones: For the big former-HDMI hole, I needed to do something a little different. I approximately shaped the tape into a rectangle with a notch in the top: This is so I could fit a Molex Micro-Fit 3.0 connector through it. I'll get more into that in the next installment. After letting the epoxy cure 24 hours, it was time to see if I could back the screws out. I used a very snug-fitting screwdriver tip, and applied a lot of downward pressure while slowly turning the screw. After a few very nervous moments, the screw finally broke free and backed out, leaving threads behind: The broken post worked as well. I'd later go back and add more epoxy to the outside to further strengthen it: The other holes needed a little clean-up, some shaping and filing, but were solid: Well... except for a few voids. Guess I need to trowel it in there a little more enthusiastically next time... After a little carving and filing, I ended up with the hole that I needed for the Molex connector to fit through: I'm not mounting the connector here - I just need it to be able to fit it through: The posts got filed down and cleaned up a bit, and held the screws nicely: I test-fit the case back together to make sure they held, which they did: I'm not going to over-tighten them though. I suppose someday I should test just how much stress one of these can handle before it breaks: After getting the case patched-up and cleaned-up, I tackled cleaning the cartridge slot. I've described this before for the 2600, but here's a 7800-specific version. First, I found some cardboard about the same thickness as a typical 7800 cartridge circuit board. Then I measured the cartridge slot, and started cutting the cardboard with an X-Acto knife to fit: I trimmed it until it fit while still contacting all of the contacts in the slot: Then I gave it a good soaking with some contact cleaner: Then I just worked it up and down in the slot multiple times: Yep... those were pretty dirty contacts: On both sides: I can re-use it over and over, just by trimming off the worn/dirty part. I also went through and used contact cleaner on all of the console's switches. Surprisingly, they were all in good shape, so I didn't need to worry about replacing any. So now the console is modded, fixed, patched, and cleaned! What's left? Reassembly! Coming real soon! Published 1/29/23 at 12:22:AM

Still a no-go here. After updating the Concerto's firmware to .96, Tower Toppler and Rampage both still crash. Fatal Run now recognizes joystick buttons, but it still crashes as well.

The "AB" dump would load, sometimes play a little, but then crash: Or get stuck at the player select screen: The "OB" dump would never get past 90% loading:

I've poured over the schematics, searched the forums... and for the life of me I can't find where C64 is. Can you post a pic of where it is (and which leg is on the right, if it happens to be non-obvious, ie. vertical)? Thanks!

Thanks for writing that up! I remember hearing how color was generated on the Stella at 20 tapes, but couldn't recall exactly where they said it (or what the exact explanation was). Yep. The 2600 colors look fine, the 7800 colors need to be tweaked a little.

Well, I tried the lot on the Concerto. I don't have a light gun, so I couldn't test Barnyard Blaster or Meltdown. But they loaded for whatever that's worth. Man though... the 7800 had some absolute stinkers in its library. Anyway... Everything worked on the modded console, except Fatal Run: it wouldn't recognize joystick button presses (but does recognize directional input). I could start a game using Reset and move the car around, but that was it. A couple of times, the game froze: However - Fatal Run also refused to recognize joystick buttons on my RF 7800, which is an early model (AT84 serial number w/expansion port). The modded 7800 is a late-model "X" serial number. So that likely points to the Concerto. (I don't have original cartridges of either game to test against.) Debating whether or not it's worth updating the firmware on the off-chance it might fix the games. Kind of hoping to see something a little more ready-for-primetime than the daily builds.

While that dump of Tower Toppler does work with my RF 7800 and Concerto cart: It does not in the 7800 I just repaired and added a UAV mod to: This is running the firmware the cart shipped with (0.95). Is this likely a Concerto issue, or a Tower Toppler issue? (In other words, if I bought an original Tower Toppler cart, would that likely work?)

I hope you pick it up again - it's a terrific game. I've been playing the iPad version, but I prefer it on the 2600.