johnnywc

Okay, that makes sense, and I do recall a game using the bits as RAM, although I didn't realize it was the *first* 2600 game! 😮 Great thx for the link.. unfortunately my Norton antivirus says it's a 'bad site' and I can't open it. 😕 Okay, I put this code in the beginning of my test program to disable the transistors: lda #%00010100 ; bits 4 and 2 (0 based) sta SWBCNT ; enable for output sta SWCHB ; disable transitors Unfortunately, this didn't seem to make any difference with the buttons working on the 7800. I only had time for a quick test but I will measure the voltage on pin 6 to see if it goes any lower when the button(s) are pressed vs. the readings I got with the transistors enabled.

Okay, I'm not exactly sure what that means. SWCHB is input only so I don't think you mean that, unless it can be configured for output on a 7800? I checked and bits 2 and 4 are unused (0-based) so maybe that's what you mean? Sorry for the confusion!

Thanks for the info! I figured there was something different between the 2600 and 7800 that was causing the issue. I'm 99.9% sure it was working on a 7800 before. My test environment has an un-modded 2600 hooked up to a CRT, an S-video modded 2600 that's hooked up to a CRT and an AV-modded 7800 hooked up to my 1702. I distinctly remember doing tests on all 3, most notably the 7800 because the 1702 is near my computer where I was modifying the test program to add in the color/bw and difficulty switch options. I don't have 7800 games that aren't in storage so I'm 100% sure the tests were with 2600 cartridges (the Harmony cart, my test program and the original 2K Basketball game, to be exact). I know the button was working or I would not have been able to select the test program from the Harmony cart. Hmm, that doesn't sound good. Any electrical issue that could have caused it to go from working to non-working (ie. a transistor/capacitor/resistor in the 7800 got fried with the lightning issue I had)? Is there anything we can put between the mux and the Atari that can assist in pulling the transistor-based pull up to 0V?

That's awesome! I'll have to get one of these soon!

Okay, we're about to go production (Nathan T is researching enclosures, cables, etc). I went into the 'lab' last night to test Zoo Keeper QuadTari support and I hit an issue on my 7800. Back store: My house was hit by lightning a few days ago and it knocked out my pool filter, timer, garage door, etc. Yesterday when I went to test on my modded 2600, I found that it did not work anymore (power goes to the system but when you turn it on it acts as if there is no cartridge in it, but with weird graphics and sounds). I tested with another power supply, different carts, TV, etc. so I believe the 2600 itself is fried somewhat (I sent it out to repair). My 7800 seems to have survived (games play fine, controllers work without the QT, etc), but I am getting a weird result with the new design of the QuadTari (which worked without issue prior to The Storm): The QuadTari is detected by QuadTari compatible games. = GOOD Movement (up/down/left/right) works for QT games = GOOD Buttons do NOT work. 😕 = BAD Troubleshooting: My QT was hooked up to another system that was plugged in at the time of the strike so I swapped in new components to the QT (new multiplexers and resistor). Same result. I checked all wires, re-wired the entire circuit. Same result. I tried the old QT design from last year which is functionally compatible but uses 245's and pull up resistors on the inputs and output. Works fine (including the buttons) I connected all 5 inputs directly to the Atari (no multiplexers) and the button works. I hooked the button up through a multiplexer and forced the select line to either VCC or Ground. In each case, the button did not work. For this, I used a multimeter and measured the voltages at the two mux inputs and the output, and confirmed that one input was high constant (hooked up to Vcc) and the other would be 5V when the button was not pressed and 0 when the button was pressed. I measured the output of the mux and no matter what the button state is, the output is always high. I further confirmed this by hooking up ground to both mux inputs, and the output of the mux is still high. I measured the output again, but this time I disconnected the output to the Atari first. In this case, the reading is correct: it goes low when I press the button and stays high when the button is not pressed Based on these results, it seems that the output of the mux is being pulled high by the Atari on pin 6 no matter what the output of the mux is. I measured it and it stays at a constant ~5V. I reconnected up the entire QT and test again on the 7800, as expected same result: all directions work, button does not. My last test was to dig out another Atari out of storage that hasn't been touched by me and hook up the QuadTari, and the buttons work fine. EDIT: I added in a pull up resistor between the Atari and pin 6 (button) output from the mux and that didn't help. Come to think of it, it shouldn't help because the problem is that it's not registering a logical low (not high). Also, I did some more measurements: When a switch is open at the joystick, the voltage slowly moves from 5.2 volts down to 3.6 volts, and then back up. I assume this is because it's a "floating" high? I added a 1M pull up resistor on the button input to test and the voltage now fluctuates between 5.5 volts and 5.1 volts. Is a pull up resistor recommended or required on the joystick inputs? They all seem to work without it, but figured I'd ask. As expected, when you close a switch, the measurement at the joystick goes down to 0 volts. When one button is pressed, the measurement at pin 6 (button) on the working Atari goes down to 2.6 volts. I think this is expected for QT games since with the switching the measurement would be 0 for 1/2 the time and 5.2 volts. To confirm, I pressed both buttons and as expected the voltage at the Atari for pin 6 goes down to 0 volts. On the 7800, the measurement at pin 6 on the Atari when the buttons aren't pressed is 5.2 volts, but it only goes down to 5.0 volts when 1 button is pressed and 4.9 volts when both are pressed (which explains why the buttons are registering). Is there something in the 7800 that is pulling that value high? Again, the button works fine when you plug in a joystick directly or use the old QT design with the 245 buffers. Any ideas? Is it possible that the 7800 got damaged somehow so that it's affecting how pin 6 is read or plays with the mux? The strange thing is that it worked on the 4-switch 2600 fine. Also, the old QT with pull up resistors on the input and output works fine on both systems. It also works fine if I hook up a joystick directly. I am going to add pull up resistors on the output and see if that fixes the problem, but my main concern is that this worked before and not now so I'm trying to figure out what has changed (or could have changed). Any help is appreciated! Thanks, John

Thanks for the offer! I would love to talk shop and collaborate too, that always makes developing these games much more interesting. Since the 2600 and 7800 both use the TIA, perhaps we can collaborate on the sounds (unless you plan on using the Pokey chip). I would also love to discuss the game mechanics as I'm not that familiar with Qix (or at least how to be good at it ), like what determines the path the Sparks follow, setting the sparks trap, flood fill routines, etc. I'll send you a PM... I look forward to chatting!

Thanks for the info @AtariBrian, I didn't realize a version was being made for the 7800! Looks like I'm off the hook! Incidentally , the 5200 version of Qix was the first version I ever played and I really enjoy it. I do think a 2600 version would still be a worthwhile effort considering the fan base but it most likely won't be worked on for awhile as Robotron is being completed for a holiday release, then Gorf Arcade, plus Champ Sports Baseball and Rip Off! in the hopper, and of course a few other "secret" projects... Thanks! Robotron is being worked on now with a planned release by end of year hopefully! PS I haven't forgotten about that hockey game either... hopefully a playable version will be available sometime in 2021!

Hello there! Yes, as Karl G says, I don't think there's any way to make both buttons on a stock 7800 controller work for a 2600 game due to how it's wired up (although I'm sure it could be modded to do so). It was pretty exciting and a bit surprising... I didn't realize there were so many Qix fans out there! 😮 The irony is that I'm not a huge fan of Qix... I've always enjoyed it but was never that good at it, but after the positive response on FB we may have to put this on in the development queue for next year.

Hello all, Yesterday on the Champ Games FB page we revealed a proof-of-concept for Qix for the 2600: It's only a few hours of work but it shows some good progress: full status area with QIX logo, 6 digit score in Qix arcade font, # of reserves, % claimed and % needed to complete level, plus the sparks timer (all with no flicker ) 38x96 draw area filled sections in blue (fast) and orange (slow) 2 sparks that travel around the perimeter your marker, that can also travel around the perimeter, plus draw fast or slow sections We currently plan on supporting 2 control schemes for drawing: 1-button "Lynx" version control where you tap the button while moving to draw fast, press and hold the button and while moving to draw slow (release to finish drawing fast) 2-button Genesis gamepad control with button 1 to draw fast and button 2 to draw slow We also plan on supporting multiple skill levels, 1 or 2 player (alternating, maybe co-op if we can come up with a cool idea), high scores, etc. We posted the question "Would you like to see a completed version released by Champ Games?" and the response has been overwhelmingly positive 😮 so we will most likely work on this for a potential release in 2021. Any suggestions are appreciated! Thanks, John

Avalanche is the pre-cursor to Kaboom! and is supposedly inspired it, so the game play is similar. Catching rocks with paddles is a lot of fun, but it's going to take a lot more than that to live up to David's amazing artwork!

Thanks Steve! I missed the ZPH show so I'm glad to hear that Zoo Keeper showed well! It's been a long road and we're anxious to get the game in people's hands... hopefully soon!

Thanks! @iesposta did a great job converted the phrases to the Atarivox and we were able to fit in 60+ of them! @Nathan Strum has already completed all of the phrases (30+) for Gorf Arcade and we're shooting for a Spring 2021 release and Champ Sports Baseball in the summer of 2021. The QuadTari is an adapter being developed by Nathan Tolbert aka @gauauu in conjunction with Champ Games that allows you to hook up to 4 joysticks to an Atari 2600 by supporting 2 joysticks on each port (this allows you to plug in the QuadTari to one port for 2 joysticks and leave the 2nd port free for the AtariVox/Savekey). Games must be QuadTari compatible to support the additional joystick on each port; games that aren't QuadTari compatible operate in "passthru" mode where one joystick is supported per port. It's been in development for a couple years, but we are happy to announce that the design has been completed and research is being done to start production (case design, cost, etc.) with a release date for the 2020 holiday season (if all goes well with production). Current games that support the QuadTari are Wizard of Wor Arcade and Galagon (this is used for 2 player co-op with Savekey/Atarivox). Zoo Keeper (being released this summer) will also support the QT (this allows you to play 2 player alternating with their own joystick with a SaveKey/AtariVox plugged in). Robotron (scheduled release for holiday season 2020) will allow you to play a 1 player game with 2 joysticks (one for moving, one for control) with AtariVox/SaveKey (we are also planning on adding in a co-op mode). We may also add support for 4 joysticks to allow 2 players each to use 2 joysticks in co-op mode! Gorf Arcade will be QT compatible to allow 2 player alternating with their own joystick with AtariVox/SaveKey plugged in. Champ Sports Baseball will be QT compatible and there are plans to support 4 player also (2 players per team). We plan on releasing a developer's guide to allow other programmers to add in QT support to their games if they wish. Hope that helps! John

Thanks Steve! This is actually a release candidate... if there aren't any bugs found we're finally done (after 20+ months of development! 😮 ). Special thanks to: @Nathan Strum for the graphics, game play suggestions, testing, and impending artwork for the box, label and manual (the sneak preview looks amazing! ) @Thomas Jentzsch for the sound fx and music data and the sound driver code so we could use the original sounds originally developed by Robert Vieira for the 1984 WIP that was never complete. Lee @keebz Kebler for additional music, including the lion theme and the "no bonus" tune, plus extensive game testing and additional suggestions. James and the crew @ZeroPage Homebrew for featuring Zoo Keeper on their Twitch stream show and all the helpful feedback from their testing! Lastly, thank you to all the Atari Age members that have downloaded the demos and provided suggestions on improvements, found bugs, etc. It's very much appreciated! Thanks! John

Good point Bob! Or even just one tri-state switch; left for Paddle 1, middle = joystick, right = Paddle 2. Oh well, maybe for the Ranger II.

I may be wrong, but I think the Atari computers have paddle 1 and paddle 2 reversed vs. the 2600. Since the Ranger only supports player 1, it doesn't work on the 8-bits. I did wire up a quick circuit that allows me to hook up 2 rangers to one port as paddle A and paddle B and paddle B works on the 8-bits.

Great thanks for the suggestion! We're going to go with 10K. No worries - we (well, ChildOfCV) figured it out pretty quick! Thanks for the design, it works very well and no interference to boot!

So I think we're all set; we're going to wire up vcc to pin 5 and 7 which works for all cases. Now that we're doing that, the Genesis controllers work reliably with lower pull-up resistor values on the select line. Previously, they did not work with 10k or 4.7k ohms (we went with 100k which worked for all). Now that we have vcc going to the pins, all joysticks (Genesis gamepad and arcade stick included) work with 10k and 4.7k resistors. Is it worth using a lower value resistor for the select line? What is the benefit? Is there any risk? Should we try lower values? I think you mentioned that lower was better, perhaps because the responsiveness is better? Thanks, John

Okay that makes sense. Gotcha. Okay, thanks for the suggestions! I'm not sure how we'll go with this; maybe we'll add a switch for pin 5 for Genesis 100% compatibility, although the gamepads seem to work without anything hooked up to pin 5, most likely because they don't have the auto-fire mechanism and LEDs that the Arcade Stick has. Thanks again! John

Okay, that makes sense. Silly question: without the QT, if I hook a Genesis directly to the Atari, how does it get power to pin 5? Meaning, how does a Genesis controller work reliably at all if power is just connected to pin 7? I would assume pin 5 from the Atari is connected to pin 5 of the Genesis controller and that isn't VCC, right? It's the paddle input so it would always be low unless dump ports was active, right? Actually the QuadTari has a pull up resistor on pin 9; pin 5 isn't connected from the Atari at all. It is correct that pin 5 and pin 9 are not passed on to the joysticks at all. I just tested with pin 5 of the joystick connected to pin 7 and as you promised it does work without issue. Question: is there a reason why I can't just have pin 7 and pin 5 of the joystick hooked up to pin 7 (vcc) of the Atari all the time? I tested with pin 5 and 7 hooked up to vcc with all the joysticks and it works in all cases. If I only have pin 5 connected, the Genesis arcade stick works but the Hyperkin ranger does not (my guess is that the HR gets power on pin 7 since it's designed to be an Atari controller). If I have pin 7 connected, as we know the Genesis is inconsistent but the Hyperkin works without issue. If both are connected, all joysticks work without issue. Is there any harm in having them both connected? I would assume for regular Atari joysticks where pin 5 and 9 aren't even wired up there is no risk. The Hyperkin probably doesn't even look at pin 5 or pin 9 in joystick mode so that's probably fine. I'm not sure how the Colecovision controller works but that seemed to work fine with both hooked up. The Genesis as you said uses pin 5 for vcc and pin 7 to multiplex; if they're both hooked up to vcc then only button B will only be active which isn't a problem since we don't read the other joystick anyway. A switch would work too but I'm not sure if it's needed; we're trying to keep the design as simple as possible. Thanks again for the suggestions! John

Thanks for the feedback! Hmmm, pin 5 on the Atari is already disconnected; I'm using pin 9 from the Atari for the select line. Pin 5 and Pin 9 on the joystick ports are disconnected too, so I don't think the paddle input/select line to the QuadTari should interfere with the Genesis controller, should it? Regular Genesis controllers work with pin 7 from the Atari hooked up to pin 7 of the joystick port. It's just the Arcade Stick that doesn't have a low enough voltage on a closed switch to register a low correctly (.68 volts). I'll try to hook up pin 7 on the Atari to pin 5 on the joystick to see if that makes any difference. Thanks, John

Okay, that makes sense. I switched my test program so DUMP_PORTS was done in-kernel but that didn't seem to make much of a difference. It's hard to tell because the RF picture is pretty bad even without the QuadTari. 😕 However, @gauauu had test boards build with the current design and doesn't see any interference in his tests. Thanks for the suggestion. I did some more tests with other controllers and found some interesting results: As expected, all normal joysticks (4 directions, button and ground wired up) work without issue. Standard Genesis gamepads: PASS Hyperkin Ranger: PASS Colecovision controller (standard): PASS Genesis Arcade Power Stick: FAIL (inconsistent) I was surprised the Standard Genesis controller works but the Arcade power stick did not, so I did some investigating: The Arcade Power Stick works if you disconnect pin 7 (VCC) to the joystick. However, if you do this, the Hyperkin Ranger fails (other controllers PASS). The Hyperkin Ranger is a hybrid controller with a paddle and joystick, so my guess is that the circuitry inside requires power to support all that switching. With VCC connected to pin 7, *sometimes* the Arcade Power Stick will work (turn the VCS on/off) but rarely. the Arcade Power Stick will work if you disconnect VCC to pin 7 *after* turning on the game and then reconnect it while the Atari is on (not safe of course, but interesting) Regardless of whether the joystick directionals work, the button always works, VCC pin 7 connected or not). I measured the voltage for UP (joystick pin 1 and ground) when the joystick works and it's about 4.7 volts when the switch is open and goes down to 0.12 volts when the switch is closed I measured the voltage for UP (joystick pin 1 and ground) when the joystick does not work and it's about 4.7 volts when the switch is open and goes down to 0.68 volts when the switch is closed. This explains why the direction isn't registering If you look at the description of the Arcade Power Stick, it has extra circuitry in it to support auto fire for the three buttons, plus there are LEDs for each button to indicate if autofire is enabled, plus a slider to control the rate of fire. My guess is that all this extra circuitry is causing the issue. If you disconnect pin 7, it would seem all this extra circuitry is disabled since there is no power and the joystick functions like a normal joystick. Another point is that the state of these LEDs seems to random when you turn the 2600 on and off (and this is true even without the QT); sometimes all 3 are on, sometimes one is blinking, sometimes a couple are on, etc. Of course this is all speculation. I did try to wire up a "pull up" resistor bank (1M) that I had from an old design but that didn't help (makes sense since that only pulls the voltage up and the issue is that the voltage isn't pulled down enough). Is there such thing as a "pull down" resistor that could help with the inconsistent reading of the switches so they would register a true "low" when they closed? Another solution as you suggested is just to have an adapter that disables vcc, but if there is an easy way to fix the circuit to support this out of the box that would be preferred. We could also put in a switch that could enable/disable vcc to pin 7 of the joystick ports. Yes, since pin 5 and 9 from the Atari are used for the select lines (well, just pin 9 but pin 5 is enabled with DUMP_PORTS too), only 1 button will be supported for Genesis controllers through the QT. We're almost there... thanks again for all the help! John

Thank you! @Albert is currently finishing up a feature that will allow developers to see their ROMs right here on AtariAge that should be available soon!

Hi there! I'm glad you're enjoying Wizard of Wor Arcade! Adding the voices for the AtariVox really helps give it that "arcade" experience and was a lot of fun to do (special thanks to @iesposta for creating all the speech phrases ). Champ Games is currently working on Gorf Arcade (release date either late 2020 or early 2021) and also a line of sports games (Champ Sports), starting with Champ Sports Baseball, that will feature voice for the announcer. I'm not sure of many other 2600 titles that use the Atarivox for voice; a few I can recommend is Juno First which is an awesome game and Dungeon Stalker (but that is for the 7800).

Like Karl said, technically yes, although at the time I think they were just making 2K games so even a 4K Space Invaders would have been a stretch at least economically. I'm not sure when the "RESP" trick was discovered or first used, but the Galagon kernels are direct descendants of the kernels used in Galaxian circa 1983.

I had the same issue in Galaga(on), however I am able to get a bit better movement by using 7 pixel sprites and using REFPx to simulate a 1 pixel move for one of the frames. Galaxian achieves 1 pixel movement per frame by using 6 pixel sprites and using a combination of REFPx and the sprite graphics shifted right 1 bit. For Galagon, they move 1,0,2 pixels per 3 frames since I went with 7 pixel sprites.