Mef

To be honest, for my future multi-controller switchbox, it'd be enough to make GND line selectable via multi-position switch and connect everything else directly for each socket.

So true... and yet barely anyone tackles homemade Driving Controllers. I've seen people building their own optical encoder discs from scratch, or buying expensive vintage Arcade Spinners for that, instead of simply using off-the-shelf mechanical rotary encoders, crazy! Anyway, that's a sweet setup you got there. I was thinking about building all-in-one controllers at some point too, but I've decided to make a "controller switch-box" instead, some day. This way I could keep all the original controllers hooked up at all times, and simply select which are being used. Haven't gotten around to build one yet, but I'll sure post it here once I get the time to put it all together. I envy you US guys easy access to arcade parts (let alone VCS stuff, but that's another story) - we've got a Suzo-Happ factory in Poland, but it only focuses on casino machines.

I've wanted to check whether I can simply use off-the-shelf rotary encoder to make a substitute for Driving Controller, and started with schematic from the Atari 2600 VCS Domestic Field Service Manual (page 133 in the pdf). Since I already had a cable with standard joy plug from some ruined old joystick, and a potentiometer knob from an old radio, it was all down to buying the encoder, a switch and a small project case, then wiring it all together. I payed about $1 for the encoder, half of that for the switch and since the local electronics store was all out of small cases, I stole one of my wife's tiny food boxes (only 6.5x6.5x4cm). The only shit part is that I can't seem to find encoders with 16 pulses (4 cycles) per revolution, like the original C010802 part. They only seem to sell 20, 24 and 30 pulses ones everywhere. But, since I already own a pair of regular Driving Controllers, I picked up a 30-pulses one, to have almost twice the resolution for playing Reflex. Doesn't work so good for Indy 500 as it's very sensitive and rotating the knob by 1/4 will make the car turn around... but works like a charm for Reflex, plays so sweet it feels almost like cheating! All in all, it only took about 45 minutes of work, most of it spent cutting holes in the plastic box and trimming off the tabs on the outside, which would otherwise make it painful to hold. Minimum soldering, only to connect the joy cable to 4 points and 1 extra piece of wire to connect GND from the switch to the encoder. I must admit that using a long shaft and slim knob makes it perfect for holding with 3 (thumb, index and middle) fingers, giving a great level of controll. If you're on a budget, or like me - live in a country where Driving Controllers are nowhere to be found, or just like to mess around with DYI stuff, I heartily recommed you to try this out. Mine was more of a "proof of concept" contraption, but turned out to work very well, so if you have time to spare and appropriate tools, you could make a really great controller with nice wooden/plexi/metal case. Pics attached.

Hi boomlinde, I was always in love with the Jupiter Lander/Space Taxi physics-based steering and there's never enough such games for the 8-bit machines for me. Enjoyed your game a lot. It's a very solid unique idea, equally well executed. It sort of feels like the launch titles, creating a genre in a way. Well defined mechanics, with simplified, but neat and informative schematic graphics. There is one thing tho, that I've found lacking. Variety of gameplay. It's just the same wrestle every time and would quickly grow old. Therefore, to keep with the spirit of multiple "games" within one, like with the early cartridges (Combat, Air Sea Battle, Video Olympics), I'd like to give you some ideas to make your creation much more attractive. Including multiple new game modes, while keeping the original rendering engine shouldn't be that hard. Many of those would require some kind of numeric score counter tho, but I think it'd be worth it. To cheaply introduce even more variations, you can make the difficulty switches change the behavior of particular seemingly small details of the gameplay, like - will the Lander bounce off the walls in a predictable manner or totally randomly. From what I've read, your game's code only takes up 2kb, so there'd be plenty of space for new modes and maps within the non-bankswitched limit of 4kb. Please! Introduce some of those, or maybe come up with your own under my inspiration, and you're not only making one fan happier, but also can make it to Atari 2600 hombrew history. I feel that this game's simple premise and brilliant presentation have a lot of potential. Here's a couple of ideas for starters.: Ideas for Game modes: Tag. (Like many of the below, heavily influenced by Indy 500.) One of the Landers is flashing, meaning he's the fugitive. The other has to catch him, to prevent the first player from accumulating points. Once the fugitive is caught, players switch roles. Points are awarded only for the escapee and are proportional to the time spent running away. One point for every second of escape. On Tag variant of the game, the Landers are indestructible and will bounce off harmlessly from the walls. Once either player scores a sum of 99 points, the game is over and the winner flashes as a visual indicator for victory. Deadly Tag. Like the Tag game above, only players are no longer invulnerable to collisions with walls. Crashing into wall will cause a loss of the fugitive status (players instantly switch roles) or a short stun for the chasing player. Collector. Players compete to reach a randomly placed object (say a small square representing some space trash or meteors) and are awarded one point for each. Once the item is collected, it will reappear in another random location, always only one piece. On Collector variant of the game, the Landers are indestructible and will bounce off harmlessly from the walls Deadly Collector. Like the Collector game, but crashing into walls will cause a short stun. Cave Run. Players have to navigate a one-screen maze. Whoever reaches the end first is awarded a point and the map is reset, with player's swapping starting positions (to prevent the advantage of starting closer to the inner side of the curves). First player to reach 10 points wins. On Cave Run variant of the game, the Landers are indestructible and will bounce off harmlessly from the walls. Deadly Cave Run. Like the Cave Run game, but crashing into walls will cause a short stun. Ideas for Difficulty Switches' settings: Super Inertia. The Landers quickly gain a lot of inertia (say twice as fast as the original steering). This will mean a completely new, more thrilling and precise experience for the players. Random Bounce. Landers no longer bounce off the walls (in supported modes) in a predictable manner, but completely at random. Reverse Gravity. Self-explanatory. Other ideas: Wraparound movement. Have some maps lack vertical or horizontal walls, or even have openings in both dimensions! Players leaving the screen thru one edge would emerge on the other side. With smart layout, some crazy combinations could be achieved. A must have! Variety in Landers' graphics. Perhaps have the different game modes use distinct Landers' sprites? Collectors being more chunky, Tag ones more sleek, etc. Phew, sorry for the wall of text, but I just wish this game gets released as a more complete product, providing hours of entertainment. Imagine writing like "27 video games" onto the box, now that's something to be proud of!

Might be dirty connector, sure, but... If it just happened suddenly one day and you didn't have trouble before (didn't need to wiggle/reposition the cart and the contacts look clean), then perhaps your cartridge connector is just not making physical contact on one or more address lines? Try looking into the connector if the pins aren't bent and are uniformly aligned. If everything looks fine, I'd try disassembling the console and running the soldering iron along the solder joints between connector and the motherboard (after applying a little bit of flux there). You might check for continuity between the pins and the motherboard first with a simple multi-meter, if you have one.

Why 3D printing, when a proper industry already exists for ages? You could get that done as a laser-cut custom rubber stamp within minutes, for just a couple $. And unlike a printing block you could actually use that one without any extra equipment...

Really liked the thread, so I tried to glitch my games as well. Not by wiggling the carts, nor messing around with the power button, but instead used my 128-in-1 multicart and just briefly pushed the bank selection diswitches at random while a game was playing. Results were really funny: begining with garbled sprites and playfield, thru complete nonsense (which mostly made my TV lose the picture after a while, damn digital crap), to some unexpected ones, like the last 3 pics. In Encounter at L-5 I got "You Win" in the score counter, in Seahawk I got the player sprite expand like four times horizontally but the game kept working ok other than that and finally - I managed to get Megamania bottom bar appear on one screen with PacMan maze. Shame I didn't have any CRT at hand, but at least LCD was easy to photograph without getting out of sync with the shutter (horizontal bars, pulsing brightness, etc.), and I could just shoot with my phone. Enjoy!

No one mentioned Gorf!? For me it's very impressive how much was crammed into a regular 4k ROM. Doesn't look like there were a lot of sacrifices to the gameplay, neither is it a flicker-fest like some more known Arcade ports. Pac Man and the like pale in comparison. As for the ones already listed, Jungle Hunt is also among my favorites, being very close to the original and it doesn't feel anyhow restricted either.

Radar Lock: In two-player games, the flight officer uses the left controller to fly the ship. The weapons officer uses the right directional control to select weapons and the right fire button to fire them. It's a bit of a stretch, but it does differ from One-player version in a way that the "primary" player doesn't get to fire the weapons. Good if you want to play with your kid and make him feel usefull (Weapons Officer, FIRE THEM ROCKETS!), without ruining the gameplay for you.

Hi mamejay & iddod It might be a similar issue to the one I'm having with my multicart as well. http://atariage.com/forums/topic/230462-atari-2600-jr-pal-compability-issues-please-advise/ Till now I thought that it's just a shitty TIA from the last production runs made by UMC (1991!), but got the very same results with Warlords and certain Demos on my multicart -- when using an early short rainbow JR (recently purchased for the sole purpose of finding out whether its real compability issue or something else to blame). Could either of you try burning Warlords or Tom/Jones by Trilobit on those faulty setups, for comparison?

Hi all, I think the multicartridge is to blame for these glitches, and not the console(s) after all. I've got my second Junior arrive today, a 84/85 short rainbow one with Synertec/Rockwell chips (looks like the TIA is the same as in PAL Vaders) and it exhibits the same behaviour with Warlords and the Demoes mentioned earlier. Might be that the eprom isn't fast enough, or there is some other quirk in the multicart I'm using. Anyone had bad experences with AMIC A29040B 70? I'll try to get the schematics for this cartridge I'm using, in case anyone might spot something odd.

My second PAL Junior has arrived today. Short rainbow MANUFACTURED FOR ATARI, INC., BY ATARI TAIWAN MANUFACTURING CORP. IN TAIWAN MODEL NO. CX-2600 JR. COVERED BY US PATENT NUMBER 4, 122, 422 OTHER PATENTS, AND PATENTS PENDING. S.N. AT 850012163 Board: CO21503 REV B 45-84 RIOT: Synertek C010750-03 dated 8423 CPU: Rockwell C010745-12 R6507-15 dated 8443 TIA: Synertek (?) C011903-0? dated 8433? (Can't read without removing the shield. Logo and general marking types look like Synertek, but hard to tell from such angle.) Bottom side of the case reads: C021604-H-(10) inside. Top of the case reads: C0-21603 I inside. Past unknown, apart from looking like never being opened before. Quite dirty, some rusty spots on the shield. Got it from german E-bay. Again, very good RF picture -- I'm partial to saying that people moaning about RF quality just never get proper cables...

If I were you, I wouldn't discard those shells but instead put back together and reinforce the "screws'-tubes" with some epoxy glue. But that's mostly because you won't ever find ANY paddles, working or not, around these parts.

Not really a "sound effect", but more like an ambient background - my old favourite was Star Ship, recently tied by Solar Storm. I think those are "outside the box" enough.

River Raid. It looks and plays like it was from another generation, while only done in 4k. Plus, a casual gamer could easily get those 20k for a patch.

Competition Pro 500. It's been serving me since 1989 or so, and is still in perfect order. Depending on the particular piece, you might need a little lubricant under the ring between the shaft and the main body (otherwise it might "squeek" a bit), but that's about it. Other than that, I like the "arcade'y" SV133 or SV135, depends on your hands' size. I modded mine a bit, as the original one was very stiff, and now it's my second favourite.

Thanks again Thomas! I won't be able to test it for the time being, as I don't have the equipement to flash the cart (I've ordered it with the ROMs I have sent to the maker), but will try it whenever I have the opportunity to do so. Does anyone have any idea about the document I've mentioned at the end of my previous post?

Thank you Thomas. Your input is much apprecieated, but unfortunately, also very cryptic to me. Are you saying that the way Warlords is coded, it relies on the first 6 bits of collision register containing the value of previously read address, using it as kind of a temporary "storage"? Was there any version of this game that wouldn't use that particular technique? Like a " fix for some TIAs" version or something? I know that some games were revised during their lifetime, to remove dependencies on code that might have different outcome depending on the console used, was Wardlords among those as well? Or maybe it's something that can be fixed on the console side? Say, the values of these registers are set on power-on and the switches aren't debounced properly, or need to hold the reset line a bit longer upon start? (I'm just making this up, am I?) P.S. I remember once seing a scan of internal Atari document describing all the incompatibilities they've found between older 2600 and Jr, but can't find it anymore. Does it ring a bell for anyone?

Hello Atarians, I've recently got a simple (no bankswitching, only 2/4k ROMs) multicart for my Junior and finally got to try a couple titles I've never owned, and also some 4k Demos. To my surprise, 3 of those are more or less messed up: In Warlords, the right side of the playfield isn't mirrored, but the numbers in top right corner are! This was the most surprising of the 3 glitches, as I have never seen any compatibility problems with Warlords ever mentioned with PAL Juniors or any of the corresponding TIA revisions. In Gehirn, the first letter in "Wamma" is misplaced to the left and the "antenna mast grid" is not centered, but also moved to the left. Tom/Jones by Trilobit is just complete shit... My Jr is a late (1991) PAL version. After carefully scanning thru various sources on TIA compability issues, I've found nothing that could explain the problem with Warlords. All the ROMs used on the cart were earlier tested in Stella set to PAL mode. Only thing I've found that might shed some light on the issues I'm experiencing, is this piece at 2600connection: Version 10 is found in 2600 "JR" consoles (both NTSC and PAL) that are made in China after late 1989. The signal timing in the TIA for the shifting pulses for the movable objects seems to be a little off from older versions of the TIA. Therefore when a game starts the shifting process in such a way that some of the shifting pulses happen during the visible part of the screen, the movable objects might be positioned slightly differently. This affects all PAL 7800 consoles, too. Sounds like what's happening with the Gehirm demo, but doesn't help on messed up mirroring in Warlords. To make things even more interesting, I've also got a clone system built on UMC AoaC from 1992 and it's showing exactly the same issues. Please have a look at this short video showing my problems: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnQeawkHyzg Could any of the hardware/software masters here confirm that this is just an incompatible TIA/timings for certain operations and I can just forget the whole thing? Or maybe this makes you suspicious of some component failure/deficency, or badly designed multi-cartridge (flash too fast/slow to Read)? I don't really care about the demos, as these are bound to be tricky, but while there are repeated mentions of other titles having trouble with compability, it's never Warlords! And being such a common game, this is driving me insane that noone has documented it yet.

Hey. I know it's necropsting, but I recently got sucked in into the search for those illustrators and similar works as well. I was looking at the signature on Asteroids Deluxe poster close-up and decided to give my mad deciphering skills a try and started searching for: "Asteroids Deluxe Viljam**" (trying different letters as **) and actually found something! "(...) Opperman points to the art on Asteroids Deluxe, which he directed, Finnish abstract painter Marty Viljamaa designed and Flemate illustrated, as one of his favorite works. "On Asteroids Deluxe we got to try some different things, like using a four-color process rather than fill-in line art," Opperman says. Among the 70 to 80 games he and his staff have illustrated .Centipede and Space Duel are also among his favorites. Opperman may have his favorite game designs, but the design for which Among the 70 to 80 games the Atari coin-op art staff has worked on, Opperman counts the intergalactic war scenes in Space Duel as among his favorites. (...)" Here's the source: https://archive.org/details/Video_Games_Volume_1_Number_09_1983-06_Pumpkin_Press_US PDF download: https://archive.org/download/Video_Games_Volume_1_Number_09_1983-06_Pumpkin_Press_US/Video_Games_Volume_1_Number_09_1983-06_Pumpkin_Press_US.pdf The article on Opperman is on page 30.

Ha! Good tip with the variable resistor. I completely forgot about that. I think it's a similar case as with the Commodore 64s, where the Chroma signal is very strong and many people add extra 75-150 Ohm resistor onto the Chroma line when hooking it up to a new LCD TV. Otherwise they either get crazy colors with a lot of bleeding, or black & white picture (or alternating between color and B&W, depending on what's being drawn). Glad you've tuned your VCS!

I think he's meant the decorative orange accents on the top shell of the joystick...

Just to give you a little comfort - my games usually look almost exactly the same. This is especially bad with small areas of diagonal singled-out pixels of highly saturated colors like the details on Space Invaders or the figures from Skydiver. All jagged and even slanted, with various pixels getting different shades of the main color as the TV tries to blur them. You'd notice that this is gone when switching to B&W mode (slight ghosting, etc will remain), because only the Luma part of the signal is processed and there is no messy/lossy mixing of Luma (kinda "pixel position and brightness" component of the image) with Chroma (color information), which makes Composite so bad. This is why S-video is the best way to go. Even better, on the afformentioned Commodore 1702 or 1084 monitors. Disregarding all the other pluses they have, they are very-very tolerant when it comes to old computers and consoles' signals, which are rarely perfectly up to specs (let's just say that Commodore's, or Atari 8bit machines' signal predates the S-video standard used in TVs later on, so it might differ slightly) and have a multitude of inputs for different systems.

I'm guessing you guys are tapping to the wrong pins on TIA. The pinout is slightly different for PAL and NTSC, so it's not just a matter of the crystal. Check this out:

Here's the thing - Most of what you've described is not related to NTSC/PAL at all (not sure about the video pinball, but maybe you've been using NTSC cart on a PAL machine and got used to different palette? Most games work ok between systems, with just the palettes differing). Your TV is "new" enough to be multisystem, even tho it's running on 50Hz power supply. That's because the power supply no longer dictates the refresh rate as it did with many CRTs. So PAL/NTSC discord is usually out of question. There's a couple things that I had to learn the hard way, naively believing that the picture quality was always fine with the old consoles I got (VCS, NES) and it's the fault with new TVs. Well, apparently, the TVs and consoles are usually both ok, there's just those details we didn't know/notice as kids, caring mostly about action and looking at much smaller CRT screens. Let me share: The "scanlines" on some objects are the effect of original game flickering the sprite in question. It's just that modern TVs get confused by that flicker and think the image was interlaced, displaying empty frame every other scanline for objects which rapidly blink. I get the same with Jungle Hunt's crocodiles and other stuff. Instead of blinking as intended, they just become horizontally "striped". The overall blurriness, ghosting and color bleed is simply how the original shittyness of Composite gets upscaled. You notice it more partly because you're looking at the screen 4 times the size of an old tube one, and partly because of the built-in "enchancements" which serve you bullshit like increased contrast, interpolated synthetic picture frames drawn inbetween the 50/60 Hz refresh rate, to make your TV "100 Hz" or "200 Hz" or whatever it says, and such. Fuzzy edges of vertical lines, grains along the edges, washed out colors around the edges of objects and loss of small detail are all part of the main Composite flaw called Dot Crawl, again, upscaled as if you used a poor "blur" filter in a graphical program. People convert to Composite, because it's far more resistant to interferences than RF, but the quality doesn't really improve if you had a good RF cable. No converters, like Composite-to-HDMI are going to help, because you simply can't accurately retrieve all the picture "data" once it's been "compressed" with high loss ratio (this is a newbie-friendly description, not the real thing, but it should give you the right feel. Try Googling for Composite artifacting and dot crawl to learn more). The only upgrade you can get from here, is modding for S-Video output (provided your TV can accept it via S-Video connector or can be fed S-Video via SCART - some can, especially when they have more than 1 SCART), which will remedy all the dot crawl, most of the fine detail loss and "skewed" picture. Slight color bleed and some ghosting will stay tho, as those would require RGB/Component signal, which the VCS can't produce. The amount of blurriness is reliant on the upscaling engine of your TV, you might try to switch some of the enchancments off, by looking for a "game mode" in your TVs settings. For the "scanlines" issue, as far as I know - there's nothing you can do about it, apart from buying an expensive a proffesional monitor or standalone upscaler, which can fully understand 240p picture format. Hope that helps, any questions - let me know.