Andromeda Stardust

But if everyone did this they would be worthless. You gotta be well ahead of the curve. Every collectible commodity goes through this. Baseball cards were discarded and thrown away before they became valuable. Toys got used and broken. Like 90s era baseball cards are practically worthless, only cards released before it became popular are worth anything. Ditto for toys. And games, though people do still buy used games to play as well as collect.

It will play out exactly like that Simpsons episode with Radioactive man Volume 1.

But in your excitement to tear into the box the armored vehicle just dropped, you realised you forgot to record it for the "viral" unboxing video...

Glad you got it in in time. I imagine the inrush of orders will slow down after the first 24 hours. If it sells out, there is the possibility for another run still, at least I seem to recall the author mention it. I hate limited stuff, but I do understand sellers don't want to be stuck with unsaleable stock. Regardless, I can't wait to receive mine.

how does the maze actually function?

The epsilon quadrant was pure genius imo. Ps: "interplanetary jerrymandering" for the win!👽

Paid.

Considering arcade trackball encoders (with full size 2.25" cue ball) cost a pretty penny, there are some pretty nice trackball mice made for Windows PCs. If you could plug a ps2 or usb mouse into an adapter for the 9-pin controller port, it could convert it into trackball movement. Button 2 could map to pin 9 with a pull up resistor to be readable like a Genesis button C.

oh my bad. I thought you meant this one.

250 games is plenty. Sometimes less is more...

DO NOT PLAY KABOOM! WITH THE XM MODULE INSTALLED. Consider this your one and only warning...

I think he drilled directly into a desk top.

+1. I would still like to buy one if available.

100% impulse buy. I walked into Best Buy to look for CDs (newsflash: they have a single $5.99 clearance rack with a hodge podge of leftover CDs. Actually better vinyl selection than CD) and walked out with this in tow: Valentine's day present to myself.

I have the Galaga unit. Overall the software build is pretty good. The cabinet could use a bit of reinforcement but is pretty sturdy. The control panel can use some modding though. First thing is remove all of the components and apply laquer or spray varnish so the art doesn't rub off. Then I would upgrade the buttons with standard 28mm Suzo/Happ style plungers with 20g Zippy microswitches. You can buy these at Paradise Arcade Shop or Groovy Game Gear. Also a better joystick would go a long way too. Be sure to install the proper joystick type for whatever games are installed. I bought my Galaga in Walmart right after Halloween and have had fun with it so far. I started making a video review a couple months back in segments; have not finished it yet because holidays, life, job, changing interests, and then "midlife crisis" hit me right around my 38th birthday. #manopause Yeah, it's a thing I guess. Blood pressure pills, yuck! I'm too young to be going through this bullcrap...

Well pooh. I'm just getting to work around 8am...

They are asshats. Both modern day Atari and Coleco can diaf for all I care. Patent / trademark trolls indeed. Funnily, Chris Cardillio (of modern day Coleco) claimed to own the "Cingular" trademark, yet go into any ATT store, and ask about flip phones. They make a "Nostalgic" 4G flip phone with the name "Cingular Flip", so I'm not sure how they can claim to own the trademark when the original parent company (AT&T) is still using it.

This control scheme works well on dpads (example: Nes, Genesis) because the dpad is utilized like a standard button. I can attest this feels VERY awkward when played on any joystick with tilt for left and press button for right, doubly so on "right handed" sticks. When I built my jumbo sized NES arcade controller, I included built in side flippers mapped to Left and A. I always hated the Midnight Magic layout why I'm glad they added discrete buttons for Proline controllers. Now any of my two button sticks will work.

So basically, the new SD2SNES disables the built in SNES audio by running it's own [identical?] audio through the exp pins? I did notice that expansion games such as the Super Game Boy have to "turn on" the expansion audio kn a real SNES through code, yet this must be done manually through the Super NT menu to get expanded sound. Perhaps the new dissabled APU hack in the SD2SNES uses a similsr method?

Could be that Namco has licensing with another arcade manufacturer. I bought the Data East one last year on the 'bay. Truth be told, I haven't even opened the box it came in. Namco has so many competing devices now ranging from the World's Tiniest Arcades at 4 inches to the 4 foot 1up cabs. Honestly at this point, I'd hold out for a better multi packaged game seeing as a lot of stuff is coming around the corner. Plus the My Arcade joysticks are kind of rubbish.

New high score on the Galaga cab! Also who's this overgrown kid keeps inputting naughty words in the initial screen?

The 7800 does not use common ground on the inputs. The resistors (typically 620 nut I always used 560 in mine as they are more common) in the 7800 controller differentiate between "strong" and "weak" logic so that the 7800 can overpower the current sinking capability of the resistors. When operating in 1-button mode on a 7800, or on non-7800 hardware pressing either button drains pin six to ground through a resistor. The paddle pins are normally low on 2600 hardware, so no change is detected on them. When operating in 2-button mode, the strong pin 6 logic signal isn't drained by the resistors, and instead bridged to the paddle pins yielding a high logic signal, which the 7800 detects as a press. To prevent damage to the 7800, the high logic signal is instantly disabled anytime a standard 1-button joystick is plugged in and shunts the strong signal to ground during a fire press. Using an 7800 controller on an SMS or a Genesis controller on a 2-button 7800 game will yeild erratic behaviour of the fire buttons. I built a cigar box controller with 3 buttons and a toggle switch that allows SMS, 7800, and Genesis pad emulation while in 2600 mode. It consisted of a 560 ohm pullup resistor and a diode for the homebrew-compatible SMS circuit, and two 560-ohm resistors for 7800 circuit. I posted the "untested" schematic in another AA thread some time ago, and built a working prototype one year later. SMS controllers won't operate on Atari hardware without a pullup resistor on pin 9. And 330 ohm is a bit lower than needed but should work fine. I would recommend 1kohm for pullups. Sure you can make a custom 3-button controller, but software needs to be created to use it, and homebrew authors are generally reluctant to write code that needs custom built hardware to interface. 3-button Genesis controllers are cheap and plentiful, and were already a popular option for Atari gamers who did not like the CX-40. Layer on when homebrew took off in a big way, it was discovered that the second and third buttons were accessible to software without mods, so programmers started designing games for them. You are free to create a 3-button controller for Atari 8-bits or 2600, but be advised you might be faced with a chicken-and-egg delimma when it comes to support. Also be aware that a third pushbutton switch from pin 5 to ground may be dangerous if plugged into Sega SMS or Genesis hardware, because Sega used pin 5 for vcc instead of Atari's pin 7. So you will need an inline shunt resistor (100 ohms would be adequate to keep low logic below .5v if using a 1k pullup to vcc) between the switch and ground to prevent blowing the 5v regulator if accidentally plugged into Sega hardware.

One potential issue here is that you are driving 5V logic off of a 3.3V VCC bus. Most vintage electronics run on 5V supply, though they will operate reliably from about 4-6V. You are running the logic below spec. While "browning out" solid state logic chips will not cause damage like overvolting can, the chips are operating at marginal capacity, with greatly increased latency and eventually potential malfunction of the logic gate or failure to produce valid output. And the CX-80 has a lot of chips in it. So one CX-80 might function normally, whereas another might not. Remember the Retron77 was only designed to function with stock paddles and joysticks, which do not contain any active circuits. Controllers with turbo function might also malfunction at 3.3V, though 555 timers can generally be operated over a wider range of voltage input than standard digital logic. A bog standard joystick or paddle that only closes a circuit or outputs a resistance would happily operate at 3.3V, 5V, 12V, or any other low voltage/current logic level.

Yeah the switch issue is contact bounce on the slider switches. I get a lot of "sparkle" when I slide the contacts, which is a bit different from the lines that Jin showed me in his video a couple years ago when I built him that custom wire harness. I did order a set of factory stock switches from Best Electronics in 2014, but never got around to installing them. The solder mask on the old pcbs is so thick I'm afraid of scorching the board with too much heat if I try and tune the iron hot enough to melt it. I have a cheapo bulb desolder iron from Radio Shack but it's junk and the tip is almost gone. Probably safer to just cut the switches with wire clippers and remove one leg at a time. Or I may just see if I can get a baggie of .01uF caps. .01uF seems like it would be a good number to use. We don't really need whole milliseconds of hold time for a bounce that disappears within microseconds. Honestly the sparkle effect from contact bounce doesn't bother me much, though it can be a nuisance if I'm trying to select say variation number 53 our of 112 and it skips straight from 52 to 54. I am so glad most Batari Basic and Melody enhanced homebrew games larger than 8kb now use text menus so I don't have to look up a long list of variations or difficulty switch settings. LAter, gotta get back to work. Storm tropper stuff...

You might try a .01uF .1uF is the maximum you would want to use. Beyond this point, plugging a controller with more than .1uF could cause vcc levels to droop, potentially crashing the console. 8bitdo adapters will sporadically reset the nes when hotplugged because the intush current is too high. But the cap is connected across a switch, not a voltage rail. Bigger issue is the switch has an input impedance on the console. I do not know what the input impedance is on the Atari, but too high a cap value will make the switch act like a one stop, holding the input for multiple frames. So a .1uF cap connectdd to a 60k input impedance (i am guesding here) will have an rc time constant of ~.006 seconds. One frame is 1/60 sec or .0167. Now, an rc time constant is the time required for an input to reach 63% of it's final resting value. The threshold for most 5v logic is typically 2.4v or greater for high and .8v or lower for low. The intermediary area is a fuzzy logic area outside of normal operating parameters that could result in the chip bein GB unable to reliably detect a logic state. In layman's terms, the exac TV moment of logic transition is unknown. Since the logic is normally high and becomes pulled low, the cap will gradually fill up to 5v potential. 2.4v is 48% of vcc, less than 63, so the time will be shorter than .006 seconds as and significantly shorter TV han ok one frame. Suppose the input impedance is 10k or less, you are looking at less than 1 millisecond hold time after releasing the fire button. In short, a 1uF cap isn't going to cause noticeable delay of inout, but larger values will. And it's a common filterr cap size gor protecting logic chips from load transients. At any rate, your glitching should be cured. You won't believe when another user accused my custom built wiring harness of being defective because the microswitch joysticks glitched his tia. In a curious turn of events, I ended up buying the joystick from him when he decided to kock it on ebay, and I still have it. No symptoms on my end at all...