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Magic Knight

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Everything posted by Magic Knight

  1. With Ballblazer carts enevitely going to be rare after harvesting of pokeys, hopefully demand and sales pushes the costs down as Pokeyones get cheaper to make. I'd be interested in these if they were half the price, but yeah they are too expensive. They do look good though :0)
  2. yeah - bit weird, i powered up a 2600Jr and a woody 4 switcher last week with a 2amp 12VDC PSU and neither would behave despite being a brand new PSU. (wasnt a charger or anything like that - proper PSU) 7800 might be ok but i do recall this being an issue before. Ive always been ok with 9V however on any of the TIA based consoles.
  3. Ive attempted to used 12V supply on 2600 and 7800's before and this caused some strange results on the consoles. Which is kinda stage as regulators usually are fairly forgiving on larger voltages being used. A 5V input shouldn't work either and might actually cause damage if attempted for a length of time, as the components are powered but (as a result) are attempting to draw more current with the too low a voltage. Ive seen panel meters and digital display go crazy with too low a voltage and with some irretrievable damage in some cases.
  4. He might mean FCC approval for USA or CE conformity for Europe, but most folks dont really give a toss in the hobby market if an add-on is approved or not by this - as long as the product is fit for purpose.
  5. Molecule Man by Mastertronic had a decent maze designer on the flip side of the tape. Polar Pierre by Databyte had a screen designer too
  6. Ok, if folks want to list their wants over the next week or so, I can get some in. I can accomodate: 1010 Japan 1010 hong Kong 410 kit (few, ff & play) XC121 I don't know what's in a xc11, and I don't generally do counter belts. MK
  7. Hi, I stopped doing belts a,while back as demand was virtually zero. After this they sprung up in ebay for sale by others, so there should he some there. I can always get more but only if there's a general need in the community these days.
  8. I'm in mid process of doing a 130Xe and so far it's looking good. Already done my other A8's under the fiddly retrobrite process. I'm half way through a BBC Master which the top half is light cream (after 16 hrs) and bottom still yellow and away to get exposed for around the same time. Acorn Electron also getting the exposure) Amazed how much less trouble it is to do it this way and Not have a peroxide bath, stingy fingers and UV glare to deal with :0)
  9. Thanks - its interesting how the 2600, A8 (XL and XE) series got the secam treatment (albeit a crap selection of colors) and the Maria didnt. I guess the lavish color scheme was too much to dull down to greys for the palette that the Maria gives? For the latest on how to get the best from the Peritel side and avoiding black and white TIA - see here: http://eddystoys.blogspot.com/2014/08/atari-2600.html Its in French but if you download the automatic webpage translator, it comes out fairly understandable (on Mozilla anyhow)
  10. Hi Im working on an s-Video circuit for the 2600 TIA which is based on the french Secam signal. As Secam is remarkably different from NTSC and PAL this is going to be a completely different one from the existing circuits available. I have the information i need for a 2600 or 7800 on TIA to get this done, So the the TIA circuit as we know is in the 7800 and is easily adaptable, but there appears to be little or no information regarding Secam 7800's where the MARIA chip is concerned. Was there a french Maria chip for secam or was the output from this sent via Piritel(or scart) with a PAL signal outputted? Even better - if someone out there has a 7800 Schematic for Secam - that would be the ultimate want for me to proceed further,
  11. I ordered boards a few months back and have all the parts to make one easily. Just one snag is the lack of firmware and a programmer. I have a pic programmer but the IC is more exotic. Would love to continue this and would be interested if someone could help on the firmware/programming IC side?
  12. Yeah, hairdresser wholesale suplly place shave them. I have to claim I'm a hairdresser before they can sell it to me! I use creme as liquid is more dangerous for the immediate fumes and the damage that stuff does to skin.
  13. Yeah, UV light box measures 100cm x 60 x 80cm. 20% volume using cream peroxide. Light strips are powered to be generally 20cm above sea level (or peroxide level in this case). Typically used for casings but can put antyhing needing the job done.
  14. I retro brited my 800 a few weeks back. I did the keys separately by placing them on a plastic rack and painting and applying peroxide every 3 hours for 12 in total . Letter colouring on the key came out nice and light.
  15. The RF starts out as a naff and poor-ish signal. Fuzz upscaled into s-video is still fuzz. Can't beat taking signal off the Maria and by-passing the RF fuzzbox.
  16. Ok - Some component changes - Luma adjustment - Pot trimmer - instead of a 10k / 1 turn pot, im now using 5K pot with 23 turns - no issue with getting exactly the setting you want and drift is now negligible over long periods.. Sound - 18K resistor now in use instead of the 8K2 for audio - NTSC improved in balance. PAL appears to make no or little difference so to keep things harmonized, im going with this. coming soon - Composite built in - WIP at the moment, but soon there will be jumpers or a switch for selecting this during the install. Makes the board more universal for all TV's. 2600 compatible - it is at present compatible but going through the variations to establish and test the variants (Heavy Sixer, Light Sixer, Woody, JR etc with both versions (PAL/NTSC) Latest batches..
  17. I use a various amount of different PSU's for my 7800's. 9V and over 1.5 Amp is a good rule of the thumb. Some have the splice for the adaptor and others directly soldered to the board. Unlike the A8 computers it's just V+ and 0v and not multiple rails.
  18. Impossible mission is fairly common here. I've seen a few boxed ones appear from time to time. Loose carts are around £5-£8 easily. Midnight mutants is usually available. But going rate is around the £35 Mark. Interestingly is that copies of commando are not hard to acquire here. if you want one for £25 -£35 they are around. I was lucky to get one for £15 a month ago. NTSC copies of commando appear rarer (going from ebays availability) Mean 18 here is less than £10, where it appears rarer in NTSC from the AA list and EBay.
  19. I check commando for pokey and xenophobe usually for TIA (similar sounds of guns and stuff) but any game that has a continuous sound works. As my hearing is sensitive(hate loud TV) I put it at a level where one is just at a level that's annoying and adjust accordingly. -^Cro§Bow^- has done the NTSC comparisons recently and found 18k /8k2 to work to balance sound (instead of a 8k2 twin resistor pair for TIA / Pokey. I'm comparing pal with NTSC models when my NTSC pro system arrives, for improving component changes.
  20. I used a 5k trimmer on my pal development PCB and it came in a lot finer than the 10k and easier to adjust. So I'm adopting that value. I also tried 3k and was very dark across the board (so to speak). So 5k works best I think without the change in the 68R. But maybe better with 1k & 75R? I changed 18k across the TIA audio and pokey to get both aspects and it made very little difference (on PAL). Im guessing that the NTSC version has this imbalance and was subsequently changed for PAL versions developed afterwards. Still to try and balance the exit resistors for a better 2600/7800 brightness ratio. Waiting on Heremes to deliver my 7800 NTSC console but any day now...
  21. Yeah 5k1 is available. I'll look and see what other types there are. For further testing in ntsc. I'm awaiting a pro system I ordered from the states to do some testing. My original one is giving me issues on the cart recognition thing. (Can only get the logo). I should soon have a more suitable luma trimmer as well as a more balance audio. PAL adjusts ok, but I'll be reducing this also and hopefully reflects the same improvement with NTSC.
  22. Ok, as to save pm'ing a lot for prices here I'm posting the costs below. There are 3 options - Bare boards- no parts included -£5 each Bare boards, components and parts - £15 per kit. Fully assembled and tested board with parts. £25 per assembled kit. All above has appropriate instructions included. Postage costs are follows: UK - First Class - £2 UK - Recorded - £3 EUR - Airmail - £4.50 UKP EUR - Airmail recorded - £9.50 Outside Europe - Airmail - £6 UKP Outside Europe - Recorded - £11 UKP Postage is for any quantity (little or as many as you like) If folk can PM me if interested, I can go from there. If a specific color is required there's a 2 day lead time for me to assemble that color. I generally have blue pcbs assembled if your in a hurry and not worried about the color.
  23. Tac 2 is the best from the Tac series. I personally think asthetically it looks more Commodore like than Atari, (Sorry for for saying the C word) but that's just my take on this. Colour scheme is good however...
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