MAC-42

I'd be happy with just dual POKEY, really. (I certainly wouldn't turn down quad, of course.) And this has applications beyond just ports from the arcades. Think of the way you'd always lose a sound channel, for instance, in Legend of Zelda when your life meter was low. Your game music was cut in half because of this. All you'd have left was the melody over the repeating life meter tone. Even just adding dual POKEY capability prevents that problem in original 7800 games that could be written in the future, as well as opening up a few more channels to play with. Or we could just do it in TIA. Well, all of this is idle speculation in any event. I guess we'll see what's in store in time.

This one seems much better on the stock sticks than previous releases. It's such a nice game.

I just received a couple chips today from B&C including a CO61618 MMU chip for an XL computer that needed repair. I was able to fix it without the new MMU, so if anybody needs or wants one, let me know. $5 plus shipping, which is all I paid for it.

Giving this post a nudge up for information's sake. I finally got around to ordering the PIA chip and, just in case, the MMU chip that bob1200xl suggested I look into. I just replaced the PIA--thank goodness for those sockets--and, for giggles, decided to see if that, at least, fixed my Star Raiders joystick problems before moving on to the MMU chip. (I tried unseating and reseating the PIA as Joey Z suggested above to no effect, unfortunately.) As usual, Star Raiders loaded, but this time I had full joystick functionality. One problem down. I decided to pull Star Raiders out and fire it up again without the new MMU, however, because I accidentally bumped the power switch before plugging in the cart the first time around and saw a cursor. I hit the switch and let it load to a READY prompt. I was, sure enough, booted into BASIC. It appears that the PIA was in fact bad, and that the bad PIA was in fact preventing the machine from booting up. Just thought I'd pass that on to posterity and those of you good folks who helped me out with this. Thanks again for your information and assistance! And boy, do I love cheap fixes!

My desktop is 1920x1080. My MacBook is 1280x800. But I prefer to do reference reading, like the 7800basic manual, on my iPad, so just ignore me and go with what everybody else says.

The 5200 guys have their--I mean, our--brotherhood. The Intellivision guys have theirs. But do we have a 7800 Brotherhood? I haven't seen one. Well, there should be one. Who's with me?

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he to-day that powers up his 5200 with me Shall be my brother; be his joystick ne'er so vile, This day shall gentle its condition: And gentlemen in 8-Bit Land now a-bed Shall think themselves accursed they were not here, And hold their CX-40s cheap whiles any speaks That gamed with us upon the Atari 5200. Oh my God, Mr. Shakespeare, I am so totally sorry.

I like it very much. I'm no good at it, but I like it.

Thanks for the information, folks. I hadn't thought about just yanking the old connector and replacing it on the board with something else. And I knew that the shape was nagging at me, because it was on some level reminding me of an old tape deck I had back in the 80s. Good thoughts. Thanks again!

I picked up a VIC-20 on the Evil Bay some months ago. I borrowed a friend's VIC-20 for its power supply and video cable to test mine, and all worked well. Great. To top it off, my friend let me keep his VIC-20, too. Total score! But there's still this one VIC-20 now that has no PSU. Yes, I can go buy a replacement without even coming close to breaking the bank. But I'm curious about something. I can take my Atari 600XL's Ingot PSU, clip off the 7-pin DIN and solder it to a modern 5V 2amp PSU that I have laying around from some old phone or something. Hey presto, new, modern PSU. Is there a way to do this with VIC-20s? Heck, is there even a place to purchase the female 2-pin connector to match the model of VIC-20 that I have? I've looked high and low (I think) and have not found anything even remotely like it. If this is not possible, I'll break down and find a proper replacement.

Hi Walter. In all honesty, I'm no good with GIMP either. I actually make all my images in Photoshop first. Then, I export PNGs out and reopen them in GIMP to do the color indexing. It's an utterly needless extra step that, if I did what I should and actually learned how to use GIMP properly, I wouldn't have to do. But I like things that I'm comfortable with...which is why I still play with Ataris when everyone else I know is mulling over which new system they should buy. In all seriousness, though, maybe starting your graphics in another editor might be an approach worth trying. You can use Trebor's MARIA palettes as a reference for your colors, and you can load and index the results in GIMP. He provides palettes for indexing in this post. These can be loaded into GIMP--a step that I had to perform twice on two different computers and that took me forever; I couldn't remember how I did it either time and still can't. Once they're in place, though, it's easy to use them. I absolutely can't remember how do add index palettes. This is driving me nuts. I'll dig around in the GIMP documentation and see what I can find. I think I found how you import Trebor's palettes in the GIMP documentation. Have a look at this page; particularly, look down toward the bottom of the entry. I think this might be how I added his palettes. Once you do that, you can open your exported PNGs from your original editor and run color indexing easily in GIMP.

Oh, I think you could do it, Walter. I'm an absolute dilettante, but I finally took some time and got something small started today. I bet you can coax something out of it. Besides, we're all in this together; I'm sure everyone will be happy to help overcome any problems. *begins compiling my small list of problems for everyone to help in overcoming* Love the soccer game, by the way, and RevEng's idea of a cart of mini-games.

Holy crap! This is absolutely incredible! Absolutely splendid work, and to think it's just the beginning (I hope)!

Just what it says on the tin. I can order what I need from Best, for the most part, but I just wonder. Thanks.

Here's a question, by the way. Apart from having an enormous RAM disk, what is the utility of any upgrades beyond, say, 128k? This is stuff that, like the work I'm trying to do bringing my 600XL back to life, I've read about and understand the theoretical basis for, but I really don't know anything about in practical terms. Any ideas?

Paul, are you referring to the 1064 RAM module that plugs into the PBI? If I can resurrect the 600XL I picked up, I'm going Rybags's route and just replacing the RAM internally. The 64kb upgrade looks like something even I can accomplish, and the cost is fractional as compared to the 1064.

That's a good point about SIO not even being looked at by the computer if it's booting badly. Didn't think about that. Trust me to put the cart before the horse. It's been a really rough couple of days so I haven't been able to take the multimeter to the SIO port as I had planned, let alone the PSU, but I can do that in a little bit. I tried loading the self test, but as you thought, it won't respond. So, if I'm understanding correctly, plugging in Star Raiders and getting a result will eliminate a few possible points of failure and we can be pretty sure that chips like ANTIC and the RAM are all right. (The RAM is not a big deal as I was planning to perform an upgrade in any case.) That's interesting as I was kind of treating this whole thing as a post-mortem until now. Thanks for all of the useful information, everybody. This is, as I say, kind of new ground to me. Having to deal with this practically adds a dimension to the stuff I've read.

Both boards are Rev. A boards. As I mentioned, either board will make the "clean" Lynx power up with this dark screen; the transplant board, however, actually seems to get a response from the system in terms of sound and input. (Can't actually get a visual confirmation of button pushes, obviously, but I hear the appropriate sounds when things are pressed.)

I picked up a couple of broken Lynx IIs recently to see if I could make a working one from the parts. The first one I obtained was in really good cosmetic condition, but when I put a game in, all I got was a black screen--all of the pixels were active and were black--with the backlight on. No sound, no apparent response to button inputs. The second one I found looks like it has been dropped. Partially shattered faceplate over the LCD, bits of the case cracked. When I plugged a game in it, though, the screen came to life--well, half of it; the other half looks to have been damaged in the fall--and sound came from the speaker and the buttons responded. I took a guess that the "clean" Lynx had had its chipset blown to kingdom come, and that by swapping the board from the "dirty" Lynx in, all would be well. Well, I got sound out of the clean one after the swap and the buttons respond to input now, but the screen is still all black. Not blank, like nothing is happening at all, but rather, as I say, all of the pixels are lit up black. Does this indicate a bad LCD? I'm guessing, as the board has now been swapped out with what appears to be a known working board, that the problem doesn't lie there. I'm new to the Lynx--I ended up with a Gameboy as a kid, but always loved the Lynx from afar. So, any ideas or help would be appreciated. Thanks.

Something else to be aware of is that the Atari 8-bit line shipped with a variety of PSUs. Since your XEGS came without one and you're ordering one separately, you need to know if you ordered what is known as the "Ingot" power supply. It has been known to go bad, and to do so in so spectacular a fashion as to take your computer out with it. A 600XL I just received came with an Ingot PSU; I'm fairly certain it's the reason why my 600XL was mostly DOA. Make sure it wasn't the one you ordered before plugging it in and turning on your XEGS. You can identify it on this post, just scroll most of the way down the page. Other than that, enjoy. Mojik has some good advice. And if you don't fancy using it as a computer, it's a nice way to play some of the 8-bit games on a console without the maintenance requirements of the 5200.

Thanks, folks, for your thoughts on this. My XEGS has run like a top for a year or so now, so this is all new territory for me. I've read about others' problems before, but never had to face them down myself. You know, now that you mention it, I've seen this mentioned before. That might go a long way in explaining it, mightn't it? Thanks. I'll have a look at the SIO port tomorrow. (Didn't realize that my multimeter is sitting here right on my desk in front of me all evening long. It's been a long, long day.) Thanks for pointing this out. Narrows down at least one problem with this machine, most likely. Is that right about the DOS? I'm so spoiled living with 64k that it never really occurred to me whether a DOS would run on 16k. I'll have to bear that in mind. Assuming I can noodle out what the rest of the problems with this thing might be and actually repair them.

Here's a puzzle for you folks to chew on. I picked up an as-is 600XL on the Evil Bay. It arrived, and I glanced askance at the Ingot power supply as I unpacked it. I connected it using the good PS from my XEGS and turned it on. All that came up was a black screen with nine vertical bars on the left side of the screen. No BASIC, so I grabbed my Pac-Man cart. Same result. On a whim, I stuck my Star Raiders cart in, and the thing came to life. The keyboard seems to work. The joystick button works, but the stick itself is non-responsive. Sounds were okay, by the way. I don't have a BASIC cart so I can't see what happens as far as loading it at all. Finally, I tried to connect my SIO2PC to boot a DOS from a PC, but without result. The Atari didn't respond to the SIO2PC. I'm worried that the Ingot cooked some stuff in this Atari under a previous owner's ownership. I'd be willing to take a stab and guess that the PIA is shot based on the joystick issue. (Does PIA handle input from the SIO? I was trying to read the schematic in the midst of trying to put three screamin' little girls to bed.). POKEY seems fine, as, I guess, does ANTIC and GTIA. Anyway, all of that ramble to ask if anyone can tell me why one cart would work and one won't. That's what has me scratching my head. Any ideas? Thanks.

Fantastic! I'll take a stab at this. I'm raising up three young girls to love, love, LOVE classic games. (My almost-2-year-old can already say Atari.) It's important that all kids know of gaming isn't just the modern, semi-interactive movies they make today, so I try very hard to keep their interest with the good old stuff. So far, it keeps them very happy. Keeping the flame alive for modern kids. That's the reason I'm giving.

Ever play Defender with the Trak-Ball? I can, which I consider to be a minor miracle, but I sure as heck don't like fighting the aliens while I'm fighting my own controller. My best scores in Galaxian happen when I'm playing it with the Trak-Ball, and oddly I enjoy the game a great deal more playing it on that device. But yeah, it's not for every game.

First off, your daughter is as cute as can be! I have a daughter her age, too. Nice to see a new generation is being raised up well as far as gaming goes. Secondly, I've seen those controllers in the past and wondered how they are. We have Gauntlet IV on the Genesis and so we're going to need another couple of controllers. Thanks for reminding me about them!