phoenixdownita

I just recently got into Atari 800 retrogaming. I bought an MyIDE2 and I am satisfied with its support for R16 and roms/bin. A little less with XEX and ATR. I'm running in issues with those whether they are ATR mounted thru MyBIOS [i am talking about the 4 disk images.zip you can find here on this site which are all picodos, they kind of work but here and there there are bizarre non working stuff .... I believe caused by the soft nature of the BIOS] and FAT32Loader [but it states that if ATR writes then you're out of luck and those give me many issues as well as quite some XEX, but some work too]. I am considering buying SIO2SD as well, hoping to get better results. Anyone can point me to real world comparisons? List of known issues? It seems like to really enjoy SIO2SD you really need U1M as well, but I am not too interested in installing that, also I read it's kind of slow compared to flash. Also it is possible I am using MyIDE2 the wrong way so any pointer there greatly appreciated.... maybe it is necessary to have MyBIOSR2 (as opposed to F2) to get higher compatibility ... dunno. Please feel free to close this topic and point me to relevant material if already discussed. My setup is a stock NTSC XEGS [i got it shipped for around 50US$ so I couldn't resist] with a MyIDE2 bought like 2 weeks ago and 4GB CF. I obviously managed to create the FAT32 partition, and also some SO drives and "images". My current setup is that D1 is the DISK1 of the picodos images collection floating around this site and so on with D2 to D4. My D5 is instead the self created MyDOS [thru recovery]. I managed to also flash up a couple of "images" [gyruss seemingly doesn't work (probably my fault), pitfall 2 has no issues] thru the use of myidetool on windows [command line as the UI is kindof messed up on win8]. I am not sure I want to fiddle with the flashed part [FAT32Loader apparently now allows flashing so I wont need the cart flasher] as I am scared I'll mess it up for good. If anyone has a decent selection of best atari games in a Fat32/ATR16MB that works on MyIDE2 that he/she can share that would be good too. I really only have an interest into playing a few of the old titles, mostly the ROM based one, that is why I really appreciated the R16 files available here I wish there were more but then again it takes dedication to make them [i believe only 3 or 4 titles from XEGS cart exclusive are amiss]. And last but not least yes I came from a console flashcart world where all games are ROM so it is just a matter of "mapping" and the various flash cart producer have been quite good these days to make available around 99% of the SW libraries ... there's always going to be one or 2 games that just play dirty. Thanks for any help you may provide.

OK, replaced the 47 ohm with a 100 ohm and the signal is better, not so hot anymore and now the colors are fine on the LCD. So the mod is as follows: Connect collector of 2222 to +5V, connect base to composite signal, connect emitter to 100 ohm resistor (probably 82 or 75 will work too) and the other end of the resistor to the center of the RCA connector. Connect ground to the RCA rim. [obviously the mod still requires to cut all the RF pins from the connector and to remove R3 and R5 to stop audio interference]. All of the signals for video [+5V, GND, and composite] are right there on the RF connector, I soldered the transistor directly on the pins as +5 and composite are adjacent. Not sure how the quality fares with the other mods, but it is simple and it works reasonably well.

I simplified the mod even further. Basically I used the 2222 in simple emitter follower without biasing the input. Connect collector of 2222 to +5V, connect base to composite, connect emitter to 47 ohm resistor and that to the center of the RCA connector. [obviously this still requires to cut the RF pin and to remove R3 and R5]. The results are pretty good on an old CRT, but on my LCD it is too bright with a very faint ghosting/bleeding, I will try a higher resistor on the emitter to see if it fixes it, maybe a 68 or 75 or even 100 could just work. If that doesn't work I will try the 47K on R11 to simply tone it down at the source. To summarize the mod is the same without the 2.2K and 3.3K resistors on the base, without any resistor from emitter to ground, but with a resistor from the emitter to the RCA. [i found this kind of mod all over for all console types when buffering luma signals, I just tried it on my 7800 and it worked]. Also for now my audio has a 10K and it sounds OK, I guess in this condition the POKEY would be too low, but given there are only 2 or 3 games with it I may never find out ... I do have a set of resistors coming my way so I'll probably replace it with the suggested 47K once I receive them. Anyway thought of sharing this as it makes the mod simpler. After all the 2222 is used as a simple voltage buffer and the biasing of the base does not look like it solves any particular problem. I am pretty sure it works the same with a 3904, all my luma buffers used the 3904 it just so happened I had a 2222 around. On a side note, on my first attempt I did not remove R3 and R5 and on the CRT it made no difference, but on the LCD I could see the audio noise all over. I wonder why Atari decided to premix the signals rather than doing it on the RF modulator itself?