jaybird3rd
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Posts posted by jaybird3rd
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You might get the directionals working that way, but you'll likely have to cut some traces and add a few jumpers to get the buttons working properly in two-button 7800 mode (unless the Genesis controller happens to have the wiring and two 680-ohm resistors in just the right places, which I doubt).
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Ah, I see; I thought you were talking about the plug on the end of the cable. You'll probably only have to pull out or move the wires related to the buttons; if the controller works for 2600 games as-is, you can leave the directionals intact.
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Yes, the controller diagram I quoted was a diagram of the connector on the console side. The controller side would be the opposite of that; the wires on the lefthand side of the connector will plug into the righthand side of the plug on the console. I don't know how easy it will be to actually move the pins around (or even to cut open the connector to see them) because Sega and Atari plugs were all molded into one piece.
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7800 controllers are wired in an interesting way to get the two-button configuration working in a way that was also backward-compatible with single-button 2600/7800 games. Each of the buttons is actually connected to two inputs in the joystick connector: they both share the 2600 trigger wire (so that either one of them will work with 2600 and single-button 7800 games) and they are also connected independently to the two paddle input wires (which are then read by two-button 7800 games).
To get the Genesis controllers to work in the same way, it will be necessary to replicate this wiring scheme. It isn't as bad as you might be thinking, but it is a bit more involved than simply changing the pinout. There is a set of pinouts in the 7800 FAQ which might be helpful, and I'm sure one of us can give you some additional help (I've built many 7800 controllers out of modified Space Invaders TV-games). If you'd prefer to build an adapter instead of modifying the controllers, there is a link in the FAQ that will take you to another site with a list of instructions on how to do this. I've never tried this myself, though, and to me it looks like a lot more work.
EDIT: One place to start would be to let us know what type of controllers you have. Are they three-button or six-button controllers from Sega, or are they from a third party? It would also be helpful to find out which wire goes to which pin in the connector before you start. After a quick search, I found the following information on this site:
Looking straight at the plug on the front of the Genesis the numbers are: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 (For those of you who buy a joystick cable from radio shack the pin #'s to wire colors are as follows: 1-white 2-blue 3-green 4-brown 5-yellow 6-orange 7-red 8-black 9-gray).
The pins in the cable will be a mirror image of the diagram, of course. I would strongly recommend that you confirm this information with your own cables; the website may be incorrect, or the colors might be different if the controllers you have are from a third party. There's a much easier way of doing this than cutting open the cable. If you don't have a continuity tester, you can use something like the LED and battery inside one of those little keychain lights. Leave one leg of the LED connected to the battery and connect the other leg to a loose wire. Connect another wire to the battery (the one that the other leg was connected to) and touch the two wires together to make sure the light goes on. These two wires will then become your "probes" for testing the cable: insert one of the wires into one of the pins and use the other one to test each of the wires at the other end (the white connector inside the controller) until the light comes on. Make note of which wire connected to which pin, and test all of the remaining pins in the same way. If you have a continuity tester, you can use that instead.
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I'll certainly do that if I can get my hands on one; of the two, I'd probably choose the MemCard because it's a lot cheaper and because the HSC was really designed for high scores. I'd like to support both cartridge RAM and the MemCard, actually, because I don't want to limit the game to too few people (the 7800 audience is small enough as it is and relatively few of them own a MemCard/AtariVox) and I want to make my game playable in an emulator.
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I've seen new switches in parts catalogs that look exactly the same as the console switches in the 7800. Rather than trying to take apart and clean and reassemble such a tiny switch, you might consider simply buying another one and replacing the whole thing (it will require some soldering but would be a lot less trouble). I'll see if I can find a link to one of my suppliers that sells the new switches.
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I was very fortunate to order my copy (along with Iron Soldier 2) from Telegames a day or two before they stopped taking orders for classic systems. I agree; it's a very cool game that makes me wish I had a paddle for the Jag.
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As an early Flashback 2 adopter, I agree with your assessment of some of the new games (primarily the Asteroids hacks and Yars' Return), and I share your frustration that the subsequent fixes could not have been a part of the system from the beginning. Having said that, however, I certainly don't regret my purchase: even with its various flaws, the Flashback 2 stands head and shoulders above any other similarly-priced TV-game on the market (except maybe for the Atari Paddle from Jakks, which I've talked about in another thread). Aside for the significant nostalgic value, look at what you're getting: two new CX-40 reproductions that work with all your old systems and are worth about 70% of the purchase price by themselves, and a collection of built-in games that is larger than most of the others even without the bad ones. With a little work, you can add a cartridge slot and play the vast majority of your 2600 library on a new console with no compatibility issues at all. All of this is a lot more than I would have imagined possible just a few years ago, and the FB2 team has been beaten up enough about the problems with the product, so I tend to accentuate the positive. I'll probably be one of the first in line for a Revision C, too, if only to get a decent port of Caverns of Mars!
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He's referring to the original Crazy Otto kit for Pac-Man by GCC, in which Pac-Man was changed into a character with legs and the "ghosts" had little antennae. With Crazy Otto, GCC added the concepts of the different mazes and the bonuses that wandered about the maze and other gameplay changes that they added to make Pac-Man more interesting. This was before the game went to Namco, at which time the graphics were reworked and the game became Ms. Pac-Man.
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There used to be a Ms. Pac-Man coin-op in an arcade near me, and although I was disappointed when it was taken out, I don't miss it anymore now that I have Ms. Pac-Man on the 7800. To me, that is the very best version of the game for a home system: it's GCC's game, running on GCC's hardware, and to me it's as good as you can get outside of MAME. The 2600 version would never be mistaken for the coin-op, of course, but it's a terrific game in its own right and light-years ahead of the original 2600 Pac-Man.
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That information probably needs to go into the AtariAge database at some point. I just did a quick search, and found that the programmers of Vanguard, Ms. Pac-Man, and Jr. Pac-Man (three of my favorites from GCC's 2600 list) are uncredited.
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Thanks for that information; I'll certainly give it a try!
I know that a serial EEPROM would be a much better solution, and I might yet decide to use one depending on how this goes, but my primary concern with going that route (aside for the time and expense of adding one to the '565) was emulator support. I'm guessing that using battery-backed RAM would work within an emulator because support for the RAM is already there, whereas adding an EEPROM might introduce compatibility issues.
I'd like to build one program that will work within 7800 emulators and with any stock 7800 console, which is why I'd like to avoid requiring extra hardware (a MemCard, a joystick-based interface, etc.) if at all possible.
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Thanks for posting that list! I hadn't seen some of those names before and it's nice to see them get the credit they deserve; everyone says 2600 Ms. Pac-Man is one of the best ports of Ms. Pac-Man but nobody ever knows the names of the developers (until now!)Here, this should help, this is the list of what games were written by whom at GCC for Atari: -
I can answer your first question at least. Ms. Pac-Man for the 2600 was developed by a Boston company called General Computer Corporation, which also developed several other home console and computer titles for Atari in the mid-1980s (as well as the Atari 7800 ProSystem). Incidentally, GCC also developed a modification kit for the original Pac-Man, which was bought by Namco and eventually became the Ms. Pac-Man coin-op.
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That could very well be true; I don't know. I figured they disassembled the games and worked off of whatever code they got from that.
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It's missing a few extra address lines in the CPU, the clock and read/write lines in the cartridge slot, and a couple of sprites.
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Unfortunately I missed out on getting a HSC, or else I probably would use it.Been there, done that - It's simple. And a EEPROM could be stuck on a '565 cartridge and used without adding any extra hardware - Bastian just stuck one on a Lynx cartridge, he wrote (and I optimized) the software to access it. Ignore all the people who say it can't be done or takes too much work.-or- perhaps you could use the High Score Cartridge RAM
I won't be ready to begin thinking about my "game save" routine (it's actually a save option for a level editor), either for an EEPROM or for a battery-backed RAM, until I actually have a game running. Since this is only my first attempt at coding for the 7800, and since I've only just started it, it may take a while.
In the meantime, I'd love to try to add a battery to my '565 if you wouldn't mind sharing the procedure with me.
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I'm sure they must be doing something like that, because sprite handling (or at least the paddle's simulation of it) is really close. Another thing that I'm sure was helpful is that, since the NOAC chipset contains a 6502-compatible processor, they were able to run at least some of the original game code on the 2600 titles and on the 6502-based Arcade Warlords (Pong of course had no game code).One of the keys, I think, is having the game port done by someone who understands the original code works on the original hardware. A game like Combat doesn't use the 2600's hardware to do anything an NOAC couldn't, but there are a lot of subtleties in the game Combat which could only be reproduced by someone who understood exactly how the players move. Since NOAC resolution is neither 160 nor 320, I don't think the screen hardware could provide collision detection that pixel-precisely matched the 2600. On the other hand, it should be possible to use code to determine precisely when collisions would occur based upon the object positions. Too much for a 2600 to do in 2K running within the vertical blank (which is why the 2600 has collision detection) but no problem for a processor with more code and more time available.I'd love to see the developers of the new series of Intellivision TV-game units take similar care in porting the original games over, but since the Intellivision was a much different piece of hardware (built around a ~895KHz CP1610), I'm sure it would be a more complicated process. Anything would be better than the handhelds they've got out now, though.
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I don't know if they're still being made, but I can tell you that my local Wal-Mart here in northeast Alabama still has a toy aisle full of them (the one-player model, anyway) for $15. I bought the last two-player model that my local KBToys had for $27. If they're getting scarce elsewhere, I might have to buy one or two extras before they all run out!
Speaking of one-player vs. two-player models, I opened up my one-player unit the other night and discovered some jumpers and a few contacts on the board that I believe can be used to add another paddle, changing the one-player unit into a two-player unit. I'll give it a try on mine over the weekend (if I find the time) and will report my findings.
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Thanks for posting this review!
I have to say that I agree 100%. Within minutes of plugging in my Jakks paddle for the first time, I was convinced that the developers worked closely off of the original source code. Looking closely at the 2600 titles, I was blown away by the fact that the interesting little quirks that we all recognize (the HMOVE lines, the glitches in the players' movements in Circus Atari, etc.) have been PERFECTLY reproduced. It makes me believe that some sort of emulation is being used; I can't imagine how they could have gotten so close otherwise. As carpecarne points out, the graphics, the colors, and the visual effects are dead-on accurate. The sounds are a little bit off, but I've been playing these games for years and the minor inaccuracies didn't bother me at all.
I was especially impressed by Arcade Warlords and Arcade Pong. I've only played Arcade Warlords in MAME, but from what I can tell, the version built into this paddle is a perfect recreation of the coin-op; the graphics and sound are just outstanding, and playing an authentic game of Warlords on a real set of paddles (even if you're limited to one or two human players) is enough to justify the purchase price. I do have some experience with the Atari Pong coin-op (I own one, in fact), and this version is the best simulation I've seen since the one included with the Atari Arcade Hits compilation for the PC.
They even got the controller design right, in my opinion: the main controller (containing the batteries and the game logic) is bulkier than an Atari paddle, but it's comfortable to use and provides even smoother control than the original (no jitter here!) The two-player version (pictured above) includes a second paddle that is hardwired into the base unit, and it is an almost-perfect replica of the original. It's a fraction of an inch shorter, and the button is a little more square and feels a little different than the original button, but veteran players will feel right at home with it.
One of the things that has always puzzled me about the glut of TV games is that, even though the NOAC chipsets they use are theoretically capable of smooth and polished games, most of the games on the market are choppy and sloppy and have an almost unfinished feel to them. I have always suspected lazy and inept programming, and after my experiences with the Jakks paddle, my suspicions have been confirmed. The software in the Jakks paddle was developed by Digital Eclipse, and their expertise in emulator development is clearly evident by the outstanding quality of the games. They have demonstrated what this hardware is capable of in the hands of skilled developers, and manufacturers of inferior products (cough ... Intellivision 10-in-1 ... cough) no longer have any excuse.
Overall, I'd give this unit an 8.5 out of 10. It still ranks slightly below the Atari Flashback 2, simply because it does not contain the original hardware, but it does rank higher than the Flashback 1 and above every other NOAC-based offering on the market. I've seen them on sale for as low as $15 for the single-player version and $27 for the two-player version, and I highly recommend them both.
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Interesting ... I hadn't heard of these before. Can they be added to any of Atari's PCBs (I suspect not), or would a new board have to be developed to support it? I'd like to do this "on the cheap" as much as possible, which is why I thought of simply adding a battery to the RAM I've already got on the '565. I know that Harry's monitor cart had a battery backup, but that might have been something different.
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Forgive me if my ignorance of electronics is showing here, but is it possible to add a battery to an existing cartridge PCB (preferrably the C300565) so that the contents of its onboard RAM are not lost while the power is off? I'd like to add a "save game" feature to a project that I have in mind.
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The Knight Rider 2600 project
in Atari 2600
Posted
He says that work is still being done on KR2600, too!