jaybird3rd

Interesting. I guess that VTI chip is there to implement the crazy bank-switching scheme that the game uses. EDIT: I just looked at the Blue Sky Rangers' web site, and according to them, the extra RAM and other hardware in that cartridge was originally meant to be an add-on expansion module for the 2600. Marketing concluded that people didn't want expansion modules, so they ordered the memory to be added into the cartridges instead. This all reminds me ... I noticed that my Intellivision Diner cartridge has a Triple Challenge chip inside it, which struck me as odd. I'll have to post a picture in another thread.

RealSports Baseball is what I'd call a guilt-free 7800 cartridge shell and PCB donor; you can retrofit the cartridge with a new ROM without feeling guilty about destroying a copy of a good game. The only one better for this purpose is Jinks because it's got built-in RAM.

From the remarks that Steve Golson (GCC cofounder and 7800 codesigner) made at the VCF East show in 2004, I got the impression that the 7800 was GCC's first attempt at designing such a large-scale project. They had done mod kits for coin-operated arcade machines before, but nothing near the complexity of an entire game console (at least as far as I know; someone correct me if I'm wrong). The MARIA itself went through at least one major revision before the 7800 went into production. Perhaps with the benefit of more time and experience, some of those limitations would have been addressed. Even so, the 7800 is a very interesting machine and nowhere near the worst game console ever. I've been trying to learn the 7800 architecture well enough to take a stab at developing games for it, and I really need to pick it back up again; there's still a lot of untapped potential in that machine.

That looks incredible! I had planned on looking around for a SpartaDos X cartridge after getting my MIO, but I'm sure that's not necessary now; this looks like everything an MIO owner could want in one package!

I did manage to erase a floppy disk once by accidentally leaving it sitting on top of an external floppy disk drive, so you don't want to get into that habit. But in terms of peripheral placement, I never worry too much about leaving my drives next to the TV/monitor. I have them between my two monitors, actually, since the monitors do interfere with each other if they're too close together (I use a color TV and a monochrome Amdek monitor for my XEP80).

Do you mean it's not true that the Black Box can handle 512 or 256 byte sectoring, or that it's not true that it's the only one that can handle it?

Legacy = VendelAnd 'fujivox' = troll. Too bad about the FB1 cartridge mod, though. I would have loved to be able to breathe new life into my FB1 with an NES cartridge slot, but unless I can figure it out myself (or unless someone in the know happens to "leak" the information), it probably won't happen. I'm surprised that Ben Heckendorn or one of the hardware hackers on his website/forum hasn't figured it out already; it must be something more complicated than the FB2 cartridge mod.

I do wish Atari had come out with a cost-reduced POKEY, or that GCC had finished their GUMBY sound chip as originally planned. Either option would have made the 7800 a LOT more palatable. Even a full-sized POKEY (mounted on a daughterboard if necessary) probably wouldn't have added even a dollar to the hardware cost of the 7800; with the 8-bit computers and some coin-ops still using them, Atari must have been making enough POKEY chips already to tile their parking lot.

Well, I'm glad to hear you "pin-pointed" the problem (please forgive the bad pun). Enjoy your new Jaguar.

I think Imagitec Design did some nice work on the Jaguar. I liked their ports of "Raiden" and "Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure" and thought they did a nice job on the "Tempest 2000" soundtrack AND the PC port of "Tempest 2000." I believe they were also involved in developing "I-War," "Bubsy: Fractured Furry Tales," "Evolution: Dino Dudes," and probably a few others I'm forgetting.

No hack needed; the A/V jack already gives you audio and video signals. If you have the right cable, there's no need to open the machine or use the touchy RF modulator. Here is a website with pinouts and instructions on how to build your own cable, or if you don't feel like building one yourself, new cables show up on eBay fairly frequently.

Surprised to hear it affected the plastic itself. I've used Goo-Gone to clean labels off of a number of cartridges, and the only black residue I ever noticed came from the label ink as the Goo-Gone dissolved it and did its work. The plastic came through the process totally unscathed.

That would be my recommendation also ... a 2600 emulator, and perhaps a Stelladaptor so you can at least use the original controllers.

I recently acquired a NIB 2600 Jr. console, and would love to have a decent A/V modification kit for it.

I also have a question for MIO owners along similar lines. From what you've all said, the original recommended configuration for MIO hard drives seems to have been a SCSI-to-MFM bridge (like the Adaptec 4000) combined with one or more MFM drives. That original hardware is getting very hard to find nowadays (I've got a few MFM drives but have never seen a bridge board for sale on eBay or anywhere else), and it would be great if a similar solution could be found for IDE drives. Has anyone with an MIO ever attempted to use a more modern SCSI-to-IDE bridge board like this one?

Wow, that's great to hear. When my MIO arrives, I might be interested in getting a copy of that utility if you wouldn't mind sharing it.

Which is ironic when you consider that its sound effects are among the aspects of that game that people have complained about the most. Aside for its bizarre color scheme and the abundance of flicker, 2600 Pac-Man at least resembled the original game graphically, but the sounds were a total departure from the original. They're certainly very recognizable (which is probably why they're so frequently used), but nothing at all like the arcade Pac-Man.

I'm putting away my pennies for Total Carnage next. My most recent acquisitions for the Jaguar were Breakout 2000 and Iron Soldier 2 CD. I bought those from Telegames just before they discontinued Jaguar sales, so my Jag is long overdue for some attention.

Sounds like a good idea for a Fast Food hack!

According to his profile, he was here just last week (on June 29th). See ... that proves we'll see Knight Rider 2600 yet!

Not to take this too far off-topic, but you're right ... the Atari machines don't get anywhere near the respect they deserved. To most people, 80s computing meant either the Apple ][ or the C64. I was strongly opposed to the idea of owning either of those machines for years because I resented how they stole Atari's thunder, but I've since softened a bit on the Apple machines (I'm still cold on the C64, though). But I don't want to dredge up those old arguments. Regarding BASIC interpreters, I agree that Atari BASIC was one of the best of the built-in interpreters. TI BASIC was the first one that I ever used, and I didn't even realize how limited it was until I saw my first Atari 800. Aside for its speed and sophisticated editor, the thing that blew me away about Atari BASIC was its strong graphics capabilities; when you're trying to make games, redefining monochrome characters in TI BASIC gets old real fast. Anyone remember the "Mr. Bojangles" demo from the TI manuals? That was about the most you could do. Apple's BASIC, which I used on an Apple ][+, seemed very inconsistent and cobbled-together compared to TI's and Atari's BASIC.

About the closest I've ever come to trying this is building a multicart for myself and switching from one game to another while the console was turned on. When that happens, the data in the cartridge ROM suddenly changes while the program counter does not, and the console usually jumps into garbage and does all kinds of unpredictable things. I imagine hot-swapping cartridges would have the same effect, but I doubt it would ever do anything as structured/predictable as enabling a particular "cheat" in a particular game.

Interesting. I'll have to try it and report my findings once I've used both devices together; I'm sure I'm not the only one who is interested in doing so. Do the inverted BASIC OS ROMs disable the PBI as well? I would assume not since they're probably almost identical to the standard ROMs; AFAIK, changing a BNE to a BEQ or vice-versa is about all that is needed to reverse the default "hold-OPTION-on-powerup" behavior. I'll probably be using the XL/XE OS with inverted BASIC the most, and occasionally using the 800 OS for old software that requires it.

Ouch! Well, fortunately I won't need MyIDE once I have the MIO (assuming I can find a hard drive and controller for it).

I'm wondering about that too. I noticed that the 32-in-1 appears to use a flash PROM, and it would be nice if I could reconfigure it to respond to START on powerup. If possible, HELP on powerup would be even better as this isn't used by anything else (AFAIK). I'm not sure how to go about doing that, though; my EPROM programmer only has a DIP socket and probably isn't compatible with the PROM on the 32-in-1. The address range issue hadn't occured to me. If it isn't possible for the MIO and 32-in-1 to coexist, I suppose I could use them on seperate machines, but I'd like to keep it all in one place if possible.