Champ Games - Mappy - 2600

[Champ Games - Mappy - 2600]

The original challenge of the Atari 2600 for many programmers was, to explore the limitations of the original hardware beyond the known boundaries.

If you went back in time and gave an atari programmer a Harmony cart, he would jump over chairs to grab it.

[New Atari Console that Ataribox?]

If you didn't see this coming from a mile away, Lenscrafters is half off with free eye exams this month.

Jeez Louise, How many of these scamstarters does it take? When something like this falls apart because someone actually does a journalism and investigates this stuff for more than 30 seconds, you'd think no one would try this garbage again. I guess I was wrong!

 

So many suckers.

[What causes a game to "not work" on an Atari 2600? Is there a list of them?]

Welp, I tested River Raid II and... it worked!

 

However every single Released Epyx game for 2600 doesn't work on this machine. They all use standard F6 Bankswitching, which I know Dig Dug uses, and Dig Dug works, so I guess I can throw that idea out.

 

It's not a huge loss, but it was shocking to see a common game not work on my Heavy when she plays pretty much everything else I have. I assume they share similar "bootstrap" code. i mean it it would make sense to me at least.

[What causes a game to "not work" on an Atari 2600? Is there a list of them?]

Heh..passes all the Stella tests..! Making it sound like the emulator is better and more compatible and versatile!

 

---

 

An engineer buddy of mine thought the extra inductor was for FCC and RF noise compliance. Something to decouple the noise created by the ROM chip in the cartridge. Or to prevent noise generated by the motherboard from going up into the cartridge (acting like an antenna).

 

Probably both. RF often behaves in non-intuitive ways.

The FCC was so draconian over this stuff yet they never cared about existing equipment being used to cause RF chaos, or at least they didn't in my area. A bunch of punks got away with rigging their CB transmitters to bleed over every single channel for months and months

 

It's even worse now! I bought an RF adaptor recently for a Sega Genesis console, and if that thing passed FCC regulations, I'm the flippin' Pope. I didn't even have to plug it into the TV, and the TV in the kitchen picked up the signal, as well as the TV in the living room. And to think people were worried that modding their VCS would get the FCC to knock on their door. Pff!

[What causes a game to "not work" on an Atari 2600? Is there a list of them?]

Yep, hardware revisions can cause games to not work. Some sixer's didn't like Stay Frosty 2 on a revised Melody board. See Al's response (reply 35) with a fix - which also fixes the problem with River Raid II not working on those systems. In a latter response (reply 78) batari posts that using a ferrite bead in conjunction with that fix will clear up RF interference that can occur.

That is strangely fascinating. I know my Sears passes all the "Stella" tests, so I had assumed my board was fine. However I never tried River Raid II, so I'll test that and see if it's playable.

[What causes a game to "not work" on an Atari 2600? Is there a list of them?]

Okay this is a very weird thing and I searched for a topic like this, and came up with a thread about activision games not working. It turned out to be a physical cartridge issue. But the problem I have is much , much different.

 

I have a Sears Tele-Games (Heavy Sixer) that refuses to play California Games. Every other game I have works just fine. Thinking it was the cartridge I had, I loaded up my Harmony (and Encore) with California Games, and... nothing.

 

Convinced I had a bad ROM, I went to my light sixer atari and... it worked. Flawlessly. What the heck?

 

So I know about Kool-Aid Man not working on some later 4-switch woodys , vaders and Jrs, so what exactly is going on here? Is this a CPU bug that only California Games has found?

 

Is there a list of problematic games around?

[Champ Games - Mappy - 2600]

Someone is still working on Bus Stuffing, running a check and test and configuring it to work on more systems.

That along with larger ROM sizes (64K, 128K, 512K, 1MB?) will allow things like higher fidelity samples, and more graphics and animation, and games and demos we haven't even dreamed up yet.

Holy smokes. This sounds *very* promising.

[Champ Games - Mappy - 2600]

Don't forgot to worship e.g. Sophie Wilson too.

I can't imagine how it would feel to know your life's work is in everything from phones to thermostats.

 

Back on the game though, is there a way to get a "ballpark figure" of a typical game frame in terms of CPU logic, time spent drawing, etc? I bet it has been a tight fit!

[Champ Games - Mappy - 2600]

The more I see homebrew like this the more I believe that Jay Miner was a genius and deserves the video game equivalent of sainthood.


You could have told me this was an ATARI 7800 game, and I would have believed you without giving it a gram of thought. It's just that good.

[Hello Kitty Kruisers is coming the the Switch]

This is actually good game.

[Todd Rogers banned from Twin Galaxies and records removed]

My big question is...if someone would intentionally fake a video game score...why on earth would it be a chintzy who-cares game like Dragster??

The irony of all this is that Dragster is now more popular than it ever was because of all this. Expect a lot of people who are going to try to get that "5.51", data be damned.

[Todd Rogers banned from Twin Galaxies and records removed]

Guilty until proven innocent is rampant in the New America today whether it be sexual harassment claims or video games.

Ignoring the weirdness of comparing these two things, There's more than enough proof of faked scores other than Dragster. That's why this is such a shocking thing - did anyone notice how off-the-wall some of his supposed "Hi-Scores" were? All of his records are "oh yeah? well i got a zillion and six!!"

 

[Heavy Sixer Serial Number Thread]

Found out my Serial: 78954S.
Another Sears without a Channel Select.

[Todd Rogers banned from Twin Galaxies and records removed]

All one needs to disprove any of those scores is to look at the other attempts and just use some common sense. That's the funny thing about hi-scores: someone, somewhere will either match your score, or have a score around that, and if enough people have plateaued at a certain score "range" and you're still waaaaay above those, you miiiight be a lying liar from Liarville.

It also helps if you look at the scoring system of a game and pick a score that the game could actually award a player. HA-ha!

[Todd Rogers banned from Twin Galaxies and records removed]

Personally, it seems extreme to me.

 

Wether or not his Dragster score was or was not able to be proven is one thing. But removing any & all of his other records; when some of them do indeed have photographic proof, is a bit harsh.

 

So be it. It's his battle to fight, not ours.

From what I've heard, some were photoshopped from jpeg originals (which is how you get caught). If they were RAW, he'd probably get away with it.

[Heavy Sixer Serial Number Thread]

CAN A MOD MOVE THIS TOPIC TO THE HEAVY SIXER THREAD? I COMPLETELY FORGOT ABOUT THAT THREAD.

I have a Sears TeleGames that an idiot damaged while packaging it. Since it was cheap as free, I didn't really care. But dang this is bad. However, there's *enough* to see what the serial might have been.

 

Here are some pictures:


Owwww. The numbers I can make out are:

7?95?S   (7?954S) ?  (7?951S) ? Also (7?955S) or screw it (7?957S)

I have no idea what this is, but it seems important. So here it is.

187319 ? This hasn't seen light in over 30 years.

 

Here's what's interesting: No Channel select switch, or hole. This seems to line up with others with serial numbers similar to this.

 

Ohh, I need to clean this up somehow. There's a number here: CA010410 273S7732

If there are any more pictures you all need, I can provide them. Seems to be a well-made unit, and I've cleaned the case (save for the bottom) and it looks as good as new (save for the switches having some dull metal).

[Not sure where to drop this / ataribox]

In my opinion, Atari would have been better off teaming up with Nintendo or something, not making another console.

 

But who knows? Maybe it's amazing.

[Nintendo Switch]

Increased stability, of course!

Let me be the translator for y'all:

 

 

General system stability improvements to enhance the user's experience = "We patched a potential homebrew exploit"

 

But y'all knew that.

[Nintendo Switch Versus Atari Linx - A photo comparison]

I just wanted to butt in and say this is *exactly* the vibes I got from the Lynx.
Nintendo is no stranger at trying new things, like Cyan used to do. There's no telling what they came up with that never left the prototype phase, including turning the NES into a Commodore 64-like computer...

[Switch Friend Code List]

YOOO!

SW-7083-7734-4320

[D.K. VCS]

In the back of my mind I'm still hoping to hear the title theme that the NES port programmer added to the game. Anyone else? Probably impossible on the VCS but hey, wishful thinking.

​Love this, by the way.​

[I got a C64!----now what?]

I'm interested.... tell me more.

[I got a C64!----now what?]

So, I bought a like-new C64 from a guy who had kept it in his closet for decades - this is one of the classic ones with the brown keys. I typed in some BASIC programs to test the SID and other components and everything turned out great. Signal is clear as a bell to boot.

 

Now for the difficult part: What do I need to do to keep this thing running as is? Any points of failure that are common to these NTSC models? This thing is running a little *too* perfect, so I'm a little paranoid that it's going to fail at any moment.

[Tecmo 2600 Idea / Mockup]

I immediately thought of this:

 

​

 

Keep it this simple and you could have a winner on your hands.

[Elite...was it released for NTSC NES?]

It still needs some work to pass from "works in an emulator" status to "works on hardware" status. Unfortunately, that's where all hell will break loose- emulators being built with HLE techniques will run them fine, while cycle-accurate ones will garble. Nestopia barely plays it before the pilot screen, which the character's face isn't drawn into hits HAIR - the weirdest thing I've seen in a long time.