juansolo

Much as I'd like to see the circle finally complete and the Amiga gets the badge is should have had, it'd be far too easy for them if they did to licence Amibian and stick it on a Raspberry Pi clone and put it all in an Amiga looking box, rather than doing it properly. So no, please don't.

Hi @nobru We're in the process of documenting the current mod. We've done it to 3 PAL machines now and thats where it seems to be working best also. @Frax_Excelsior is sending us his machine, once that lands I'm going to use it to make a full installation guide as this mod isn't straight forward. When that's done, another board is going over to @karri and he's going to have a go at fitting it himself. When that's proven and I have a bit more confidence in how difficult the install is then I'll potentially have some more PCBs made up. It'll be a couple of weeks or so I'd expect. Watch this thread.

Easier to do it in FPGA these days, and indeed it already exists in that form. Wouldn't be cheap though.

Yeah... Just the games not impacted by the sale was enough to make me strongly suspect Atari were involved. I thought it might have been a legal slap down, I suppose this makes even more sense. Really not sure how I feel about this given how it will almost certainly have a knock on effect to the homebrew scene.

The vast majority of games I buy these days are indies. Be it for the old consoles or via GOG for the PC. I have got consoles up to the PS4 and XB1X and I think I've bought maybe 3 or 4 games tops for them in the last two years. I've enjoyed them. Loved Horizon Forbidden West and I've got the last God of War to play at some point. But this is the thing, I use the XB1X more to play old games than new ones. Indeed the last game I bought for it was Atari50... MTX = Microtransactions. I'm aware I'm causing thread drift so I'll leave it there.

Not to go too far off on a tangent, I think it's more of a case of the modern gaming market has moved on to something that us old folk just aren't really interested in. Online looter-shooters, thinly disguised gambling, MTX laden everything... I haven't bought a 'new' console in so long because they're no longer making games that appeal to me. However this year has seen the release of Baldur's Gate 3 and Starfield, both old-school RPGs and I kinda want to play them. However two games simply don't justify the purchase of a £1500+ PC or even a £500 Xbox Series X. Otherwise there's been absolutely nothing else that has even come close to making me want to upgrade my 12 year old PC, or buy into the new consoles. This is why I suspect people on AA are gravitating towards older style games that focus on playability. Because they're games that appeal to our generation. To bring it back to topic, do I think that this makes the 2600+ desireable? No, because it won't play a lot of the new games that I own on cartridge where as my 7800 and 2600 do. So there is simply no justification for me to buy one as it offers me less than I currently have. Simple as that. No shade to be thrown on people who do think this thing is a good idea. But for me it's just another uneccessary novelty. For people outside of AA it may be more appealing, but it requiring carts and not coming loaded with all their favourite games, I feel it might not appeal as much either as it's not the quick fix then throw it in a drawer never to be seen again like the flashbacks. For the people inbetween who want something to play old games on and aren't bought into Atari as a brand, the Evercade does a way better job...

Welll expected to spend today socketing up my 7800 to work through possibilities as to what had gone south. Popped out the Riot, dropped it into our socketed test 2600jr. RIOT deed. Interestingly running the 7800 without the RIOT and the pic was ok (obv other things stopped working). Cleggy probed the address lines and one of them was completely borked. It would have been a case of swapping every IC connected to it to find the prob, but thankfully the first thing we pulled was it. Handily we have a couple of good spare RIOTs so popped that in and we're off and rocking again. So, feeling confident we went to my spares PAL 7800. This is one we bought as a spares/repair job that was just a complete nightmare. Someone had tried to mod it in the past and had just burned up everything... I was just using it as a chip donor to this point, but we decided to put our mod onto it because, well, we had one left. It didn't go quite as swimmingly, and it's bodges galore as a machine. But eventually it burst into life (Cleggy had to do some fettling after I left as one of the bodges was connected to the wrong luma and was causing problems). Now just have to swap a few chips back into it, write a BIOS chip (one of the many things that was wrong with it and it's finally prompted us to buy a burner) and I'll have another machine to drop into one of Bob's 3D printed boxes that we can use for testing. Nice! There's a machine hopefully incoming that I'm going to document the full PAL install on. The mod seems to work best there anyhow. But that'll start to happen when it lands.

Yeah, I was kinda hoping it wasn't that as I've got some RAM but no RIOT or CPU... I'll socket everything and take it from there. Cheers dude. EDIT: Cleggy informs me that we have a spare RIOT, so may as well start there. Fingers crossed.

@-^CrossBow^- You ever had this? I know it's not the cart slot as it does this with the inbuilt Asteroids and it's not the BIOS because I've already tried another one. Massive graphical corruption and hanging. Consistent across both 7800 and 2600. This is Galaga: I'm planning on socketing the RAM first as that seems most likely and I can steal some from my PAL donor to try. But beyond that will take some proper investigation.

Minor venting incoming... Both modded machines over at mine. Successful testing all round, even the one set of mine that wouldn't previously sync to the mod now does with no problems. All great. Plug my own machine back in and it shits itself spectacularly. Corrupt graphics and crashing in both sides. Not the BIOS (the only socketed thing on that board so a super easy test). Not the cart slot as it does it with the built in Asteroids. So current thinking is probably either RAM or processor... Will delve into it more on Weds. As it is, the mod is good, and I'm now 7800-less as my NTSC machine with the UAV is dead, and my PAL machine ended up being used for parts in a repair. Bah! Time to start watching eBay again... /if there's anyone with a spare NTSC 7800 in the UK who want's to sell it for sensible money, PM me.

Yep. Had a controller where the stick was completely broken so no saving it. Turned it into a Pole Position controller (switch on the side changes gear). Buttons are on the other side. Everything else is connected as normal. Really good for paddle games.

Showing off that he has three friends that are into Warlords... 😜 Lucky bugger.

I was going to buy a RetroTink for testing (as I don't actually need one), then I saw what sort of money they actually cost even for the simple ones... Errp, nope, can't justify that sadly

Well we've at least one AA members PAL machine heading our way for the mod that'll provide more testing. We're at the stage where the trimmers can likely become resistors now, but it's still a lot of de-soldering and faff... But while I'm doing it, I may as well document the install even though at this stage I really don't think this is a DIY job. PAL machines are notoriously horrible to mod also. With teeny, tiny solder pads that love to lift and terrible quality solder. We've also continued testing it on different TVs and monitors, but I realised I was just filling the thread with Ballblazer and Combat and it's probably only really useful to us. The long and short of that was the PAL machine is more compatible than the NTSC one, which makes sense given we're in a PAL region. But also that the more modern a panel is, the more chance there is that it's not going to handle it. The Koryuu seems a good option there if your TV can take component video in. Again nothing is guarenteed, but then nothing is when you're hitting a modern TV with piss poor analogue signal handling with a 30 year old console that was never meant to output S-Video and has some challenging faults that have to be worked around. Really we could do with testing it with things like the RetroTink, but we haven't got one of those. It works with an Extron IN1508 (bought for £20 on eBay) but that does bring with it lag and deinterlacing issues sadly. Could have been a super cheap solution otherwise and it works with NTSC where the Koryuu > GBS Control option didn't.

Really this is the one that matters most. The BVM, though a far better monitor (it's convergence is perfect), isn't set up for S-Video so we have to add the Koryuu into the mix that corrupts results a bit. This 14" PVM is essentially this is as 'correct' as a picture as we can get ultimately (I've got a bigger PVM than this, but it's convergence isn't as good. Probably could do with a re-cap). There's a little bit of blooming happening with full white. The BVM just takes this in it's stride because it's a monster... We may have to dial this down a little. PAL7800 - direct - Sony PVM 14" (CRT) NTSC7800 - direct - Sony PVM 14" (CRT) I have a famously intolerant Panasonic plasma to try it on when Cleggy comes over at the weekend (it's RGB is just broken and has been from new). It'll have to go through the Koryuu to work, but it'll be interesting. Finally there's my big PVM. It shouldn't be much different to the little one to be fair.

Round 2. This has become more of a TV compatability test than anything else. Cleggy throught he'd try the NTSC machine into the Tosh through the Koryuu (so component input to the TV) and that had some interesting results in that now the NTSC machine worked. But also the 2600 side of things on both consoles is now stable. It must be doing some digital processing there then. Though the NTSC 2600 has an odd line on it on the right, possibly noise being interpreted as video? NTSC7800 - Koryuu (S to component) - Toshiba (LCD) PAL7800 - Koryuu (S to component) - Toshiba (LCD) NTSC7800 - direct - Sony 15" (LCD) Update on odd line. Shows up here too on the 15" Sony LCD, so not the Koryuu. Just really noticable on the much larger Tosh. Looking back it's on all other images too. PAL7800 - direct - Sony 15" (LCD) Yes this panel has a stuck pixel...

It's hardware limited in that regard so not really possible. It was never designed to be a console (it's an Intel subsidised FPGA development board). You could however make an FPGA based solution that did have a cart slot. Then maybe talk to the devlopers of the MiSTer 7800 core and see if they'll license that. Otherwise you're paying someone like Kevtris to make a new one for them. All very doable.

I had a FB2 back in the day and grafted on a cart slot. Ultimately I never used it because it wasn't that compatible... What this should have been is an FPGA implementation of the 2600/7800, with a cart slot, analogue electronics to give fully compatible controller inputs and RGB/Composite/S-Video/HDMI out. Basically an Analogue-style 2600. You could then have gone further with it (if the FPGA had the space) and add things like XM functionality on board (essentially what the Colectorvision Phoenix was to the Coleco with it's on board SGM). It would have been MORE compatible than the old consoles in that you could release games without those chips in and have it use them (like DK XM and PMC-40 XM). Think about the future where you could release carts for it without the expensive chips in them because they're in the machine (the whole idea behind the XM). Then you put it in a nostalgia-baiting box and you're onto a winner as it's truly a machine worth buying for anyone that runs carts (I wouldn't have put an SD card capability on it to make it a true console). The problem is quite simply cost. You'd be looking at $250-300 for something like that. Which personally I'd be prepared to pay as it'd be offering something that nothing else out there did. As it is this machine has no use to me at any cost. It's lack of compatibility with many homebrews just makes it pointless. It makes far more sense just to buy a real 2600, video mod it and run it through a retrotink.

Lots of pics incoming. We've been testing the two systems on lots of TVs/Monitors. Usual caveats apply to the pics: CRT's are hard to photograph, if you see a dark line, that's likely it scanning and isn't in the image. Also the camera we used doesn't like certain reds for some reason. The right hand tank on PAL combat is very pink, but for some reason in the pics it's super washed out (also the sandy yellow surround). It's a weird old camera, I used to have a red car it made look orange... Also go full res or you won't really be getting an idea of what it's like. I've scaled all of the images to 1920xwhatever. Pics are BallBlazer (7800), Combat (2600). 2 per screen to get an idea. All pics are S-Video out from console, the rest of the chain will be noted in each batch. PAL7800 - Koryuu (S in, component out) - Sony BVM (CRT) NTSC7800 - Koryuu (S in, component out) - Sony BVM (CRT) PAL7800 - direct - Samsung (LCD) NTSC7800 - direct - Samsung (LCD) PAL7800 - Koryuu (S in, component out) - GBS Control (component in, VGA out) - LaCie ElectronBlue19 (CRT) No NTSC for this as it wouldn't play nice with this combination PAL7800 - direct - Toshiba (LCD) NTSC doesn't play nice with this set. It's notoriously finicky this one. This TV loses sync with any 2600 for some reason which looks like this: There's more to come as we test more sets. Where we have to use the Koryuu with the BVM as it has no S-Video board, we can go direct into a PVM so we'll do that. It's about as accurate as we can get as the Koryuu will auto-adjust levels and the PVM wont. Got another panel we can stick them through also.

Even with an adapter, very few PAL TVs can tune in an NTSC signal. If you can you've then got to hope it can handle the NTSC colourburst, which the vast majority can't. Out of the 6 TVs I have access to with analogue tuners, only one can be brute forced (it's very manual) to tune into the correct frequency, and it's in very poor B&W because it can't decode NTSC. The easiest option is to have the machine video modded to output either composite video or S-video. The chances of your set being able to decode NTSC over those inputs is MUCH higher. Still not guarenteed by any means, but a lot more things here can deal with NTSC over those than over RF.

Most of that is still the offset (though this mod seems to get that to it's absolute minimum, one thing it does have in it's favour). I've still got the UAV and chroma offset board on my 7800 which we use as a basline. For what it's worth we're seeing it on an oscilloscope and it shows as jailbars on our mod. You can't see it on a UAV because I suspect the filtering is so good (which is possibly why it has a softer image than our mod), so I don't think it's worth doing. It will break RF and as I say, other than through an oscilloscope, you'll not really see any difference in the picture through the UAV. I didn't bother doing it to mine and mine doesn't have RF. I didn't think it'd make any difference. Yeah, you still need the chroma fix board.

Well I'm not sure what to do/say about this. The new mod works. It's output can be absolutely staggering, essentially the best output we've had out of both PAL and NTSC 7800's. The mod is simplicity itself with very few parts. However fitting and setting the thing up isn't, which is a bit of an understatement. Parts need to be pulled, one resistor needs to be swapped (both machines), the PAL machine still needs the seperate clock and the NTSC machine needs the MARIA socketing so you can lift the chroma pin. So it's a bit of a 'mare. The MARIA thing was surprising. We were seeing chroma bleed on the luma signal and it's happening on the 7800 side of things. Lift the pin and run direct from that and it goes away (there's a couple of traces about a couple of cm long that are less than a mm apart, we suspect it's happening there). Incidentally we have the same on the TIA, but we've no idea at all where that's happening and running direct from the TIA doesn't remove it from the signal. That's just baffling. For this mod, like our previous ones, we pull a load of surplus stuff that can cause interference. We're also lowering the sync level as this mod seems to need that. The two trimmers on the boards won't actually be on boards from this point forth, that was just to determine the chroma/luma levels. That took a lot of tweaking, but surprisingly they're the same across PAL and NTSC. The rest of it just seems to come down to console variability. The PAL machine for example, has a picture on the 2600 side so good you'd be hard pushed to believe it wasn't RGB. The pic on the NTSC 7800 side is also pretty much staggering. It's not perfect, on a very revealing screen you can still see colour rolling on the PAL machine and really mild jailbars on the NTSC. But you're starting to get super analytical at that point (which we are, so that doesn't help...). The picture is super sharp, way sharper than via my modded (has chroma shift and switched chromas) UAV based NTSC 7800. We suspect that the UAV is doing some filtering somewhere that will go a long way to hiding some of the sins (jailbars and what have you) that a lot of old machines might produce. The UAV should still be the way to go on NTSC machines. They're fit and forget, add @-^CrossBow^- adapter board and it's a borderline trivial install that doesn't remove any other functionality and the overall picture is still exceptionally good. It also has a good composite out, which our mod doesn't (we've no idea why, the FMS6400 is chewing on the same signal for both, but composite just isn't anywhere near as good). For PAL machines you're still kinda boned. The GD7800 is your best bet and just go RGB here. Our mod... Dunno, we mainly did it because it was interesting, but I don't think it's anything that can really be let out into the wild. We may end up installing it for people who's machines pass through us, but it being S-Video only and requiring a lot of work to put in really limits it. So for what it's worth, here's some pics of the final installs in both machines.

Hmmm, thought this was about the new thing, ignore that last post... Must learn to read properly...

An FPA implementation of the MiSTer 7800 core (including it's support for additional hardware like Yamaha/Pokey/etc) with HDMI out, cart slot, and full complement of 7800 buttonry. The analogue parts required to have two fully operational (paddle supporting) controller ports and an RGB output. Pie in the sky stuff (though it's essentially the sort of thing the Coleco Phoenix is). It's what it'd take me to buy one and it'd be significantly more expensive than what they're releasing. But to me it would actually be a modern alternative to restoring old hardware to play carts on both old and new displays. It would be objectively superior to the old hardware in what it's offering (no colour drift on NTSC 7800, no rolling on PAL 7800, potentially fully multi-region, far higher quality video output, XM like capability, etc). What they're offering instead is an emulation box. It's a toy, it'll be fun, but ultimately it'll sit on a shelf looking pretty rather than being of any real use.

Gotta call you out on this, sorry. $400 for a MiSTer doesn't just get you a 7800 and 'poor' arcade emulation. It gets you multiple machine hardware level emulation. ie, as accurate as having the real thing. If you consider it's NeoGeo, MegaCD, PC Engine+CD and Amiga support alone, you can justify it's cost many times over, and that's just a fraction of what it can do. The arcade boards it supports continues to increase on a weekly basis as there are so many developers building new cores for it all the time. It is the future of hardware preservation at this point in time. To compare it to software emulation is greatly missing the point. Also for a 7800 into a Tink to get better results, that 7800 would have to be outputting RGB, and then it'd be the same rather than better.