stlouisrod
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Atari 130XE not seeing 1050 when set to drive D2:
stlouisrod replied to stlouisrod's topic in Atari 8-Bit Computers
LOLOL.. this post officially wins the internet for today -
Atari 130XE not seeing 1050 when set to drive D2:
stlouisrod posted a topic in Atari 8-Bit Computers
Have been using APE with my Atari 130XE for a while now and don't remember having this issue until lately. I keep getting error 138 (device timeout) in DOS 2.0s (or any I've tried) whenever I issue a directory listing to D2:*.*. I am booting up on D1: which is assigned to my PC folder location via APE and my SIO2PC interface. I have my 1050 switched to D2 setting, and leaving D2: in APE blank (i.e. ejected) so it is not conflicting. Unfortunately I don't have another serial device to set as D1: in the chain so I can determine if it's the controller in my 1050 which is OK with D1 setting but possibly NOT with D2 . Any ideas? Shouldn't I be able to access PC via D1 and a real 1050 device on D2 within APE? -
Really enjoying all these buggy variants. Dumb question but why was the mountain range color not more closely matched to the arcade? Does it bleed too much with the buggy colors? And I will second the frustration with a buggy that isn't exactly the same pixel width. The collision detection is not PM-based, but locational, and it bugs me to blow up when the bomb never touched the front. In fact, IIRC the arcade Moon Patrol is overly generous in that regard, requiring a fully direct hit before registering a collision.
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Thanks for the link! I put them all on my Harmony, and they run great! Big props to the guys who made those conversions. I can finally put that trackball to good use.
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Wow, you really know your 800 architecture. So basically bits 3 and/or 4 of AUDCTL are being initialized counter to what the game expects. Therefore 8bit music being output as 16bit, or vice versa. Loading different OS versions might only "fix" the issue by leaving those bits set a certain way after boot up. But that would just be a happy accident. If that fails, I guess we can scan the program code area for 5 bytes where we can mask those bits to 0 (or 1), whichever it's supposed to be. This would be a nice enhancement to the improved graphic version of this game. I notice the same musical aberration playing Mario Brothers, which is another of my favorite ear-killers. As a kid I changed all the enemy bitmaps to names of my favorite bands at the time (Van Halen, Iron Maiden, etc.) to freak out my friends when playing. "Oh man, we're almost to the AC/DC stage!". Good times. Thanks to SIO2PC and APE, I saved all those disks to hard drive for posterity.
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Now I remember why I rarely plaid this game back in the day. The music is ear piercingly bad. What the heck were they thinking?!?!?
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I've always been underwhelmed/horrified by the original Moon Patrol 8bit graphics, and it's exciting to see the progress made here. Keep up the great work. I have an 800XL and 130XE, both of which utilize the latest monitor out to composite cable for excellent image and colors on my vintage 32" CRT. I plan on feeding back my play-through experience as this project continues.
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So I have a nice Atari trackball controller that I bought new many years ago. It works great with my Atari 800 PC games like Missile Command (after hitting ctrl-T). However, it doesn't work with the hacked Missile Command trackball version I have on my Harmony cart. Is there something special you have to do for it to work? And yes, I have the trackball switch in trackball mode vs the joystick emulation mode.
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Atari Age Votes: Best shooting game on the 2600! (Ranking)
stlouisrod replied to TigerSuperman's topic in Atari 2600
River Raid Megamania Astroblast (paddle on A difficulty!) Vanguard Missile Command -
All I know is that I agonized for quite a while as a kid, wondering which computer I should ask for: Atari 800XL or Coleco Adam. Thank the gods in heaven I picked Atari! No offense to the toy maker, but the Atari 8bit line was an amazing system to program. I learned BASIC, 6500 machine language, how to crack games, was blown away by the first spreadsheet program (Visicalc), on and on. Did the keyboard absolutely suck all possible donkey balls? Yes! Was the video through the RF output horrible? OMG yes. Could I have found or created a composite video cable to plug into the 5 pin output for much cleaner video? Yes, but for some reason never did. Heck, I am STILL creating games on that system... though I refurbished a 130XE and absolutely LOVE it's keyboard! Wish those had been an option back in 1983 And yes, I now use the 5-pin to composite AV cable from Best Electronics on my 130XE for an absolutely stellar video signal <shameless plug>.
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A tad off topic, but I was reading through the original Atari 2600 field services PDF, and it recommended repair shops connect TIA pins 6 and 9 through an 820 1/4 W 5% resistor to obtain a more saturated picture (aka, better). I tried this on my 4 switch, and while it was definitely more saturated, the colors were too washed out.. reds were pink, whites were gray, etc. Worse, it showed odd horizontal lines on the left edge of the screen when the brightness was turned up a bit. So I quickly undid that "improvement"
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Interesting... I can definitely confirm my heavy 6er exhibited noticeable ghosting through the original RF video, and while diminished quite a bit with my Best Electronics composite mod, some ghosting is still visible.
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Quick shout out for this recommendation. I bought this for $13.00 on Ebay and installed in my 4-switch woody. Installation only involved removing the RF box, one resistor and one transistor. Only 4 new wires to solder to the board. The picture results are very good, with accurate colors, detail, and sound. The only mild distortion I could find is the blue suit on Keystone Kapers. It kind of jumbles up against the green background. But I suspect this is likely true over standard RF signal as well. The Activision logo on all games reads nicely, so no need for adding distortion "smoothing". All testing was done on a 32" CRT TV and 19" LCD HDTV. My only mild complaint is that while the mod PCB has a resistor to attenuate the audio, it is still quite loud. But it is always clear. Even with my CRT volume on only 20 out of 100 it provides playable volume.
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Update: I removed the 820p and 47p caps in the right red section of your diagram, with no change to the picture. I also tested the 2N3904: emitter to ground before trim pot = 1.1v; after trimpot adjusted for best saturation of picture = .95v. So it seems well within tolerance. Even if i adjust the trimpot to lowest level (highest resistance), the picture gets dim but the pixel coloring anomaly remains. So it never appeared to be a low current issue, and now I've proven that electrically as well.
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I will try to remove the extra components you highlighted. I believe I found the 820p and 47p caps on the right, but I can't seem to find the RF modulator related 150p cap or 15k resistor (did you mean 1.5k perhaps?). Since this is a heavy 6er, the RF modulator is on the separate switch board along with c105 (4.7uF capacitor) on it, but no resistors. Of course, I removed the RF box long ago as part of my mod instructions, in case you were curious.
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Thanks a ton for offering to take a look. Here are the pertinent pages from the install manual of my mod:
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Best Electronics Atari 2600 Composite Hack Issues
Images added to a gallery album owned by stlouisrod in Member's Gallery
Pictures showing weak red and green color palette, as well as odd pixel coloring. -
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From the album: Best Electronics Atari 2600 Composite Hack Issues
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From the album: Best Electronics Atari 2600 Composite Hack Issues
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From the album: Best Electronics Atari 2600 Composite Hack Issues
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From the album: Best Electronics Atari 2600 Composite Hack Issues
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From the album: Best Electronics Atari 2600 Composite Hack Issues
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I have little experience using my oscilliscope, but i hooked up the composite plug collar to negative and pole to positive, then turned on the atari (so not hooked to TV). The voltage kept switching from .811 mV to 1.3mV, fwiw. So on your design, I see 2 transistors. Since I kept the original one after removing it from the PCB, can i just add it inline to my existing one to increase the amplification up to 1v spec? How did you wire yours? You just showed a picture of the top, not the bottom solder points. Are they in series or parallel? The transistor provided for my hack is 2N3904. Thanks.
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Hmmm... I will review your process, and I DO have an oscilloscope (digital), but I'm not sure which wires/contacts to hook it to, nor what to expect in the scope readout. Any details you can offer would be much appreciated .
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What was the first Atari 2600 game you bought?
stlouisrod replied to Skippy B. Coyote's topic in Atari 2600
My parents bought us an Atari in 1979, and I remember Adventure being included. Mind blowing at the time. And yes, I found the Easter Egg on my own. One of those watershed moments in life. Never would I have dreamed that incident would form the basis of a movie (Ready Player One) nearly 40 years later. I think the first games I actually saved up for and purchased on my own was the complete Starpath Supercharger set of games after seeing an ad in some magazine. I never DID finish that infernal Survival Island.. dear god what a PITA. But Dragonstomper.. oh yeah...
![20180918 191559[1]](http://content.invisioncic.com/r322239/gallery/album_2278/sml_gallery_62490_2278_1132337.jpg)
![20180918 191620[1]](http://content.invisioncic.com/r322239/gallery/album_2278/sml_gallery_62490_2278_3986759.jpg)
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