John Stamos Mullet

Or you can just stop derailing my thread, thanks.

I’m asking for the bios because it would bring original console accuracy to the 2600+ I really don’t care about save states.

I know. I was more being facetious than serious.

Now that he has Atari's backing, they should send him some assembly assistants and shipping clerks.

Bumping this to the top as a reminder since the firmware fixes are coming out regularly…

I can confirm my Time Pilot (Coleco white cart) is working on this experimental firmware.

But the 2600+ is a console that ONLY puts out HDMI. Down converting it to S-video doesn't magically make it now display at native resolution. You're now forcing a game written for RF output to be digitally emulated, converted UP to HD, and then taking that HD signal and downconverting it. The only thing you're going to end up with is screen lag that makes it unplayable. T You should get a real Atari 7800 and plug it into your CRT directly if that's what you're after.

I bought my 2600+ because my real 7800 w/ UAV mod going S-Video to a retro rink mini can be finicky sometimes, and it’s not going to last forever. I wanted a new console to replace it, but that plus the cost of the UAV and it’s almost the same price as the 2600+. Also, I love the fact that it’s like a real 7800 in that you have to use real carts. The physical cart changing is nostalgic like playing vinyl records. And lastly, it s a real, Genuine Atari product that isn’t a shameless cash grab, but a labor of love. So I want to see it succeed in good hands. Plus I love to tinker and play guinea pig for new systems that are a WIP. Biggest reason I come to this site is because there are so many open WIP games that devs here share with the community. Taking care of these elderly classic consoles with their fuzzy output no matter how good the video mod is getting a bit tired.

I have to say at least for the NTSC side of things, with the speed boost in the latest experimental firmware, this thing finally feels like a worthy competition for a real 2600/7800 video modded through a good HDMI scaler like the Retrotink. Now to just work out those pesky dumper issues for known incompatible games and it's near perfect.

Ah. Well there you go. it's not the game or the console, but an HDMI mismatch deficiency. Cool. Funny how a real 7800 through an HDMI convertor like a retrotink doesn't have the same frame drops. the Tink must be doing some internal interpolation.

Never mind. Guess I just had a "Senior Moment". I was loading up the Concerto cart hbios file instead of the Harmony one.

I've flashed a few games to my Harmony cart, and now I can't get it back to menu mode. I can flash the HBIOS file to it and it does the spinning icon, and then tells me it's complete, and then after taht I power it off/on and I get nothing. Blank screen. I can't seem to find the directions for getting out of developer mode anywhere on this site.

Loaded up the Debug version to see what it shows for H.E.R.O. (NTSC) and here's what it shows: so it's running just slightly slower than full speed. Played it for a good 20 minutes and barely saw the tic, maybe twice. I noticed that the speed ramped between 59.55ish and 59.96ish, Never showed 60+ FPS. Not sure if that's the game itself or something else. It's completely playable, even close to perfect as is, but sharing just for posterity. The display itself is a 2021 Samsung QLED 55" yet Curiously, another demanding game - California Games never dipped below 60.00 FPS.

I noticed this as well with California Games.

Also - California Games is flawless now.

I can report that H.E.R.O. performance is notably better, but still has the occasional stutter/tic when there's a lot going on on screen (multiple enemies + Miner). Not nearly as frequent as before and less noticeable. But in general is definitely better.

This is helpful. 😏

John is the original Dev for H.E.R.O. For the 2600, among other games. I originally thought he was someone posting here under that name, didn’t realize it was really him. He seemed pretty upset. A few years ago, Dan Kitchen (the original dev behind Keystone Kapers) decided to finish his planned but shelved sequel to it, Casey’s Gold (originally Goldrush!). He was pretty close to releasing it when he partnered with David Crane under the title Audacity Games, then Casey’s Gold suddenly got shelved, and Circus Convoy came out using many of the same game elements. When John relayed that Audacity encouraged him to make Alien Abduction for the 2600, I made the joke that David Crane would try to cuck his game like he did to Dan Kitchen’s, and release something similar in theme shortly after.

$10 says a year from now David Crane comes out with a game called "Space Kidnapping".

Fine. Point taken. its just that he basically insulted this entire community by complaining that rehashing old games is bad. 90% of the people here are here for exactly that - nostalgia. Same reason people still listen to the music and love re-watching the TV shows and movies of their formative years. People make special personal connections to things like this from their youth. Video Games are an art form as well. I’m glad to hear John is still at this. But this stuff is a process and everyone in this damn fool country is a litigious a-hole these days. Everyone suing everyone for things. I don’t blame Atari and Albert for being careful.

lol. Albert literally just said he hopes to do that later this year IN THIS THREAD. He runs Atari Age. He’s also extremely busy. Most people who ordered games months ago still haven’t received them because he was overwhelmed with orders in the middle of negotiating a deal with Atari.

Well maybe you should address that with Atari directly like a professional instead of airing your dirty laundry on a web forum where people come to enjoy these games. at least make a new thread so you don’t derail this one with your complaints.