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thenickman100

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Posts posted by thenickman100

  3. Posted

    I recently acquired an Atari Flashback 2, and I'm trying to get it up and running. The only issue I have is that most sprites are not rendering on screen. Specifically, I tried both of the asteroids games. Either the asteroids or the player's ship will not show up. I also tried Yars revenge, and bullets will not show up. Is this a common problem? Does this have anything to do with my TV? It's an older model flat screen.

  7. Posted

    1 hour ago, joeatari1 said:

    Well, I have heard from everyone except @thenickman100 that the packages have been received.  I hope he received his as well and everyone is enjoying their items.  Have a Happy New Year everyone!

    I just arrived to it yesterday! Thank you for the gift, I really appreciate it.  I promise it has found a good home and will be taken care of. Happy New Year!

    • Like 1

  10. Posted

    On 11/24/2015 at 8:16 AM, nosweargamer said:

    Random Question: Do you have a 7800 2 button joystick plugged in when you turn it on?

     

    I once thought my Midnight Mutants cart was bad, however I only had a single button controller in it. Either a standard 2600 joystick or a Sega Genesis pad without an adapter.

    When I started it with a Pro-line controller, game started up perfectly.

    Any idea why Midnight Mutants only boots with the proline? Did you get it to work with the Sega controller with a two-button adapter?

  11. Posted

    2 hours ago, Shawn said:

    $50 isn't a steal of a price on this. I think what you paid is more than fair, if not a little high. Personally I wouldn't pay more than $35 for a NTSC good condition copy of Midnight Mutants. Getting $15 off the trending high price of $65 isn't enough alone to worry about authenticity IMO. If you have suspicions in the future it's better to do your homework first instead of risking getting ripped off.  With that said, this is a 100 percent legit cartridge you have purchased. 

    What's the best way to determine how much a cart is worth without looking at the trending price?

  13. Posted

    21 minutes ago, save2600 said:

    Looks real, no question. And priced kinda high for a loose example if you ask me. Wasn't that long ago you could have snagged a CIB copy for that much. But wow, I see the price has really gone up on these! 

     

     

    How can you tell real vs fake? I was watching these 4 or 5 years ago and they were much more reasonably priced and had a higher number of them listed.  Now I can never find reasonably priced copies for sale.

  16. Posted

    On 9/25/2019 at 4:40 PM, TailChao said:

    This definitely sounds like a bad TIA or a really lousy continuity issue. Do you have another TIA to swap in and try?

    Unfortunately, I do not.  I might pick up a 2600 at some point to try the TIA, but I doubt it will be anytime soon.  If one game is causing it, is there any way it is overloading the board/TIA?

    As to your other suggestions, I already reassembled the system and returned the game.  I'll probably stay away from 7800 repros from now on, aside from homebrews.

  17. Posted

    9 minutes ago, TailChao said:

    Galaga operates exclusively in one-button mode, so if it's working that at least indicates I4 and I5 could be fine. But it doesn't say anything about I0 - I3.

    Galaga only worked fine after I removed the TIA and put it back in.  Before I tried that, every game--including Galaga--was experiencing the same issue.  Xevious is the game that caused the 7800 to act up in the first place, though.

  18. Posted

    12 minutes ago, -^Cro§Bow^- said:

    Does Xevious have an auto fire mode? I thought the switches only changed whether the buttons worked independently or would fire and drop bombs simultaneous with either button for single button use?

    I do not think it has an autofire mode.  When controllers are connected, it skips right through the title screen, indicating that the fire buttons are "held down".

     

  19. Posted

    I have a weird turn of events that do not really make sense.

    ->Removed TIA and pushed back into place

    ->Tested combat, game works perfectly now

    ->Tested Xevious, the game that I had tried playing when the problem first appeared

    ->The problem came back

    ->Tested Galaga, no problems

    ->Tested Xevious, problem came back

    ->No problem with any games except for Xevious

     

    I had just purchased the copy of Xevious, and it seemed like a very obvious repro with how glossy the label was and the spring-loaded dust cover inside.  Is it common for repros to cause damage to Atari consoles?  I'm surprised that the problem was temporary the second time and did not become permanent after trying Xevious again.  What would removing and reinserting the TIA do to fix a problem like this?

  20. Posted

    2 hours ago, DrVenkman said:

    That’s not really checking continuity; you’ve merely verified that they’re not shorted to ground somewhere. To check continuity, start at the TIA pins suggested and then measure from the chip to the first component leg or via along the trace. If you get a beep, that indicates the signal path is intact and the trace isn’t bad or shorted. Then go from that component to the next, and so on until you reach the end of the signal chain - in this case, the pins where the joystick ports are soldered to the board. When you come across capacitors or resistors, just measure then individually. For a resistor, check the schematic for the correct value (the schematics are on AtariAge somewhere). Set your meter to resistance measurement and range (if your meter isn’t auto-ranging) and measure the resistance - if it’s within about 10% of the stated value it’s fine. For capacitors it’s a bit trickier - most meters can’t measure caps accurately in-circuit. But you can at least see if it’s shorted to ground.

     

     

    Using the schematics I found (in the link below), I followed all of the paths from pin #6 in the controller port for players 1 and 2.  I marked the paths green to indicate that I checked them for continuity and resistance, when applicable.  Everything appears to be okay?  Any leads on what I should check next?

    https://atariage.com/7800/archives/schematics_ntsc/images/Schematic_Atari7800_NTSC_4000.jpg

    troubleshooting2.png

    troubleshooting.png

  21. Posted

    47 minutes ago, DrVenkman said:

    That’s not really checking continuity; you’ve merely verified that they’re not shorted to ground somewhere. To check continuity, start at the TIA pins suggested and then measure from the chip to the first component leg or via along the trace. If you get a beep, that indicates the signal path is intact and the trace isn’t bad or shorted. Then go from that component to the next, and so on until you reach the end of the signal chain - in this case, the pins where the joystick ports are soldered to the board. When you come across capacitors or resistors, just measure then individually. For a resistor, check the schematic for the correct value (the schematics are on AtariAge somewhere). Set your meter to resistance measurement and range (if your meter isn’t auto-ranging) and measure the resistance - if it’s within about 10% of the stated value it’s fine. For capacitors it’s a bit trickier - most meters can’t measure caps accurately in-circuit. But you can at least see if it’s shorted to ground.

     

     

    Edit: I have found schematics of controller ports and circuit board to follow where the wires lead on the board.  Am I trying to check continuity to pins #5 & 6 on the controller port from the TIA chip pin that supposedly should lead there?

    Here is the diagram of the port that I found: 7800joysticksimple.jpg

     

  22. Posted

    3 minutes ago, DrVenkman said:

    That’s not really checking continuity; you’ve merely verified that they’re not shorted to ground somewhere. To check continuity, start at the TIA pins suggested and then measure from the chip to the first component leg or via along the trace. If you get a beep, that indicates the signal path is intact and the trace isn’t bad or shorted. Then go from that component to the next, and so on until you reach the end of the signal chain - in this case, the pins where the joystick ports are soldered to the board. When you come across capacitors or resistors, just measure then individually. For a resistor, check the schematic for the correct value (the schematics are on AtariAge somewhere). Set your meter to resistance measurement and range (if your meter isn’t auto-ranging) and measure the resistance - if it’s within about 10% of the stated value it’s fine. For capacitors it’s a bit trickier - most meters can’t measure caps accurately in-circuit. But you can at least see if it’s shorted to ground.

     

     

    I'm not quite sure how to do what you are describing.  Where should I put the red contact and where should I put the black contact?  

  23. Posted

    53 minutes ago, -^Cro§Bow^- said:

    Most multimeters feature a continuity mode. Usually shared with the diode mode on a few or at least it always was with the meters I've owned. So yeah...continuity is the beep mode also. 

     

    Your other question about the TIA in 2600s. Yes, you can use those just fine. That is one of the main reasons the TIA and RIOT are in the 7800 was to maintain the 2600 compatibility in the console but then they also happen to use them for other functions for the 7800 as well. But yes, the TIA in both 2600s and 7800s are the same and it is junked 2600s that I salvage the TIAs and RIOTs from.

    I checked the TIA, RIOT, and MARIA chips for continuity.  To check them, I made contact on the top side of the pins--the red contact on the ground, and black contact on each of the other pins.  The TIA and RIOT gave a non-zero and non-beep for each pin.  The MARIA gave a 0 read-out on pin 5 and a beep on pins 25 and 46.  I don't really know anything about whether that indicates a problem with the MARIA.  I assume it is fine since that was not one of the chips that you all thought would be relevant.

    MARIA pinout: https://www.atarimax.com/jindroush.atari.org/7800cmar.html

    RIOT pinout: https://www.atarimax.com/jindroush.atari.org/2600crio.html

    TIA pinout: https://www.atarimax.com/jindroush.atari.org/2600ctia.html

     

    Just for good measure, I checked the bottom solder points for the TIA and RIOT and everything was non-zero and non-beep too.

  24. Posted

    1 minute ago, boggis the cat said:

    Did you check continuity through to the TIA chip?  (It is the TIA as DrVenkman pointed out, not they RIOT as I incorrectly suggested.)

     

    TIAs are harder to get hold of, and you will need the correct version (they are for NTSC or PAL, and the pinouts differ), but it’s the same approach.  If you have socketed chips then it’s fairly simple — if they’re soldered, then it’s a PITA.

     

    Once you know the culprit, perhaps you can put up a post on the buy/sell to see if anyone nearby has a suitable spare.

    How do I check "continuity"? 

    I did a little bit of googling earlier, and saw that 2600s use TIAs too.  Are the two chips interchangeable as long as they are both NTSCs?

     

    Also, I really appreciate all of the helpful advice so far :)

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