rocketfan

Draxxon tried the controllers from the Legends Flashback (they at least look like Genesis controllers) and they didn't work. Maybe it is worth a try to build a little special adapter that bridges the normal fire pin with 9 though. It looks like pin 6 is the normal Atari button pin, except I guess that first port is non standard due the joysticks with the extra buttons - anyone know the actual pinout? How do they even have 4 directions and 5 buttons working on 9 pins (because if it is just switches, then one pin must be ground)?

Here are some update files. The attached retromenu has been modified to use the fba core for .zip files. (also supports .a26 and .nes and maybe some kind of Atari 2600 bin?) I was using "FBN_v02.97.44" non-merged roms. If you use others your mileage may vary. Replace the one in /emulator with it. Older games work OK, newer ones don't run well. Probably due to memory and CPU speed both. They all load a little slow, maybe just due to the larger size of the core. For me Joust worked properly the second time in. First time it has the "reset factory defaults" message. The retromenu.sega supports Genesis (.bin), Master system (.sms) and SG-1000 (.sg) If you place it in your /rom or /rom_alt_# folder it will be used instead of the one in /emulator (which means the other types of roms like .a26 are not going to be supported for that particular rom_alt_# folder). Just to be clear, leave it named as retromenu.sega when you copy it to the rom folder. You have to also use the attached startup.sh to enable this. There are not going to be many Genesis roms that work because of lack of buttons. Here is a list I found that (I think) do though: bio hazard battle bonkers columns dr robotnics mean bean machine Frogger Gynoug Insector X ms pac man pacmania paperboy Phelios puyo puyo sega arcade classics sonic games (not spinball) williams arcade classics (robtron and joust work) Genesis performance is not that great. Sonic games in particular do NOT run well (although the .sms one does). If this is the core used for the LFB I'm not sure why - thought it was the same hardware. The cores are attached for convenience (put them in /emulator) but they are the same ones from Draxxon's archive with all the cores. startup.sh retromenu retromenu.sega genesis_plus_gx_libretro.so lr-fbalpha.so

Nice video Draxxon. Yes, Pac Man CE is good! I never tried it before you pointed it out. Some bad news, but some pretty good news also. I am totally stumped by the button mapping. Without actual sources, not sure I can figure anything out on that, and I am moving on. Also, I went back to the MAME cores and could not get anywhere. Also the individual game cores like FIF and Galaga - no luck whatsoever. However the good news - genesis_plus_gx_libretro.so: works for .sg games. (I have not tried on SMS yet) I tried Kings Valley (nice lode runner type game), Rally X, and Pitfall II, they all seem to work well. Some SG-1000 games are two button for sure. "The Castle" is a good SG-1000 game. I didn't try it on this device yet, but I think the only thing the second button does is speed up the elevators, so probably playable. Even better news - lr-fbalpha.so also works. Which means arcade/MAME roms are gonna work after all! Select adds coins, start starts one-player. No way to start two-player I can find. With the "FBN_v02.97.44" non-merged roms I found online, things seem solid. However, the core/games load pretty slow. I tried Centipede, Galaga, and Eagle (Moon Cresta clone I like) they all work great! 1941 (which is a newer game) takes forever to load but does come up and work. The sound is sketchy and play is really laggy though (IMO unplayable), so don't get too excited about newer games on this device. For the classics though, I think it will fly. Probably tomorrow I will work on hacking the retromenu to handle these out of the rom folders with art. The current retromenu can be modded to handle the fbalpha core, then I can make a second one for .sg and .sms (and God willing maybe someday Atari800).

Well, if you have not already overwritten your FW, here are the instructions. It's not necessarily straightforward. The experts in this stuff have not been active in the conversation recently, but I dug into it this morning. The big prerequisite is that the tool you need runs in Linux, so first requirement is you have like an Ubuntu system! If not, I don't think the windows tools make it so easy, and not sure how to do it with those. The instructions for installing and running the tool can be followed almost exactly from here: Installing RkFlashKit Update: Except see bottom of post - I added the .deb package and short install instructions, so try that first before you do the more complicated approach. One hint if you are not a github person is just follow the link on that page and click the code button to get a .zip of the sources: 0.1. Then unzip them anywhere and open a terminal window in that folder to complete the steps. Then I was able to pretty much follow the install instructions on that linked page above. Once you did what it says, the .deb package lands in the .../binaries subfolder in there, and you can just choose the most recent version (0.1.3) to install/run. After the tool is running, have the unit powered off. Plug a micro USB cable to your device and the Linux system, press the reset with your favored thin pokey device, and power on. The program should then recognize the device in recovery mode. Then it's pretty straightforward to backup each of the partitions by selecting the partition (the NAND Partitions selection box), then clicking the "Backup Partition" button. I'm not sure if they are all important when repacking the update image, but I would say get all 8 of them to be on the safe side. Tool interface: Partition selection dialog (which also shows their size @ location/address!) Update: I just realized I can just provide the .deb installer package here 🙂 So instead of following all those instructions, maybe you can just put that (attached) on your Ubuntu system and execute these commands: sudo apt-get install python-gtk2 sudo dpkg -i rkflashkit_0.1.3_all.deb If the install works you can run it by: sudo rkflashkit rkflashkit_0.1.3_all.deb

One thing I wanted to mention is the "slots" concept. My understanding that is each retromenu is tweaked for a particular atGames unit to support one or a few cores. This AFB one supports VCS games, the SpaceInvaders, and Frogger special cases, and (for whatever reason) .nes and .zip. The LFB must support several more than that. I think the reason for the consideration of the slots is the "emulator path paired with a file extension" strings in the retromenu give you a pretty easy hex edit hack to run other cores/extensions, but you are limited to the number already supported (3 in the case of AFB). With the new system of rom folders that limitation can be overcome, IMO. Because you could have several copies of retromenu hacked differently for different cores. You can use the symbolic link trick to locate those cores out in the emulator folder on the usb stick. So 3 hacked retomenus gives you 9 cores you can run - or just make a single hack in each one - no real limitation. The way it could be implemented is place the proper hacked retromenu for the files in the rom_alt_? folder. Like "retromenu.atari800". If there is a retromenu.? in the rom folder, just start that one, not the regular one.

At this point I'm pretty sure I was wrong about this. Funny thing is the "Next" script for the rom folder switchover basically just tries to kill off the retromenu program so it can be restarted. But I tried to add some other stuff in there to experiment and I realize now it maybe is just making retromenu crash! Like there is a bug or un-handled exception in retromenu. Anyway, it does what was needed - good to be lucky once in a while. 🙂 I proved the Colecovision core will bring up a game. I started the Colecovision Centipede. I got immediately stuck because the game wants you to enter a number (like difficulty level or something) and there is no way to do it. Pretty sure most Colecovision games do that. Gets back to controller mapping pains.

Draxxon, thank you! I would have posted earlier but was busy making my new drive and playing some games. With that package, this is a sweet little retro Atari console.

Yes, odds are pretty good the same rom folder setup can be done. I used your various packs for like SG-1000 and SMS and just made individual SD cards for those, plus a main one packed with mostly Genesis stuff. From looking around a bit at least there is a different path for the SD card than the USB stick here. There is only a custom FW for the 2018 model though, correct? When I bought my AFB at Sam's they also had the 2019 LFB there for $44. It would be a limited audience with no way to do it on the 2019, but much nicer to go with everything on the one card. @Draxxon There is one thing I want to draw your attention to. Once you have the "Data" sub-directories, you should see a retroplayer.ini in there. That has the path to the bezel art saved starting with res so like BezelPath=res/images/bezel04.png. THere is also "UseBezel=4" in mine, so maybe those have to change together? Not sure. It is almost a freebie to have a custom bezel for each set if you want. Also, if you pick a different bezel while in the particular rom set it is only going to be saved for that one, not globally. PS - UseOSD in there turns on like FPS and free memory display, if anyone cares, but it is this big font and displays right over a lot of the game.

I just picked up the version from Sam's Club about two weeks ago, and the custom FW has worked for me. Sorry I did not even look at the FW version before following the process. My unit has a batch code on the bottom, D10908 if that helps. I see now that the versions on AtGames Website are really out of date though https://firmwareupdate.atgames.net/registration

That is a good catch. And neat find about the two console sliders to break out! I looked at the issue - they were working in the /rom folder but not in the /rom_alt_? folder. It is due to a set of files they need beyond just the .a26 files. I'm going to zip those files up and attach them. Update - I just saw your post with basically the same info, but maybe there are more even than I found -Really I'm not sure they are all needed but the Menu.png and Menu.tff for sure and with these zipped files the two games worked for me. Also, working .nes games: Ballon Fight Silkworm (at least playing as the helicopter - I think the jeep needs to jump). Star Force Star Soldier Terra Cresta Tower of Druaga I think Burai Fighter would work, but my rom wouldn't start - maybe just the file I have. port_extras.zip

I had some time this morning, and thought of a better way to deal with favorites and recent lists. Now the same trick as on the /rom folders is used, by remounting over the real /data with the /rom/data embedded in each /rom folder. That way, after they are initially created the lists will be updated and saved right away instead of only when you do the "Next" selection. It is cleaner in the script also. I only barely tested, but it seemed to work OK. The only thing changed in the new zip is the startup.sh, but I also added the quicknes_libretro.so core file (which should be placed in /emulator) just so all the files are collected in there. I just counted and Draxxon has identified almost 40 working one-button .nes games. That's already more than I guessed would work! I am going to try some more myself in the next few days. AFBX_MENU_Feb42021.zip

Hey Draxxon, that is good info for sure and I will check it all out. Thanks. I don't think most of those settings for LFB are going to apply because I think the retromenu/retroplayer are customized per product. It might be interesting to try to run the LFB retroplayer though - I bet the controllers get broken. I looked a bit and even tried something, but I was not able to disable rewind. All the other emulators I want to do some experiments and will get to it maybe over the weekend. Also BTW, I discovered you can point to a file with no extension and the menu will try to launch it like an executable, so no need to take over the Space Invaders or Frogger ports to start a random executable. I wish we had some ARM/XWindows/SDL2 experts getting interested in providing ports for the device! The main update is I had an inspiration of how to have different categories in their own menu setup, and basically got it working. For example you could put Homebrew or NES into a second set, and so on. A .zip file is attached this time. Here is how it works: In place of one of the games, there is a script called Next. This can just be put at the top of all-games.ini, with a sorting order so it is first in the list. The entry looks like this: [Next] File=/rom/Next Platform=Utility Sort=0 0 0 0 A A Year=2020 Genre=Arcade Description=Switch to next category or platform. Note= \ Please do not turn off the device while retromenu is restarting. When you select it, the Next script just kills off the retromenu. Out in the startup.sh where retromenu was started, the script looks for a "next" roms folder to swap in. If there is a next one, it mounts that one, otherwise it starts over at "rom". With the new folder mounted on the /rom filesystem, retromenu is restarted and is none the wiser. Now you see your next set of roms in the UI. If the set is small it happens pretty quick. If really big it is slow, just like on startup. Save of individual favorites and recently played lists is in place. I think it is working. That has a limitation, because the save happens when you do the "Next" switch, so if you play a game and just turn off the unit it is not going to be saved to the recent list. If that's important, do one last Next before you power down. Or a "shutdown" entry could be added to do it... Setup Instructions: You still need the original /rom folder. Add alternate rom folders as /rom_alt_1, /rom_alt_2 and so on. They have to be named exactly like that, starting at 1, and no skipped numbers. Put roms, art, and an all-games.ini file into each roms directory. Each rom folder needs the Next script and the artwork for it which I provided in the .zip. You can see I'm no artist, and I'm color blind anyway. That art can be changed to whatever is wanted, and even different in each rom set. Each all-games.ini needs the entry described above. There is a text file in the .zip with that entry. Back up your old /startup.sh and replace it with the new one included. This still relies on (or more like supports) the recently modified retromenu executable which allows nes roms. That is included but is the same as the last one. It replaces the one in /emulator. I think that's it. Please let me know if it is not working, I forgot something, or you see problems. It is a hack, but one way to skin the cat. PS - you really should not shut off the device during the switch. Stuff is being remounted and copied. It is Linux under the hood, and your flash drive could easily get corrupted at that point. PPS - This is going to put a /data folder in each of the rom directories when you step through. That is where the settings info about recent and favorites is stored, so don't delete it. AFBX_MENU_Feb32021.zip

Yes, that was doable by replacing ".A26" (caps) in retromenu. I attached the one that does that. With this retromenu .nes .a26 (lower case) and .BIN (as original in upper case, I think for Stella?) will work to populate the /game folder and add the extra menu in the UI. Should make it easier to check a lot of games. Millipede would not work - wrong button. retromenu

Draxxon, thanks for checking that stuff out. That is a pretty good list of working games. Boulderdash should work too - no buttons I think! Also, I know a game called Air Fortress will work - both buttons do the same thing. Maybe the list will be longer than I think... I'm really happy that Joust/Galaga/Galaxian are on the list - I didn't even realize there were NES ports of those! On swapping A and B, that is a good idea - and I have no idea. I also tried "Castelian" which is a game I like - one button, but the wrong one - like the others you mentioned. If you could just get both A and B emulator buttons to fire when the one physical button is pressed on the joystick it would fix those. That might also work OK-ish for a game like Xevious where you have shoot and bomb on seperate buttons. We need an expert on the NES emulator to help and they are probably not hanging out on AtariAge. I will look at it a little but I am pretty doubtful I can figure that out unless they don't have it baked in to their compiled code, but have a controller mapping config file someplace obvious. Also, I don't know if you want to release game packs with those roms populated - here anyway. But your call. Where I want to go from here is do some more experimenting and when I have time try to get an atari800_libretro.so built for the device. Experimenting: 1) I still feel stumped by the mame cores and want to give it another try. 2) I would like to try one or two of the other cores you provided. I will just do that by launching from the startup script. BTW, Those other "one game cores" you provided are kind of interesting. I'm convinced the SpaceInvaders.a26 and Frogger.a26 are just straight ports. I don't know why atGames would do it that way, because the device can emulate those types of games. I guess all the old "TV plug and play games" from the early 2000's were just ports too, because those devices would not have enough power for emulation. Maybe atGames has those ported versions licensed forever, so it saves some small per-unit royalty? All just WAGs. 3) I want to see if the menu system setup "allgames.ini" from Ronner51 can give a way to have like "NES" and "Atari800" categories. I may play with that in the next couple of days. Building the Atari800 emulator is not going to be too easy (for me) and may take some weeks before I get the job done, then more weeks if I have troubles or until I say uncle if I can't get it to work. At some point it will be good to see what Brad_from_the 80s thinks, because if someone wants the NES support they currently have to do a crazy lot of steps to get there. So it might make sense (and especially if any of the other cores works out) to have a second custom FW version, which he was hinting about mid January at least.

Draxxon, you are asking some good questions. I was definitely using a rom from the 2003+ reference set, but I think I know the issue. I went back to the original AFB 9 custom FW thread started by Brad_from_the_80s and read through some of it. Brad and rmr_md were making comments and now that I poked around I can actually understand some of it. rmr-md mentioned that the 2003_plus core was probably reduced or hard-wired to handle only the included games. They could not use it to generally launch mame games, so they pulled the 2000 core (in the set you provided - thanks!). I also now tried the 2000 core, but not much better results - EXCEPT now there is a mame2000 folder in my rom folder. I believe the core did run and create that - maybe I should try again? Not tonight... The reason I was focusing on those two cores is there are referenced in the retromenu, so I suspect the version of retromenu on this product can deal with those additional rom types and their .zip and .nes extensions (for whatever reason I don't know - cause the cores are not even there). I don't know about your idea of folders in the rom directory. It seems like the all-games.ini might handle just having subfolders in there and providing the relative path for the rom name like "NES/1942.nes", but it will take experimenting. In post #199 of this thread, I saw that Ronner51 provided an all-games.ini which I think puts things into subcategories in the menu? That would be handy if it is doing what I think - like levels in the menu. I pulled it down when I read it, but I have not tried that yet. OK, now here is a bit of news, which is I figured out how to launch NES games from the menu system. I had to modify the retromenu executable slightly with a hex editor, and I will attach that. If anyone wants to experiment with it: 1) please rename your current files (retromenu in /emulator and startup.sh in the root) first to save them in case of emergency. 2) copy the replacement retromenu into /emulator. 3) Place the quicknes_libretro.so from Draxxon's post into your /emulator folder. 4) Use the slightly modified startup.sh I will provide (sorry it still has some other junk in it) into the root folder of your flash drive. 5) Drop a rom or roms in the /rom folder (extension must be .nes, no spaces or any special chars in file names) 6) You need to make entries in your all-games.ini. I just hacked it by copying some Draxxon art from other games for now. The basic approach is this: The new startup.sh script creates a symbolic link to the new core. The link is located in the /tmp directory of the running device (which is writable, unlike some other paths out there). This shorter path starting in /tmp made it convenient to hex edit the absolute path in the modified retromenu (which already has a call to the NES core, just a different path) to point at the link. So that allows the core to be out on the flash drive. The real limitation is still the button mapping. 1942 worked well. Pac-Man would work. Maybe original Mario bros would work. Even if there is only one button it could be mapped to the "wrong" button on the NES, so there may be a really limited set of NES games that are playable on the device. Draxxon mentioned other controllers but I'm a skeptic as I guess these are probably hardwired for Atari joysticks. At least this provides a technique that can be used to stick another core in there. The link in /tmp and the hex edit could be modified to "flash_drive_core_link" (or something of the right string length) to experiment with all those cores. AND the VCS games can still be there and working. startup.sh retromenu

I can believe that may be true. These devices have a "retroplayer" application which is "the emulator" exploiting the retoarch cores. If there are dependencies between the layers, then you are probably correct. My own agenda is to get the atari800 core running for 8bit 400/800 games. I will be happy when I have played Quasimodo and etc. on there! If I have to go to an older version of the sources it will be OK. I believe now I found the correct tool chain for cross-compiling. My development skills are rusty and I'm only 20% sure I can build what is needed even if I do find all the right parts! 🙂 What I have been doing so far are the baby steps trying to figure out if the atari800 core can be wedged in there somehow, and I think the answer is yes on that.

I experimented some more and learned some things. Sorry for the longish posts, I'm trying to record what I learn in case I hit a dead end and anyone else can use the information at some point. Others certainly understood this already, but I didn't: When the system boots with the custom FW it is remounting the /rom partition using the folder on the flash drive. So the original "read-only" /rom on the device is then not used. However, for /emulator it is different. Your flash drive has a copy of /emulator and the startup.sh runs the UI (retromenu) from there, and using a variety of the info (like Draxxon's theme stuff) from there. However, inside the retromenu executable there are hard-coded "fully qualified" paths to like: /emulator/retroplayer (which is essentially the emulator) and also to the Stella core in the original /emulator as opposed to the one out on your media. So, my mistake was thinking I could replace the Stella core by replacing the .so file in the /emulator on the flash drive, but that will not work. As it is currently, you would have to replace the one embedded in the custom firmware update image to have it used. Based on some information from an error message I logged in my experimenting, I believe AtGames used a MarsBoard rk3066 Linux image as their reference. Possibly the MarsBoard rk3066 device was the reference design for the HW as well, with all the extras stripped out to reduce cost? Bottom line is that information and downloads here at MarsBoard.com is probably relevant to developing for the product. Also, the best references I found and tools for unpacking/packing the update images are: http://www.hotmcu.com/wiki/Flashing_Firmware_Image_Files_Using_The_Rockchip_Tool#Using_Linux_Upgrade_Tool_to_flash_update.img http://wiki.t-firefly.com/ROC-RK3328-CC/fw_pack_unpack.html https://github.com/T-Firefly/rk2918_tools BTW, to build those tools you also need: "sudo apt-get install libssl-dev libcrypto++-dev" And after building, using the tools as described specifically in the second link above I could unpack one of the update images and see the contents in Linux. The last thing is kind of an interesting/strange thing I came across and partially successful experiment. By examining the retromenu executable I see it has three cores referenced inside. They are stella_libretro.so (expected) but also mame2003_plus_libretro.so and quicknes_libretro.so (not expected). BTW, there is ONLY stella_libretro.so included in the firmware. Inside retromenu you see references to starting those three cores using the retroplayer emulator which gives a hint how the games are started up. There are also references to ".nes" and ".zip" in the retromenu along with ".a26", which makes me wonder if the menu system could also launch NES and MAME games if the cores were only there (big question mark)? So on to the experiment. First, I got the mame2003_plus_libretro.so and quicknes_libretro.so files from a legends flashback 2018 update file, probably something from Draxxon. I put those in /emulator on my flash drive. Second I found some ROMs for MAME (joust) and NES (1942) and put them in the /rom folder on the flash drive. Third, I experimented around a lot and ultimately modified the startup.sh script on the flash drive to look like this (my adds in bold): #!/bin/sh if [ ! -d /media/usbhd-sda1/emulator ] then su - mkdir /media/usbhd-sda1/emulator cp -r /emulator/* /media/usbhd-sda1/emulator fi #pwd > /media/usbhd-sda1/pwd.txt #mount > /media/usbhd-sda1/mount.txt cd /media/usbhd-sda1/emulator startx /emulator/retroplayer /media/usbhd-sda1/emulator/quicknes_libretro.so /rom/1942.nes >/media/usbhd-sda1/output1.txt 2>/media/usbhd-sda1/error1.txt #startx ./retroplayer ./mame2003_plus_libretro.so /rom/joust.zip >/media/usbhd-sda1/output2.txt 2>/media/usbhd-sda1/error2.txt while : do cd /media/usbhd-sda1/emulator startx ./retromenu done The thing that ended up working (the added line not commented out above) was starting the NES rom. As the system starts, before the UI menu comes up (retromenu in the script), 1942 came up and worked perfectly. Select and start work, both joysticks work for 2 player play, and rewind and menu buttons all work as intended. I tried a couple more NES games and they worked also. The MAME rom never worked - don't know why. Maybe the emulator has some other unsatisfied dependencies? I was happy when that started, but I'm not sure exactly of the real value. I am pretty sure most NES games need more than one button to play anyway, and I already own a LFB2018 for that. Plus I personally am much less interested in those than Atari 8bit games. At least it slightly encourages me that atari800_libretro.so could really somehow be made to work to run Atari 8bit games. BTW, the NES 1942 played pretty nice with the Atari joystick!

I got my OTG cable last night, so updated to the custom firmware provided by Brad_from_the_80s and Draxxon's flash drive image with star wars theme. Very nice. That really makes an already good product into a great one! I also did some minor experimenting. Did two things: 1) Temporarily replaced SpaceInvaders.a26 with a copy of the Frogger.a26 renamed as SpaceInvaders.a26 - Pick the SpaceInvaders entry and Frogger starts up - more or less as expected. 2) Tried the same thing by replacing 3dTicTacToe.a26 with the contents of Frogger.a26 - game will not start. I was kind of hoping it would start for the #2 case also, (like the startup somehow figures out when it is an executable and does an exec instead of opening it with the core) but no dice. That 95% proves what I suspected and what MrFister was saying in his post above. SpaceInvaders.a26 and Frogger.a26 are special cases. However, you could easily plop another executable in there as a launching point of some kind. I was hoping I could find something like an xterm executable to try dropping in there, but do not see anything that would work in the AFB9 Firmware image. I started looking at the Atari800 emulator, but porting it could be a real chore and possibly beyond my abilities to make it work with no real way to debug problems. What would help is if I could get the devel. environment or at least some helpful hints from AtGames. Question: Does anyone know if you can ssh into these things when hooked up via the OTG cable? From looking at the AFB9 ROM dump it does look like the ssh service is in there. Second Question: Does anyone think AtGames would ever provide sources? They do provide sources just for the cores they use HERE. That's a a bit helpful, but not enough for what I want to do. I'm back to thinking it could be worth a try to get or build an appropriate version of the Libretro core "atari800_libretro.so" and just replace the stella core which is sitting under /emulator in the custom firmware. You could just have a different USB stick for 8bit vs. VCS games. If that worked, then the whole front end and artwork setup could still be used.

I was thinking along those same lines about running other games. When I get my USB OTG cable, first step is to upgrade the FW and then build a thumb drive with the AtariV2 release! 🙂 Then I want to experiment to see if you can just replace SpaceInvaders.A26 with another executable for 32bit Arm and have it run. I have bad feeling there may be some important details to porting an app to this device that I am clueless about such as supporting the controllers. Though maybe Brad_from_the_80s could provide some hints? My personal dream would be to get the standalone Atari800 emulator running. It has an OK interface for selecting ROMs built in, and it can be used on some handheld game devices already. I did some searching and found sources for the version for OpenDingux are at this site. So if you could run that you might be able to launch any other random Atari 8bit game stored on a flash drive. There are hundreds of abandonware games out there for 400/800/800xl that all ran in 64k of RAM (or less) and most of them were designed to operate with just select/start and the traditional one-button Atari style joystick supplied with these units. Really, there are a lot of ways to play those games already, but IMO using original controllers lets them play like the authors intended. Hardware-wise this mini 2600 device was practically made for it.

Finally ordered my OTG cable, so I can take advantage of the good work by Draxxon and Brad_from _the_80s. Also an observation for whatever it is worth. I was thinking the Frogger and Space Invaders on the AFB were mame roms (the LFB has a mame core), but when I looked at the AFB9 firmware dump Draxxon pointed to there was no mame core. I have been wondering about that, so I took a look tonight. Those two games are named with .a26 extension, but they are not 2600 roms. First, they are way too big. "File" command on SpaceInvaders.a26 shows this: SpaceInvaders.a26: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, ARM, EABI5 version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked, interpreter /lib/ld-linux-armhf.so.3, for GNU/Linux 3.2.0, BuildID[sha1]=f4e112095800ee8aef76cc7b19de015a064cc3cc, with debug_info, not stripped Frogger is the same. So those are not roms at all, but standalone executables. They must be "special cased" somehow to launch different than the rest.

I picked up the 120 game version at Sam's for $40 tonight. This is the one with a hole on the bottom for reset. Yes, the box art is still screwed up in the stock FW on diagonals like the BurgerTime cover art. Thanks for sharing those links. I am a Linux person though not really a developer anymore. I was able to mount the partition dumps from the AFB9 and I can see the Stella core. In Linux with "file" command I see: stella_libretro.so: ELF 32-bit LSB shared object, ARM, EABI5 version 1 (GNU/Linux), dynamically linked, BuildID[sha1]=c80fa9dc3865101954730eea94815af921b5d740, with debug_info, not stripped On the ALU, you build these .UCE files for each game. The individual .UCE has the game itself .bin or whatever, the core, and art files for that specific game. The cores to build new .UCE files are available if you look enough. From a 5200 game .UCE file I can see this: atari5200_libretro_beta1.so: ELF 64-bit LSB shared object, ARM aarch64, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked, BuildID[sha1]=f1cd3b9d57206cad9120ab3d755b1d0db98265fb, not stripped I can already tell that 5200 core is not going to work on the little units, because it is compiled for a 64bit architecture. I think somebody who knows what they are doing would have to compile that core for the AFB. Those libretro cores are all open source, so someone could do it. I also have found the core I pulled down for Atari800 on ALU a few months ago (it is atari800_libretro.so) but I could never make it work for 800 games. I believe because it requires BIOS files for one thing and I couldn't figure out where they would go on the ALU. Looking at the libretro docs it is definitely the "atari800" core which handles both 5200 and 800, so maybe the 5200_libretro.so for the ALU is just a version hardwired with the 5200 flags set.

Hello, I am late to the topic, but interested in this device and might pick one up. I have the Legends Flashback 2018 and thanks to all the contributions by many here - especially from @Draxxon - I have had a lot of fun with that. With several versions of SD cards it kind of got me back into retro gaming. Now I even bought a Legends Ultimate. One question I have about this device - and did not see answered above. Does anyone know the odds it could ever support an additional or different core and especially the Atari800 core for 400/800/5200 games? I see from reviews that arcade versions of Frogger and Space Invaders are on there. So I guess there is sep. MAME core in there for those. The reason I am asking is this would be the perfect device to play 400/800 games or at least 5200 games (those being like a small subset of the many 400/800 games out there) due to the original Atari-like joysticks! I grew up playing on a 400, and would really love to play games like Captain Beeble, Shamus, Quasimodo, Caverns of Mars, etc. with something like this mini console using an Atari joystick. It is the Atari800 core that can play those, so I believe would be atari800_libretro.so or similar. Maybe an impossibility, but thought I would ask - I know the Legends Ultimate can play 5200 games at least through BYOG, and I have done so on there. It just lacks the perfection of using the original joysticks!

There are quite a few 2600 games as well as arcade versions of Atari games that come included in the current 300 games offered with the Legends Ultimate. However, I find it hard to play the 2600 Tempest when I can play the arcade version just as easily - and using the spinner control as originally intended. Otherwise, it is also possible to play 5200 games and 7800 games. Using an emulation core I found for the 5200, I have played Astrochase, H.E.R.O., Miner 2049er, and Montezuma's Revenge. Also Tower Toppler for the 7800 (using a different emulation core). For the process, see below. To me the simplest way is an Addon tool which has been provided to package a game's "data files" along with the emulator core required and optional box art and border art. The Addon tool is a Windows application. Using that route does not require an arcade net account. The required files and some generated scripts are packed by the application into a .uce file (in fact a squashfs filesystem file for Linux) which is then placed on a USB stick. Plug the USB stick in the system's front USB port and the game can be selected and played from the "AddOn" selection under BYOG. The tool is straightforward to use once you have the needed files. I found out about it and other useful links by searching "legends ultimate addon" on YouTube. The emulation cores have to be found by searching the internet, however some of the YouTube instructional videos have helpful links. So far, I have not found a way to play Atari 800 games. That is distressing, because I would really like to play "Tail of Beta Lyrae" on there! BTW, I was able to play Captain Beeble by locating a version of it (via an AtariAge post) which had been converted to 5200. The last thing I would add is that IMHO the Legends Ultimate is a great product. You get very nice "near Arcade" quality controls which make the game playing experience for arcade classics really good. There are a few QC type issues being reported (Monoprice has a pixel perfect Guarantee on inexpensive monitors - AtGames should consult with them), but looking past that I don't think you can touch the value you get with this thing for a similar unit. BTW, if you compare the Gamer Version (just the control deck part, which hooks to your TV) to the "Pandora's Box Fight Stick" type products you can get from Aliexpress, the price is also very reasonable. With those Pandora's Box products you probably have no option to play some old school 8 bit Atari games. 🙂 I am pretty happy with AtGames recent products! I also bought their Legends Flashback product a while back, and also have had a good experience with it. Additional games can also be added via an SD card in that very inexpensive product. Again, super value!