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I see, so if the player only wants to move 1 pixel (or the smallest movement you might support), they turn the knob slowly 1/16 a turn and it will only send 1 pulse, but if they turn the knob 1/16 a turn but faster, it would send 2 or more pulses. How fast does the processing have to be to do this accurately (esp for 2 or more players), and maintain the feel of a linear potentionometer and smooth movement? Is this what is meant by "twitch type game play"? I guess my question would be, how do you calibrate the timing? I began playing with the driving controller as an inexpensive Pong paddle for the PC, and since PCs vary in CPU speed, timing will vary. Do you time it in milliseconds? Guess it's time to break out the paddle game again and find out... (okay this is now getting off the subject of the 2600, but what the heck, without the 2600 we wouldn't be playing with driving controllers) >Since speed itself is an analog property, you can in theory increase the states to an infinite number. If you're using an 8-bit microcontroller to accomplish this, you can in reality turn those 16 states in to 256 states. It is an interesting idea. Not sure how it would translate to actual twitch-type gameplay, but interesting none the less. Interesting discussion, but I think you missed the point. As was discussed, we are not talking about "distance" but "speed" which are distinct properties. If you turn the controller 1/16th of a turn, you get one click, and I agree that only using distance as a metric, you can't increase the resolution. But if you turn 1/16th of a turn in 0.1 seconds, you move X units, but if you turn 1/16th of a turn in 0.2 seconds, you move Y units, where Y<X. Since the movement is non-linear, you can get an infinite range of motion with only 16 positions. 936664[/snapback]

Contact cleaner not working for you? This stuff worked for me: http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?cata...ct%5Fid=64-4315

Let us know!

In my quest for a better paddle (and one that can be easily/cheaply interfaced with the PC), I tried making a paddle ball game using the 2600 driving controller as a paddle. This sums up the problem and why "multiplying" the resolution won't work (mainly you can't create data where there is none): Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design, sci.electronics.misc, sci.electronics.basics, alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt, alt.comp.hardware.homedesigned From: "Mad Scientist Jr" Date: 24 Aug 2005 14:55:59 -0700 Subject: Re: analog to quadrature converter? No, it's because of resolution and because of my interface (a hagstrom keyboard controller). I have an Atari 2600 driving controller plugged in currently and built a little paddle game, and the resolution of the driving controller is 16 pulses per revolution - you have to turn the dang thing 20 times to get the paddle to move across the screen, and I'm just drawing it in text! (5 chars on a 80 column textbox) ! In hires, it just won't do - to match the feel of regular atari pong/breakout the entire paddle needs to move across the screen in about 10/16 of one turn... with the screen resolution I am using, one pulse = a move of 4 pixels. with a screen of 640 pixels wide, that is 160 screen positions, if 160 is 10/16 of the total ppr, the encoder would have to be capable of 256 ppr. Ideally I would replace the encoder in the driving controller with one capable of 256 ppr, but mechanical encoders with that high res don't seem to exist (unless I'm looking in the wrong place). I think an optical encoder may be an answer, do they go up to 256? Also, I'm a programmer, I don't really know electronics beyond how to solder basic switches, so designing a circuit to drive an optical encoder may be beyond me. Also, cost is a factor, I want to spend as little as possible, ideally under $15 per controller. Anyway, a potentionometer to a DAC would take up 8 bits = 8 keys on my keyboard per spinner, which is too many inputs. With quadrature the paddle only uses 3 keys = 2 bits + fire button, which is good. A pot to a ADC to a PIC simulating quadrature at 256 ppr might do the trick... If anyone is interested, the full discussion(s) can be seen here, we really got into it. http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.v...de1c3cb9ef97515 http://groups.google.com/group/sci.electro...a94b7fcd18c91d8 http://groups.google.com/group/sci.electro...a661a3668de8984 http://groups.google.com/group/comp.roboti...24ac8ea51275ec3 No, what he's saying is that if he twists the rotor controller all the way around over the course of a half second it will move the player the same distance if he twists the rotor controller all the way around over the course of a minute. In the case of the Driving controllers, there are 16 state changes over the course of 1 revolution. This works well for driving games which feature sprites that rotate in 16 direction, but not so great for a Tempest style game where you are pushing your player around a larger area. Err, you sure about that? I understand the 16 states and all. We're talking about increasing the resolution of the rotary controller to _more than 16 states_ by equating the speed that those states are being cycled through to a variable (non linear) speed of travel of the on-screen object. So I believe what I said is exactly what we are talking about.... Since speed itself is an analog property, you can in theory increase the states to an infinite number. If you're using an 8-bit microcontroller to accomplish this, you can in reality turn those 16 states in to 256 states. It is an interesting idea. Not sure how it would translate to actual twitch-type gameplay, but interesting none the less. 936144[/snapback]

Play vector games on clouds / mountains?!? That is just so cool it's sick! Of course you'd probably have the FBI looking for you, shining lasers up at planes and such.

I liked the hack for composite out for the Jr, what about the Woody? I have a 4-switch one I'd like to do this to. Is it very different from the Jr?

The game play on the 2600 berzerk is cemented in my mind as one of the most responsive and exciting interfaces of any game. It just works so well with the cx40 joystick. Recently, I played the arcade version via MAME with a cx40 plugged into my PC and it was 100x better than the arcade, truly a pleasure to play. It'd just be nice to tweak the 2600 version to be more interesting, more mazes and those true diagonal shots. Maybe even add a 2nd player and more robots so you could do team play. I think that Dennis Debro has done the diagonal shots, but so far I don't think a .bin has been released. 936286[/snapback]

Quadrapong (one player per side of the screen - top/bottom/right/left) Pong Doubles - or one that looks just like pong, but 2 players each side, each player gets 1/2 of the court "true" arcade pong - make the score/etc look exactly like the arcade. the "arcade pong" included with Flashback 2 looks like a 2600 game, not the 1972 arcade game. see the pong emulator "Pong v2.7" by (L)ord(N)ick (Soft)ware at http://www.pong-story.com/pcpong.htm now THAT feels like 1972!

That's a sweet cocktail machine, btw... You haven't played a real Asteroids machine in recent memory have you? If you do, take a look at the ship's shots and see how it glows and leaves tracers on the screen. This attached pic is someone's custom job.. but you get the idea. But alas.. vector monitors are ancient technology. No one in their right mind would make one today. So in most cases vector graphic emulation has to do.. 936196[/snapback]

If you're like me, you like the color & sound from the original Breakout cart - anyone up to hacking Super to have those colors/sounds?

Anyone up to adding diagonal firing robots (and true diagonal player shots) to Berzerk? Maybe add a random maze generator. Keep the rest the same - it's awesome as is.

I just caught them live a couple of months ago - they were awesome Well if someone with an AVM can take some screen shots it would be most appreciated

this site was promising, but it seems to be on hiatus http://www.largeprojections.com/avm/ can anyone post a link to (or actual JPEGs or better yet AVI/MPEG/ETC) screen shots of the video music? many thanks

Controlling the resolution / # of holes is doable - you can buy optical encoder components from digikey pretty cheap and even print out your own encoder wheel with a laser printer on transparent film, and just glue it to an existing wheel so the new holes (which are really just transparent non-printed areas on the film) stick out. Sure, but an optical encoder would too, unless you got a gigantic one with around 200 holes in it What I mean is that there are algorithms out there that can sense the speed at which a controller is being turned and convert it to an appropriate motion, even if the resolution is small. Slower turning=fine movement. Fast turning=fast movement. This is exactly what mice do, I believe. End stops would not work with the above, of course. But the lack of them has a certain appeal. Like on my car's CD player, the volume knob can be turned infinitely, but after a point the volume doesn't keep going down once it hits zero. 935450[/snapback]

what would the output from these paddles look like in a multimeter? Good rotary encoders can be built that will endure years of abuse. But cheap rotary encoders can get flaky. The "X position" knob on one of the scopes at the office is really annoying that way. The paddle inputs work by timing how long it takes the paddle controller to charge a capacitor to a certain voltage. The 2600 doesn't know, much less care, whether the controller slowly charged the cap up to that voltage, or whether it sat around doing nothing for awhile and then charged the cap quickly. A normal paddle controller does the former; the PIC would do the latter. The mod could probably be done most elegantly by putting a small micro inside each paddle. This would allow the cabling to remain the same, including the DB-9 plug. Using one micro for both paddles might seem to be more economical, but it would either require building a housing for the micro or redoing all the cabling. Given that PICs are pretty cheap, I don't think that extra effort would be worthwhile. 934612[/snapback]

also are there any mpeg, avi, etc, demonstration videos online? can someone post some? i am interested in seeing what it can do... thanks

can someone provide a link or say what all the controls are specifically? is there an instruction book online? a pic, can't really see the details on the controls http://i3.ebayimg.com/01/i/04/f5/af/b2_3.JPG about video music http://www.atarimuseum.com/videogames/dedi...videomusic.html

Is it possible? Finding an off-the-shelf USB controller circuit or card or board and programming a PIC to interface it with the Flashback 2 and generate a menu, so you can plug in your media card with Stella BIN images, and it will display a menu of all the BIN files on the Flashback 2, and let you play. Does anyone know of any affordable & hackable USB hardware, and know enough about a PIC to know if it can be programmed to read a media card and generate a menu on the FB2? I am sure this is way over my head but common sense says that if the existing components can be found and modified with minimal work, it's worth a shot

Are there any games in the Home Pong systems that aren't present in Video Olympics for the 2600?

Are the games this unit plays the same as the Atari 2600 video pinball? (flipper / paddle) ?

An optical encoder should never wear out physically - usually a mouse using these goes bad due to gunk on the mouseball, etc. I am thinking it might take some PIC microcontroller programming & wiring, but once the design is done, the parts should be pretty cheap + easy to build. Dragonstomper's design is interesting, though if I am correct in understanding it, it seems as if the output would not be that of a standard pot, and would require rewiring of the actual Atari console's paddle internals (the crude ADC that converts voltage to time). I don't know too much about that stuff but I would prefer a paddle that has the exact output as a legacy 2600 paddle. Is this correct, or would it output voltage like a paddle? With a PIC, you could probably modify this design to mimic a pot? I am working on a device that lets you plug 2600 paddles into the PC - the beauty of it would be that you could go to digikey or mouser (or even Radio Shack if you dont want to wait for shipping) and buy a couple linear 1 MOhm pots and momentary pushbutton switches and project boxes, cut a cheap DB9 cable in two, and voila, you have paddles. Or you could go the hifalutin route and use these fabled optical or voltage divider paddles (assuming they are compatable), it would all work. It would necessitate using a rotary encoder instead of a pot, though. Using a pot as a voltage divider would be cheaper than a rotary encoder, and more durable than most cheap rotary encoders. 934187[/snapback]

that's right. now if they would make replacement sticks available, we old skool gamers can update all our old consoles, commodore 64s, ti99/4a's (you can get atari adapters), atari 400/800s, MAMEs, etc. with the best joystick ever made Actually no, I asked about the same thing, PM'ed Curt myself. Its so that I can hook up a friend of mine with new sticks and a a/v modded Atari. 932908[/snapback]

come on man, the FB2 joysticks rule! i've been a 2600 fan since like '82, and own about 10 pairs of the original joysticks in various stages of disrepair. when i heard they were manufacturing them anew, with the more durable membrane switches, i got a woody ; )

Will Atari be releasing paddles for the Flashback 2? Better yet, will they be updated versions that use an encoder wheel (like a mouse) rather than a potentionometer, so they don't wear out or get jittery, but have a digital-to-analog converter chip so they act like potentionometers, making them 100% compatable with the original Atari 2600 (and thus a fully compatable but improved controller like the Flashback 2 joysticks) ?

does anyone know where one can order just the joysticks?