HEXdidnt

@Zerosquare I ran the MicroSD card through that test software and it checked out OK... For the time being, I've just reformatted the card and put the ROMs and .MRQs back in. I'll continue to monitor it and look into recapping the Jag if the problem reoccurs.

@SainT A recap and replacement voltage regulator would probably be wise at this point - the Jag was in storage for years before I installed a 50/60Hz switch and got back to using it semi-regularly. On the whole, it's been working perfectly, with just a few issues when I plug in the JagCD (very fussy about how it gets plugged in) and the GD has been fine other than these odd files. @Zerosquare I ended up buying from a local phone shop, so I wouldn't be at all surprised if it turned out to be counterfeit. Last time I added to it, my PC reported problems with the Micro SD card, and then kept insisting it was still in use when I tried to remove it. Thanks for the heads-up on the test software - I'll give that a go.

Curious update to this issue. Last time I took the 2600 along to the Computer Club, I plugged it into a CRT rather than an LCD screen, and the picture was flawless. Didn't even develop the rolling bar of fuzz after extended use.

Recently treated myself to the JagGD and have been enjoying playing some of the games I wasn't able to buy back in the day. I've had a few issues getting things working. The Kingston 32Gb card I bought was initially unreadable, worked briefly after a quick reformat, and has been working 'properly' since I did a full reformat. However, some of the first batch of ROMs I downloaded don't work - some don't load at all while others, like Tempest 2000, show the title screen for a moment before the screen blanks (thankfully I have that on cartridge, so don't need the GD to play it!). Downloading from an alternative source yielded better results in individual cases, so I guess there's a 'your mileage may vary' thing going with some of the ROM archives. Something I've noticed over the last few days, though, is that the card has started developing junk files that read as directories on the GD itself, but as either junk files or inaccessible directories on my computer. Three of the junk files read as about 3Gb each, yet the card itself reports less than 4Gb in use, in total. I can't delete them, so how worried do I need to be about these files? That is to say, where are they coming from, and why are they appearing?

If any UK-based folks are stuck for something to do this coming weekend, I'm going to be setting up my Jaguar, along with a couple of other retro systems, at RetCon. Based in Greenford, west London, RetCon is an annual festival of retro gaming put on by the Greenford Computer Club since 2018. There are guests delivering talks, and a room stacked with actual retro hardware (including several Atari systems, including the 2600, 800XL, 7800 and ST) playing a huge variety of games. Event sponsor Monster Joysticks will be unveiling their brand new Vectrex joystick, and we're introducing some merch this time round, including a new and event-exclusive ZX Spectrum game, Ghostly Capers, by Lee Chops Stevenson. We have a couple of talks by the Oliver Twins, who will also be creating a new game on the day. Kevin Toms (Football Manager) will be giving a talk, and Trevor Dickinson (A-EON Technology) and David Pleasance (Commodore UK) will be discussing their latest projects. Journalist and streamer Faith Johnson (Retro Faith) has visited RetCon for several years, and is joining a talk panel this time, along with Steven Fletcher (WavemStudios - The Commodore Story, Amiga 2020 documentaries, Cosmic Force), Steve Jones (Checkmate Amiga cases and gaming monitors) and Colin Porch (coder on the Atari ST version of Head Over Heels, creator of Head Over Heels 2 for the ST/Amiga). Talks are in an upstairs hall, but will be streamed to a large screen TV on the ground floor, and BSL interpretation is available on request. There will be a FIFA 97 tournament in place of our legendary Sensible Soccer tournament this year, along with high score competitions in Head Over Heels and a little game called The Lower Caverns, a SAM Coupé game for which I've been designing graphics over the last few years. Winners will get a nice trophy to take away from the event. It's at the Greenford Community Centre, 170 Oldfield Lane South, Greenford UB6 9JS, running from 10am to 5pm on Saturday 17th June. More info is available on the event's Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/RetConFestival And tickets can be bought in advance via Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/retcon-the-retro-gaming-festival-2023-tickets-529773576027 (Tickets available on the day as well!)

Earlier this year, my folks dredged up our old Atari 2600 during a tidying session in their loft, boxed, but partially disassembled. Last I remembered using it (late 70s/early 80s), it didn't work at all, so imagine my surprise when we put it all back together and got not just a picture out of it, but functional, playable games. However, the picture included a rolling bar of interference and whiteout, moving from the bottom of the screen to the top: I was advised to replace all the capacitors, the power regulator and a decidedly dodgy-looking PSU (Ingersoll-branded, and barely held together by what little tension remained in the fossilised sellotape wrapped around it!). Alongside that, I figured I may as well do the Composite Video mod for a slightly sharper picture, and greater ease of attaching it to modern TVs. Initially, the results were excellent, and revisiting the machine that introduced me to videogames was a pretty thrilling experience - so many great memories, and it opened up the possibility of acquiring games I'd missed out on back in the day. However, after a while there appeared a rolling bar of interference moving, as before, from bottom to top. Initially nowhere near as bad as when we first tried the machine after its 40+ years in the loft, but it's definitely there... and it seems to be slowly getting worse over time: I had a friend give the machine a quick once-over with an oscilloscope, and there's definitely some noise on the video output. The conclusion he reached was that it's "a grounding issue", but that there's no clear solution. One idea was that the replacement PSU I acquired was of the cheapo-cheapo variety (guilty as charged - the first one I bought pretty much exploded within a week of receiving it, but the replacement has lasted well so far) and that I might be better off with a higher quality model. Does anyone here happen to have experienced anything similar? Any recommended fixes (I'm reasonably good with a soldering iron now!), or specific PSUs to replace the one I have? Also wondering if, perhaps, looking into S-Video output might be a worthwhile project in future...

I don't know if it was anything to do with a promotion, but I bought this game on eBay a couple of years ago primarily because it came with a joystick based on the stick from the arcade cabinet - translucent blue plastic, circular base that the cable winds into when you rotate the stick, and a single trigger instead of the traditional button-on-the-base. Still haven't actually played the game now my 2600 is back up and running. Should pull it out of the cabinet over the weekend, I guess...

Definitely coincidence - looks like the font used on the fireworks is Another Danger by The Branded Quotes. I don't know for certain, but I'd imagine the JAGUAR logotype was a custom draw - notice how the two letters A are not identical? It is entirely plausible, given the way fonts work, that one is technically lower-case while the other is technically upper-case, but it seems unlikely on a logo like that. More likely it was hand drawn, then scanned and vectorised. At the very least, the 'clawed' R would be custom. Thing being, there are lots of folks out there who will create a complete(ish) font based on logos they like, if those logos are not derived from existing fonts... There's this one, based upon the Jag's logotype, but it has no lower case letters and only has the characteristic R as a dingbat replacing #. It also has the 'Jaguar Reboot' logo on { and 'Jaguar' on its own on |

Much obliged - that makes more sense, then. I guess it could be argued that it's orbiting the planet and only in range every so often.

Just been playing this game, having burnt it to my last CD-R after a bunch of attempts with some other .CDI images in DiscJuggler v6. I wasn't optimistic, as I've got a DVD+RW drive that offers me 10x speed as a minimum burn speed, and only got one game 'backup' to work, but Fallen Angels worked perfectly. I'm only dimly aware of Rescue on Fractalus - seen playthroughs of the C64 version on YouTube, but I owned a Spectrum back in the day, and its conversion was pretty dire. Fallen Angels is great fun, though - visually impressive, decent sound, fluid movement, responsive controls and the difficulty ramps up slowly. Nothing groundbreaking, perhaps - except in terms of presentation, which is possibly better than a lot of commercially published Jaguar games. Really great work. Only thing I find a little weird is that it's only possible to return to the mothership when the message 'Mothership' appears and, in between times, one just has to fly around trying not to get shot down. Was that the case in the original?

Follow-up on the above: This video refers to the same mod, and problems getting it to work when following the provided 'instructions'. They suggest attaching all but the Audio wire to the points where the RF unit was formerly connected. Tried that myself, got a substantially better picture immediately and there was no sign of the rolling distortion after leaving it on for over ten minutes... Switched to a different game and, within a few minutes the rolling was back, but nowhere near as bad as it had been. It seems to slowly get worse over time, so it's likely something else needs to be looked at/replaced. Think I'll leave it like that for now though.

I had exactly the same problem, fitting TFW8b's Deluxe upgrade to a PAL light sixer - the photo supplied really isn't very clear but, after asking several friends from a local computer club, we reached the same conclusion. I ended up passing the Ground wire through the nearby hole in the motherboard (below where the coil used to be) and attaching it to the underside, as C238 was leaning over the target spot, making it difficult to reach. That seemed to do the trick, but I'm still not getting the picture quality I was hoping for, and I kept getting a wave of distortion running up the screen after a minute or so of use. Following on from this, I replaced C103, C106, C201 (the kit I bought had only one 4.7μf/35V capacitor, so I went for the one on the motherboard rather than the switchboard) and A101, testing it again after each substitution. Nothing really changed till I put in the new voltage regulator. At first, it seemed fine, but distortion returned - albeit not so severe - after a little over five minutes. Started looking into what to try next...

Atari-branded PAL model, made in Hong Kong and recovered from parents' loft before Christmas. Case has the speaker slots, and there's no channel switch. Currently working on an AV mod, probably needs its capacitors replaced as well. Box says it came packaged with Combat, but that's the one cartridge we haven't found yet... It was in its box with an Ingersoll-branded power supply (not the original, I presume?), two joysticks and a pair of paddles. S/N: 548084842