ctrl_alt_rees

Apologies for the necroposting but I'm gradually approaching a "full" set myself (40 of the 50 cartridge releases listed on Wikipedia) and I've also been pondering the Telegames situation. I bought a brand new "Limited Edition" copy of Worms recently and I must admit I was very disappointed with the box - it's very thin cardboard, the print flakes off easily on the corners and it's so dark you can barely make out the detail. In fact it looks like it was printed at home on an inkjet printer. If it wasn't from Telegames themselves I'd swear it was a poor quality repro. The older Telegames releases I have (Brutal Sports Football, International Sensible Soccer) are the same style of box and print as my other commercial games from "back in the day". Anyway, I've decided to focus on the other gaps for now and look out for the earlier versions of these games, although the ones I've seen on ebay so far also seem to suffer from the poor quality printing. Nothing personal against Telegames as a publisher - it's great that they're keeping the Jaguar flame alive and I appreciate that they must be selling tiny numbers of these things now - but thought it worth noting for anyone else like me coming across this thread.

Haha thanks, I'm still in the process of scraping together everything I can. Lots of misinformation doing the rounds (still) so it's been good to get everything that's out there into one place and do my small bit to set the record straight! I really am standing on the shoulders of giants with this research though and can't take credit, I'm just collecting it.

Thanks for the help. I have to admit I couldn't track down any caps on pin 9 - the Vader is a very odd beast. I couldn't even find a schematic for it (at least not one that matched what I have in front of me). I tried hooking up a basic composite mod from TFW8B and the output was exactly the same as above. I then removed the RF modulator and all of the other components generally recommended to remove and still the same. Then I completely removed the UAV and tried the composite mod on its own and still the same! At my wits' end I decided to try a different monitor and cable and... The picture is perfect. The UAV has been reinstated and it's working great. Possibly the sharpest picture I've seen out of one of these, actually. I haven't done any thorough testing yet but to cut a long story short, I'm now 99% sure it was a dodgy connection to the monitor. ?‍♂️ Ha! It's back on the bench so now this 2600 issue is resolved there will be news on that very soon... ?

Hi All, I'm trying to UAV mod (rev D) a 4-switch Vader based on the wiring diagram posted earlier in this thread. It's a PAL console so I've wired up the LUM pins on the TIA accordingly. The part number on the motherboard is 2600AP and the TIA is model C011903-003. It seems it's *almost* working - I'm getting a rolling picture and sync dropping out on various carts (I've checked and they are also PAL). Unfortunately I don't really have any way to test the RF output. Could this be a problem with another component such as voltage regulator (although I'm getting a steady 5.05V) or a transistor / capacitor somewhere? Perhaps timing crystal? Or maybe even the TIA? I guess what I'm saying is that I don't just want to start swapping components willy nilly so thought I'd ask here in case anyone has seen this issue before. I've installed a few UAVs but never on a console without a CD4050 and I've never run into this particular problem! Here's how the UAV is wired up, just in case: TIA 2 -> UAV S TIA 5 -> UAV 2 TIA 6 -> UAV 3 TIA 7 -> UAV 1 TIA 9 -> UAV COL IN I'm picking power up from the RF modulator pins (it's still installed) and I haven't removed any other components. That said, I've also tried picking it up directly from the regulator with exactly the same symptoms so I'm pretty sure it's not a power issue. Thanks!

Windows 10 doesn't seem to have an option to defrag SD cards. I just copied the existing files from the card to my HDD, formatted the card, copied the CD images across and then copied my original files back. Easy peasy and only a few minutes' work. I ran into some issues with slower cards but can confirm that a Samsung 32GB EVO+ SDHC UHS-I card works perfectly.

Woah, you've really gone above and beyond, thanks so much for the detailed info! It's going to take me a while to process this... Still, the main takeaway for me is that my TIA seems to be "normal" and there's not a lot I can do about it. As you can probably tell I'm new to the oscilloscope and in the process of teaching myself electronics. I tend to just hook it up and hit "auto" and see if the signal looks "clean" or look for obvious things like 15.75 / 3.57 MHZ (I'm in the UK but a lot of my consoles are NTSC). Definitely not using it to its full potential but it's still more useful than a multimeter when trying to work out if a signal is in the right ballpark. This is all really useful, thanks again!

Thanks for the reply. Interesting stuff. Good idea about hooking up the oscilloscope while there's a solid colour on the screen, maybe it'll look a bit tidier. I appreciate that the 2600 is built on 1970s technology and was only ever intended to display over RF (especially as mine is an early Heavy Sixer) so maybe I'm asking too much - and if I am that's totally fine, I can live with it as-is. I should've explained the images a bit better. Both images were taken from the 2600 hooked up to a RetroTINK-2X into my Elgato Game Capture HD. They're both s-video. The only difference is that the second one was taken with the "color in" input on the UAV disconnected. It's just proof that the banding only appears once the chroma signal is introduced. To be fair you'd need to click to enlarge the image and then look *really* closely to see it - I've certainly seen a lot worse on other modded consoles. Even the composite output is a huge improvement on the cheap ebay composite mod I had before but if I can improve the s-video just a little bit further I'll be happy as Larry as I'd like to get the best possible quality for game captures for my YouTube channel.

Hey all, Something interesting to get your teeth into. I'm modding my NTSC Heavy Sixer with the excellent UAV mod from The Brewing Academy. I'm really, really happy with it - in composite mode. I hooked up S-Video and while it looks great on a CRT, there are faint jailbars (regular vertical lines across the screen) being picked up on my capture device. If I disconnect the "color in" from pin 9 of the TIA (COL), however, they're gone and I'm left with a perfect, crisp B&W image. I hooked up my oscilloscope to pin 9 and sure enough the signal is a mess. So I've tried adding capacitors of various values in various places but I've reached the limit of my (very limited) electronics knowledge. I have already read through a few threads here with similar issues but none matched mine exactly - wrong system, different region etc so none of the suggested fixes applied in my case. I'd really love to get to the bottom of this as I'm working on some documentation and YouTube videos on various UAV mods. Of course the winning suggestion will get full credit! Many Thanks for reading and I look forward to the replies. I'm very willing to try anything and everything at this point.

Hey all, I'm selling my highly upgraded Atari STE on eBay. It includes some rare and out of production upgrades, highly recommended if you're into Cubase and other MIDI-based music stuff. The upgrades are too numerous and varied to list here, so I recommend that you check out the auction here: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...em=290144609249 Also, please note that I'm prepared to do international shipping on this, and I'll be back every day or so to answer any questions you guys may have. Thanks for reading!

I can't believe I'm the only one who voted for "MPEG Cartridge". I would've thought that would be really handy. Ah well.

I suppose so. Then again, aren't things like the Milan and Hades even faster?

He only asked where to get a cheap mouse.... Jesus Christ, no wonder this place has a reputation...

I totally agree, although I think Windows XP is perfectly adequate, I tend to use Linux most days because it lets me do a lot more. I work for an engineering company - we do a lot of hydraulics and pneumatics work. How much of a coincidence is that? I'm in IT Support though. I've written a few basic VB programs and scripts for Windows, but never written anything for the ST (apart from copying some BASIC code from a magazine once). I'm more into my music now anyway. Mostly I play the guitar, but I'm a fan of dance music too so I've started to get into the keyboards and MIDI sequencing.

That link is describing the EtherNEC, something I think was previously suggested. I have one from Rory (he posts them on Ebay), and so far, it has worked fine on a Mega ST, a Mega STe, and my Falcon. It offers greater speeds than serial, but slower than pure LAN speed between 2 NICs. As far as MINT goes, it can be difficult to install. If you choose that route, be prepared for doing some serious reading and experimenting. I wouldn't recommend it for anything less than a top end Atari, one thats accelerated, with extra memory, etc, etc,... If you're just wanting to multi-task, with a better OS, then I would recommend Neodesk/Geneva or as has been suggested by others (since I've never used it), MagiC/Jinnee. Especially if one is using a standard Atari with 4 megs of RAM. HTHs. :-) 990326[/snapback] I've installed Linux from scratch on a PC, I also administer Linux servers, so it probably would involve a similar learning curve (although I'm sure a lot fo the same applies). I'll be looking for an EtherNEC on eBay as I don't have the ability to manufacture PCBs. Thanks for the recommendation! I was mainly worried about speed so thanks for clearing that up. You guys are the shit! I might give it a go then if it's easy, see how it runs on the STE. Samba would be really handy for me, thanks! I agree, MINT is great. I use it on my Falcon as first, best choice for OS. Along with the Thing desktop. I regard a Falcon as a "top end" Atari, BTW. :-) 990852[/snapback] The Falcon is the "top end" Atari! No arguments here.... (Checks "My eBay" again....) Damn, I haven't got that kind of money!!

You mean "The Six-Inch Drop" ?