Urchlay

When I was a kid, my dad had some soldering paste in a little can that looked like the cans shoe polish comes in (or used to?). I remember seeing it with the lid off and asking him what it was... he said, "Son, that's my earwax collection". Ewwww...

If you've got several DLI routines that do completely different things, it's probably better to have each one load the address of the next routine in the DLI vector before it exits. If your DLI routines all do basically the same thing (e.g. change colors), it's probably better to use that index as a table offset (so you'd do something like "LDX dli_index", then use "LDA color_table,x" to get the new color for this DLI). The reason I say this is that indexing a jump table will chew up CPU cycles (there's no "JMP (whatever),y", so you'll have to copy the destination from the jump table, then do a "JMP (destination)"), and there aren't a lot of cycles to spare during a DLI.

True. I was thinking of the standard graphics modes up to GR.7: 24 blank lines, then however many modelines, each consisting of 2, 4, or 8 scanlines. In that case, the DLIs should occur only on even numbered scanlines (or anyway, after the STA WSYNC, you'll be on an even scanline), so VCOUNT's resolution would be enough to figure out the scanline, even though it only counts scanline/2.

The VCOUNT register, at $D408, holds the current scanline divided by two. Depending on what you're doing, that might be good enough: if you're using a character mode, or any low-res graphics mode (3-7, the ones with multiple scanlines per graphics row), DLIs can only occur on even-numbered scanlines anyway. Of course, you could limit yourself to only setting the DLI bit on even-numbered scanlines in graphics mode 8/9/10/11/14/15, or at least limit yourself to not using DLIs on consecutive scanlines, in which case you'd know exactly which DLI was triggered by looking at VCOUNT. There are other approaches. One thing you could do: keep a counter in RAM, increment it every time your DLI runs, reset during VBLANK, so you know how many times the DLI has run in the current frame (not quite the same thing, but if you're the one setting up the DLIs, you already know which scanlines you set them on).

If it's failing when it gets too hot, you can figure out which component is bad... get some "Dust Off" or other compressed gas (I think Dust Off is butane, not 100% sure. Don't know if it'll work with actual compressed air, either). That stuff is freezing cold when it comes out of the can... let the console run until it fails, then spray the stuff on the suspected bad component, which will cool it off. If you guessed right, the Atari's picture should clear right up. It might turn out to be something other than the hard-to-remove part you were talking about, so it's worth finding out if possible.

It counts as a platformer, but there's no version of it for the Atari 8-bit computers... It does exist as an Atari 7800 cartridge, but due to a bug in the game, it's unwinnable (truly impossible). Sort of surprised they're doing it for the Wii... is it going to be faithful to the original, or are they doing it as a 3D perspective with powerups and stuff?

That's probably how I managed to beat the game, back then. Do you know whether Montezuma's Revenge on the 5200 has an ending? I've gotten to level 4 on the Atari 8-bit disk version (same as the 5200 cart, as far as I know).

File transfers with X/Y/ZMODEM... with the right software, you can run a web browser, email client, connect to BBSes, etc. If you're running Linux or BSD (or anything UNIXish) on the PC, you can use the Atari as a terminal, log in, and use any text-only software (lynx/links for web browsing, pine/mutt for email, ftp, telnet, ssh, etc etc). You can connect to most BBSes with telnet, and play networked "door" games there (Trade Wars, LORD, etc). If you're feeling really ambitious, you could try to get Contiki or Lunix to run on the Atari, which would let you set up a SLIP connection (the Atari would actually have its own IP address). I don't know how likely this is to actually work, though. I couldn't get Contiki to do anything when I tried it.

Ehh, weird. When I looked at it yesterday, it was an auction for two "Le Stick" controllers, and nothing else. Now the same URL points to a completely different auction.

I'm pretty sure I beat it once, so it does end... but I can't remember there being any kind of special ending screen. This was almost 20 years ago, so my memory is kind of fuzzy.

The audio-only mod for a 2600 doesn't involve adding capacitors/resistors/etc, just soldering two wires inside the 2600... there are pictures on Ben Heck's site. Even I could do it, and I'm not so great with electronics (and I don't change my own oil, either. Made a big mess the one time I tried). Are you getting a kit from 8bitdomain, or are you shipping the console to them so they can install it? I don't know much about modding a 7800, am interested to know how it turns out.

All you really care about for your purposes is getting a clean audio output, right? An audio-only mod would be a lot easier than a full A/V mod. You could do just the audio part of the original Ben Heck mod (http://www.classicgaming.com/vcsp/HowToMAIN.htm) This would only involve soldering two wires inside the Atari (ground and audio-out, the shield and tip of a single RCA cable). You'd run that into your mixer/recorder/etc, and use the TV for RF display as usual. A 7800 version would be just as easy, but I don't know where you find the pre-mixed audio signal inside the 7800. You could grab it from the TIA audio pins, if you didn't care about external audio (e.g. POKEY sound from a 7800 cart).

I think it's called "Le Stick"... Here they are: http://cgi.ebay.com/Atari-2600-7800-Le-Sti...9QQcmdZViewItem (no, that's not my auction) I've seen one of these in person, but never actually played with one.

You place the braid over the solder joint, place the soldering iron tip on top of the braid... when the solder heats up, it gets absorbed by the braid ("wick" action, I guess). You can watch the solder collecting in the braid, and when it stops drawing in new solder, you're done. As far as I know, there's no sane way to get the solder out of the braid after that. I just cut off the used piece and unroll more (it comes in like 5 foot rolls). The advantage is that you won't miss, the way you might with a pump... and the braid acts as a heatsink somewhat, so you're less likely to damage parts or traces. Once you've practiced for a while, you can quickly and completely remove all the solder from a joint, so the desoldered leads just pull right out of the board. I was shown how to use braid by a TV repair tech with eons of experience, but it's probably not too hard to figure out on your own. BTW, I think "Solder Wick" is a brand name. Last time I bought some (from Radio Shack), it was just called "Desoldering Braid".

I'm not a desoldering expert, but I've always had better results with desoldering braid (aka "solder wick") than with a pump... That may be because I actually had someone train me on how to use the braid, though.

I can't get it to work, either.. I've got a 32-in-1 OS upgrade, so I tried it with 800 rev A and B OS and all 4 revisions of the XL/XE OS, using DOS 2.0S. I even tried the PAL XL/XE OS (on my NTSC machine), no joy. In all cases, it loads 2 sectors, then freezes...

Maybe it's just the particular D-pads I've tried it with, then (one Logitech, one Saitek, both wireless). I actually have better control with the analog thumb-sticks on these controllers, which is still pretty bad... I can still play the arcade version in MAME with the Stelladaptor, and just not use the slow-draw mode, or (for a really challenging game), not use the fast-draw mode. To tell the truth... I'm actually better with the PC keyboard in MAME Qix than I am with my D-pads.

Sort-of. If you have a smart multi-standard TV, it'll automatically switch to NTSC mode if it receives an NTSC signal. Apparently, multi-standard TVs are very common in the UK (they're very rare in the US). You might have one and not even know. Maybe something about Pitfall is confusing the TV. I can remember having a similar issue with an older CVS version of z26: every once in a while (not often), it would detect NTSC Pitfall as a PAL ROM, and display shades of blue. The fix was just to tell z26 to switch to NTSC. Maybe your TV lets you manually set it for NTSC mode, instead of auto-detecting...? Poke around in the TV's setup menus, or have a look at the manual, if you have it.

Wrong TV standard. You're playing a PAL cartridge on an NTSC system, or vice versa. Where are you located? If you're in the US, you need an NTSC Pitfall cart... if you're in Europe, you need a PAL one. I'm pretty hazy about the rest of the world (I *think* Canada is NTSC, and so is Japan, but no idea about the rest of the world).

That would be *cool*! Probably not worth it for the 2600, but I bet everybody on the Atari 8-bit forum would want one, if such a design could be done for the GTIA. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that would allow the Atari to directly drive an SVGA monitor, wouldn't it? That's kind of a "holy grail" for a lot of 8-bitters... I'd definitely buy one.

Why boxed? If you like the Wico as much as I do, you'll never keep it in its box anyway... it'll stay hooked up for playing. If you end up not liking it, it still makes a nice display piece without its box (...and you could probably use it as a home defense weapon: beat a burglar to death with it, and it'll still work better than an Atari stick). If you have any used video game stores near you, check them out, you might get lucky... I've bought several Wicos in the past 2 years, mostly for $10 (one was $15, which is still cheaper than you'll pay on Ebay, after shipping).

I've never had a problem sticking a bare board into any 2600 I ever tried it with. I just line up the edge connector with the closed dust flap, push it in with moderate force, then wiggle it up & down a little and the flap opens up. Granted, I've only tried this on 4-switch woody and vader models, and with only two bare boards (one a gutted Pitfall, the other Pac-man) so maybe it's not possible on the sixers or Jr models... or maybe it only works on consoles that are old, with weak springs (which probably covers all of them by now).

I think the Qix is the bad guy, not your guy I don't know about 5200 controllers (don't yet have 5200 Qix), but I definitely prefer the arcade controls, with 2 "draw" buttons, for the same reason. You don't "launch" unless you're holding down one or the other of the draw buttons. On the other hand, I can still play either of the 8-bit versions without throwing the controller across the room. The one-button control scheme doesn't completely ruin the game for me. The annoying thing I've noticed about both the arcade and 8-bit versions: In emulation, neither one works worth a damn with a D-pad controller. I have to use the Stelladaptor with a Wico or Atari stick... though the arcade version needs two buttons to play properly (Stelladaptor doesn't support that, not even on a Proline). Fortunately I've got a real 8-bit to play the 8-bit version(s) on. I like the hacked 5200/8-bit conversion better than the old 8-bit cart version, but only a little better (I grew up with the old cart version, got very used to it).

Hm, have you got a way to play the 288-line ROM on a real NTSC 2600? If the colors are different from the 261-line one that you dumped, then the 288-line version was at least intended to be PAL. If the colors are the same, then I dunno what's going on...

Do you need the switch itself, or the silver handle part? Pretty sure the actual switch is a standard off-the-shelf part... though I may be wrong.