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Hi all I have recently finished my Atari Flashback Raspberry Pi conversion. I have based it on the look of the Atari 2600 Vader edition. This is an Atari Flashback 6 with a Raspberry Pi 3b+ inside with Retropie. I removed the Flashback buttons and replaced them with arcade style buttons. I used black snakeskin style vinyl wrap to cover the brown wood effect front panel. I removed the old Joystick ports and added USB ports. I cut a hole in the back to add an HDMI port. Another hole was cut to add a Micro SD card reader so I can easily remove the SD card without opening up the whole case. I wired the Pi board to the power button and a white power LED. Hot glue, super glue and lots of filing was used for the project. The Pi board is currently sitting loose in the case as not a lot of room to bolt it in, but it is very secure as it is. I have converted an Atari Flashback 7800 joystick to work via USB by using a convertor. Also connected, an 8Bitdo wireless controller. Just for effect......I messed around with a couple of "free" retro wallpaper backgrounds and stuck my Flashback in the middle, which came out well.

Hey guys, In my ongoing effort to play my favorite old video games with original controllers on my modern living room TV, instead of being banished to the CRT in my cold, dark basement, I've come up with the Ultimate Atari FB! Here's the software in action: Why trash a perfectly good Flashback? • Crisp full-screen HDMI output. • The ability to add any 2600 game. • Upgraded menu selection screen with woodgrain goodness! • The FB's make great Raspberry Pi cases! What you'll need: • Any Atari FB with front facing ports (FB's 3-7) • Raspberry Pi 3 • Two 2600-daptor II's sans cases • Upgraded FB 2A power supply • Two USB A-B cables, on 6" and the other 12" • Four 4-40 by 3/4" machine screws • Wires and soldering skills • Custom RetroPie software (see link below) With the custom software, the console buttons all work, and holding down Select and Start (Reset) will get you back to the game menu. See the attached manual below. Console Button Wiring (Starting closest to power button): 1. 5V Power at GPIO 2 2. Ground at GPIO 6 (or any other GPIO ground) 3. GPIO 20 4. GPIO 16 5. GPIO 26 6. GPIO 21 Suggestions: • Remove the capacitor on the console PCB and solder in a jumper wire or you won't have enough power to the Pi. • I suggest pairing a Bluetooth keyboard with the Pi or running a USB extension cable out the back. You'll need this for adding box art, editing file names, transferring roms via USB, etc. Software Manual (thanks to timdu!): Ultimate Atari FB Manual.pdf Micro-SD Card Image: • Download it here. • Contains several great homebrews that have been publicly released in rom form! Credits: Thanks to fdr4pres, Tom Hafner, pimpmaul69, timdu, and intvdave for all the help!

Hi guys, I've got an Ultimate Intellivision Flashback, which is a Flashback that has the internals replaced with a Raspberry Pi, and have never had any problems with it. However, this week it suddenly started coming up with "No gamepad detected" when I boot it up. I'm just using the standard Intellivision Flashback controllers (as I always have done) so I don't understand why it's suddenly stopped recognising them. I've tried pressing 0 on the controllers to try to get them to register with it, but nothing happens. Does anyone know how I can get it to recognise my controllers again? I'm trying to take part in this season's Intellivision HSC so you can understand how urgent this is!! ? Edit: BTW, I've checked the internal connections and it doesn't look like anything's come loose. Any help will be much appreciated. Many thanks, gezkc

Saw this on LGR Blerbs today. Makes on wonder if/when we will see others try to do this. Amstrad CPC mini (or others) anyone?

Here's gameplay and commentary of Ms. Pac-Man for Atari Lynx played in Retro Pie with a Hyperkin Trooper 2 2600 USB joystick which I made a video about last week. Each maze starts off slowly then picks up speed, even the later mazes get off to a slow start. Is that normal of this game or is it just the rom?

A quick video I made of a USB powered 2600 joystick by Hyperkin called Trooper 2. This is for PC/MAC or Raspberry Pi. I'm using it to play Pac-Man games in Retro Pie.

So for some reason the SNES has skyrocketed and I don't know why, but I can't justify paying $100 for a working console so I figured I'd see if anyone here has an extra one they wouldn't mind parting with. Edited: This is still for sale or trade but I picked up an SNES so if you're up for trading, I'll go for working a Sega saturn. Hoping for a controller and connections but can source those on my own if necessary, especially since the pi top needs it's own charger. Read below. I have a working piTOP laptop and a raspberry pi 3b for trade. It works but you'll need a charger. Universal would work fine with the right tip. It's nothing funky. Probably the same size as Asus or toshiba or similar. There is a crack in the plastic by the track pad. These things are finicky to open. It has absolutely no impact on functionality but it is there. It has a built in battery so it doesn't need to be on a wall plug all the time. It charges just like a regular laptop. I'll include an SD card with piTOP os on it but it still gets updates from the company. You can download them easily. I'm looking for an Sega Saturn console. It doesn't have to have a game but at least one would be nice. I just need a console that works. Anyone willing to help me out? Prefer to trade for Sega saturn but will sell too. Sold. Ended up picking up a couple of saturns locally for the sale of this one. Woop woop!!

Hi all! So I’ve just recently decided to try my hand at emulation for the first time ever. I figured that getting a Raspberry Pi and setting it up as a retro game console would be a fun project to work on this fall. And so far it has! Diving into a lot of tinkering and areas that I’m not really used to, but overall it’s been a fun experience so far. So, I am Running RetroPie Version 4.6 (rpi4 - running on Raspbian GNU/Linus 10 (buster)) on a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B with 8GB memory. Basically, I was wondering if anyone on AA has had any experience with running any Dreamcast or Saturn emulators on a Pi 4 via Retropie and how well it’s worked. I’ve done a bunch of research and from what I understand the user really needs to overclock to make the experience useable. But if even then it’s pretty subpar, then honestly I really don’t even want to bother. Really appreciate any insights you all might have!

I have been having a horrible time trying to wire up my Raspberry Pi's serial port to work with 8-bit hardware. I bought a serial port add-on board for the Pi and tested it using minicom connecting to an old Cisco router and that worked so I think the port is ok but atariserver and atarixfer don't work at all. I looked deeper and various online diagrams for the 1050-2-PC cable use 5 wires (Tx, Rx, VCC, GND, and another one I have seen labeled as CTS, RTS or DTR). I just realized that my Pi's serial port only has 4 wires connecting to the Pi's GPIO (Tx,Rx, VCC, GND). I have read that DTR is not possible on the Pi but RTS is. Can I get by with RTS? My add-on board has a small pin I think I could get to work with another connector. I am using an old (bought 15-20 years ago) 1050-2-PC cable and I don't know whether it uses RTS or DTR. I guess I could rewire it if needed but would prefer to avoid that. How critical is this difference?

I use Retroarch on my raspberry pi zero, and wish to run a certain arcade game on it. the problem is, it has a very low framerate. so I figure that I need more RAM or something. is there an external RAM thing for Raspberry Pi, and will it speed up said arcade game?

Note: This is a repost of a blog that I wrote last month. I thought the members of this community would appreciate it. Enjoy. The blog can be viewed in its entirety at http://zopingo.com/dans-blog/ataripi-my-mini-atari-project INTRODUCTION This post will describe my journey to create a miniature version of the Atari VCS using a Raspberry Pi system. My introduction to the Raspberry Pi came when my daughter suggested that I use it to power my full-size arcade machine project. You can read more about that project at http://zopingo.com/dans-blog/back-to-the-arcade-a-1980s-classic. Once that project was up-and-running as a semi-portable unit, I learned of the Raspberry Pi Zero and had a thought… what if I could use that to create a mini Atari 2600? The thought came because my son had acquired a NES Classic and SNES Classic which did credit to their much older, much larger predecessors (NES and SNES) that came out in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s respectively. The classics are much smaller versions of the originals but looked the part and included many of the games that were originally released in cartridge format for their larger cousins. All-in-all these were very nice machines that captured the look and feel of the originals. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for Atari. SO, WHAT HAPPENED WITH ATARI? I’m not sure if it was licensing agreements or what the deal was, but someone dropped the ball when the Atari Flashback units hit the market. Not only have they released multiple versions of essentially the same thing, but they gave the classic console a comical look with large, colorful, round buttons and styling that only somewhat represents the original design. The original Atari VCS (later known as the Atari 2600) was a sleek, attractive, black ribbed unit with wood-grain trim and metal toggle switches. It was a piece of art to be proudly displayed in any family room. Those pictures make me think of the Will Smith quote in Men In Black II, “Old and busted – New hotness.” The irony in that is the old machine is the “new hotness” and vice versa. There was one exception to the entire Flashback series, and I happened to have one, but only by luck due to a decision I made on my original arcade cabinet project. I acquired it from a guy on Craigslist who was selling it for $10 including two classic Atari joysticks; I was only after the joysticks so I could play Atari VCS games on my arcade cabinet before this project was even an idea. I’m glad I didn’t trash the Flashback 2 though. The Atari Flashback 2 was the only model that has a chance at being modified to look like the classic because it most closely resembles the original design. All the later versions added joystick ports to the front of the unit and they changed the shape of the bezel around the switches. SWITCHES The Flashback 2 still had those comical buttons though, which would need to be changed to satisfy my desire for the original look. So, the quest began to find some toggle switches that would resemble the originals; no problem… right? For those of you who have read my Back to the Arcade blog, you will know that I had access to an incredible electronics store not far from where I lived. Think Radio Shack of the 1970’s but much larger; back in a time when the employees were usually electronics hobbyists and could actually help you with project challenges. After a visit to my local electronics store my issue became reality; I couldn’t find toggle switches anywhere that would suit my needs until I discovered the holy grail of vintage Atari parts. Apparently, some time ago, Atari sold their entire inventory of parts to a company called Best Electronics in San Jose, CA and they sell the parts to hobbyists like me. Not only did I get toggle switches that looked like the originals; they WERE the originals and very reasonably priced! WOOD TRIM Now that I have the switch thing figured out, I got motivated to get the rest of the project done. One of the first things to do now was get rid of the cheesy, fake, plastic, simulated wood grain on the front of the unit. I’m going to get real wood, like the original unit I had in 1977. Editor’s Note: If you are reading this now and getting ready to go to the comments and blast me about the real wood comment; keep reading. If I am going to match the wood trim of the original I will have to figure out which wood and color to use. This led me down a rabbit trail for a few weeks before I finally figured it out. My research revealed that the original was probably teak and I was able to simulate it nicely with a piece of pine and some Minwax Cherry – 235 stain. Apply some polyurethane and voilà , I turned out incredible. ELECTRONICS Now it’s on to the electronics. I started this article talking about the Raspberry Pi Zero, or Raspberry Pi Zero W to be precise. The W indicates a wireless (Wi-Fi and Bluetooth) version and doubles the price to a whopping $10! This will be the heart of the project, I will be able to run any game ever produced for the Atari VCS. One of the things this project led me to was utilizing the GPIO pins to physically connect switches to the Pi. Something I did not have to do with my full-size arcade cabinet. This required a little knowledge of Python programming and some moderate soldering skills. My soldering skills are acceptable and fortunately my daughter had recently finished a class which included Python so she was able to help me out here. MODIFICATIONS Since this unit will now connect to a monitor via HDMI and the joysticks connect via USB through an adaptor (2600-daptor) and the power plug is in a different place I had to delete some of the existing holes on the case and make new holes for the above mentioned jacks. Remember the switches that I acquired earlier? It’s now time to get creative and figure out how to mount them since they are mounted at an angle, it presented a bit of a challenge, but I figured it out. Rather than explaining here, just look at the pictures below to see how it all got worked out. GROMMETS I’ve got the switches, I’ve got the wood, I’ve modified the holes, I’ve got the coding right, and I have all the electronics and adapters; I’m ready to go… Not so fast, there’s one more little detail to figure out; the switch grommets. I have been looking at many, many options of things I could use as grommets but nothing was the right size or shape to satisfy my OCD on this project; especially since I had original switches. I came up with an idea to make the grommets. I could have my friend print them on his 3-D printer, but I would need a 3-D file. I can sketch pretty well in 2-D on my computer but not 3-D which is what my friend needed to ‘print’ them. I drafted up my design in 2-D with complete dimensions (my former career as an Engineer came in useful at this point) and hired some guy in Pakistan (via www.fiverr.com) to convert my file to a 3-D compatible format for 5 bucks. He had the file back to me within a couple hours which I then sent to my friend who in-turn printed my grommets. From idea to physical parts in hand was less than half a day. Gotta love technology. PANEL GRAPHICS Since I got rid of the goofy round buttons I needed to create some graphics for my new panel. Fortunately there are Atari fonts available so I was able to go with those. My panel replicates the original as close as possible with just a couple deviations. Rather than using a toggle on/off switch, I opted for a momentary switch in this location so I can safely shut down the system by toggling the switch. Also, since this machine will not use actual game cartridges, I opted for a lighted button that will act an escape button to return to the game menu. SQUEEZING ALL THE PARTS IN Now that everything is in order, it is time to make it all fit in the console. It started out seeming like an easy task but quickly filled the space, mostly with wires. At this point I’m sure glad I went with a Pi Zero because a normal size Pi would not fit at this point. WOODEN PANEL Remember the real wood that I mentioned earlier? Well after my build was complete, I decided that I needed a full-size 2600 for some photo comparisons to show the size difference so I started shopping. I found out that working units were somewhat spendy so my focus was on aesthetically nice units that didn’t work. I finally found one on Ebay with ‘unknown condition’ for $27.85 shipped. Once it arrived, I eagerly opened it up so I could get some pictures along with my newly created invention and lo-and-behold the wood was not wood at all. It was plastic with a simulated wood grain finish. Good thing I wasn’t challenged with any bets on the topic because I stood to lose a hefty chunk of change because I was very confident that my unit in 1977 was real wood. I think this is considered the mandela effect. After I got over the ‘wood’ thing I decided to see if this thing did indeed work; and it did not. It sat in a box until after I moved and one day I decided to see if I could get it running; which I did. See my blog post entitled, Atari 2600 (VCS) Repairs. SUMMARY I was fortunate to have an Atari VCS growing up but I gave it away while purging things before I left for the Air Force. I never thought I would ever be interested in the Atari 2600 again, but this was a fun project and in the end I get to play some games that I remember as a young teen and share them with my now grown children.

Hi, I am trying to get file2pc.obj to work - as I understand it I can use it to transfer files to the PC-Link folder on my Raspberry Pi (or any server that supports PC-Link). I have installed sio2bsd, and can boot the ATARI.ATR that has file2pc.obj from the Rasberry Pi fine (see attached ATARI.ATR). However, when I try to use file2pc.obj on the (real) 8-bit, I get "BAD STATUS from PC. Restarting" when I try and give the path to the PC-Link directory. In the log for sio2bsd (displayed in the terminal) I get: 24 -> 'S': $31, $53, $0001 ($85) 25 -> 'R': $31, $52, $0169 ($ed) 26 -> 'R': $31, $52, $0033 ($b6) 27 -> 'S': $3a, $53, $0033 ($c0) 28 -> 'S': $3a, $53, $0033 ($c0) 29 -> 'S': $3a, $53, $0033 ($c0) 30 -> 'S': $3a, $53, $0033 ($c0) 31 -> 'S': $3a, $53, $0033 ($c0) 32 -> 'S': $3a, $53, $0033 ($c0) 33 -> 'S': $3a, $53, $0033 ($c0) 34 -> 'S': $3a, $53, $0033 ($c0) 35 -> 'S': $3a, $53, $0033 ($c0) 36 -> 'S': $3a, $53, $0033 ($c0) 37 -> 'S': $3a, $53, $0033 ($c0) 38 -> 'S': $3a, $53, $0033 ($c0) 39 -> 'S': $3a, $53, $0033 ($c0) 40 -> 'S': $3a, $53, $0033 ($c0) 41 -> 'S': $3a, $53, $0033 ($c0) 42 -> 'S': $3a, $53, $0033 ($c0) 43 -> 'S': $3a, $53, $0033 ($c0) 44 -> 'S': $3a, $53, $0033 ($c0) 45 -> 'S': $3a, $53, $0033 ($c0) 46 -> 'S': $3a, $53, $0033 ($c0) 47 -> 'S': $3a, $53, $0033 ($c0) 48 -> 'S': $3a, $53, $0033 ($c0) 49 -> 'S': $3a, $53, $0033 ($c0) 50 -> 'S': $3a, $53, $0033 ($c0) 51 -> 'S': $3a, $53, $0033 ($c0) 52 -> 'S': $3a, $53, $0033 ($c0) 53 -> 'S': $3a, $53, $0033 ($c0) 54 -> 'S': $3a, $53, $0033 ($c0) I'm starting sio2bsd on the Raspberry Pi with: $ sio2bsd ATARI.ATR /tmp/ D1: 720 sectors, 92160 bytes total, mounted on ATARI.ATR PERCOM: trk 40, step 3, spt 18, heads 1, bps 128, flags 00 (SMALL-FM-5.25INCH) PCL1: mounted on /tmp PCLink directory filter allows lower case names Serial port: /dev/ttyAMA0 POKEY quartz 1781618.500000 Hz and HS Index 0 constant 7.186100 is assumed Default speed: HSINDEX=40 (19200 bits/sec.) Default turbo: HSINDEX=0 (123963 bits/sec.) User selected: HSINDEX=0 (123963 bits/sec.) And giving a variety of PC pathnames when prompted by the file2pc.obj program, but am getting nowhere. I built sio2bsd using "make -f Makefile.linux", and set the serial device as /dev/ttyAMA0 in Makefile.linux. Anyone have any ideas on how to get this to work? I would like to hack the file2pc sources so I can write files to the PC-Link folder, but I need to be able to test this is possible, e.g. that file2pc.obj works OK in the first place. Also, I don't have SpartaDos X, so can't test sio2bsd with the PC-Link.sys driver for that DOS. If anyone knows how to get file2pc.obj to work with another server than sio2bsd, that would also be a good to know. Thanks! ATARI.ATR SIO2BSD-master.zip

This is an updated video of the image capture project I started 3 years ago, with much enhanced image processing in half-tone. Was supposed to be demoed at the Chicago Faire but it did not happen... https://youtu.be/-ZkSfssnfv8 Details in my blog: http://atariage.com/forums/blog/659/entry-15260-image-capture-on-the-ti-994a-computer/

Twitter user @Tom7 uses a Raspberry Pi in an NES cartridge to display custom content and to emulate a SNES game on the NES https://blog.adafruit.com/2018/05/29/reverse-emulation-on-a-nintendo-nes-nintendoamerica-tom7-raspberry_pi-nes/

So by now there are tones of adapters and USB type controllers that can replace the joystick controller, are there any controllers or adapters for the paddle controllers? What is the best know Computer equivalent to the paddle controllers? If there aren't is anyone aware of any projects that make use of GPIO on the raspberry pi to allow the paddle controller to work? Mind you I am not looking to emulate any games I don't own and am not endorsing others doing so as well. I mainly want to have a portable system I can load my games up and play hook up easily to a modern TV.

I saw this a couple of days ago. The Game Boy Zero: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sparky/gameboy-zero-handheld-edition/description Basically it's a Raspberry Pi Zero with a 2.8" screen, and switches in Gameboy layout (plus extras), all on a single PCB. Case would be layered acrylic or one of your own making. It's all open source, so if you don't want to buy in now, you could find a way to make one or more yourself, later. There's a few things I would have done differently, but overall, this looks well designed. I like the single PCB solution. There's probably a dozen (or maybe many more) similar projects out there, so there's probably room to be fussy on which one, if any, you would choose. This is on Kickstarter - Proceed at your own risk! Feel free to discuss this project, or similar projects...