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Showing results for tags 'Flashback 9'.
Found 8 results
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I did some hacking yesterday and was able to package my own custom firmware in order to get SD card roms and box art fully integrated into the main menu screen. See anything interesting? I am also able to remove or suppress any of the built-in ROMs that I might not want. I did a simple test of suppressing the non-original version of Frogger that ships with the console. Now I can't take all of the credit. I mean, I did do a lot of hacking, and I did use a bunch of arcane Linux tools and commands to unpack, customize and re-pack this firmware. But I'm sure to nobody's surprise it turns out that the Atari Flashback 9 and the AtGames Sega Genesis Flashback 2018 are virtually the same hardware and system. They just run different emulators and have different roms and creative content for menus. So people have already been hacking that system and already found this same approach. I had already unpacked and was poking around the official firmware image and thinking about my options when I stumbled across this thread: https://gbatemp.net/threads/custom-firmware-for-sega-flashback-2018.523590/page-5 I followed the whole thread, and from reading it I "reverse engineered" what they were doing. These guys came up with an ingenious approach, so I am simply following their lead for the Atari Flashback 9. Basically it works like this: 1. There is a /rom NAND flash partition that contains all of the built-in .a26 roms, box art, a few sound files and the all-games.ini file which configures the menu items. 2. The new firmware I developed inserts a script that unmounts the /rom partition and re-mounts it to a /rom folder on the SD card. This is driven by the presence of a control file on the SD card. Delete the control file or remove the SD card and the unit will simply mount the internal /rom partition and as per normal. So not permanent change. 3. The latest official firmware included the entire /rom partition contents. it's possible to dump the NAND flash from the device, but it wasn't necessary as I was able to extract it from the official firmware. 4. I copied the extract /rom partition contents to the /rom folder on my SD card. 5. Now I can add custom .a26 rom files and corresponding box art and then add the necessary entries to the all-games.ini file, which will populate the menu item and descriptive info page. So in short I am "hiding" the internal /rom partition and loading all roms, box art and rom config file from the SD card. In that Sega thread somebody also started to build a nice GUI tool to manage the somewhat daunting task of editing the .ini file for all the new game rom entries. It's something I will probably be looking to borrow/steal/copy for the Atari Flashback (I'm a software developer by trade). It would also be cool if the community could somehow edit and contribute all these ini file entries and maybe box art to a common repository. I was originally poking around looking at the menu and emulator binaries that are included in the official firmware, seeing if there was anything interesting I could learn or modify with a hex editor. I also had in mind to do some reverse engineering. In theory I could flash the device to run a fully custom UI and/or emulator, although there are some tight limitation in the NAND partition sizes. Let's not get carried away or get ahead of ourselves yet. I think I will get another FB9 to do some more hacking, so I don't accidentally bork my working unit. Also the regular non-Gold FB 9 HD would need a slightly different firmware to retains its UI. I'm going to look at making a leaner CFW that doesn't redistribute roms, but I could maybe post something in a few days if there is interest.
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Hey, so my Atari Flashback 9 bricked. It was working fine for a long time, I had it sideloaded, no issues whatsoever. However I didn’t take the update file off of the SD card, so when it booted I had to press right on the stick or it would run the update again, but if it accidentally went through it again it was no problem. However yesterday, something went wrong with it. After it ran the update it just went black. No matter what I did, it would not boot up again. The on-board light came on, so it was getting power, the tv flickered the no signal, which showed that something was sending power through the hdmi, but nothing was being received. I eventually went into the boot menu by pushing the factory button on the inside. Nothing in there worked either, factory reset, run graphics test, etc., everything failed. I tried downloading the update .img from the website and putting it on the SD card, but the update function on the boot menu doesn’t detect .img apparently. Is there anything at all I can do? Any way to load the original firmware back on there? If so, where can I get that file? I honestly have no idea how it had such a severe failure. I never once had a problem with it before. Its not even like I lost power while it was updating or anything, it went through that process as normal and then just went dark. Thanks for any help you can give, I assume its just dead, which is a shame. I really loved the thing, and all the newer models are sold out. -
Hi everyone, I bought my dad an Atari Flashback 9 for christmas for us to play together. We plugged it in today and the video worked okay but there was no sound. After plugging it into multiple tvs and ports I found out that our menu was also different. I have the AR3230 model which uses composite cables, but the ports we plugged everything into are known to be functional. I'm not sure what else to do, is there a way to get the good menu and to fix the sound not working? The only suggestions on AtGames are to turn up the volume or to unplug and replug the audio cable.
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Now, before I go on eBay and get the Canadian-market Flashback 9 (model no. AR3230, the one with composite RCA output and SD card slot), I need to find out which controllers she will not work with, after all I own a Wico redball stick, a few Atari CX24 (7800) sticks and also a couple of CX80 Trak-Ball controllers that I used to use with my Harmony Encore multicart through the 2600 adapter on my 5200, I need to know if these (or any others like the classic paddle or driving controllers or the video touchpad for Star Raiders) will or will not work with it. All I need is a list of compatible controllers as I already know almost all the games (650+ games on my SD card) will work on her, it's just that I am a purist who insists on using a trak-ball for Centipede, Millipede, and Missile Command among others, so am I good to go with the FB9 or should I re-acquire the Harmony Encore multicart, in which would require a ton of space for both the 5200 with the 2600 adapter and also the multicart? https://www.ebay.com/itm/Atgames-Atari-Flashback-9-Classic-Gaming-Console-Black/254221214500 -
I put hundreds on roms on my Atari Flashback 9 and all games work except for 2. Draconian is one of them. The other is "Super Cobra the arcade game" which is a homebrew port to the 2600. Does anyone know why these games don't work on the flashback 9? All the other homebrew games work. I also tried deleting spaces in the names to get some roms to work. But those I mentioned are the only 2 that don't. -
Hi all! I've got a working Flashback 9 with a working SD card. My question is: When I add new games to the SD card, the new games appear to alphabetize on the PC, but they don't alphabetize on the FB9 console. Is there a way to clean this up? (Do I have to start over and reformat/reload the SD card each time?)
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Not my video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zd3GD2NO3dI I searched the forums and couldn't find anything. I must be getting senile in my old age - I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to pair the joysticks to the FB9 Gold via Bluetooth until I found the video. The Bluetooth pairing insert in the package was barely readable and confusing. (Off-topic) At least they included an HDMI cable in the box. Edit: Apologies to Bill Loguidice for the negative comment regarding AtGames. It was not meant to offend (admittedly it was not in good taste) but to comment on how the clarity of the instructions could have been improved. I have removed the offending remark. -
I found this controller on eBay retrogameboyz recently while searching for a controller to play asteroids type games on my 2600. It has a fire button and a second button for “joystick up” (thrust on asteroids). I tried it on my FB9 and discovered pressing “up” and “down” simultaneously gets me back to menu. Pressing “left” and “right” simultaneously gets rewind. This is a great controller for asteroids, galaxian, atlantis, frogger type games. Not so great for pac-man. I have been using my suncom slikstick for pac-man. Press joystick down and select on fb9 console to get back to menu. This works most of the time. When this doesn’t work you have to Atari Like Its 1979 and turn the console off and on to choose another game. Both of my wico command control sticks work fine on the fb9 also. Retrogameboyz also make a controller for the 7800 with both fire buttons I may try next.
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