SoundGammon Posted February 13, 2009 Share Posted February 13, 2009 Since the original version of the 7800 with the expansion port was designed to interface with a laser disc player, it wouldn't be hard to adapt it to a Blu-Ray player that allows external control. Imagine playing Dragon's Lair through the 7800 in high def! Not true hi-def, as the video would be composite at best but it would still be neat to see! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chickybaby Posted February 13, 2009 Share Posted February 13, 2009 How much would it really improve the quality? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xZanU Posted February 13, 2009 Share Posted February 13, 2009 Since the original version of the 7800 with the expansion port was designed to interface with a laser disc player... Really? That is kinda interesting. I had no Idea Atari was thinking that far ahead, sure, LDs were around by then, but it would have been great to see a game on a laser disc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Underball Posted February 13, 2009 Share Posted February 13, 2009 Since the original version of the 7800 with the expansion port was designed to interface with a laser disc player... Really? That is kinda interesting. I had no Idea Atari was thinking that far ahead, sure, LDs were around by then, but it would have been great to see a game on a laser disc. Not really. They were simply thinking about trying to cash in on the short lived Dragon's Lair/LD animated games craze in 1983/1984. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xZanU Posted February 13, 2009 Share Posted February 13, 2009 Not really. They were simply thinking about trying to cash in on the short lived Dragon's Lair/LD animated games craze in 1983/1984. Oh well, I knew there had to be a reason. I am a little surprised that the modding/hack/homebrew folks have not made use of it for something. Granted I no nothing about 7800 architecture so it could very well be impossible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+FujiSkunk Posted February 13, 2009 Share Posted February 13, 2009 I am a little surprised that the modding/hack/homebrew folks have not made use of it for something. Somewhere in the forums someone talks about how they got game video through the expansion port. The picture had a lot of interference, though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZylonBane Posted February 13, 2009 Share Posted February 13, 2009 Since the original version of the 7800 with the expansion port was designed to interface with a laser disc player, it wouldn't be hard to adapt it to a Blu-Ray player that allows external control. You seem to be assuming that laserdisc and Blu-Ray players have identical external control interfaces. Do you know this for a fact to be true? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TwiliteZoner Posted February 13, 2009 Share Posted February 13, 2009 There were several companies back in the day, most notably Coleco who had planed some type of LaserDisc add-on. You wonder how many of these actually got even remotely close to the consumer level.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Underball Posted February 13, 2009 Share Posted February 13, 2009 Since the original version of the 7800 with the expansion port was designed to interface with a laser disc player, it wouldn't be hard to adapt it to a Blu-Ray player that allows external control. You seem to be assuming that laserdisc and Blu-Ray players have identical external control interfaces. Do you know this for a fact to be true? Doesn't really matter. The transport controls on DVD and Blu-Ray players are similar enough to those of LD that someone could build an interface for the 7800 to send the basic play, stop, chapter skip signals with little problem - provided a 7800 version of any Laserdisc games existed. The problem isn't the control scheme. It's that the 7800 Cart/control/score overlay for something like Dragon's Lair doesn't exist. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZylonBane Posted February 13, 2009 Share Posted February 13, 2009 Doesn't really matter. The transport controls on DVD and Blu-Ray players are similar enough to those of LD that someone could build an interface for the 7800 to send the basic play, stop, chapter skip signals with little problem - provided a 7800 version of any Laserdisc games existed. True, but you could do that with any system. SoundGammon seems to believe the 7800 has some unique advantage in this area. Like, a magic "control all optical media devices" chip or something. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Underball Posted February 13, 2009 Share Posted February 13, 2009 Doesn't really matter. The transport controls on DVD and Blu-Ray players are similar enough to those of LD that someone could build an interface for the 7800 to send the basic play, stop, chapter skip signals with little problem - provided a 7800 version of any Laserdisc games existed. True, but you could do that with any system. SoundGammon seems to believe the 7800 has some unique advantage in this area. Like, a magic "control all optical media devices" chip or something. No he doesn't. you're just nitpicking his idea because you're a troll. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xZanU Posted February 13, 2009 Share Posted February 13, 2009 True, but you could do that with any system. SoundGammon seems to believe the 7800 has some unique advantage in this area. Like, a magic "control all optical media devices" chip or something. I did not get that impression at all, sounds to me like he is just curious/thought it would be an interesting topic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZylonBane Posted February 13, 2009 Share Posted February 13, 2009 I did not get that impression at all, sounds to me like he is just curious/thought it would be an interesting topic. He said, "Since the original version of the 7800 with the expansion port was designed to interface with a laser disc player, it wouldn't be hard to adapt it to a Blu-Ray player that allows external control." You're certainly free to imagine that he meant something else, but what he's actually said here is that it shouldn't be hard to control a Blu-Ray player with a 7800 because it was designed to control a Laserdisc player. And he may or may not actually be right (Blu-Ray players are in fact externally controlled via an RS-232 interface, surprisingly), but thus far nobody in this thread has addressed the point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Underball Posted February 13, 2009 Share Posted February 13, 2009 (edited) I did not get that impression at all, sounds to me like he is just curious/thought it would be an interesting topic. He said, "Since the original version of the 7800 with the expansion port was designed to interface with a laser disc player, it wouldn't be hard to adapt it to a Blu-Ray player that allows external control." You're certainly free to imagine that he meant something else, but what he's actually said here is that it shouldn't be hard to control a Blu-Ray player with a 7800 because it was designed to control a Laserdisc player. And he may or may not actually be right (Blu-Ray players are in fact externally controlled via an RS-232 interface, surprisingly), but thus far nobody in this thread has addressed the point. No, What he ACTUALLY said was that is shouldn't be to hard to ADAPT the 7800 to work with a Blu-Ray player that accepts wired external controls. The operative word in there you keep ignoring so you can be argumentative being ADAPT, meaning that obviously some kind of modification is implied for it to work properly. Are you done ruining this thread yet, dummy? Edited February 13, 2009 by Underball Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xZanU Posted February 13, 2009 Share Posted February 13, 2009 And he may or may not actually be right (Blu-Ray players are in fact externally controlled via an RS-232 interface, surprisingly), but thus far nobody in this thread has addressed the point. You just did, it also makes more sense than your magic chip statement. : ) What interface are laser disc players externally controlled by? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mot Posted February 13, 2009 Share Posted February 13, 2009 Since the original version of the 7800 with the expansion port was designed to interface with a laser disc player... Really? That is kinda interesting. I had no Idea Atari was thinking that far ahead, sure, LDs were around by then, but it would have been great to see a game on a laser disc. Not really. They were simply thinking about trying to cash in on the short lived Dragon's Lair/LD animated games craze in 1983/1984. Blu ray version of DL is available for both PS3 and reg Blu Ray! Time Warner owned Atari and created a move called FireFox (1982) and a Video Game call FireFox (1984) This game had a laser disk for background and reg sprite based video game elements on top. Time Warner owned Movie rights and so.... it was this thinking that put the expansion port on there. Too bad because they had NO room for a Pokey sound chip! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Thag Posted February 14, 2009 Share Posted February 14, 2009 This game had a laser disk for background and reg sprite based video game elements on top. Time Warner owned Movie rights and so.... it was this thinking that put the expansion port on there. So, are you saying that's what the 7800's expansion port can do? Stream video/images from a LD/CD/DVD/Blueray (or whatever) and put sprites on top of that? Interesting. I'm not at all familiar with the 7800's technical specs, but that would be pretty cool if so. I wonder how hard it would be to connect a standard external CD-rom to the port? Might be interesting from a homebrew standpoint. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZylonBane Posted February 14, 2009 Share Posted February 14, 2009 (edited) The operative word in there you keep ignoring so you can be argumentative being ADAPT, meaning that obviously some kind of modification is implied for it to work properly. And you're ignoring the entire first half of the first sentence of his post. Edited February 14, 2009 by ZylonBane Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chickybaby Posted February 14, 2009 Share Posted February 14, 2009 Ok, obviously you two don't agree and I doubt anyone else wants to see it in a thread. Since the 7800 is one of my favs, I really do find interesting and would like to read more info about this. The operative word in there you keep ignoring so you can be argumentative being ADAPT, meaning that obviously some kind of modification is implied for it to work properly. And you're ignoring the entire first half of the first sentence of his post. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retro Rogue Posted February 14, 2009 Share Posted February 14, 2009 Time Warner owned Atari and created a move called FireFox (1982)and a Video Game call FireFox (1984) This game had a laser disk for background and reg sprite based video game elements on top. Time Warner owned Movie rights and so.... it was this thinking that put the expansion port on there. There was no Time Warner at the time, it was Warner Communications. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retro Rogue Posted February 14, 2009 Share Posted February 14, 2009 There were several companies back in the day, most notably Coleco who had planed some type of LaserDisc add-on. You wonder how many of these actually got even remotely close to the consumer level.. Ralph Baer was involved in the one for Coleco and describes it all in his book. It was based off of technology he previously designed. A working proto hooked to a Colecovision was developed and demonstrated, and negotiations for a 5" CED format disc were underway. The TMS9928A can be mixed with external video sources with a little extra circuitry. Interestingly, the TMS9918A actually has on chip video source mixing, dumping it to an external back plane. Who knows though, wouldn't be a bad idea for Eduardo to look in to for his expansion box. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nonner242 Posted February 14, 2009 Share Posted February 14, 2009 Cant wait to play M.A.C.H. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shadow460 Posted February 14, 2009 Share Posted February 14, 2009 This game had a laser disk for background and reg sprite based video game elements on top. Time Warner owned Movie rights and so.... it was this thinking that put the expansion port on there. So, are you saying that's what the 7800's expansion port can do? Stream video/images from a LD/CD/DVD/Blueray (or whatever) and put sprites on top of that? Interesting. I'm not at all familiar with the 7800's technical specs, but that would be pretty cool if so. I wonder how hard it would be to connect a standard external CD-rom to the port? Might be interesting from a homebrew standpoint. Very interesting. It might be more practical to control a CD-ROM that a super duper mega hi def disk of some kind. Hasn't it been discussed if the port has audio input? If it does, one might be able to program a game to read audio tracks on the disc for its background music. Just a thought. Never mind the fact that Pokey is probably a better choice, use the port! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nathanallan Posted February 14, 2009 Share Posted February 14, 2009 Plugging things in to things. I *like* this thread. The pinout is here, and there is audio on pin 17 but it doesn't say in or out. I do not know how everythng would translate, but it looks almost like a black box could be made to play a DVD from a standard player into the system. From what I recall, it was meant to be used as a picturesque backdrop while playing the normal games. This was already mentioned, though. If video can be piped through, you could in theory have a crowd cheering you as you passed them in the stands while playing Pole Position 2, or have a lava field backdrop playing Joust. Or a planet revolving as you play Galaga. Just a bunch of conjecture. Seems really neat, though. I wish I had time to work on something like this >sigh< Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Thag Posted February 14, 2009 Share Posted February 14, 2009 If it does, one might be able to program a game to read audio tracks on the disc for its background music. Now THAT is what I call an excellent idea, assuming it's possible. Solving the biggest problem with th 7800 (sound) with something as simple as a few mp3s (or whatever) and a CD burner? Priceless. And if you can do that and video both, well, that would be something. If it's possible on a hardware level, then someone who is good with that kind of thing should rig up an interface to an external CD ROM drive. Imagine if all it took was a little interface box and a $50 cd-rom from best buy. And what if you could store an entire game on the disk? Imagine the kind of homebrew we'd get then! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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