H2

[+swlovinist]

I feel soooooo lucky to have one that works with my 7800.

[Shawn]

I would prefer this too, but if it comes at the cost of hampering final production of a 7800 SD Cart like the Concerto, to the point of being permanently stalled in production limbo, I'm ok without that feature. Especially since I already own a Harmony cart, and they are plentiful and available (and cheap) for anyone who doesn't.

 

I'm patient enough to wait. I know it's a solid product as friends of mine already have the early builds of the H2. I could have had one also but opted to wait for the final product.

[Jinks]

Eventually it will come out. A little patience. I never had a flash cart for any console ever. This is the only one I want.

Too bad the cc2 never came out when the 7800 was a popular homebrew console. Seems it was around when no one cared.

[Greg2600]

I know the ones that were sold had a few problems (like not working on certain 7800 consoles) but I sure wish I was able to buy one.

 

At this point, I would have rather gotten one, and then found a 7800 that worked with it.

[accousticguitar]

 

At this point, I would have rather gotten one, and then found a 7800 that worked with it.

Exactly!

[CPUWIZ]

Fred is a perfectionist, mine works fine on multiple machines, but there are so many revisions of the 7800, it is just stupid. The internet would explode if there were 16 different PS4 revisions and they don't all work the same these days. I went through all kinds of pain to get my boards working, I am glad I did not produce the super RAM board, I was working on. It only works on one of my 5 consoles. Quite the opposite, his board works on most, but not all. Maybe someone should start a blacklist for shit 7800's.

[Shawn]

Fred is a perfectionist, mine works fine on multiple machines, but there are so many revisions of the 7800, it is just stupid. The internet would explode if there were 16 different PS4 revisions and they don't all work the same these days. I went through all kinds of pain to get my boards working, I am glad I did not produce the super RAM board, I was working on. It only works on one of my 5 consoles. Quite the opposite, his board works on most, but not all. Maybe someone should start a blacklist for shit 7800's.

 

This.

[+DrVenkman]

A blacklist would be a great idea. Or even a 48 hour return policy if you buy a Concerto and it doesn't work with your 7800, provided you also give the S/N of your 7800 and whether it has/doesn't have the Expansion Interface, etc. to help Fred can narrow down issues.

[Jinks]

A blacklist would be a great idea. Or even a 48 hour return policy if you buy a Concerto and it doesn't work with your 7800, provided you also give the S/N of your 7800 and whether it has/doesn't have the Expansion Interface, etc. to help Fred can narrow down issues.

Don't return it.. sell it to the next guy.

I am sure one of mine would work.

[Andromeda Stardust]

A blacklist would be a great idea. Or even a 48 hour return policy if you buy a Concerto and it doesn't work with your 7800, provided you also give the S/N of your 7800 and whether it has/doesn't have the Expansion Interface, etc. to help Fred can narrow down issues.

I would extend this time period to one week with a big arse disclaimer (since not everyone can test stuff immediately upon reciept), but depending on the actual percentage of consoles this doesn't work on is small, the loss for returns/refunds would not be great. Returned carts could be quickly examined to ensure proper operation and shipped back out.

 

Look at the new Krikzz GBA Everdrive not working with a majority of SD Cards. I'm currently running a dinosaur 2Gb card that's at least 7 years old and special ordered a 32Gb Kingston on eBay because this brand has a higher likelyhood of working. Shit happens but it is expected with the flash cart territory. Luckily (or not) for us, Krikzz likely has zero interest in producing Everdrives for Atari consoles.

 

I'd be willing to take a gamble on my 7800. Also if the specific 7800 revision that has trouble booting the H2 also has trouble with specific 2600/7800 games, this would be good info to know.

[Mord]

A blacklist would be a great idea. Or even a 48 hour return policy if you buy a Concerto and it doesn't work with your 7800, provided you also give the S/N of your 7800 and whether it has/doesn't have the Expansion Interface, etc. to help Fred can narrow down issues.

 

Another idea is to start the shipping, but in a slow, organized roll out. For instance, get 10 people who want to buy it, and get them to verify their console version. Make sure all of them are spaced apart sufficiently so to speak. Give enough time for reports to get back that the models were working or not. Then send out the next 10. Having people who end up with a model known to not work either wait until later (if continued work on making it work goes on) or to warn people not to buy it unless/until they get a new 7800. Ultimately it would probably give the best results with fewest disappointments on returns.

 

Personally I'm waiting on one of these for my programming - there's only so much testing I can do with emulators. Particularly when the only emulator that runs on my computers without a bluescreen is Prosystem.

[Jinks]

I think the programmer guys should be first in line. The gamer people like myself can wait.

[Greg2600]

How do we know a serial number or even the code on the motherboard are enough to go by? Perhaps it's more random? If it is, I'm not sure what the solution is.

[CPUWIZ]

How do we know a serial number or even the code on the motherboard are enough to go by? Perhaps it's more random? If it is, I'm not sure what the solution is.

 

Now perhaps you can understand the delay.

[+DrVenkman]

 

Now perhaps you can understand the delay.

 

 

All the more reason to sell another 100 or so to widen the tester-base! I'd buy one complete with a right of return within so many days for refund/AA Store credit, or even a disclaimer that "May not work properly on all 7800 consoles." My unit is fully socketed (even the SRAM). I'd be happy as heck to swap components, test, whatever ... so long as it helps get more of these out and in regular use some day.

[RevEng]

batari purchased a bunch of 7800s of various flavors. In the end that will probably be quite a bit cheaper and easier than producing and shipping 100 boards that may need to get tossed.

 

It's been my experience that hardware problems are very difficult to diagnose remotely. Add to that the time batari would spend doing unrelated support. Sounds painful to me.

[+Mitch]

I just tested my Concerto on two 7800s I randomly grabbed. One was an AT unit and the other an X2 unit. The AT 7800 had no problems with anything I tried. The X2 refused to play any 7800 games and a few 2600 games were a bit glitchy. It makes me wonder if it is related to the buggy TIA chip used in late model 2600/7800s. I should verify if the X2 7800 has the buggy TIA though. I just need to remember which 2600 games had problems with it.

 

Mitch

[+-^CrossBow^-]

I just tested my Concerto on two 7800s I randomly grabbed. One was an AT unit and the other an X2 unit. The AT 7800 had no problems with anything I tried. The X2 refused to play any 7800 games and a few 2600 games were a bit glitchy. It makes me wonder if it is related to the buggy TIA chip used in late model 2600/7800s. I should verify if the X2 7800 has the buggy TIA though. I just need to remember which 2600 games had problems with it.

 

Mitch

 

Mitch

 

Kool Aid Man is the main one that comes to mind?

[+Mitch]

I think you may be right. Unfortunately, I just dug through my M-Network carts and I apparently don't own a copy.

I tried it on the CC2 and it played fine but I'm not sure that is a valid test. I may just open it up and see what the date code is on it.

 

Mitch

[Trebor]

For those interested, Toymailman did put together a chart listing out some console revisions and respective motherboards.

 

While nothing has been 100% guaranteed precisely accurate, in general, over the years it has been seen that the older the console the higher probability it's more compatible; the newer the revision, risk is higher for less compatibility.

 

Serial starts with...

 

EP/AT84/AT85 - Overall the most reliable, best to have/own.

A1 with Expansion Port - Almost as good as the above.

A1 without Expansion - Running a higher risk for less compatibility.

A3 - Even greater risk.

X - Glutton for punishment.

 

Again, the above is general findings and there are certainly exceptions, but really it should not come as a big surprise. Quality of console in specific areas such as video output, options, and overall compatibility, typically decline over time for cost savings and going cheap. The 2600 was no different in this regard, neither was the Sega Genesis.

 

For example, by the time you reach the "Model 3" (last revision) Sega Genesis, one can expect these results:

 

"This model has some compatibility issues, which includes Virtua Racing, the Sega CD, the Sega 32X, the Game Genie and any game that exploits improper implementation of TAS instruction in the Genesis (Gargoyles in particular)."

 

Per Toymailman's chart linked above, Time Pilot for the 2600, appears to have been one of the most finicky for compatibility across different 7800 consoles. The issue with the 7800 is that even with the aforementioned general findings, it seems to have more than its fair share of exceptions at times.

[+DrVenkman]

Given the above, at what point does one "throw in the towel" so to speak, and accept that universal perfect performance across all models and variants is not likely to be obtainable? The idea of a disclaimer/return policy still makes the most sense to me. Even if Fred doesn't feel comfortable with a return policy like that, it seems to me that at least for now, there is more than enough pent up demand out there for a flexible, easy to use 7800 multi-cart that people are still likely to buy them and tolerate the incompatibility with certain games or simply re-sell them to someone else who can use them.

 

Of course, that's easy for me to say. My 7800 is an AT-84 unit.

[toiletunes]

My A1 with expansion did not work at all with the cart.

[Trebor]

Given the above, at what point does one "throw in the towel" so to speak, and accept that universal perfect performance across all models and variants is not likely to be obtainable?...

I would add, just about impossible.

 

My A1 with expansion did not work at all with the cart.

Exactly a case in point. See another example below.

 

The short version...

If you have an A1 console with a motherboard from 87 and an Expansion Interface with one socket chip, you may have different compatibility results than an A1 console with a motherboard from 86 and an Expansion Interface with two socket chips.

 

The long version...

 

 

Here's an edit on the chart, focusing on the A1 serials and the 2600 M-Network game Burgertime:

 

 

Across A1 variants, the cartridge Burgertime worked perfectly fine. However, the same Burgertime on the Harmony cart, did not work for all of them - but which do you nail down as being the issue and what is that issue exactly?

 

Is it the number of socket chips? Nope..Two A1's had 1 socketed chip, one worked fine the other did not.

 

Is it the Expansion Interface inclusion? Nope. An A1 with the Expansion and one without, had issues.

 

Perhaps it's the Board Date? One A1's with issues with Burgertime had an "87" board date, the other had a board date of "86".

 

Could the Burgertime issue be pinpointed further then? Unfortunately, another problem arises if just focusing on an A1 serial and "86-45" motherboard combination. Although both A1 serial with a "86-46" performed the same with Burgertime, a two chip socket versions fails to run Time Pilot, while a one chip socket versions runs Time Pilot without an issue.

 

Futhermore, both "86-45" A1's are labelled revision "A", but the one socket chip has a CO25233 001 and the two socket chip has a CO25233 002.

 

Additionally, a CO25233 002 was paired to a one socket chip motherboard having a board date of "87-13", still revision "A" though, which appeared to break a considerable number of 2600 cartridge compatibility.

 

The situation became worse when that same CO25233 002 was paired with a "87-31" motherboard, revision "A", no expansion interface.

 

Finally, improvement in 2600 compatibility with the "88-29" motherboard, revision "C", no expansion interface; however, the 7800 homebrew fails to run on it.

 

For the summary:

A1 Serial - December 1986 Manufacture date, a 86-45 board date, Expansion Interface and 1 Socket chip.

A1 Serial - January 1987 Manufacture date, a 86-45 board date, Expansion Interface and 2 Socket chips.

A1 Serial - May 1987 Manufacture date, a 87-13 board date, Expansion Interface and 1 Socket chip.

A1 Serial - December 1987 Manufacture, a 87-31 board date, No Expansion Interface and 0 Socket chip.

 

Above provided different results with various 2600 cart and 2600 harmony trials. 7800 only specific compatibility appeared consistent among all the above models, but 7800 (homebrew) compatibility changed with this console:

 

A1 Serial - August 1988 Manufacture, a 88-29 board date, No Expansion Interface and 0 Socket chip.

 

Could we at least nail down that 7800 homebrew compatibility issue to A1 serials from 1988 and newer? Unfortunately, that is not the case, as proven when looking at the AT-84 serials results.

 

 

...My 7800 is an AT-84 unit.

 

Going back to the original chart from Toymailman's post, the same homebrew had problems with not working at all on one AT84 unit, some sort of playability issue on another AT84, and worked perfectly on other AT84 units.

 

Focusing on the motherboard of those AT84 and AT85 units...

 

 

 

The AT84 serials paired with their respective motherboards show:

84-21 = Works.

84-24 = Works.

84-25 = Works.

84-26 = Doesn't Work.

84-27 = Works with Issues.

 

The AT85 serials featured in the listing have a 84-24 dated motherboard.

 

From the sampling, best 7800 compatibility among AT models appears to be an AT84 or AT85 with a 84-24 motherboard. The 2600 compatibility is a mixed bag regardless.

 

 

Standing-O for the developers, that is some mess to work through in trying to make PCB/carts/programs as compatible as possible; finding what chips/cart hardware combination does (not) work is a formidable task. Fred trying to include 2600 compatibility as best as possible can be nothing short of a hellish nightmare.

[Deteacher]

Naturally, mine is an "X" unit with the LE A/V mod in it. Things aren't looking good for me, unless I look into an earlier model.

[Trebor]

Naturally, mine is an "X" unit with the LE A/V mod in it. Things aren't looking good for me, unless I look into an earlier model.

 

Historically, the "X" serial is not a guarantee for fail, just that risk for failure may be higher. Just as an AT84/AT85 console is not a guarantee for pass, just the risk for compatibility failure seems to be lower, referencing what is publicly known up to this point.

 

 

 

From the prior sampling only two AT84 serials performed flawlessly with both 7800 and 2600 tests, respectively containing:

 

An "84-21" motherboard, CO25233 001, revision A, all socketed chips with Expansion Interface.

An "84-24" motherboard, CO25233 001, revision A, all socketed chips with Expansion Interface.

 

Additionally, an A1 serial also performed flawlessly with all the tests, it contained:

 

An "86-45" motherboard, CO25233 001, revision A, one socket ship with Expansion Interface.

 

Disconcertingly, there was another AT84 with the exact same specifics as...

 

An "84-24" motherboard, CO25233 001, revision A, all socketed chips with Expansion Interface.

 

...And it failed to run Decathalon.