the mega parrallel 2600 super system!

[Godzilla]

most collectors have tons of 2600s, someone should build a standard cart (or interface,) for connecting 2600s together to build a parrallel processing 2600 mega-system. maybe use like 1 2600 for every ten scan lines (for example,) . wonder what kind of games that mega-2600 could crank out.... :-) Sure it's just fantasy... but it's good fantasy

[Nukey Shay]

Umm...I don't think that you can do that. I'm guessing that there is no practical way of getting all of them in sync.

[Godzilla]

well i would assume only one of them would actually provide the a/v and the rest would just borg together over creating the game...

[Nukey Shay]

Yeah, but then you still have the problem of "too many bosses". Each CPU is trying to do it's own thing.

[Godzilla]

yea ud have to have those mad saturn/jag/ps2 parrallel processing skilllzzz. hahaaaaa... and they THOUGHT the 2600 was the hardest challenge to program, now there is the borg2600! muuuwwwahahaaaa! :-)

[joeybastard]

Crack kills Godzilla, crack kills.

[Godzilla]

not a women's booty crack, and that's the only kinda crack with the God-Zilla official seal of approval, so I'm safe. :-) Just think, massive 2600 parrallel processing gaming. 'I am borg of 2600, your console essence will be used to drive more players and missles per scan line, resistence is futile'

[Robert M]

How about a system that let's you hook Atari 2600s together for team/network play. Each player has their own console and screen, but the consoles are linked sharing player control and synchronization information.

 

Sort of like the FPS online gaming, but limited to a single room with the Ataris connected by RS-232.

[jsoper]

Generating every 2k bin file last week

Putting 2600's in parallel this week

What's for next week, 2600-controlled robots destroying cities?

 

"Practical" is such a beautiful word.

[Godzilla]

friend of mine and i worked on making this, but using a phone line w/ voice capabilities.... he worked somewhere at the time that would have facilitated our projevt (makin chips at TI,) it was gonna connect to the 2600 controller port u werent using and the use the modem to send ur commands back and forth between each system, basically.

[Nukey Shay]

Haha...The Atarinator.

[Godzilla]

YES! You have been targeted for Atarination!

 

Giant AI robots driven by borged 2600s that seek out and destory any consoles in an atari-less house, and replace them with 2600s that are part of the collective!!! MUUUWWWWAHAHAAAA!

[MegaManFan]

YES! You have been targeted for Atarination!

 

STRONGDOR!!!!! STRONGDOR!!!!!

 

Atarianating all the peasants

Atarianating all the peoples

Atarianating many peoples

Because he was STRONGDOR!!!!!!

[Godzilla]

sing it, MMF!

[Curt Vendel]

That's gonne be rough, you'll have to put more h/w into the carts then the 2600 itself and in the end you're not going to eck out much from the 6507 insofar as usable processor cycles...

 

Scary thought though!

 

 

Curt

[MegaManFan]

sing it, MMF!

 

I could but I'd rather let Strong Bad do it for me.

[Robert M]

That's gonne be rough, you'll have to put more h/w into the carts then the 2600 itself and in the end you're not going to eck out much from the 6507 insofar as usable processor cycles...

 

Scary thought though!

 

 

Curt

 

I don't think its would require much hardware if any. TTL chips with RS-232 support aren't hard to get cheap You would have to include a clock circuit since the clock is not available on the cartridge pins.

 

It might also be possible to come up with a system that converts one of the joystick ports into an I/O port. The processor can program the pins to be either inputs or outputs.

 

One interesting aspect of such a system is it would be possible to almost perfectly synchronize the Ataris involved. If player control was sampled only 1/4 or 1/8 frames and then shared on the off frames it would probably be minimally processor intensive. If the ataris could be synchronized every frame, then you could implement a Time slot protocol for sharing data. Hook the Ataris into a loop with two output and two input lines between each system in the ring. At the start of a scanline, each system sets its output lines to the next bit pair to be transfered. In the middle of the scanline, the systems read the bit pair on their input lines. Repeat until the entire packet arrives. Collect 1 packet for all players, process game data. Read controller. create packet to be sent, and start again.

[Godzilla]

well it SEEMED basically a sound premise to me :-) nice to know I wasn' too far off. But I know it's fantasy. Still would be neat to see a game on a borg 2600 :-) wonder if u could accomplish the same thing w/ sware on a pc fast enough to emu multiple 2600s at once? z26 borg edition?