Early VCS SECAM version differences

[CatPix]

Recently, I bought a lot of two woody VCS+ joystick controllers+ a pair of paddles and 2 games (with boxes in poor condition) for a whooping 10€ price, which is a good bargain, even here where the 2600 systems aren't much looked after.

 

While testing the units, I started to notice some differences between the 2 systems. Keep in mind that the Atari 2600 was released in France in 1981, the last year of the woody model.

 

So I was wondering if those differences were leftovers from the US variant, or if they might come from an early run of PAL/SECAM adaptations that were discarded.

 

Here are some pictures of the machines :

 

 

The newer on the left, the oldest on the right (by number production)

 

 

The oldest one feature the double HP vents. Were those also on US 4 switches models? I though they were only on 6 switches unit?

 

 

 

The back feature more screw holes, smaller holes near the stamps. What is it for?

 

 

A channel selector "A" and "B". Note that the channel selector option is also on his usual place on top of the unit, with the "channel 2-3 " marking (and it's left unused, at least on the SECAM version. It make sense since the woody SECAM unit uses UHF channel 36 ). As far as I know, A and B aren't used in the European CCIR TV systems (we use channel numbers), so I really don't know what kind of channel it was meant to select (there is no switch so it choose nothing anyway).

 

 

On the back, holes have beel hidden with a thick adhesive piece of plastic. From the size and shape, it was probably meant to house joysticks connectors and a power connector in the middle. Does this exist on US Atari too?

 

Just a view on the stamps :

 

This first one is the standard Atari sticker, or I suppose so.

 

The second mention that the system is certified to be used in France and mention the fact you have to plug it on the back of your TV (and not using a T shaped plug to connect both antenna and system at the same time). Europe use a RCA-like connector for antenna so swapping between antenna and video games systems isn't as annoying as the double fork or F plus used in the USA And manual switchboxes were allowed too.

 

For your eyes's pleasure :

 

 

 

This board is very different from the later SECAM boards found in black VCS. The most interesting feature is that UHF transmitter that seems to pick up video and audio, calling for a very easy A/V mod. I gotta try it!

 

So... Is that "old" VCS an oddity, or is it perfectly normal to find those feature on it?

 

Thanks for taking a look and answering

[Mister-VCS]

Can't see any pictures....

OK, it was a Mozilla-problem, strange!

 

I am looking for more 2600 SECAM infos -could you post some screenshots? Can't believe that Atari released the 2600 with so few ugly colors on screen!

[CatPix]

Sure!

What do you want? game pictures?

Or motherboard pictures with removed shield?

I have one black VCS open. There is a strange thing with the SECAM unit, in that they seems to use the PAL TIA chip.

 

So I suppose that Atari use an equivalent of the AY colorizing chip (not the one with games inside, the ones used to display 8 colours out of the B&W AY chips).

[mkiker2089]

Regarding the a-b channel selector. In the US a = VHF 2 and b= VHF 3 This is interesting because most devices choose between channel 3 and 4 instead of 2 and 3. We can also use the RCA for antenna but need a 5 dollar plug.

 

I've considered the composite mod myself. I'm told it helps greatly and is really simple.

[OBO]

I had one in 1981 (well, my father bought one to play Pole Position and share games with co-workers).

It had not the HP vent, or the channel selection switch

 

Maybe they had issues and did variations on the model...

Moreover, I remember my SECAM one was giving me the smurf in blue, and not in green as on many later-model SECAM (darth vader ones, for example)

[CatPix]

really? I'm gonna try and see if I have any color oddity with that one (the older one doesn't work, but I think it's because all the switches are busted). This would be verry interesting.

 

Regarding the a-b channel selector. In the US a = VHF 2 and b= VHF 3 This is interesting because most devices choose between channel 3 and 4 instead of 2 and 3. We can also use the RCA for antenna but need a 5 dollar plug.

 

I've considered the composite mod myself. I'm told it helps greatly and is really simple.

All the VCS I have and see have the upper channel switch mentionning "Channel 2-3" even the black and the JR. And at least for the French models, those are never used, so it's probably either for US models, or PAL units?

 

For the antenna plug, it's not really an RCA plug, but it looks like it. It looks like the FM plugs on some radio sets (but I don't know if this connector is used in the USa even for FM :

 

For the A/V mod, it looks easy on this model, but it's nearly impossible to do on later French models (and it doesn't have great interest with the shitty colors, the PAL 2600 Jr with SCARt output and the 7800 with SCART RVB output and PAL 2600 colors : this is the reason why the 7800 in France is more looked after than the original VCS).

[mkiker2089]

I have a wood 6 switch and a Sears Arcade 2 which would be more like a Jr (actually a 2800 but those are unpopular). Both are labeled "a and b". I assumed it was for international markets because in the US they could just call them 2-3 like all other devices (or actually 3-4 like other devices actually use.) Odd. Nothing else is ever labeled like that so Atari must have had a reason.

[OBO]

Can't see any pictures....

OK, it was a Mozilla-problem, strange!

 

I am looking for more 2600 SECAM infos -could you post some screenshots? Can't believe that Atari released the 2600 with so few ugly colors on screen!

 

I can't even say it's "colors". Basically, it took the B&W version of the game and recolorize the grey level with colors. So you could have the smurf in GREEN. Like I have on my Vader 2600.

I seem to remember there is a color pot inside the 2600s that can be used to adjust colors, am I wrong ?

 

When I started collecting Ataris, I went for PAL ones

[Mister-VCS]

@CatPix: Screenshots!

[CatPix]

Busy WE, so here are the pictures. I decided for going from most graphical stuff (game with recognizeables sprites, backgrounds, lot of details, etc...) to most simple games with just lines and dots.

 

Skateboardin' :

Ow my eyes

 

Desert Falcon :

Even more ow!

 

Tennis :

Feels like playing on clay but... pretty fine looking.

 

Double Dragon :

Bonus on game crappiness.

 

HERO :

Doesn't look too bad, if you don't know about the original game. Even if you know it, nothing burn the eyes really.

 

Jungle hunt :

Some colors are off, but pretty playable.

 

Fatal Run :

Ouch.

 

Demon attack :

Strangely, I got a black and white screen with a fuzzy grainy picture and a hissing sound. The game may use a color trick that doesn't work here. It's not the cart, the game works perfectly when used on PAL system.

 

Cosmic Ark :

the starfield glitch doesn't appear here... It definitively fuel the explanation that on SECAM units, the colors aren't made from the TIA itself. By the way, the cart I have is the one that doesn't display the starfield if you disable color. It would be interesting to test with the second version that keep the starfield even with the color switch off.

 

Secret Quest :

Looks pretty bland, but playable, no odd colors to burn your eyes.

 

Dark Chambers:

Odd colors, but not a big deal for this game really.

 

Obélix :

Looks pretty. Not much difference when played on a PAL system.

 

Centipede :

There might be collor differences, but does it really matter for this game?

 

Berzek :

Same comment. Perfectly nice to play.

 

Haunted House :

Same.

 

Well, overall, if the most graphical games does look ugly, most games are perfectly fine, and some really doesn't appear to be different from their PAL or NTSC counterparts.

 

I have a PAL 2600 Jr and an Atari 7800 that plays the games with their PAL colors, so I can tell that every game I have got the "right" palette, so none of these games have been modded for SECAM unit specifically. You can only assume that for Obelix, the programmers succeeded in chooseing colors that will fit both PAL and SECAM systems.

[Mister-VCS]

Busy WE, so here are the pictures. I decided for going from most graphical stuff (game with recognizeables sprites, backgrounds, lot of details, etc...) to most simple games with just lines and dots.

 

 

Tennis :

 

Feels like playing on clay but... pretty fine looking.

 

 

I see: French Open - Kohlschreiber vs. Djokovic!

[OBO]

yep, for Asterix and Obelix, they managed to get the colors right.

Remember the 8 colors on SECAM are in fact the colored "grays" of the B&W mode.

[CatPix]

Yeah, that's what I suppose. Because those colors really are the same than the ones from colored Pong machines, so I suppose Atari used an equivalent of the AY-3-8515 : it's a chip used in Pong systems that add 8 colors based on the level of gray of the B&W Pong signal.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 3, 2013 by CatPix

[OBO]

Effectivement, I had forgotten about this chip. Explains a lot.

It seems to me it can be recalibrated to select which gray becomes which color, so it may explain why my old wood 4 switch SECAM was displaying the smurf correctly.

 

Correct me if I am wrong

[SeaGtGruff]

Busy WE, so here are the pictures. I decided for going from most graphical stuff (game with recognizeables sprites, backgrounds, lot of details, etc...) to most simple games with just lines and dots.

Do you have a programmable cartridge, like a Harmony or Krokodile or Cuttle Cart? If you do, I'd like to send you a program that displays all 8 SECAM colors and all 28 two-color combinations so you can take a screenshot of it for me.

[CatPix]

Sadly, I have none of them. When I'll get one, I'll let you know, but it wouldn't be before months I guess.

Effectivement, I had forgotten about this chip. Explains a lot.

It seems to me it can be recalibrated to select which gray becomes which color, so it may explain why my old wood 4 switch SECAM was displaying the smurf correctly.

 

Correct me if I am wrong

I have no idea. but The Smurfs may have been made for the French market first (it's a French licence after all) then later made for the PAL market, and this copy going back on the French market for economy reason. Or they modified the calibration between the woody and darth vader models.

 

I'm not sure about this, so I can only make theories about this.

[OBO]

mmmhhh... I still have my Shtroumpf cart, and on my Darth vader it shows the schtroumpf green. Maybe a calibration difference, like "ok, we don't care about these guys with their stupid SECAM standard, only them and the USSR uses it, so *blip* off"

[Eckhard Stolberg]

Do you have a programmable cartridge, like a Harmony or Krokodile or Cuttle Cart? If you do, I'd like to send you a program that displays all 8 SECAM colors and all 28 two-color combinations so you can take a screenshot of it for me.

I have a Harmony and a Cuttle Cart, but unfortunately the picture quality of my SECAM VCS isn't that great. If you want to see all colours a SECAM VCS can display, you'll also need to test for single line colour changes in odd and even scanlines. As you can see in the Boulder Dash in SECAM thread, the tiles that start displaying in odd scanlines show different colours than the tiles starting in even scanlines.

[SeaGtGruff]

I have a Harmony and a Cuttle Cart, but unfortunately the picture quality of my SECAM VCS isn't that great. If you want to see all colours a SECAM VCS can display, you'll also need to test for single line colour changes in odd and even scanlines. As you can see in the Boulder Dash in SECAM thread, the tiles that start displaying in odd scanlines show different colours than the tiles starting in even scanlines.

It would be great If you (or any others with a SECAM 2600 and programmable cart) could post screenshots from the attached program. A screenshot from Stella is shown below, but from what you're saying it is expected to look different on an actual SECAM system? I guess that makes sense since SECAM alternates on each line-- as PAL does but in a different manner. I had to redo my test program because of that. Each square of color is an intersection of 8 columns of color with 8 rows of color, but the squares that look the same on Stella (e.g., blue alternated with black) are flipped around to show all 64 possible combinations.

 

 

SECAM_colors.bas.bin

[www.atarimania.com]

Do you have any of the specific Activision SECAM ports?

 

--

Atari Frog

http://www.atarimania.com

[Eckhard Stolberg]

It would be great If you (or any others with a SECAM 2600 and programmable cart) could post screenshots from the attached program. A screenshot from Stella is shown below, but from what you're saying it is expected to look different on an actual SECAM system? I guess that makes sense since SECAM alternates on each line-- as PAL does but in a different manner. I had to redo my test program because of that. Each square of color is an intersection of 8 columns of color with 8 rows of color, but the squares that look the same on Stella (e.g., blue alternated with black) are flipped around to show all 64 possible combinations.

 

OK, here is a screenshot of your program running on a SECAM VCS. As expected it's a bit different from the emulator screenshot.

 

The top left corner is a lttle too dark in the first picture, so I did another screenshot of that area with more detail.

[SeaGtGruff]

OK, here is a screenshot of your program running on a SECAM VCS. As expected it's a bit different from the emulator screenshot.

Awesome! Thank you!

 

I must say, some of the results are a lot different than I was expecting. But it's nice to know the SECAM 2600 is capable of producing more than just 8 colors.

[CatPix]

Do you have any of the specific Activision SECAM ports?

No...

 

How can I recognize it? I could use some Pitfall and Pitfall II or other title, but that would be useless if they are PAL versions...

[Rom Hunter]

These are the six known to exist VCS true SECAM releases from Activision:

http://www.atarimani...rmat=4&step=200

 

Recognized by the S sticker.

 

Infortunately, none of these were ever dumped, which really is a shame.

 

Besides the color palette, the text on screen was also different (in French).

 

 

Edited June 7, 2013 by Rom Hunter

[CatPix]

Nice!

 

I'll take a look to get those.

Atari games are rather cheap here, and there is probably just a handful of French players that ever heard about Secam versions of VCS games (and if they do, they won't buy them because they all have a 7800 to play with PAL colors).

I won't be able to dump them myself, I'll ask around me, I might know a friend that can do it.