sd cartridge for 7800?

[Trebor]

Chad shared some information regarding voltage and spikes when poking around the 7800 in development of the CC2. Sticking with an FPGA that had a core voltage of 5V appeared to work best, and avoided FPGAs that were "working near 5 volts" even if "5V tolerant", in caution of the aforementioned:

 

"As for replacing the FPGA with lower voltage alternatives, it's not quite that simple. Many low voltage parts are not TTL compatible, which requires level translators on the bus. This is expensive both in terms of parts cost and board space. (It's already packed to fit in a cartridge shell.) There are FPGAs that use a lower core voltage but are 5V tolerant, but they can't handle much in the way of spikes on their inputs when working near 5 volts. And I've seen a lot of spikes of various sorts while probing around Ataris so I decided not to go that route for reliability concerns."

 

Not sure how applicable it is or what exactly is under the hood for the Concerto, but maybe the above information will help.

 

Beef Drop uses the same detection method for sound as the updated Ms Pac 320 (I.E. Check $4000 and $0450, if nothing, then TIA). Perhaps it is something in the way the BIOS of the cart is interpreting the instructions/code. (?)

 

Curious too, if the POKEY played for both the updated Ms. Pac 320 and Beef Drop is playing back at $4000 or $0450 address space under the Concerto.

[Jinks]

I have some older computers will try the bios update that way. With enough work arounds the Concerto is unbrickable as is the harmony.

[Trebor]

Another item to note is faulty SRAM inside of 7800's was found to cause issues with the CC2.

 

Faulty MMC are an item with CC2, just to emphasize the need to try different SD cards with the Concerto, if that has not yet been attempted by any with issues.

 

Some history...

 

Beta testing for the CC2 started prior to Aug 2003.

Pre-orders for "production" CC2 were taking by the end of Jan 2004.

First mention of a pre-ordered production CC2 received was early May 2004.

Yet, updates and fixes continued during the end of Aug 2005 for the CC2.

 

Everyone's patience and cooperation is appreciated in understanding the time, effort, and support necessary for such a project.

[78001987]

That'

 

That is interesting. So it seems the POKEY works sufficiently to be detected and play music. This is probably a long shot, but I've wondered if maybe the power draw of adding the chip could be causing a problem. Maybe some of the variation people are seeing between consoles is related to the condition of the power components. Do you have any way to check the power supply voltage?

I'll see if I can borrow a multimeter from work, but this was tested with two different, genuine Atari 7800 PW supplies. and these worked previously with a CC2 with no problems. I can try another outlet, to see if there is an issue there.

[78001987]

Is Concerto preferable to a FAT16 or FAT32 formatted SD/MMC card? I've tried both, but the results appeared identical.

 

SDHC cards didn't work at all.

 

the MMC card I am testing with mostly was what I used with my Harmony cart, which worked flawlessly, and previously with a CC2 I sold years ago. The FAT32 SD card I have tested with is a 2GB standard SD card which I used in a Krikzz Master Everdrive, and Mega Everdrive with no issues.

Edited November 8, 2016 by 78001987

[Jinks]

I think fat32 is what it asks for. The harmony does.

[JATO]

It may be useful to note what cards you're using . I was gonna order some but was curious what others were using and their results with the cart . Anyone know what Batari is testing with ?

[Jinks]

Which ftdi drivers do you need for your computer to see the Concerto? my old laptop somehow does not work(battery hooped) and my other 2 xp computers are in the crawlspace. and the other 2 windows 10 computers wont see the card so they need the drivers. i tried ftdi of some sort and i think there are multiple ones. i think 232 or whatever is the harmony. not sure on the Concerto probably the same?

[Jinks]

Another item to note is faulty SRAM inside of 7800's was found to cause issues with the CC2.

 

Faulty MMC are an item with CC2, just to emphasize the need to try different SD cards with the Concerto, if that has not yet been attempted by any with issues.

 

Some history...

 

Beta testing for the CC2 started prior to Aug 2003.

Pre-orders for "production" CC2 were taking by the end of Jan 2004.

First mention of a pre-ordered production CC2 received was early May 2004.

Yet, updates and fixes continued during the end of Aug 2005 for the CC2.

 

Everyone's patience and cooperation is appreciated in understanding the time, effort, and support necessary for such a project.

I have a dozen sd cards ranging from 512mb to 32 gb and everything between. If your bios is corrupted none of that matters and you need to reflash with the usb.

For those that get the menu to come up I would suggest multiple cards to try. other than that it will be bios updates or chip revisions on the Concerto to fix the issues. Not much more to do unless the end user happens to be an electronics expert and knows all the code and schematics on the Concerto.

[CPUWIZ]

Send it back and wait.

[+batari]

Concertos have a FTDI FT231X chip for USB. They were sourced from Mouser and Digikey so I doubt they are fakes. Drivers here: http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm

 

The glob of solder on the board was for a resistor where I wasn't sure on the size that would work, but it turned out I needed zero ohms and had none, so I soldered a small wire on instead. So don't worry about that.

 

Today I tested ALL of my consoles and found no problems. However, I have one console that seems to have a power problem (with any cart, not just Concerto) and basically what it does is powers up, and the red power LED slowly dims. When it gets to a certain point the games start to do weird things for a while before crashing.

 

I thought I would ask what sort of PSUs the people with issues are using. Genuine Atari or an aftermarket one? Plus it is known that some video mods can suck power, so they could be contributing to the issue. Of course it would be great if Concerto worked in all cases and I don't know if power is the problem, but we don;t know if we don't ask.

[+-^CrossBow^-]

I thought I would ask what sort of PSUs the people with issues are using. Genuine Atari or an aftermarket one? Plus it is known that some video mods can suck power, so they could be contributing to the issue. Of course it would be great if Concerto worked in all cases and I don't know if power is the problem, but we don;t know if we don't ask.

 

Though I haven't a concerto, I thought I would mention that it was a possible thought in power being the reason why I changed out the 7805 in my 7800 with a 1amp output version instead and applied a 220uf filter cap to the +5 off joystick port 2 in hopes it would maybe help with my AVox+ resetting itself while playing Dungeon Stalker. My 7800 is AV modded with the LHE board in it.

 

Batari, is there someplace these guys could take some simple voltage measurments to see if there is any sort of pattern to this? And I'm talking about more than just at the +5 from the 7805 regulator. I'm not an engineer so I'm just curious.

[Jinks]

I am using 2 rf 7800's and tried 2 different power supplies both atari brand.

Thanks for the info on the ftdi chip.

Will try that and see if that helps.

[toiletunes]

^{My first system was using an Atariguide power supply- this console didn't cooperate with the cart (cart is from the first batch). The replacement console uses a third party power supply (auvio, output 9V 1.5A), this console Usually works- not 100% but better than the first console. It also has some kind of A/V mod. I usually use RF, but haven't noticed any difference in compatibility when switching over to composite. Also, cart has Pokey installed.}

^{Hope that helps, let me know if there's anything you want me to test.}

Edited November 9, 2016 by toiletunes

[Everett1954]

I am using a Genuine Atari power supply but I do have a Longhorn Engineer Board installed.

 

Batari, so of all the 12 consoles you have, you have had no problems with the Cartridges at all on any of them?

 

What size, type, brand and class SD card do you test them with?

 

I am willing to send you my console if it will help solve the problem. Please check my other PM's to you

[Andromeda Stardust]

Chad shared some information regarding voltage and spikes when poking around the 7800 in development of the CC2. Sticking with an FPGA that had a core voltage of 5V appeared to work best, and avoided FPGAs that were "working near 5 volts" even if "5V tolerant", in caution of the aforementioned:

 

"As for replacing the FPGA with lower voltage alternatives, it's not quite that simple. Many low voltage parts are not TTL compatible, which requires level translators on the bus. This is expensive both in terms of parts cost and board space. (It's already packed to fit in a cartridge shell.) There are FPGAs that use a lower core voltage but are 5V tolerant, but they can't handle much in the way of spikes on their inputs when working near 5 volts. And I've seen a lot of spikes of various sorts while probing around Ataris so I decided not to go that route for reliability concerns."

 

Not sure how applicable it is or what exactly is under the hood for the Concerto, but maybe the above information will help.

 

Beef Drop uses the same detection method for sound as the updated Ms Pac 320 (I.E. Check $4000 and $0450, if nothing, then TIA). Perhaps it is something in the way the BIOS of the cart is interpreting the instructions/code. (?)

 

Curious too, if the POKEY played for both the updated Ms. Pac 320 and Beef Drop is playing back at $4000 or $0450 address space under the Concerto.

Trebor, if voltage dips and spikes in the Atari's are a problem, would simply hooking a big ass electrolytic cap to the system voltage rail either on the main PCB or the cartridge port smooth things out? The 22uF cap on the Pokey socket didn't help on my end.

 

There's plenty of room under the 7800 metallic shielding for a large can, however I think increasing the power filter cap value beyond a certain point will face diminishing returns and potentially create a large inrush current which could damage or stress the 7805 regulator. Also if the capacitor sinks too much current on boot it could cause a brownout condition as the system powers on potentially resulting in failure to properly initialize the components.

 

 

 

Though I haven't a concerto, I thought I would mention that it was a possible thought in power being the reason why I changed out the 7805 in my 7800 with a 1amp output version instead and applied a 220uf filter cap to the +5 off joystick port 2 in hopes it would maybe help with my AVox+ resetting itself while playing Dungeon Stalker. My 7800 is AV modded with the LHE board in it.

 

Batari, is there someplace these guys could take some simple voltage measurments to see if there is any sort of pattern to this? And I'm talking about more than just at the +5 from the 7805 regulator. I'm not an engineer so I'm just curious.

Pins 7 and 8 of either controller port would do to test the +5V supply without opening the console. Be extremely careful not to short the pins with your multimeter probes or you could blow the 7805 regulator. Better if you use a controller cable and test from there.

 

Also bear in mind many logic chips have response times measured in nanoseconds, and all motherboard traces or wires have some amount of stray resistance, inductance, and capacitance, so sudden changes in load may create a momentary voltage spike or dip sufficient to crash a CPU or temporarily put some TTL or CMOS logic chip into an inoperable state. These dips and spikes won't show up without an actual logic probe and may be local to a specific area of the PCB or cart bus.

[Andromeda Stardust]

I think fat32 is what it asks for. The harmony does.

The SD card in my pre-Encore Haromony cart is FAT formatted (not FAT32) and everything works flawlessly.

[Jinks]

I wish my daughter would quit doing her homework on the computer. I need it to screw with my Concerto!!!

A+ average student tho in grade 9. Yeah I am fn proud!! Helped I smashed her iphone to get her motivated!

Like to say thanks to Batari for making this. Please do not get discouraged we will get this eventually!!

[Jinks]

The SD card in my pre-Encore Haromony cart is FAT formatted (not FAT32) and everything works flawlessly.

Are you calling me FAT?

[Andromeda Stardust]

Are you calling me FAT?

I don't think FAT even begins to describe it...

[Jinks]

So plugging it into a computer with a beats headphone usb cord the computer sees it as concerto prge device.

So yeah if anyone is having trouble connecting to the computer try another cable as many cables nowadays only do charging.

[78001987]

So, we've talked about power condition possibly affecting Concerto compatibility - and besides av mods, what else could change the power output enough to affect this?

 

Would having an alternate colored LED installed affect it?

 

would an outlet being not grounded properly cause this?

 

what else environmentally can we do to test alternate scenarios?

[toiletunes]

As a way to get organized, we should all use the same romset- that way, any differences in behavior can be compared accurately. Also (probably obvious) I noticed when Concerto starts acting up, a good cleaning helps somewhat.

[Jinks]

Here is the error I am getting when I try to load the eprom to the concerto.

I as using the bios bin file. Anyone give me tips on what I am doing wrong or where the exact location or the eeprom loader I should use? The instuctions seem clear as mud. The second part for copy bios what is that doing? Do I already have the sd card with the bios on it(which I do) What does each line or the tool need to see and wth does it do?

Any help would be appreciated. Spent the day on this so far.

Also if you want 2600 games how does that work? Same bios just load a 2600 game and it will go out of 7800 mode and reset?

[Jinks]

Anyone know anything about the harmony? They would have answers to these questions I have as well.

The cart only has 32kb and I dont know how a 333kb bios and fit on the cart. Thats maybe the problem it is having.

Hoping to get it working this weekend.

Going to get drunk now so I stop screwing with it and maybe try it tomorrow if anyone can provide any answers to these seemingly simple questions.