sd cartridge for 7800?

[+batari]

The reboot feature is not working properly yet, so if you see the message, the update was applied.

 

Thanks for the numbers... I have not yet found any pattern to the issues though.

[+grips03]

add me to the list

[Andromeda Stardust]

The reboot feature is not working properly yet, so if you see the message, the update was applied.

 

Thanks for the numbers... I have not yet found any pattern to the issues though.

Then why does it still say v0.5 on the menu if I flashed the October 24th update?

 

Also did you still want my 7800 for testing? I sent you a PM but you haven't replied yet.

[Laner]

 

That's useful to know. So what was the one that didn't work, and what was the one that did?

 

The one that didn't work is a Transcend 4GB SDHC card; the one that did is a Kingston 2GB SD card. I don't think I have any more plain SD cards lying around, but I'll check my other SDHC cards and see if any of them work.

[Everett1954]

Kosmic,

 

After the "This is software in progress screen and you hit the fire button to get to your menu screen, you should see Concerto Firmware 0.91 at the top of the screen.

 

Unlike yours, most of my games load and do play...some freeze , i have had a few hang during the load process. I am going to do some more research to make a list.

 

I have not tried 2600 roms or any home-brew 7800 titles, only the official atari/third party roms and most of them work. I noticed I have no sound on Ballblazer but i do not have a Pokey installed.

 

So it appears mine has the latest firmware. Fred i noticed my cartridge case has two marks (inserts?)on both sides of the SD slot and a mark by the usb slot. What are these and are they holding the cartridge together? (yes i see the screw). I want to open (not break!) the case. I ordered a Pokey of Ebay to install (don't own 7800 BallBlazer or Commando)

 

Thanks

[+batari]

Then why does it still say v0.5 on the menu if I flashed the October 24th update?

 

Also did you still want my 7800 for testing? I sent you a PM but you haven't replied yet.

Sorry I haven't looked at PMs yet today. Will get to that in a bit.

 

0.5 is the bootloader version, which hasn't changed in a while.

[ApolloBoy]

Not to go off-topic but that AV mod looks hideous.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Not to go off-topic but that AV mod looks hideous.

"Best" Electronics installed it. The 7800 also had warranty stickers and little red wax plugs (from what I assume was a candle) over the screw holes. They really didn't want me to go in there but I eventually had to break the seals to tweak the color tuning on the 2600 TIA output because the hue was noticeably off on 2600 games. Somewhere I took a photo of the wax plugs I dug out of three of the screw holes...

 

In case anyone missed it, here's the "Best" AV mod in it's full glory:

 

It doesn't show up that well in the photo I took, but the little transistor has it's center pin straight down into the PCB and the little side arms unfolded like wings at 90 degree angles, one of them connecting to a resistor floating in mid air which connects to the center pin of the composite cable. The other side pin connects to another resistor that jumps to a pin on a nearby IC. And the resistors an other components pulled up and connected to various locations. Notice the little teepee made from the center audio tap connected to two upright resistors and a piece of what looks like 30awg magnet wrapping wire connected to another spot on the board. Best claimed that no actual traces on the PCB were cut meaning the mod is 100% reversible. Well it would be except the RF box and channel switch are completely gone...

 

Anyway shoddy mod work aside, the AV output is pristine picture and the sound is balanced between the Pokey and TIA sound. As they say, if it ain't broke, don't fix it!

[Andromeda Stardust]

Kosmic,

 

After the "This is software in progress screen and you hit the fire button to get to your menu screen, you should see Concerto Firmware 0.91 at the top of the screen.

 

Unlike yours, most of my games load and do play...some freeze , i have had a few hang during the load process. I am going to do some more research to make a list.

 

I have not tried 2600 roms or any home-brew 7800 titles, only the official atari/third party roms and most of them work. I noticed I have no sound on Ballblazer but i do not have a Pokey installed.

 

So it appears mine has the latest firmware. Fred i noticed my cartridge case has two marks (inserts?)on both sides of the SD slot and a mark by the usb slot. What are these and are they holding the cartridge together? (yes i see the screw). I want to open (not break!) the case. I ordered a Pokey of Ebay to install (don't own 7800 BallBlazer or Commando)

 

Thanks

So in other words, once a game successfully boots, it runs fine on your end? Good to know.

 

I cannot explain the corruption, glitches, and crashing I'm experiencing on my end. It's like every 7800 ROM is bad, yet the symptoms, which vary from game to game, is somewhat consistent when I load the same ROM multiple times. It may be in the games that appear to run fine I just haven't played far enough to break it. I would expect most "supported" games would boot successfully and run error free, and "unsupported" games crash immediately with a black screen, rather than after the title screen or early in the first stage.

 

My Concerto doesn't crash or glitch out on any of the 2600 ROMs I've tried. Most homebrews with standard mappers work fine as long as they don't use fancy hardware. Pitfall II, Supercharger, DPC+ and other exotic mappers don't work though they load fine on my original Harmony cart. I suspect getting 2600 games with advanced mappers running is low priority until Batari can squash other bugs regarding the 7800 side of things. I would imagine most Concerto owners already have a Harmony or Encore they can use to run 2600 games.

 

And I never had any issues running 2600 games on my Harmony in my 7800, even those for which the original carts had known compatibility issues with the 7800.

[78001987]

Tested mine a bit last night. Nothing would load from my 16gb SDHC card. I also had an old 256mb MMC card from my Harmony cart. I dumped all my 7800 roms on it and everything worked except bon-q, but that might be a bad rom. No freezing that I saw, and most games I played through a few levels. I'll do more testing tonight, but all is well here.

[Trebor]

I've got the younger sister from Best, Stardust:

 

 

It's the very next unit produced right after yours.

 

After I receive a Concerto, I'll test it on my Best Composite Mod, my Yurkie with Long Horn Eng. mod, my Electronic Sentimentalities Long Horn Eng. mod, and one of my Standard RF units. They range with the serials of AT84 though A3 (No 'X' serial though, that one was fried).

 

Interestingly, and recently reviewing a Composite mod summary, I noticed this:

 

[Thanks to http://www.coolretroprojects.com/]

 

There's a 5V line coming into play here, on at least some of the video mods. Curious what, if any, impact it has on the system(s) and the result(s).

[78001987]

I also have an un-video modded 7800, I will test with that one tonight as well.

 

the one I tested with last night has the easier composite mod from the forum here. (essentially the same as the Best mod)

Edited November 1, 2016 by 78001987

[+Rick Reynolds]

MOD.PNG

[Thanks to http://www.coolretroprojects.com/]

 

There's a 5V line coming into play here, on at least some of the video mods. Curious what, if any, impact it has on the system(s) and the result(s).

I applied the coolretroprojects.com mod to my 7800. The audio needed to be balanced (I was able to add a resistor to the TIA output to tone it down to be more on the level of the POKEY audio), but the overall mod is good. I'm able to use my Concerto for many games - I haven't done a thorough investigation at all and I'm not at home now so I can't post my model/serial numbers at the moment either.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Edited November 1, 2016 by Rick Reynolds

[funknflow5200]

Then why does it still say v0.5 on the menu if I flashed the October 24th update?

 

Also did you still want my 7800 for testing? I sent you a PM but you haven't replied yet.

Stardust I'm assuming you've now tried several different SD cards? my concerto wouldn't work just right until I used a regular SD not SDHC.

I still have some issues form time to time with my concerto that I've had for over a year, but for the most part I'd say it's 95% compatible with a a few hiccups here and there. most of the time when loading 2600 games, you need to try it a few times, like it's stuck in a mode or something- and the smallest 2600 games have the hardest time loading.

[SIO2]

Just curious but I notice that the serial number stickers on those Best machines have square corners. Seems like all the units I have seen have rounded corners.

 

Maybe Best creates their own label as part of the restore.

[Trebor]

Just curious but I notice that the serial number stickers on those Best machines have square corners. Seems like all the units I have seen have rounded corners.

 

Maybe Best creates their own label as part of the restore.

 

Likely a fresh label is part of the restoration process.

 

In addition to the serial number being consecutive, considering that both consoles have a PCB revision of "C025233-002 REV A" makes them likely very close, if not back-to-back, in production.

[+DrVenkman]

I've been busy with work and other stuff for awhile and delighted to come back just in time to see Concerto news in these last couple weeks! Sorry to hear of the life issues, Batari, but very glad to know there's real progress on Concerto. I am very much looking forward to getting hands on one of these when they become more widely available. Thank you for all you have done and continue to do for the community.

[Andromeda Stardust]

I've got the younger sister from Best, Stardust:

 

A1_BEST.png

 

It's the very next unit produced right after yours.

 

 

 

Likely a fresh label is part of the restoration process.

 

In addition to the serial number being consecutive, considering that both consoles have a PCB revision of "C025233-002 REV A" makes them likely very close, if not back-to-back, in production.

 

Well I'll be... Small world we live in huh?

[+sramirez2008]

This is what's so cool about identifying our serial numbers, etc.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Stardust I'm assuming you've now tried several different SD cards? my concerto wouldn't work just right until I used a regular SD not SDHC.

I still have some issues form time to time with my concerto that I've had for over a year, but for the most part I'd say it's 95% compatible with a a few hiccups here and there. most of the time when loading 2600 games, you need to try it a few times, like it's stuck in a mode or something- and the smallest 2600 games have the hardest time loading.

Two very old 2Gb FAT formatted cards, and one Class 10 8Gb with FAT32. One of the older cards (which originally shipped with my DSi) was so slow it took over an hour to copy over 40Mb worth of ROMs...

 

Same symptoms on all three cards.

[78001987]

Is your 7800 plugged into a power strip with other devices, or directly into the wall outlet?

 

I've occasionally seen crashing and lock up issues on my 7800s with real, 100% genuine commercial 7800 carts, when they are sharing a power strip with other large wall wart plugs for other gaming systems. giving it clean, un-shared power might help.

[Everett1954]

So I have tried a lot of SD cards myself from 32GB Class 10 to 4GB class 4 with the same results. I will check if I have a regular SD card not a SDHC. Is everyone running the latest firmware or an older version?

 

To me it appears like a Power/Initialization or timing problem. Sometimes when I power on I get a video loss of sync, or a blank menu screen. Menu wiill show no games and page 000 of 000. Somethings the games come up having missing or distorted graphics elements.

 

They will freeze at some point and sometimes once they load a get a black screen. Sometimes the screen and the sound just goes crazy.

 

The 2600 games play fine on Concerto and my Harmony Encore works fine on my 7800 as do all my regular carts. All the ROMs work fine in my Raspberry Pie.

 

I have an A3 serial number, made in Taiwan with a LongHorn Video mod.

 

Anything left to try?

[RevEng]

My Concerto doesn't crash or glitch out on any of the 2600 ROMs I've tried. Most homebrews with standard mappers work fine as long as they don't use fancy hardware. Pitfall II, Supercharger, DPC+ and other exotic mappers don't work though they load fine on my original Harmony cart.

2600 games run at a slower clock speed, which could make things work in spite of the issue.

 

I don't suppose you have a scope to look at the power and cart bus lines, do you?

[78001987]

So I've tried two different bonQ roms now, both have the same issue. The game loads to the www.atariage.com splash page, then locks.

 

This time I used the latest rom posted on the Kens classics page. I might try a few older wip roms to see if they load.

[RevEng]

I don't really know if this is pertinent, but just in case it gives batari a clue on Concerto bon*q incompatibility... The bon*q ROM I looked at has ROM at $4000, and also tries to write to $4000+. (likely it's checking to see if a POKEY is present.)