RetroN 77

[Coolcrab]

I'd also add that if the R77 is ever updated with SDL2 and Stella 5, it could probably also be upped to 1080p output. I suspect the current 720p limit is again because of software rendering and no acceleration. If hardware acceleration became available, for Stella jumping from 720p to 1080p would be a minuscule difference of CPU/GPU usage.

 

On my systems, there is no difference in CPU usage when running Stella at 800x600 vs. 3840x2160. Video output is a solved problem; use the 3D acceleration present in every piece of hardware released in the past 10+ years.

Do you have any contact with them? Do you know if they are planning on doing it? Or is Hyperkin dropping this like the reteon5 and running away?

[Thomas Jentzsch]

I think their further investments may also depend on the sales.

[AtariLeaf]

I think their further investments may also depend on the sales.

 

If that's the case it's a self fulfilling prophecy. I would think the sales were small at best. We're talking about a very niche product directed at a very niche crowd and then cutting yourself off at the knees by only selling to those in the United States initially. I haven't been paying enough attention after how badly this thing stumbled out of the gate to see if and/or when international sales will even begin. I can say though that I won't be buying one until I see proof that Hyperkin has completely fixed these problems and IF they are waiting to see how sales are before bothering to address them then this thing will fail. Why would someone like me buy one here in Canada (which I can almost guarantee will be closer to $100 Canadian plus shipping) without confirmation of the fixed problems?

 

EDIT - just checked Best Buy and yep $99.99. At that price point, unless this thing is 100% fixed no thanks I'll wait and see what the Flashback 9 has.

 

https://www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/product/atari-retron-77-hd-gaming-console-for-atari-2600-m07280/12852000.aspx?

Edited July 29, 2018 by AtariLeaf

[gorfcadet]

My concern is that the system getting to casual buyers as it currently is will encourage the mistaken thought that carts that don't work are broken or defective and lead to owners throwing away working carts or the kids who work at retro shops just putting returns in the rubbish pile when they are returned. Most shops do just that with return carts the customers claim don't work.

We obviously aren't the problem, but the R77 is now at the Gamexchange in my area, so its fair to think casuals will be getting their hands on these in numbers soon.

[DirtyHairy]

Do you have any contact with them? Do you know if they are planning on doing it? Or is Hyperkin dropping this like the reteon5 and running away?

 

 

I have exchanged a few mails with them, mainly with questions on technical details (UART pinout, flashing the MCUs, licensing details, ...) and have also pointed out an issue with the current SD card images that prevents MacOS from reading them. They have responded politely (and they had kindly shipped my a test unit in advance), but I have not received any concise answers so far, and the SD card image is still broken on MacOS (I determined the UART pinout by trial and error). I have no idea how much support the product will receive from their side in the future.

Edited July 29, 2018 by DirtyHairy

[+xucaen]

If anyone following this thread is interested, I'm offering my r77 for sale in the marketplace forum.

[+stephena]

Do you have any contact with them? Do you know if they are planning on doing it? Or is Hyperkin dropping this like the reteon5 and running away?

 

Not after sending the initial sample product. I have sent messages indicating how to go about integrating Stella 3.9.3 into their build environment (basically the instructions I included in this thread), but with no response. I suppose they don't need to respond, since they can read the updates here as well as anyone else. But not hearing anything is a bit weird. Perhaps they are very busy with the initial shipments.

 

As I've said to several other people, I don't 'have their ear' or anything like that. I'm in no position to make any changes or know what they are doing in the future. I am no different than any other end-user.

[Noah98]

We have a retro game store in the local mall and they are now carrying the Retron77. They had the system hooked up to a monitor running frogger stretched to 16:9. Looked terrible, and the monitor wasn't the greatest, so a little blurry.

 

After careful consideration, I've decided to pass on this. Having to wait for a joystick that doesn't break after five minutes of use, fixed cartridge compatibility issues, and firmware that doesn't randomly corrupt is just not worth it. Maybe if these issues get corrected, or the price drops significantly, I'll give it a second look. It's a shame because this was a must buy for me if it just worked out of the box. A cheap, simple solution for HD 2600 games is still a great idea.

 

So instead, I decicded to install Stella on my living room pc (connected to our main tv for family gaming). Not as quick and easy a solution as a dedicated system, but after a few clicks, I can play all of the games in stunning quality. The only thing I need now is a USB 2600 joystick adapter so I can get the Atari feel when playing. Modern joystick work fine, but the experience loses something without an atari joystick. Ironically, I prefer the AtGames Atari joysticks when playing on my real systems (after glueing the sticks so they don't screw off).

 

Maybe AtGames will provide a better experience and I will invest in their product, but for now I already have a way to play 2600 games on a modern tv without all of the compromises.

Edited July 29, 2018 by Noah98

[+remowilliams]

I've made some small changes that I think have a fairly significant impact in using the R77. What these changes do (and nothing else hopefully):

 

* any rom selected from the Hyperkin UI will launch Stella into its launcher/rom selection UI where you can then browse through your roms using Stella itself. This of course means you are free to use subdirectories and have a much saner rom management/selection experience. I've changed the bindings to allow page up/down with the joystick here as well. Pressing Fry here will move you one directory upwards.

 

* pressing the Fry button while a rom is running will cause Stella to exit to its launcher/rom selection UI - so now you can play multiple roms without having to switch the darn thing on and off physically. If you need to reenter the Hyperkin launcher you can plug a cart in/out of the system. Plugging in a cart to run it functions normally - note that pressing the Fry button while you are using a cart is not going to do anything helpful.

 

Note these changes come with no warranties expressed or implied, and are not supported by anyone. This is built using the r77_gui_v0.9-3-hyperkin and Stella-3.9.3 releases. If someone wants to test this image, PM me.

 

Thanks to stephena for kindly lending me some of his time so that I was able to achieve my goals without inelegantly hacking into Stella itself

[thetick1]

 

As several people have already mentioned, it's not a matter of the hardware not being up to the task; it is more than sufficient. The extra costs would have been from extra development time to get SDL2 working on this system. I've already outlined how to do it; now Hyperkin needs to actually get to doing it.

 

My point is Hyperkin chose hardware based on the extremely cheap price. They were ok picking an older design missing hardware acceleration which in my opinion is an extremely short minded stupid decision. So actually it is technically a software port for an older almost obsolete hardware design. For an extreme example my 486 based 1992 Thinkpad 500 with 8M of RAM does run linux (2.0.X kernel) and with lots and lots effort could in theory boot a hacked up modern kernel if you rip out the need for an MMU and lots of other features in the modern Linux kernel. But WHY spend all time developing ?

 

I think Hyperkin's effort could be better spent designing with newer hardware that already supports video hardware acceleration right now. And your time, Stephena, is much better spent supporting the latest 5.X Stella. And finally to Stephena and all the contributing developers thanks for all your efforts over the years with Stella.

 

BTW I worked on hardware, firmware and hardware designs of custom PPC SOC embedded controllers back in the late 90's. I know a bit about recompiling, fixing headers, porting, developing kernel drivers, ripping out and/or fixing the kernel for the limitations of the simpler hardware designs. Though I am bit dated as I have not done much of this type of work after the early 200Xs.

Edited July 29, 2018 by thetick1

[DirtyHairy]

 

My point is Hyperkin chose hardware based on the extremely cheap price. They were ok picking an older design missing hardware acceleration which in my opinion is an extremely short minded stupid decision. So actually it is technically a software port for an older almost obsolete hardware design. For an extreme example my 486 based 1992 Thinkpad 500 with 8M of RAM does run linux (2.0.X kernel) and with lots and lots effort could in theory boot a hacked up modern kernel if you rip out the need for an MMU and lots of other features in the modern Linux kernel. But WHY spend all time developing ?

 

I think Hyperkin's effort could be better spent designing with newer hardware that already supports video hardware acceleration right now. And your time, Stephena, is much better spent supporting the latest 5.X Stella. And finally to Stephena and all the contributing developers thanks for all your efforts over the years with Stella.

 

BTW I worked on hardware, firmware and hardware designs of custom PPC SOC embedded controllers back in the late 90's. I know a bit about recompiling, fixing headers, porting, developing kernel drivers, ripping out and/or fixing the kernel for the limitations of the simpler hardware designs. Though I am bit dated as I have not done much of this type of work after the early 200Xs.

 

 

I reiterate: the hardware supports 3D acceleration out of the box on linux, no tweaking required. The issue with SDL2 is that it requires X11 on linux. In order to use it without an X11 userland you have to patch it and stub out everything that requires a window manager — that‘s what the backend for the raspberry pi framebuffer does, and that‘s what the fork Stephen linked in the wiki implements. So, it‘s either X11 or a patched build of SDL2. Using X11 would have meant a considerably more complicated firmware setup, including a linux partition on the SD card (the current setup runs directly from the initramfs).

 

So, what I think happened that they just went the way of least resistance, which meant running SDL1 directly on the framebuffer and choosing a version of Stella that runs on top of it. Everything else would have meant more effort, and different hardware would not have changed this.

Edited July 29, 2018 by DirtyHairy

[Atari Pixel]

Sorry to bother you stephena but I am trying to connect a USB to Serial TTL (P2303) adapter to the debug port and don't know where to connect the 5V cable (from the usb adapter). Do I need that to setup a terminal connection?

Edited July 29, 2018 by Atari Pixel

[DirtyHairy]

Sorry to bother you stephena but I am trying to connect a USB to Serial TTL (P2303) adapter to the debug port and don't know where to connect the 5V cable (from the usb adapter). Do I need that to setup a terminal connection?

 

 

Bother me instead, I am the one who figured out the UART No need to connect 5V (or 3.3V for that matter). Check the sketch in the wiki for the pinout and connect GND -> GND, RX -> TX, TX -> RX. Use your favorite terminal emulator (I use picocom) at 115200bps to get you a terminal (you'll have to press enter if the R77 is already running to get a prompt). Oh, and no guarantees that it will not blow up your device

Edited July 29, 2018 by DirtyHairy

[+stephena]

I haven't actually set my converter up yet. It's on my desk here ATM, but I haven't found time to actually crack open the case and solder it on. Perhaps DirtyHairy can answer this, since he has soldered one in. In fact, he's the one that instructed me how to do it

 

EDIT: Ninja'ed by DirtyHairy

[Atari Pixel]

Thanks guys. I hooked the adapter [didn't work] ...

 

EDIT: Never mind. Got it working (wrong drivers). Thanks again!

 

Edited July 29, 2018 by Atari Pixel

[Andromeda Stardust]

I'd also add that if the R77 is ever updated with SDL2 and Stella 5, it could probably also be upped to 1080p output. I suspect the current 720p limit is again because of software rendering and no acceleration. If hardware acceleration became available, for Stella jumping from 720p to 1080p would be a minuscule difference of CPU/GPU usage.

 

On my systems, there is no difference in CPU usage when running Stella at 800x600 vs. 3840x2160. Video output is a solved problem; use the 3D acceleration present in every piece of hardware released in the past 10+ years.

Past ten years is too much credit. Hardware acceleration (Open GL) has been around well over 20 years. I was running N64 games at 1600x1200 pixels on a 400Mhz Celeron (128Mb RAM) and ATI 16Mb AGP video card. The PC was built in 1999 though I was actually running a 2004 build of 1964.

 

Why am I bringing this up? The Retron77 is loads more powerful than that PC I built in 1999, which also had 3D hardware acceleration. I have no idea if Stella 5 would run on it (doubtful), but I'm positive it would definitely run on my 2003 Athlon XP rig.

[Andromeda Stardust]

 

If that's the case it's a self fulfilling prophecy. I would think the sales were small at best. We're talking about a very niche product directed at a very niche crowd and then cutting yourself off at the knees by only selling to those in the United States initially. I haven't been paying enough attention after how badly this thing stumbled out of the gate to see if and/or when international sales will even begin. I can say though that I won't be buying one until I see proof that Hyperkin has completely fixed these problems and IF they are waiting to see how sales are before bothering to address them then this thing will fail. Why would someone like me buy one here in Canada (which I can almost guarantee will be closer to $100 Canadian plus shipping) without confirmation of the fixed problems?

 

EDIT - just checked Best Buy and yep $99.99. At that price point, unless this thing is 100% fixed no thanks I'll wait and see what the Flashback 9 has.

 

https://www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/product/atari-retron-77-hd-gaming-console-for-atari-2600-m07280/12852000.aspx?

At least it IS being distributed in Canada....

[dgdgagdae]

Fry's Electronics is selling them. I'm on their marketing email list, and they sent a $10 off promo code for them this weekend.

[Keatah]

Past ten years is too much credit. Hardware acceleration (Open GL) has been around well over 20 years. I was running N64 games at 1600x1200 pixels on a 400Mhz Celeron (128Mb RAM) and ATI 16Mb AGP video card. The PC was built in 1999 though I was actually running a 2004 build of 1964.

 

Why am I bringing this up? The Retron77 is loads more powerful than that PC I built in 1999, which also had 3D hardware acceleration. I have no idea if Stella 5 would run on it (doubtful), but I'm positive it would definitely run on my 2003 Athlon XP rig.

 

It isn't necessarily a question of MHz and GHz, but, rather, a question of the supported instruction sets. Stella 5 won't run on my vintage PIII machine no matter how fast it is!

[thetick1]

 

It isn't necessarily a question of MHz and GHz, but, rather, a question of the supported instruction sets. Stella 5 won't run on my vintage PIII machine no matter how fast it is!

 

That's not really the case. Any unsupported instructions can always be emulated through the performance could be extremely poor. Or an easier way is to recompile all the Stella code and dependencies optimized for the PIII.

Edited July 30, 2018 by thetick1

[Keatah]

That's not really the case. Any unsupported instructions can always be emulated through the performance could be extremely poor. Or an easier way is to recompile all the Stella code and dependencies optimized for the PIII.

 

In theory, sure, it's what emulators are all about. In reality I don't see an available binary that works on the PIII. As a busy user I'm not likely going to be setting up a compile environment. Not these days anyways.

[AtariLeaf]

At least it IS being distributed in Canada....

 

This is what you took from my post? Of course I knew it would be eventually. That's not the point. The point is their supposed desire to wait until sales hit some magic number before they bother fixing anything. Why would I spend $100 on broken junk that I need to McGyver before I can even make it "kind of" work properly. Ironically, it was your video that really gave me serious doubts about this thing.

[SIO2]

 

Why would I spend $100 on broken junk that I need to McGyver before I can even make it "kind of" work properly.

Not very nice for a new retail package is it?

 

I have spent real money on broken things before but I knew up front they were broken. In those cases, I just wanted the challenge of fixing them. In the case of the Retron 77 being a brand new item - you don't really expect to have to dink with it. They should have put the SD card reader in the H corner for ease of access rather than round the back since it is a frequently accessed item.

[+stephena]

Past ten years is too much credit. Hardware acceleration (Open GL) has been around well over 20 years.

 

This only proves my point even more The hardware is actually capable of running Stella 5. The graphical effects in Stella that require hardware acceleration are not onerous. Stella could perhaps work with OpenGL 2.0; it doesn't really use any features past that. So it's not so much as needing a newest version of Direct3D or OpenGL, but need hardware acceleration at all. Once you make the jump from software rendering to hardware rendering, that's all that Stella really needs. Guaranteed vsync updates and stretching textures. Very basic stuff for Direct3D/OpenGL, but extremely hard for software rendering.

[+stephena]

 

It isn't necessarily a question of MHz and GHz, but, rather, a question of the supported instruction sets. Stella 5 won't run on my vintage PIII machine no matter how fast it is!

 

I suspect this is an issue with Visual Studio 2017 (the development environment I use in Windows). It phases out older systems from time to time. Look for WinXP support to be dropped next, perhaps in the next year or so.

 

Note that nothing in Stella is causing this; we're not making use of CPU features that only exist in newer CPUs. It is strictly a Visual Studio issue. Complain to Microsoft about it

 

OSX has similar issues. They exclude older OS's in almost every new major release of Xcode (their development environment). Again, nothing in Stella is causing that. Complain to Apple about that one.

 

Long story short: I can only work with the tools that the platforms provide. If they mark something as obsolete, there's nothing I can do about it on my end.