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RetroN 77


jeremiahjt

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Tacos are things that people like, that exist now, that you can enjoy without a preorder. Contrast that with "AtariBox," which has always been mystery meat, an annoying tease of a vaporware product which may never come to fruition, and even if it does, it won't live up to the fun old Atari legacy.

 

Chameleon was never very well defined, nor did it have a management or hardware team that was capable of delivering anything like what they promised. The spec was always changing, and the Coleco name only came into the picture in the second round after crowdfunding for "Retro VGS" crashed hard. If you missed that part of the story, you missed a big part of the fun. Mike Kennedy's account on here is "Parrothead" and unlike the current Atari management, he showed up from time to time to talk about his thing.

 

He also talked about the Coleco Chameleon, WaaaHaaa! :lol:

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Well, after catching up on the past 20 pages of this topic my head is spinning. I also have a strange craving for tacos. With that said, here's my main concern. After reading some of your posts I'm worried the Retron 77 won't support the Harmony cart. When I first talked to the developer of this console at E3 he told me that he knew this is something many potential buyers would want from his product. However after reading some of your posts it seems like it's technically not feasible. Can anyone clarify this issue once and for all? Just spell it out for me because I'm honestly confused.

 

Another reason I ask this question is because Hyperkin has usually been against the use of flash carts. I remember back in the day when the company was doing demos of the Retron 5 here in LA. Back then it was just an unfinished product in hidden inside a black box. I asked one of the devs if it would support flash carts like the Ever Drive. He actually seemed a bit offended and gave me a long spiel about how they would never support such devices because they were dedicated to the integrity of the retro gaming community. I understood his position even if I did not agree with it.

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Yeah, it makes sense if you think about how it works for a second.

 

Emulator-based cartridge dumpers (Retro 5, Sega Genesis Flashback, Retron77) won't work with flash cartridges because they're reading the ROM off the cartridge and temporarily storing it. Why this is preferable to just running a ROM is a question for the diehard collectors here.

 

System on a chip or FPGA systems will work with flash cartridges because they run the cartridge directly. So things like StarFox or Pitfall 2 with special chips onboard can be supported.

 

Either one should be able to load software ROMs from removable storage like a SDcard, so long that the software and hardware support it. Personally, that's what I prefer.

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Unless I'm mistaken, I thought a long time ago they claimed a Harmony would work, Or that they got one to work or something.

 

But a long time ago I like to think I said No way in Hell! And I have no technical knowledge so I must have been just acting cool or pretending I know something haha! Regardless, they never mentioned it again. And although that would be the most Amazing/Cool thing in the Universe, I think that it's a long shot at best...

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Unless I'm mistaken, I thought a long time ago they claimed a Harmony would work, Or that they got one to work or something.

 

But a long time ago I like to think I said No way in Hell! And I have no technical knowledge so I must have been just acting cool or pretending I know something haha! Regardless, they never mentioned it again. And although that would be the most Amazing/Cool thing in the Universe, I think that it's a long shot at best...

I recall they suggested compatibility would be nice but later at a trade show they pretty much said NO. Either way if based on Stella Emulator sounds like it will use the dumping ROM into emulator method which never works with flashcarts.

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I recall they suggested compatibility would be nice but later at a trade show they pretty much said NO. Either way if based on Stella Emulator sounds like it will use the dumping ROM into emulator method which never works with flashcarts.

 

 

Probably won't work with the Supercharger or Cuttle Cart either then, crap.

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I recall they suggested compatibility would be nice but later at a trade show they pretty much said NO. Either way if based on Stella Emulator sounds like it will use the dumping ROM into emulator method which never works with flashcarts.

Actually it could work. You wuld have to intrface the flash cart to dump the entire sd card. Then you emulate the flashcart menu interface to load the roms off the massive data dump in software. Dumping the larger cards might take days though at standard bus speeds. :dunce:

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That's rhetorical, I guess ...since no one is making a living from Stella emulation.

Somewhat rhetorical, but maybe I should have said "sweat off of someone's brow"... using a new version of Stella and ignoring licensing issues.. much like they did with the Retron 5.

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Another reason I ask this question is because Hyperkin has usually been against the use of flash carts. I remember back in the day when the company was doing demos of the Retron 5 here in LA. Back then it was just an unfinished product in hidden inside a black box. I asked one of the devs if it would support flash carts like the Ever Drive. He actually seemed a bit offended and gave me a long spiel about how they would never support such devices because they were dedicated to the integrity of the retro gaming community. I understood his position even if I did not agree with it.

 

It was just an excuse.

 

The gobbledygook about legal concerns with the Retron 5 supporting multicarts was an easier explanation than explaining that the way their hardware worked actually made supporting them impossible.

 

These systems are patent expired and in the public domain. There is no legal threat to a clone company doing their job so well that their clone system is fully compatible with everything that works on original hardware.

Edited by Atariboy
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I bet their products don't even output the correct video modes as the original hardware. There are probably just those legacy interlaced modes found on PC cards with composite output. And of course with that HDMI nonsence, there will be huge lag. So what you get: incorrect video, delay.

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I bet their products don't even output the correct video modes as the original hardware. There are probably just those legacy interlaced modes found on PC cards with composite output. And of course with that HDMI nonsence, there will be huge lag. So what you get: incorrect video, delay.

 

I have a Retron 5. Purchased because I thought it would be awesome to use my old carts. Knew nothing about the politics of it all. I love what I Does, and it does it lag free on my tv in game mode. (LG 65" something or other) . Atari graphics, at least the resolution, are many multiples of magnitude less than some of the games I played on the retron 5, so I don't see how it would be unable to play them correctly. The only weird thing might be that the 2600 games were programmed with a scanning beam in mind. They do however, play great via RF cable into the same tv from an original 7800 I received as a gift in 1987ish. No lag on that either.

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That's rhetorical, I guess ...since no one is making a living from Stella emulation.

 

Well, we might not be making a living (as in being able to quit our day job), but it certainly isn't academic. I don't know about anyone else, but if I see that Stella is being used in these products without following the licensing rules, then I will be quitting the project, and at the same time advocating to not use the product.

 

All we have are the small donations here and there, and some words of encouragement to keep us going. If you take away even that, then what is the point of continuing working on the project? Now I don't know how it's going to turn out, and I try to keep an open mind about these things. But I'm also fully prepared to walk away from this after over 17 years of working on it.

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This kinda sucks. i really wanted to use the Harmony cart with the retron 77. Well hopefully the polymega will work with Harmony cart

Polymega isn't happening. Neither is Lythium, or AtariBox for that matter.

 

Retron77 is coming, warts and all. That alone speaks volumes about the reputation of the company behind it.

 

 

 

Well, we might not be making a living (as in being able to quit our day job), but it certainly isn't academic. I don't know about anyone else, but if I see that Stella is being used in these products without following the licensing rules, then I will be quitting the project, and at the same time advocating to not use the product.

 

All we have are the small donations here and there, and some words of encouragement to keep us going. If you take away even that, then what is the point of continuing working on the project? Now I don't know how it's going to turn out, and I try to keep an open mind about these things. But I'm also fully prepared to walk away from this after over 17 years of working on it.

Please don't. Your work is greatly appreciated and a valuable asset to gamers and developers alike. :sad:

 

Given Hyperkin's track record, I wouldn't put it past them to push out a modified version of the Stella 5.0 cores with CDW, Bus stuffing, and DPC+. I hope not, but what are we going to do? A boycott, if successful, will only tell the company and others there's no consumer interest in precrash hardware.

 

I have read the writing on the walls so I won't pretend it doesn't exist. However, I am still excited for this device because it is the first time a 3rd party company has offered an Atari clone that accepts carts, since the Coleco expansion module in the early 80s. That is something I can get behind, regardless if the guys producing it are scumbags or not. At least they cared enough to represent fans of the system by developing it.

 

Feel free to start a GoFundMe page to raise funding to sue Hyperkin if you feel your rights have been violated. A win in court would do lots of good for future open source projects.

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Polymega isn't happening. Neither is Lythium, or AtariBox for that matter.

 

Retron77 is coming, warts and all. That alone speaks volumes about the reputation of the company behind it.

To be fair, Hyperkin is also the only one who set a realistic goal for themselves. Or at least, they are in my opinion.

 

They might not be the flashiest, but they know what they can and can't do. To quote Cromwell again, "warts and all."

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