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Retron77 is completely broken out of the box


Andromeda Stardust

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I think the basic philosophy behind R77 is flawed. It's a dumper and emulator. And there will be compatibility issues. How much and how many? I don't know. I just know they're there.

 

Someone said a Software Emulator can work with a cartridge if done right. I'm sure it can, if there is enough talent and smarts behind the design team. I'm not sure if I see that here. Stella is made for PC and rom images, finito! The point is unarguable. And Stella (in R77 clothing) is almost unchanged, so, that means that it is still architected for the PC. And that's not what we want.

 

Doesn't anyone see the mismatch here??

 

It's a matter of perspective, many Atari fans on Atari age are more demanding than the target audience for the R77 or the Atari Flashback consoles.

 

These are both great consoles that enable many more people to play Atari who would not otherwise, the mismatch comes from comparing it precisely to a classic Atari console. Fans who want "perfect emulation" really want Crispy's FPGA TIA or a classic Atari; some of us even prefer a specific classic model since even there the TIA's have different characteristics; same thing with the classic C64's with their four revisions of the 6581 SID.

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It is possible that you received a defective unit, this guy has issues not too dissimilar to yours :

 

over 50% of the time, mine does not boot to the menu with no game inserted. however it will power up with game, then go to black screen when i hotswap the cart. some carts, like tapper, only seem to load from hotswap, but not from cold boot. menu loads sporatically, controllers dont function properly. keatah and others mentioned poor solder job and pcb layout, making me wonder how long it will last with regular use. glad im not the only one with issues...

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maybe hotswapping paddles with joysticks confuses the emulator?

 

I just tested this (powering on with joystick plugged in, moving the stick, hitting fire button, then swapping to paddles) in Kaboom and somewhat surprisingly it did not cause the paddles to work incorrectly.

 

Mine also has never failed to poweron to the home menu screen without a cartridge in. Given all that you have described it sounds like you may have a defective unit, in which case this topic should be My Retron77 is completely broken out of the box ;)

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My cart port is very loose. I know some people were concerned it would have a death grip but they way corrected that. It barely has a grip at all. So if the solder is good that should be enough to keep me from pulling the cart port out. Heck, I don't even need to hold the unit down to remove a cart.

 

As bad as the dumper is though, I am looking forward to the SD limit being lifted.

 

I get that they made this console cheaply. They were trying to match a low price point. I was happy to see they included the power adapter and an SD card. If anything though they probably could have got by not including the HDMI cable. Maybe they could have put all the screws and solder in then.

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Anyway, time will tell how representative these issues are. It would not be a fool's bet at all to guess it ends up being widespread as more people get their consoles. I was kind of soured on Hyperkin products after the problems I had with a Retron 3 and a Retron 5. Big reason I didn't pre-order this.

 

I bought a Retron 3 and it worked for about 10 days before it stopped working. It seemed to me that it was very poorly manufactured.

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I'm a little annoyed that people are so eager to carry water for these companies that knowingly push these systems out of their colons.

 

"Oh, we're not the target audience!" (then who is buying this?)

"Maybe it's just an early production model!" (yeah, that's what they said about the Genesis Flashback)

"It's not going to run exactly like the real thing, you know." (hitting somewhere on the dart board would be a nice start)

 

This is forty year old technology. The Genesis is thirty year old technology. Considering all the advances we've made since the late 1970s, I'd damn well expect these plug 'n plays to be close approximations of the original machines at a significantly reduced price. Today's video games can produce images rivaling or superior to what was in the film Jurassic Park... if you're going to tell me that a competent Atari 2600 can't be made at a fifty dollar price point, I'm going to scoff in your general direction. I'm also going to remind you that Atari managed in 1988, and ask why Hyperkin and AtGames shouldn't be held at that same thirty year old standard.

 

Of course, these companies aren't building these machines to any particular standard of quality. They think that nostalgia alone will sell these systems, and that they don't have to put any real effort into them. Get the licenses, find the ROMs, dump them into cut-rate Android hardware along with an emulator and a slick interface, and push the whole mess out the door for a quick buck. I don't see what this community gains by making excuses for these companies, rather than insisting on better products. I mean, maybe you're happy paying for the brand name, but I want something I can actually use. I had to hack my Genesis Flashback to make that useful, and the Atari Flashback never worked properly at all... I threw that out.

 

Obviously I'm not the only one... ShopGoodwill is overflowing with these AtGames systems, likely donated by players who didn't get their seventy dollars' worth out of them. My point is, don't reward these companies for making crap. Expect better. Or just buy the originals.

Edited by Jess Ragan
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I'm a little annoyed that people are so eager to carry water for these companies that knowingly push these systems out of their colons.

 

"Oh, we're not the target audience!" (then who is buying this?)

"Maybe it's just an early production model!" (yeah, that's what they said about the Genesis Flashback)

"It's not going to run exactly like the real thing, you know." (hitting somewhere on the dart board would be a nice start)

...

 

Hey Jess you'll get a kick out of this - seeing your post reminded me I wanted to put Solar Plexus on my Flashback Portable. Your game plays really well with the portables screen as a matter of fact :)!

 

I bet it would play great with the R77 too, seems to me playing most classics and classic format homebrew Atari games makes these consoles a lot of fun.

 

Some of the same people who were disappointed with the Flashback feel similarly towards the R77, but would they be willing to pay more for a Crispy or Vendell design?

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Some of the same people who were disappointed with the Flashback feel similarly towards the R77, but would they be willing to pay more for a Crispy or Vendell design?

I don't know about those people but, it would be interesting to see a Crispy FPGA drop in board to replace the guts of the Retron77. I could see myself spending a few bucks on something like that.

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Like someone just said, if Atari could do it back in the day with cruder and rougher 1970's technology, why not someone today using superior. more cost-effective, and far more versatile tech?

 

Meantime I'm happy to stick with what I call my Virtual Computer System. A premium quality "console" featuring Emulator Stella. And other emulators which are properly set-up.

 

It gets updated on occasion. Is compatible with everything I've thrown at it. Customer service is pretty good. And the reliability is to die for. And most of all, the main software is prevalent, tested, and currently in-use by tens of thousands of users worldwide! What more could the discerning enthusiast possibly want?

 

I don't need to consult compatibility spreadsheets. And I don't have to work around missing features that were removed in the name of cost-cutting. It. Just. Works.

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I know a couple of people who beta test for Hyperkin. They are a pretty small time operation. Pretty much all of the stuff I own from them has been ... glitchy, but after a couple of patches, worth owning. I don't mind giving them time to patch... but this thing is not quite ready for prime time. They should have just done a beta test by getting people here to help, and spent another 6 months working the kinks out.

 

That said, given the very good communication here, I'm confident it'll get sorted out.

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Then maybe all of us here should wait till it gets sorted out? Why waste time generating frustration? Just hang tight till 5.x comes to town and see what other improvements are going to be made. If they are made.

 

It's like everything else released today. Wait for version 2.

Edited by Keatah
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I'm gonna try to install the 3.9.3 patch this weekend and see if it fixes the system. I get off at 5. :grin:

Make sure to try 3.9.3 version 2 just out.

 

Still got the dumper issues and rom limit and fragile joystick but hey, just drop the dremel and step away from the console, everything is going to be fine - eventually.

Edited by SIO2
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Hot swapping Atari cartridges... am I the only one that doesn't think that's such a great idea? How does the system handle that exactly? Only applies +5v *after* it detects that a cartridge has been plugged in? Because that seems like it would be the only safe way to go about it. +5v present as you insert a game sounds like a great way to potentially (probably) damage your cartridge over time, if not immediately. :(

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Make sure to try 3.9.3 version 2 just out.

 

Still got the dumper issues and rom limit and fragile joystick but hey, just drop the dremel and step away from the console, everything is going to be fine - eventually.

He will always be given grief over that won't he? Lol

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FYI, just a shoutout to Shephena. I've successfully updated to Stella v3.9.3 and deleted the old stellarc input configuration file. Obviously the machine is still far from perfect, but it's something I can actually live with and enjoy now. Download the firmware update here:

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/266544-retron-77/?p=4069856

 

I did make some cosmetic changes to the UI (it is fairly easy to edit the graphics with a photo editor such as GIMP or Photoshop). I tested out Kaboom today and scored a whopping 799 points using a real set of paddles. I will add that they still jitter a bit more so than on real hardware, but it's definitely operating correctly. I also played Joust and can confirm the FIRE button works flawlessly now.

 

I'm gonna go preload some of my favorite homebrew ROMs on here and get back later with a followup video. :grin: :thumbsup:

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  • 11 months later...
  • 7 months later...
On 6/22/2019 at 12:50 PM, Vic George 2K3 said:

Just had a bad experience getting a Retron 77 recently. Thing's power light would turn on, but there would be no signal. Tried it on two different HDTV flat screens and nothing.

Were you ever able to fix this?  I just got mine today and I've tried connecting it to 2 different sets and got nothing.

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I had an issue with mine originally. I'm not a hundred percent sure it wasn't something daft like the micro sd card being the wrong way round as I think it needs to be inserted upside down. I think it also requires waiting a moment before anything comes up on screen. 

 

I just tied loads of different things till it worked, again, not sure exactly what happened. I updated firmware to latest version and never had a problem since though. 

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I'm glad I never got one of these.  I've heard about way too many issues that scare me away from buying one.  More than a year after the initial release and it looks like the company isn't even supporting it anymore.  Just another reason to avoid all the headaches as this thing should work properly out of the box.

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