RetroN 77 Community Build Image

[+remowilliams]

Link to Stella 6 on the R77: 

 

 

So here is the release of the RetroN 77 Community Build Image. This is a firmware replacement image for the RetroN 77 intended to be written (using an appropriate tool, not included) to a microSD card to be used with the Retron 77.

 

 

What it does do:

 

Brings a rather large quality of life update to users of the Retron 77, especially those that intend to run roms from the microSD card.

 

 

What it does not do:

 

Fix any existing controller, dumping or compatibility issues (other than those fixed by bringing the version of Stella being used to 3.9.3)

 

 

What it looks like:

 

 

 

Where to get it:

 

The original Community Build Image has been superseded.  Get your new and improved firmware here!

 

 

How to use it:

 

Read the included README.rtf - it contains important information you should know.

 

As mentioned the included image (sdcard.remo.20181120-1353CB.img) must be written (as an image) directly to your microSD card - this does not mean copy the image as a file to the card, it means use an imaging tool such as USB Image Tool or Win32 Disk Imager or Etcher

 

Caution is advised here, if you do not know what you are doing you may wind up wiping out your computers system (or other) drives. DO NOT DO THAT. Ask someone for help if you aren't sure what you are doing.

 

Once the image is appropriately on the microSD simply boot the RetroN 77 and you will immediately notice a difference. The RetroN 77 will no longer boot to the Hyperkin UI, but will boot directly to Stella.

 

In Stella you can then browse through your roms using Stella's launcher/rom selection UI. 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. Plugging in a cart to run it functions normally. Pressing the Fry button while you are using a cart will exit to Stella's launcher/rom selection UI. Inserting/removing a cart will restart Stella.

 

 

 

Some very important thanks:

 

 

A truly massive thanks to stephena for kindly lending me his time so that I was able to achieve my initial goals without inelegantly hacking into Stella itself, and then for taking even more time to make the wonderful Stella specific changes to the stella3-r77 branch for this build. What you see when you utilize this image simply would not have been possible without his talent and generosity. And of course this includes thanks to him as always for Stella itself : )

 

Thanks to Thomas Jentzsch for his testing, input, discussion and kindly giving permission to include his awesome titles in this distribution (yay!) , and to Atari Pixel for his work and for being a great partner in this project. Additional thanks to fellow AA members Sneakyturtleegg, gorfcadet, iesposta, ColecoJoe for image testing and feedback.

 

 

 

 

Note this image comes with no warranties expressed or implied, and is not supported by anyone. This means you are using this image entirely at your own risk, and that you fully accept that responsibility.

 

 

[Atari Pixel]

Besides the USB Image Tool mentioned above you can also use Win32 Disk Imager from sourceforge:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/win32diskimager/

 

Lord Thag in the Retron 77 thread suggested a web browser imaging tool called Etcher (no downloading necessary):

https://etcher.io

 

Latest Ubuntu versions come with a built in tool just for this. All you have to do is right click on the sdcard.img file and choose "Open With->Disk Image Writer".

Edited August 2, 2018 by Atari Pixel

[gorfcadet]

Here is the quick how to video I made for using Etcher. Probably the easiest route to do this on a Mac, but its on Win also.

 

 

Thanks again for doing this remowilliams!

[Andromeda Stardust]

So awesome, can't wait to try this out!

 

EDIT: Is there any way we could possibly in a future update, enable dumping ROMs to the SD card?

[+Muddyfunster]

Nice job!

[Zaltran]

 

So here is the release of the RetroN 77 Community Build Image. This is a firmware replacement image for the RetroN 77 intended to be written (using an appropriate tool, not included) to a microSD card to be used with the Retron 77.

 

 

What it does do:

 

Brings a rather large quality of life update to users of the Retron 77, especially those that intend to run roms from the microSD card.

 

 

What it does not do:

 

Fix any existing controller, dumping or compatibility issues (other than those fixed by bringing the version of Stella being used to 3.9.3)

 

 

What it looks like:

 

 

 

Where to get it:

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/w352be743uah97y/sdcard.remo.20180801-2122CB.zip?dl=0 If you are unfamiliar with Dropbox, look in the upper right corner for the Download dropdown, and select Direct Download to download the zip image package.

 

 

How to use it:

 

Read the included README.rtf - it contains important information you should know.

 

As mentioned the included image (sdcard.remo.20180801-2122CB.img) must be written (as an image) directly to your microSD card - this does not mean copy the image as a file to the card, it means use an imaging tool such as USB Image Tool or Win32 Disk Imager or Etcher

 

Caution is advised here, if you do not know what you are doing you may wind up wiping out your computers system (or other) drives. DO NOT DO THAT. Ask someone for help if you aren't sure what you are doing.

 

Once the image is appropriately on the microSD simply boot the RetroN 77 and you will immediately notice a difference. The RetroN 77 will no longer boot to the Hyperkin UI, but will boot directly to Stella.

 

In Stella you can then browse through your roms using Stella's launcher/rom selection UI. 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. Plugging in a cart to run it functions normally. Pressing the Fry button while you are using a cart will exit to Stella's launcher/rom selection UI. Inserting/removing a cart will restart Stella.

Some very important thanks:

A truly massive thanks to stephena for kindly lending me his time so that I was able to achieve my initial goals without inelegantly hacking into Stella itself, and then for taking even more time to make the wonderful Stella specific changes to the stella3-r77 branch for this build. What you see when you utilize this image simply would not have been possible without his talent and generosity. And of course this includes thanks to him as always for Stella itself : )

 

Thanks to Thomas Jentzsch for his testing, input, discussion and kindly giving permission to include his awesome titles in this distribution (yay!) , and to Atari Pixel for his work and for being a great partner in this project. Additional thanks to fellow AA members Sneakyturtleegg, gorfcadet, iesposta, ColecoJoe for image testing and feedback.

 

 

 

 

Note this image comes with no warranties expressed or implied, and is not supported by anyone. This means you are using this image entirely at your own risk, and that you fully accept that responsibility.

 

 

Thank you, this works great....

[Coolcrab]

Thanks! Will try soon

[iesposta]

I can’t use Paddles with this?

I couldn’t get the RetroN77 to recognize them.

Other oddities: changing controllers “wakes up” my iPhone display!

 

Stay Frosty 2 - Stay Frostier runs from SD card on Stella 3.9.3. (Scramble Arcade also)

Harder to control due to DLP Projector lag.

Sounds better on real hardware.

Real hardware shows more consistent transparent flickering fireballs.

Noticed sound stuttering, struggling sometimes. Is version 20131217_RC8 the final?

 

Touch top of video to launch in YouTube app for 60fps.

 

 

Weird coloring, bleeding is YouTube’s re-encoding/compression.

Edited August 3, 2018 by iesposta

[Lord Thag]

Thanks for all the hard work on this guys! The community looks to make this little gadget far better than Hyperkin will. I will try and flash this tomorrow.

[SIO2]

Thanks for all the hard work on this guys! The community looks to make this little gadget far better than Hyperkin will. I will try and flash this tomorrow.

Yes, thanks guys. Huge improvement.

[+stephena]

Most of the problems with Stay Frosty 2 are because of the old version of Stella, and have been fixed in the latest releases. So no improvements there unless/until Stella 5 is available for this device.

[Mr SQL]

Very cool! Really nice to have the screenshot previews of the game ROMs!

 

Is the Fry button still partially hooked up? I noticed that SuperCharger Space Invaders (which his awesome if you haven't tried it in HD yet) will sometimes start fried after the fry button is pressed, same with Defender III and Defender III Trainer.

 

This only happens if you were playing one of those games first in the session - the first time around always works so powering off will allow these games to play when that happens - you can also reload them a few times and the frying may go away.

 

No issues loading WARPDRIVE, but it's the SuperCharger version - the Flashback Portable version would likely have the same occasional frying on load issue with this build since it is the same format as those games. Other CBS RAM games like Tunnel Runner might show it too.

 

[Sincity]

Tks!

[doctorclu]

This image is quite good. for some reason the screen is not wide enough to show the whole display only by a few inches on each side. Is there any way to adjust this?

[SIO2]

This image is quite good. for some reason the screen is not wide enough to show the whole display only by a few inches on each side. Is there any way to adjust this?

If I understand correctly, you are having the same trouble I did. The menu appears larger than my TV screen so the edges of the menu are cut off. Perhaps you can adjust the width of your picture. My TV was already adjusted to minimum width so, I moved the position of the image to the right. Then I can see the menu text and if I switch to 4:3 mode I can see the game (slightly off center to the right).

[Mononym]

This image is quite good. for some reason the screen is not wide enough to show the whole display only by a few inches on each side. Is there any way to adjust this?

 

Look for 'overscan' being turned on for that HDMI channel, that was my issue.

[Lord Thag]

I've flashed this and it works very well indeed. Exactly what I was wanting from a modern Atari console, in fact. Well done!

[Andromeda Stardust]

This image is quite good. for some reason the screen is not wide enough to show the whole display only by a few inches on each side. Is there any way to adjust this?

Buy a new tv. Seriously, it's 2018 and device manufacturers are still forcing overscan on consumers.

 

My tcl has the ability to turn overscan, and vitually all processing off, even on composite and rf feeds. I imagine vhs tapes would look like ass without the overscan enabled.

[SIO2]

Buy a new tv. Seriously, it's 2018 and device manufacturers are still forcing overscan on consumers.

 

My tcl has the ability to turn overscan, and vitually all processing off, even on composite and rf feeds. I imagine vhs tapes would look like ass without the overscan enabled.

Buy a new TV to play Retron 77? Seems a bit much to me.

 

Never could find overscan on my tv so just shifted the screen image right so I can see the left side of the menu. Call me cheap.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Buy a new TV to play Retron 77? Seems a bit much to me.

 

Never could find overscan on my tv so just shifted the screen image right so I can see the left side of the menu. Call me cheap.

This is not a Retron77 fault, so you will potentially have this issue with any source which provides your TV with a fullscreen image.

 

Not sure, but maybe this could be fixed by providing some settings in a Stella configuration file.

[vectormatt]

Now that the Fry button is being used to exit back to the menu - is there some way to enable some of the game glitches like the Space Invaders "double shots". I actually do like being able to exit to the menu quickly rather than booting up each time.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

That would require opening the Power-on options dialog from within the launcher. I suppose that's too special for most casual users.

Edited August 7, 2018 by Thomas Jentzsch

[mr_me]

Buy a new TV to play Retron 77? Seems a bit much to me.

 

Never could find overscan on my tv so just shifted the screen image right so I can see the left side of the menu. Call me cheap.

It's probably not called overscan, look for "picture size", normal, screen fit, dot by dot. There should be some setting to show the entire image. What's the make/model. Most things designed for television do take into account some of the screen might be cropped. Edited August 7, 2018 by mr_me

[+stephena]

On my Samsung TV, the option to pick is called "Just Scan".

[SIO2]

It's probably not called overscan, look for "picture size", normal, screen fit, dot by dot. There should be some setting to show the entire image. What's the make/model. Most things designed for television do take into account some of the screen might be cropped.

Found it. There was a setting for screen mode wide, normal etc. Changed from wide to normal. Not sure why normal was not the default as that would seem logical. Anyhow, I am not off center any more. Even in normal mode though the screen is FULL for sure. BTW the TV is a VIZIO.

 

Thanks for the help all.

Edited August 7, 2018 by SIO2