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Atari Flashback 9 FIRMWARE for adding games to SD card


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18 minutes ago, atarifan88 said:

Bill,

 

For those of us who are not skilled with a soldering iron, will there be an option to buy compatible paddles for the FB9?  I don't understand why paddles are being made for all FB systems but that one, especially when it was publicized that AtGames paddles will work with the FB9 Gold.

I'm sorry, no, the 9-specific paddles will not be produced. I believe there *may* possibly be an upgrade option, but I wouldn't count on that, unfortunately. An internal mod, or having regular paddles modified, are likely going to be the only two options.

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5 hours ago, Bill Loguidice said:

I'm sorry, no, the 9-specific paddles will not be produced. I believe there *may* possibly be an upgrade option, but I wouldn't count on that, unfortunately. An internal mod, or having regular paddles modified, are likely going to be the only two options.

I bought an Atari Flashback 9 and well for the paddle games I have an Atari 2600 4 switcher and an Atari 2600 light sixer. I'm not an electronics welder and not likely to go to trade school or college to study that. I spent the majority of my young adult life at college studying natural sciences and programming (no I'm not a game dev)

Just my two cents

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33 minutes ago, delmero said:

I bought an Atari Flashback 9 and well for the paddle games I have an Atari 2600 4 switcher and an Atari 2600 light sixer. I'm not an electronics welder and not likely to go to trade school or college to study that. I spent the majority of my young adult life at college studying natural sciences and programming (no I'm not a game dev)

Just my two cents

I understand it's not ideal. Unfortunately, right now, that's the only option.

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You can just use normal paddles and they work great I recently repaired my Atari paddles w NEW 1m ohm pots and they are really great no gitter and I personnaly think a 1meg ohm paddle is more precise but this is more twirls one end like all the way to the right is more sensitive like the right is mostly dead but as far as adding surface mount resistors is not even worth it just use normal paddles and don’t belive any hipe that u need a mod to use paddles as normal Atari paddles work just fine on my flashback 9 not the wireless version . Also inside if u take cover off and remove pan w out unhooking it from ribbon cables just remove board from screws and plug power back in and hdmi and the joystick 1 then power off using the normal power button then holf

d the mini button and power up and it will open a menu

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It brings up a menu to let you load firmware or reboot it looks really cool and kind of like a Linux loader menu but it’s probably a Android like menu but don’t know what kind of operating system it is Maine it’s a rasberry pie like system that’s what the pub looks like

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1 hour ago, awace said:

You can just use normal paddles and they work great I recently repaired my Atari paddles w NEW 1m ohm pots and they are really great no gitter and I personnaly think a 1meg ohm paddle is more precise but this is more twirls one end like all the way to the right is more sensitive like the right is mostly dead but as far as adding surface mount resistors is not even worth it just use normal paddles and don’t belive any hipe that u need a mod to use paddles as normal Atari paddles work just fine on my flashback 9 not the wireless version . Also inside if u take cover off and remove pan w out unhooking it from ribbon cables just remove board from screws and plug power back in and hdmi and the joystick 1 then power off using the normal power button then holf

d the mini button and power up and it will open a menu

If your Atari Flashback 9 has composite output, it's not the same as the HDMI-based models. Regular paddles do not work on the HDMI-based models.

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I don't want to spam too many threads with this, but for those with the skills, this is a hack to make standard paddles work with the Atari Flashback 9 (HDMI only) series should that be something you want to do. Standard paddles will be released soon for original Atari paddle-compatible systems and the Flashback 2 - 8, and X.

 

Hardware Mod to Support Standard Paddles on Atari Flashback 9 and 9 Gold:   https://armchairarcade.com/perspectives/2019/10/15/hardware-mod-to-support-standard-paddles-on-atari-flashback-9-and-9-gold/

Do you know if this board mod give the paddles better response than switching out the pots on the paddles?

 

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

 

 

 

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9 minutes ago, Jimmygtr said:

Do you know if this board mod give the paddles better response than switching out the pots on the paddles?

 

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

 

 

 

I don't know, but imagine it's equivalent. Without testing it directly, though, there's no way to know.

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Whell morning the plug play I think on the 1 player paddle jacks plug play I took it apart since I just completed the flashback II cart mod witch was a pain in the ass I don’t think I can even read that small w out readers but since basic fun made the fb II mod I assumed the p1 paddle would work w 2 players by removing p1 paddle wires witch was 10ohm or so I would have to rip it apart and remove the paddle pot to see if it’s 10 ohm but adding the 1 Meg ohm made it more sensitive at the right end like turning the vol up and it does nothing until it goes from 3 to 100% vol but the plug play paddle is sensitive all the way around witch makes me actually prefer 1 meg ohm anyway it goes from 0 to like 255 as a number on the atari800 so I think they chose the other value pots to SAVE $ . I think normal paddles should work fine except unless you have a old joystick splitter then you could hook joystick w menu buttons and paddles at same time

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I almost forgot when I took the fb9 apart to see if there were any user jumpers but not found any but as this topic proves there are some jumpers for the pot values lol anyway they were just cheap pcb makers but I did remove the pcb from the case screws leaving every thing hooked up then plugged the hdmi and the power so I could turn it on whilst Holding a mini button the pcb board witch if you press hold then power on it loads a Linux like boot loader menu I think is Incase you hatch the bios by a bad load when doing the sod card update I think it gives you  another way to flash the system. Anyway finding the button and the secret menu was fun . I would just get a used pair of paddles off eBay . Oh the joystick moves the menu and the difficulty buttons are normally in the b off mode so you have to kind of push lately or replace button to up and off then the menu item loads . I think I tried the uodate then removed the sad card while it was loaded used the menu to repair it but I forgot weather it would so I decided not to try making a flash of the bios fail because it was 53$ on Amazon was new but used open box I only was concerned about the sad function I hAve about 512 pages of games but some of the copy(2) files dumps won’t load but w more than 500 games I’m not going to sort the dir Mabie those were .zip I never checked . Anyway I prefer 1meg 

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4 hours ago, awace said:

I was talking about the hdmi version and normal paddles work

When I say repair I went to AXEMAN and found some old coleco brand paddles witch were for old pong games w no button so I bought five or so then I took the pot apart removing the metal bottom case w wire snippets no soldering needed but don’t bend the wipers wrong or it’s TOAST but if you can wipe the circle off the replace bent wiper to connect better then put case back w out breaking the tabs off! Then the 1 Meg ohm pot is gitter free windex works good for wipe ing the carbon off the pot and the wiper from grease witch I stole from the coleco paddles and made the Atari paddle almost jitter free . On Atari 800 basic you print:”paddle(0)” I forgot basic lol anyway the cleaned and regressed paddle are better than factory new. Enjoy 1972 for fbII it’s the paddle code

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I made a mistake and thought the fb9 was the fbII but I did try regular paddles on fb9 and if you crank all the way to the right then push the paddle button then move left slowly in superbreakout2 it works but if you slam it to the right to fast it bitches about wireless . Now I see why people want to solder lol. I already soldered the cart mod to the fb 2 that was hard enough

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8 hours ago, awace said:

I made a mistake and thought the fb9 was the fbII but I did try regular paddles on fb9 and if you crank all the way to the right then push the paddle button then move left slowly in superbreakout2 it works but if you slam it to the right to fast it bitches about wireless . Now I see why people want to solder lol. I already soldered the cart mod to the fb 2 that was hard enough

Yeah, that's why I said HDMI and not composite. The FB 2 (not made by AtGames) is a composite system and completely different from any other Flashback in terms of internal hardware.

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On 10/18/2019 at 7:18 AM, Bill Loguidice said:

I don't know, but imagine it's equivalent. Without testing it directly, though, there's no way to know.

What are the resistor values for the ‘standard’ build that are being swapped out?

 

If it’s just a resistive divider then it should be electrically equivalent, so should deliver the same responsiveness.

 

I’ll have to try this with my FB9, as I gave away the paddles I modded.

 

(Side note: this was a odd decision to make, as it broke compatibility with no apparent technical reason.  There isn’t a shortage of 1 MOhm pots or something, so it smells like some marketing ploy gone wrong.)

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1 hour ago, boggis the cat said:

(Side note: this was a odd decision to make, as it broke compatibility with no apparent technical reason.  There isn’t a shortage of 1 MOhm pots or something, so it smells like some marketing ploy gone wrong.)

The idea was nothing more than to improve precision. If you see the advertising, there was nothing related to marketing about it.

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The idea was nothing more than to improve precision. If you see the advertising, there was nothing related to marketing about it.

So to that end, the hiccup of not having paddles for a precision improvement change seems like a misstep for consumer confidence to attract us to future versions particularly when the X now has no SD card slot.

 

I know you're just the messenger Bill and I'm sure not having useable, available paddles for the FB9 wasn't planned but for some (me for sure) once bitten twice shy.

 

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

 

 

 

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3 minutes ago, Jimmygtr said:

So to that end, the hiccup of not having paddles for a precision improvement change seems like a misstep for consumer confidence to attract us to future versions particularly when the X now has no SD card slot.

 

I know you're just the messenger Bill and I'm sure not having useable, available paddles for the FB9 wasn't planned but for some (me for sure) once bitten twice shy.

 

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

 

 

 

Well, it was obviously unfortunate. With the X, there will be a way to add more games, but it does require an extra cable purchase.

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1 minute ago, Atariboy said:

Any idea if the emulator has been upgraded to a later build of Stella?

 

You sounded like that was the game plan a year ago in the likely event it wasn't possible to accomplish it in time for the Flashback 9.

I'd have to check.

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I'm really bummed out to learn the Flashback X coming out has no SD slot.  I just downloaded the manual for it and no mention of SD, so it's not there.  Did someone say there's still a way to load ROMs on it?  How??

 

Ok...Bill just explained to me how.  With a Y usb cable and some PC command lines.  Not easy but doable.  Thanks Bill!

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