Jump to content
IGNORED

Flashback 9 Gold paddle issue


Recommended Posts

I would have preferred AtGames provide a solution but it wasn't meant to be.

 

Looking at that site I'm not actually sure what the solution is for Flashback 9 HDMI owners.

 

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

 

2600daptor will not work with the FB9 for paddles. My point is that the FB9 is just running an emulator called Stella. You can run this emulator on many other devices that can be used with original paddles (unaltered) using the 2600daptor.

 

I will also point out that even when running the most recent version of Stella on a modern gaming PC, the paddle latency is (despite the best efforts of the community) still quite laggy. The way the paddle position is read depends on some variables that are simply much faster with original hardware on a CRT TV. I've tested this extensively with Kaboom - you just can't get the same scores in Stella as you can on the real thing. In that way it is like the Mike Tyson's Punch Out of VCS games.

 

My point is that even if you get paddles to work on your computer or on the FB9, the experience is still a far distance from the original thing. If you don't have original hardware, you'd be better off just running an emulator on your computer occasionally to get your Kaboom fix. Hacking up paddles to interface with an inferior experience takes you even farther away from what you ultimately are after.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

 

 

...Hacking up paddles to interface with an inferior experience takes you even farther away from what you ultimately are after.

Agree to disagree. FB9 with working paddles suits me just fine (speaking as one who got a 2600 Atari for Christmas 1978)

 

 

 

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Going by eye, it looks like it should fit. The knob is quite a bit smaller than the original, but should be OK. The Bourns pots I bought turned up a couple of days ago. They are very smooth action, so a smaller knob shouldnt be a big issue.

Does p230-2FA25BR10K look suitable?P230-1528188.pdf

 

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Does p230-2FA25BR10K look suitable?

Based on that spec sheet, I think that you need a P230 2 F x 25 B R10K. The x is ‘doesn’t matter’, as the Atari paddles have no particular required end stops.

 

To be sure, compare it with my Bourns potentiometer. The bushing length (the 2 above) is fairly critical, so double-check it. The Bourns is 10 mm, this has either 9.5 mm or 11 mm, so I have selected the 9.5 mm — but it may be best to measure the existing one and choose the best fit.

 

You will have to grind down the flat further to fit the knob, or modify the knob. Unfortunately they don’t seem to make the half-flatted type of pots any more that are in the original paddles.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Based on that spec sheet, I think that you need a P230 2 F x 25 B R10K. The x is ‘doesn’t matter’, as the Atari paddles have no particular required end stops.

 

To be sure, compare it with my Bourns potentiometer. The bushing length (the 2 above) is fairly critical, so double-check it. The Bourns is 10 mm, this has either 9.5 mm or 11 mm, so I have selected the 9.5 mm — but it may be best to measure the existing one and choose the best fit.

 

You will have to grind down the flat further to fit the knob, or modify the knob. Unfortunately they don’t seem to make the half-flatted type of pots any more that are in the original paddles.

Sounds good. Thank you Boggis the Cat!

 

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't have a Flashback nine for a couple of reasons, but for those that don't want to modify existing paddles, although I believe it must be reversible, bohoki may have a simple external adapter solution. Copying this from another thread:

 

"So we’re stuck with modding existing paddles, or waiting for Atgames to actually produce compatible paddles?"

 

Maybe try this: resistor in parallel on each axis: one connecting pin 5 to pin 8 and one connecting pin 9 to pin 8.

 

http://atariage.com/...ters/?p=2144872

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't have a Flashback nine for a couple of reasons, but for those that don't want to modify existing paddles, although I believe it must be reversible, bohoki may have a simple external adapter solution. Copying this from another thread:

 

"So we’re stuck with modding existing paddles, or waiting for Atgames to actually produce compatible paddles?"

 

Maybe try this: resistor in parallel on each axis: one connecting pin 5 to pin 8 and one connecting pin 9 to pin 8.

 

http://atariage.com/...ters/?p=2144872

That doesn’t work as it is not linear. Consider putting a fixed 10 kOhm resistor in parallel with the 1 MOhm potentiometer. At zero position you get 0 MOhm // 10 kOhm = 0 kOhm, which is correct; then set the pot half way, where you want 5 kOhm, 0.5 MOhm // 10 kOhm = 9.8 kOhm, ... oops. To get 5 kOhm you have to wind the pot up to only 0.01 MOhm (10 kOhm).

 

So doing this converts your linear paddle to a logarithmic paddle, which is useless.

 

The pot swapping mod is reversible, if you keep the old pots.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I decided to build a new set of paddle controllers to use with my FB9 Gold HD. I used the 10K single turn Bourns potentiometers mentioned in post 35. I mounted them in 2 1/2 inch diameter x 2 inch high wood boxes I bought at www.acmoore.com for $1 each. I completed the paddles with N.O. push buttons and sacrificed 1 Atari Keyboard controller for the connector/cable. The Keyboard controller is one of the few devices that has all 9 pins connected. The second paddle controller is wired to the first using 4 wire phone cable. I used knobs purchased from Radio Shack years ago.

 

The paddles work well - my Breakout score is improving. The knob has to be rotated nearly stop to stop to play the game. This is different from the original Atari paddles on a Atari 8 bit computer - where only about 1/2 a turn is required.

 

 

post-10195-0-21092300-1558039588_thumb.jpg

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 months later...
On 5/21/2019 at 3:42 PM, Forrest said:

Just wondering if a 20K potentiometer would work better for this application. You would only have to turn the knob 1/2 a turn to go from 0K to 10K.

 

I'm not sure if the extra 10K of resistance would be a problem.

 

On 5/21/2019 at 3:47 PM, Jimmygtr said:

I wondered about 15k and 20k myself but the 10k are working just fine for me.

 

I was thinking about this the other day as well when I came across this thread.

 

Will the 15k or 20k pot work? Any drawbacks/advantages?

 

I'd rather not waste any money, and then the time waiting for those pots to arrive just to find out the 10k was best.

 

 

Btw, I've been lurker on the forums for a while now, but recently decided to finally join. You guys have a great place here. :-)

Edited by NotTooOld
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, NotTooOld said:

 

 

I was thinking about this the other day as well when I came across this thread.

 

Will the 15k or 20k pot work? Any drawbacks/advantages?

 

I'd rather not waste any money, and then the time waiting for those pots to arrive just to find out the 10k was best.

The 10k will give you the full travel.  As you increase that value you will get a shorter and shorter usable range, with the anti-clockwise always starting just after the stop, and the clockwise pegging out earlier in the travel.

 

The downside of a higher value potentiometer is that you’ll have mechanical ‘overshoot’ in the clockwise direction, and lesser fine control available — although with the 2600 that isn’t necessarily a problem.

 

(If you plug in an unmodified paddle, with a 1 MOhm pot, you’ll see that it does work, but the full range is over the tiny portion of the far anti-clockwise section near the end stop — one percent of the normal rotation yields one hundred percent of the range.  Substituting a pot greater than 10k yields the same thing, with a truncated clockwise physical travel to get the full range.)

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank you for the tech  explanation. Time to go online and find some pots. ? 

 

But I refuse to mod set of original Atari paddles (even if the mod is reversible), but after looking through a couple of boxes in the basement I came across a set of paddles that had the word "Paddle" moulded into the plastic just above the knob. Anybody know what these belong to,  because I don't remember getting them. ?

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...
On 1/28/2019 at 1:19 AM, boggis the cat said:
On 1/27/2019 at 3:28 AM, Forrest said:

Thinking about trying this 10K Bourns potentiometer because it's only $2.75 - but can't find a spec sheet on it

Going by eye, it looks like it should fit. The knob is quite a bit smaller than the original, but should be OK. The Bourns pots I bought turned up a couple of days ago. They are very smooth action, so a smaller knob shouldnt be a big issue.

How about either of these?

https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/cts-electrocomponents/450T328F103A1A1/CT3062-ND/4733112

 

https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/tt-electronics-bi/P230-1FD20BR10K/987-1320-ND/2408897

 

The first one has a 7/8" actuator so it's not the full 25mm, and it also has a pretty long bushing so the flatted part looks to be barely 1/3 of the entire length of the actuator.

 

On the 2nd one, the flatted part of the actuator appears to be longer, although the actuator itself is shorter than on the first one. However, the images on the second one seems to be a stock photos, as one of the images doesn't even show a flatted actuator.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 3/21/2019 at 11:18 AM, MG Brown said:

I wanted to mention that I converted a set of original Atari paddle controllers (found on eBay for $ 8 ) to the 10K Bourns pots this morning. The process took about 30 mins and probably could be accomplished in half that time if the "flats" on the pot shaft didn't need to be ground longer & deeper.

 

I tried the modified controls on FB9G's Breakout and they work great. I hope to try other games after I mod paddles for player 3 & 4. Note: I felt that the "action" of the controllers felt better after I hot-glued the pots in place. You might want to consider doing the same if you are performing the mod.

Is there any issue with lag using this mod with the Flashback 9? The lag on the Flashback 8 was so bad, I decided to return it to the store and purchase a Flashback 9 to give this mod a shot.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
On 12/17/2019 at 3:34 PM, ft55555 said:

Is there any issue with lag using this mod with the Flashback 9? The lag on the Flashback 8 was so bad, I decided to return it to the store and purchase a Flashback 9 to give this mod a shot.

There is no noticeable lag with the Flashback 9.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 hours ago, Forrest said:

There is no noticeable lag with the Flashback 9.

There is audio lag on the Flashback 9.  The same audio lag existed on the Flashback X but they since patched it.  Would be great if they would release a firmware update for Flashback 9 also to fix this audio lag.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 1/1/2020 at 11:15 PM, chad5200 said:

There is audio lag on the Flashback 9...

I've never noticed any audio lag on the Flashback 9s that I have.

 

On 12/17/2019 at 1:34 PM, ft55555 said:

Is there any issue with lag using this mod with the Flashback 9? The lag on the Flashback 8 was so bad, I decided to return it to the store and purchase a Flashback 9 to give this mod a shot.

I modded 2 of my Flashback 9s (a Gold and a standard) by swapping out the resistors in the system.  The paddles didn't work as well as I'd hoped, but it was playable with games like Circus Atari, Warlords, and some of the others.  It seems to rely on a checksum match to know when to use paddles though.  I couldn't get it to work with hacks or homebrew paddle games.  The main issue I have is that it takes the full range of the paddles.  That makes some games harder to play.  The lag isn't bad, but you can definitely feel it in a game like Kaboom.  It's playable, but you'll start having a hard time keeping up before it reaches maximum speed.  I've felt that way every time I've used Stella with paddles though, regardless of the system.  There's just no comparison to the real thing and a CRT.

  • Like 1
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 1/2/2020 at 1:15 AM, chad5200 said:

There is audio lag on the Flashback 9.  The same audio lag existed on the Flashback X but they since patched it.  Would be great if they would release a firmware update for Flashback 9 also to fix this audio lag.

I too have no audio lag issues with my FB9 Gold.  Maybe those issues are with the regular 9 flashback?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 10 months later...
  • 4 months later...

Hello All I am just reading this thread after purchasing an FB8 Gold for my wife to play Kaboom. She almost cried when she saw the paddles are so sensitive you cannot do anything but race back and forth across the screen. We saw the video about the ark length being to small and I agree. I tried to follow this thread but seem to have gotten lost in it.

 

to decrease the sensitivity of the paddle controllers that came with the FB8 Gold unit do I need to get new Pots or retro paddles? I honestly dont care what I need to do I just need it done. She is convinced the only way to save this is to get an original 2600 with paddles off ebay. that makes me nervous as emulators are around for a reason.

 

Please help a noob make his wife happy!! thank you in advance.

 

Rhiostaic

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 4/11/2021 at 9:23 AM, Draxxon said:

As a fellow Kaboom! player, she wont be happy with emulation. Sorry to say... she is right, original hardware and paddles.

How accurate are the Atari-to-USB adapters? I figure the delay introduced by analog to digital wouldn’t be that bad, maybe 20ms-60ms.

 

Never used the Stelladapter though, so I don’t have first hand knowledge.

 

The AFB2 had hidden paddle games, and does support real paddles as well. You could hack one of those and play kaboom on it.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...