Jump to content

Open Club  ·  87 members

AtariVox
IGNORED

Quadtari


Thomas Jentzsch

Recommended Posts

51 minutes ago, johnnywc said:

- when hooked up to the front Retron left port, pushing the first QT joystick button 'left' brings up the Power On menu in Stella.  Once in the menu, pressing the joystick button opens up the selected dropdown and pressing left closes the dialog window.  The 2nd QT joystick does nothing (as expected).  My guess is that perhaps the Retron77 is detecting the QT as a paddle since INPT1 is high on startup, so only left works which is mapped to the first paddle button. 

- when hooked up to the 2600dapter through OTG cable, neither joystick works at all.  This may be a 2600dapter issue where it's detecting them to be paddles perhaps.  

The ROM has to have 'QuadTari' set as its controller, otherwise it will default to normal joystick mode (single controller per port).  Or can Stella now autodetect the ROM as using QuadTari?  If so, then ignore this part.

52 minutes ago, johnnywc said:

Also, can you hook up a real AtariVox to the OTG and have it work on the Retron77 with voice?  I can do it on my PC but was wondering if it would work for the R77 also.  I have the USB serial adapter needed to connect the AtariVox to a USB port.

Likely not without extra work.  The AVox-USB adaptor is used to create a virtual serial port, which Stella then 'talks' to.  However, I'm not sure if the drivers for USB virtual COM ports has been compiled into the Linux image that the R77 uses, but I would guess that they aren't.  If they were, then I see no reason why it wouldn't work in R77 too.  Remember that behind the scenes, the R77 is simply Linux running an ARM version of Stella, and the OTG/USB route bypasses the builtin ports completely.  So as long as we can get Stella to have a COM port, there's no reason why the AVox couldn't work.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Honestly (and I've said this before), if one could remove the built-in controller ports and put two 2600-daptors there instead, it would make things much more compatible.  That's essentially what we're doing with the OTG cable anyway.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 minutes ago, stephena said:

The ROM has to have 'QuadTari' set as its controller, otherwise it will default to normal joystick mode (single controller per port).  Or can Stella now autodetect the ROM as using QuadTari?  If so, then ignore this part.

Okay, I was testing with the community build on the R77 and I don't think QT support has been added into that, or at least I don't have that version.  I think TJ wanted to check to see if the first joystick of the QT would work since when connected to a real Atari it will act as a regular joystick when used with a non-QT game (like Combat, etc).  

21 minutes ago, stephena said:

Likely not without extra work.  The AVox-USB adaptor is used to create a virtual serial port, which Stella then 'talks' to.  However, I'm not sure if the drivers for USB virtual COM ports has been compiled into the Linux image that the R77 uses, but I would guess that they aren't.  If they were, then I see no reason why it wouldn't work in R77 too.  Remember that behind the scenes, the R77 is simply Linux running an ARM version of Stella, and the OTG/USB route bypasses the builtin ports completely.  So as long as we can get Stella to have a COM port, there's no reason why the AVox couldn't work.

I'll give this a test and see what happens.  If the R77 can detect the USB-serial adapter, we should be good to go.  What would be the effort to add in the USB COM drivers to the R77 build?  I'm sure there are others that would like to have AtariVox voice for the games that support it. :) 

18 minutes ago, stephena said:

Honestly (and I've said this before), if one could remove the built-in controller ports and put two 2600-daptors there instead, it would make things much more compatible.  That's essentially what we're doing with the OTG cable anyway.

That would be great!  Maybe a Retron77 v2? ;)  Hopefully there's some aspiring young hardware hackers that can make this happen - I would certainly pay for this!  My dream is to be able to play a true game of Wizard of Wor Arcade on the R77 with a QuadTari/2 joysticks in the left port and an AtariVox with voice in the right port. :D 

 

Thanks for the info Stephen, it's much appreciated!

John

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

23 minutes ago, johnnywc said:

Okay, I was testing with the community build on the R77 and I don't think QT support has been added into that, or at least I don't have that version.  I think TJ wanted to check to see if the first joystick of the QT would work since when connected to a real Atari it will act as a regular joystick when used with a non-QT game (like Combat, etc).  

Yeah, forgot about that part.  This support is definitely not in R77 yet; it's not even in any release version of Stella yet, so you have to compile from Git.  So you won't be able to test that part for now.

24 minutes ago, johnnywc said:

I'll give this a test and see what happens.  If the R77 can detect the USB-serial adapter, we should be good to go.  What would be the effort to add in the USB COM drivers to the R77 build?  I'm sure there are others that would like to have AtariVox voice for the games that support it. :) 

Well, there's the detection, but also then having to specify the serial port to use within Stella itself.  So it's still not automatic, and you'd need a keyboard hooked up to (1) look in "/dev" directory for the serial port, and (2) enter that into the Stella UI.  I'm working on improving this in https://github.com/stella-emu/stella/issues/688, but now that I think of the R77 case, it's even more relevant.

27 minutes ago, johnnywc said:

That would be great!  Maybe a Retron77 v2? ;)  Hopefully there's some aspiring young hardware hackers that can make this happen - I would certainly pay for this!  My dream is to be able to play a true game of Wizard of Wor Arcade on the R77 with a QuadTari/2 joysticks in the left port and an AtariVox with voice in the right port. :D 

Unfortunately, we (the Stella team) were not really consulted on how this hardware was designed.  Not that we needed to be, of course, but we could certainly have provided some opinions here and there that would have made the product much better suited to Stella.  Or maybe not, since it probably would have cost more as a result ...

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, johnnywc said:

I hooked up the QT to the Retron77:

 

- when hooked up to the front Retron left port, pushing the first QT joystick button 'left' brings up the Power On menu in Stella.  Once in the menu, pressing the joystick button opens up the selected dropdown and pressing left closes the dialog window.  The 2nd QT joystick does nothing (as expected).  My guess is that perhaps the Retron77 is detecting the QT as a paddle since INPT1 is high on startup, so only left works which is mapped to the first paddle button. 

That might be the case, yes. Not sure, but it may work if you first attach a joystick and only later swap to the QuadTari. This might trick the R77 controller detection.

 

There are parts in R77 software we can fix and we cannot. I am not sure yet, but probably the latter is the case.

Quote

- when hooked up to the 2600dapter through OTG cable, neither joystick works at all.  This may be a 2600dapter issue where it's detecting them to be paddles perhaps.  

Sounds like that, yes.

Quote

Question: is there a way to use the OTG USB controllers to navigate the menu? 

That should work. Have a look at index_r77.html

Quote

Also, can you hook up a real AtariVox to the OTG and have it work on the Retron77 with voice?  I can do it on my PC but was wondering if it would work for the R77 also.  I have the USB serial adapter needed to connect the AtariVox to a USB port.

I haven't tested this yet. I know the 2600-daptor II(!) supports the SaveKey, but the firmware has to be flashed for this.

Quote

I may reach out to the 2600dapter developer and see if possibly we can get QuadTari support added to it.  :)  

Good idea.

 

Given the current problems with R77, what should we do with QuadTari support here? E.g. Stella's controller auto-detection might strike. 

 

BTW: Instead of R77 OTG, you can also test via your computer. That should be about the same.

Edited by Thomas Jentzsch
Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, johnnywc said:

Okay, I was testing with the community build on the R77 and I don't think QT support has been added into that, or at least I don't have that version.  I think TJ wanted to check to see if the first joystick of the QT would work since when connected to a real Atari it will act as a regular joystick when used with a non-QT game (like Combat, etc). 

Yes, that's what I wanted to check first. That clumsy controller detection of R77 is really annoying. @DirtyHairy Would the situation improve if we stop using separate controllers for joysticks and paddles in the R77 kernel? Would that be worth a try?

 

Eventually we should build a R77 image with QuadTari support for testing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 year later...
On 1/24/2022 at 5:02 PM, djpowerplayer said:

I'm going to purchase a Quadtari eventually just wondering if I can use the Atari Vox with it.

Hi there!  As Al mentioned, yes you can use an AtariVox/SaveKey with the QuadTari.  Typically though, you would plug the QuadTari into just the left port of the Atari for 2 joysticks and then plug in the AtariVox into the right port for voice/high score savings.  This was the setup that was needed when I was developing Wizard of Wor Arcade since it is famous for it's 2 player co-op AND voice which would be impossible without the QT. :cool:  

 

Please note that the games need to be written to support the QT in this configuration (most later Champ Games releases support this, starting From Galagon).  Also, you can plug the SaveKey into the QuadTari also, but it only works for port 2 of the QuadTari when connected to the right port of the Atari.

 

Hope that helps!

John

 

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 hours ago, johnnywc said:

Also, you can plug the SaveKey into the QuadTari also, but it only works for port 2 of the QuadTari when connected to the right port of the Atari.

Wait; are you saying that you can't multiplex anything with the AtariVox/SaveKey on the right port? Does it make use of the paddle line?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

26 minutes ago, Karl G said:

Wait; are you saying that you can't multiplex anything with the AtariVox/SaveKey on the right port? Does it make use of the paddle line?

Hi there!  No, sorry for the confusion - I should have been more specific.  Since most games (I think all) expect the Savekey/Atarivox in port 2 of the Atari, you can plug an AtariVox in port 2 of the QuadTari which acts as a joystick extender for port 2 on the Atari (minus the paddle lines).  Yes, the QT does use the paddle lines (pin 9 to be specific) as the selector for reading port 1/2 or port 3/4 of the Quadtari, so that's why paddles don't work (except the button) when connected to the QT. 

 

Joysticks and driving controllers do work without issue because they don't use the paddle lines.  Sega/Genesis two button controllers work connected to the QT except for the 2nd button (which is read using the paddle lines). Keyboards don't work at all.  The AtariVox/Savekey work when connected to the QT because they don't use the paddle lines either.  You could (in theory) connect 4 AtariVoxs to the QT (assuming your software supported writing/reading the AVOX/Savekeys connected to each port ;) ).

 

If the software/game supports it, you can have the QT connected to both Atari ports and have a joystick connected to ports 1, 3 and 4 and the SaveKey in port 2 for 3 player games with SaveKey.  :)  

 

Hope that clears things up! :D 

 

John

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

31 minutes ago, johnnywc said:

Hope that clears things up! :D

It does. Thank you. I know how the QT uses the paddle line and why devices that also do can't be multiplexed that way. I had thought about re-attempting my save key copy utility, thinking that it would be much simpler if I used a QT and two of them on the right port, so I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't missing something. :)

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, Karl G said:

It does. Thank you. I know how the QT uses the paddle line and why devices that also do can't be multiplexed that way. I had thought about re-attempting my save key copy utility, thinking that it would be much simpler if I used a QT and two of them on the right port, so I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't missing something. :)

The Savekey Copy utility sounds cool!  In theory, you should be able to hook up 2 AV/SaveKeys, one to QT port 2 and the other to QT port 4 and enable/disable TIA dumpports to switch between each.  Since they will both be recognized by the right port of the Atari, you can use the same Savekey code for each as you probably know (hooking one up to the left Atari port would require different SaveKey code that reads/writes to that port of course ;) ).

 

Good luck!

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

31 minutes ago, Karl G said:

It does. Thank you. I know how the QT uses the paddle line and why devices that also do can't be multiplexed that way. I had thought about re-attempting my save key copy utility, thinking that it would be much simpler if I used a QT and two of them on the right port, so I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't missing something. :)

It would be great if the Save Key Copy Utility could work on a game by game basis with a menu (with option to copy unassigned slots as well) just in case somebody had a particular savegame/highscore on one device and wanted to copy just that one over. I have a Wall Jump Ninja record on my old AtariVox that I'd love to copy over, but not the rest of the data.

 

1 hour ago, johnnywc said:

You could (in theory) connect 4 AtariVoxs to the QT (assuming your software supported writing/reading the AVOX/Savekeys connected to each port ;) ).

I'm trying to think of a use case for 4 AtariVoxs connected all at once... a choir of robots singing? A 4.0 Quadraphonic sound demo? Hahah

 

- James

  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

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