"Dragonfly" my version of the Atari 7800 SD cartridge

[rj1307]

Here is the Outrun recorded in true STEREO. I was so curious how it sounds that I have led Dragonfly left and right channels independently.

 

[Eagle]

Another 3 Dual Pokey songs

Outrun 2,3 and Popcorn by KJmann

Enjoy

 

 

Outrun2.a78 Outrun3.a78 Popcorn.a78

[+-^CrossBow^-]

52 minutes ago, rj1307 said:

Here is the Outrun recorded in true STEREO. I was so curious how it sounds that I have led Dragonfly left and right channels independently.

You going to share how you did that exactly? I assume you have separate outputs from the cart since there is only a single channel for audio from the cartridge port? That being the case only the POKEY is being sent through your audio out in that regard? Still that is pretty awesome!

 

 

[rj1307]

I soldered the wires to the places where the signal from the left and right channels are not summed up yet and connected them to the laptop's audio input. For tests only.  

Black arrow - GND, red arrows - audio signals:

[+-^CrossBow^-]

1 hour ago, rj1307 said:

I soldered the wires to the places where the signal from the left and right channels are not summed up yet and connected them to the laptop's audio input. For tests only.  

Black arrow - GND, red arrows - audio signals:

I can't recall but does the 2152 have only one output channel or two? If so would this also provide stereo out from the FM? Might be something to consider to add an additional audio out jack to be used with mixing in with other sources or for video/audio capture situations.

 

I've just done a video on the DragonFly that I will be editing up tonight but I do have a few critiques I thought I would mention here:

 

- The small M2 self tapper screws are really short I wonder if slightly longer ones could be used to hold the shell assembly together?

- The label on mine arrived already starting to peel up on the right edge of it. I would advise you print that section of the shell as smooth as possible as I'm guessing the sticker label is applied to the same textured surface as the rest of the cart? If not, then I'm not sure but I know I will have to use some spray adhesive or something on mine in the near future.

- I would suggest asking the customers who are purchasing the cart, exactly which configurations they might want the cart to be initially. I couldn't get the PacMan XM to work with external audio until I set the RAM to Force mode and also found that one of the FM demos was sounding off until I disabled the dual pokey option. I believe I read in this thread somewhere that you stated that should be done by mine was enabled by default so I thought at first something might be amiss with my cart. 

- Ask if you customer's want the PAL based files or not on the SD you provide. Since I only use a stock BIOS 7800 it is hard for me to know off hand what will or won't work due to PAL games and demos missing the encryption that NTSC 7800s require. Since the screen only shows the first 8 characters of a file, it makes this more difficult until the program you selected it loaded and you can then scroll through the options to see what format it is in.

 

Can you explain in more detail if the IRQs needed to be enabled or not? Didn't seem to affect any of the demos and games I was playing so I suspect this is mainly for developer use?

 

It is an excellent product and I'm very glad to have mine in hand. I can see this pretty much always being plugged into the 7800 at all times since it basically covers everything gamewise we currently have and are likely to have in the future.

 

[rj1307]

7 hours ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

I can't recall but does the 2152 have only one output channel or two? If so would this also provide stereo out from the FM? Might be something to consider to add an additional audio out jack to be used with mixing in with other sources or for video/audio capture situations.

Yes, the YM2151 is stereo, but in Dragonfly it is summed up into one channel. If someone wants to introduce an additional stereo sound socket, I will show where to connect with the wires. I will definitely not modify the project to add such a socket.

 

7 hours ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

- The small M2 self tapper screws are really short I wonder if slightly longer ones could be used to hold the shell assembly together?

They must be short so as not to catch on the PCB at the top, and at the bottom against the cartridge slot in the console. They are long enough to hold the housing together. You just have to be careful with the tightening force so as not to damage the thread in the plastic.

 

7 hours ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

- The label on mine arrived already starting to peel up on the right edge of it. I would advise you print that section of the shell as smooth as possible as I'm guessing the sticker label is applied to the same textured surface as the rest of the cart? If not, then I'm not sure but I know I will have to use some spray adhesive or something on mine in the near future.

One would have to wonder here. I wanted to maintain a uniform structure of the entire housing, if someone did not want this sticker, after removing it, the whole thing will look good.
Printing this part on a smooth table is possible, but without a sticker it will look poor. As of today, I have about 50 housings printed, I would have to modernize them all.
The sticker is printed on an ordinary inkjet printer, on self-adhesive photo paper. I can share her design so that anyone can print it if it gets damaged.

 

7 hours ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

- I would suggest asking the customers who are purchasing the cart, exactly which configurations they might want the cart to be initially. I couldn't get the PacMan XM to work with external audio until I set the RAM to Force mode and also found that one of the FM demos was sounding off until I disabled the dual pokey option. I believe I read in this thread somewhere that you stated that should be done by mine was enabled by default so I thought at first something might be amiss with my cart. 

I mentioned running the YM sound in PMC_XM in the manual, where I describe the Menu and the Force RAM parameter.
PMC_XM checks for the presence of RAM before starting (although the game itself does not use it) to determine if the XM module is connected. If there is, it starts Yamaha, if not, it starts TIA. The header in the PMC_XM file is set to not use RAM, so the Force parameter was created to turn on the memory.
Can you determine which demo had a problem with Dual Pokey enabled? This option unlocks a $ 440 address that is normally not used.

 

7 hours ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

- Ask if you customer's want the PAL based files or not on the SD you provide. Since I only use a stock BIOS 7800 it is hard for me to know off hand what will or won't work due to PAL games and demos missing the encryption that NTSC 7800s require. Since the screen only shows the first 8 characters of a file, it makes this more difficult until the program you selected it loaded and you can then scroll through the options to see what format it is in.

Anyone can insert an SD card into the reader, connect to a computer and sort / add / delete files as they want, I see no reason for me to have to ask every person what they want on the card. Original games are divided into PAL and NTSC, but HB games are not, maybe someone will sort them into systems?

 

7 hours ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

Can you explain in more detail if the IRQs needed to be enabled or not? Didn't seem to affect any of the demos and games I was playing so I suspect this is mainly for developer use?

IRQ is disabled by default, as of today nothing uses these interrupts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[+-^CrossBow^-]

RJ, Don't misunderstand I'm loving this cart! I finished filming and editing a video on it over the weekend that is scheduled for release tomorrow. You are correct in that this information is indeed found in the manual and that was how I got most things working fine. You mentioned in a post previously I believe stating that the dual pokey couldn't be enabled along with something else and I thought it was the YM module? I just know that the FM demo you provided that isn't the Zanac one sounds off and is missing instruments unless I disabled or set the DUAL Pokey to Not Installed mode on the cart.

 

I figured you had to use the smaller screws due to the design of the PCB etc, was just curious really.

 

And you are also correct in that you do have the PAL and NTSC official games in their own folders and that is excellent. But as you also stated, the files in the HB folder aren't so laid out and I'm not familiar with quite a bit of them so I just try and run them to see what happens. A big chunk of them don't actually work as I assume they are PAL coded. Although I'm surprised Santa Simon doesn't work as I thought that was coded for either PAL/NTSC but maybe it is PAL only on the cart.

 

Thanks again for the excellent work in getting this cartridge together and so quickly as well I might add!

 

 

[rj1307]

I do not understand anything wrong, I try to dispel any doubts and if something is unclear, ask  

 

I just checked Santa Simon on the PAL console and it works, on ProSystem it won't start. I have no idea what version it is, all files are from @Trebor package.

 

Also, I would like all files to be segregated into PAL, NTSC and those that work on both systems. But it's a lot of work, maybe someone will do it?  

 

Will you send me a file that works fine after disabling Dual Pokey? I'm curious about it.

[Trebor]

4 hours ago, rj1307 said:

I have no idea what version it is, all files are from @Trebor package.

 

7 hours ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

...I'm surprised Santa Simon doesn't work as I thought that was coded for either PAL/NTSC but maybe it is PAL only on the cart.

 

Santa Simon is known to have compatibility issues on some consoles.  You can try the last version from Schmutzpuppe, or the one that is included in the PROPack.

 

CC2 had issues with getting Santa Simon to work as well.  A report too that another individual was able to get the game to work only after their system was 'warmed up'.

[+chicgamer]

9 hours ago, rj1307 said:

The sticker is printed on an ordinary inkjet printer, on self-adhesive photo paper. I can share her design so that anyone can print it if it gets damaged.

You actually have the image in the first post of this thread, unless you have a higher-res version to share. Mine is coming off my cartridge as well, so I may need to reprint at some point.

 

By the way, one issue that I had with my cart that I don't think anyone else has mentioned (or maybe encountered) is that the wires from the cart to the 7800 were shorting out. It took quite a bit of troubleshooting to figure out what was going on. I just had to pull the wires apart a bit near where they plug into my 7800 to stop this from happening.

[+-^CrossBow^-]

1 hour ago, chicgamer said:

By the way, one issue that I had with my cart that I don't think anyone else has mentioned (or maybe encountered) is that the wires from the cart to the 7800 were shorting out. It took quite a bit of troubleshooting to figure out what was going on. I just had to pull the wires apart a bit near where they plug into my 7800 to stop this from happening.

Can you be more specific on this? Far as I know the 3D printing he used is some of the sturdiest I've encountered. I mean the cart shell pieces are built like tanks. So the only way it could have been shorting was if the pins inside were somehow making contact with each other internally, but I believe his printing has the female pins isolated from each other. Was it shorting inside the plug or on the outside where the wires go into the 3D printed connector. 

 

I've not had any issue like that but I do note how loose that connector feels in my 7800 and if it were an issue, I would likely just solder on an actual 7800 connector to the wire harness he has created to be sure. 

 

Glad to see I'm not the only one with the label peeling issue. Surprised it is just inkjet printed onto photo sticker paper as I have a decent high end canon inkjet and it doesn't produce nearly that clear a result as these labels show. I thought they were vinyl printed labels. I also stated in my video incorrectly that the LCD appears to be OLED due to how clear it looks. But then I realized that if that were the case, the screen wouldn't really need a backlit panel for it. Oh well, still a very clear and easy to read LCD panel on it.

 

[+bhall408]

On 1/17/2021 at 8:11 AM, Eagle said:

Dual Pokey music for NTSC Dragonfly users.

More examples soon.

Cool - now that we have an example, we'll see if we can support it in Argon...

[rj1307]

I am also surprised by the short circuit in the plug, I check all cables before shipping. Can you describe exactly what was the cause? I solder the wires to the pins.

[gambler172]

23 hours ago, Eagle said:

Video isn't working.

Hj Eagle

now we nee Haeart Light working 

[Eagle]

8 minutes ago, gambler172 said:

Hj Eagle

now we nee Haeart Light working 

It’s working on my computer ?

Ok I’ll post tonight version for Ntsc brothers with all levels but no sound or title screen yet. 

[gambler172]

25 minutes ago, Eagle said:

It’s working on my computer ?

Ok I’ll post tonight version for Ntsc brothers with all levels but no sound or title screen yet. 

great ?

i like this game......

[+chicgamer]

4 hours ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

Can you be more specific on this? Far as I know the 3D printing he used is some of the sturdiest I've encountered. I mean the cart shell pieces are built like tanks. So the only way it could have been shorting was if the pins inside were somehow making contact with each other internally, but I believe his printing has the female pins isolated from each other. Was it shorting inside the plug or on the outside where the wires go into the 3D printed connector. 

 

I've not had any issue like that but I do note how loose that connector feels in my 7800 and if it were an issue, I would likely just solder on an actual 7800 connector to the wire harness he has created to be sure.

 

3 hours ago, rj1307 said:

I am also surprised by the short circuit in the plug, I check all cables before shipping. Can you describe exactly what was the cause? I solder the wires to the pins.

When I first got my Dragonfly, I was worried at first that I received a defective unit, because it wasn't working. After a lot of troubleshooting (including trying different power supplies, different 7800s, etc), I discovered that my Dragonfly would turn on if I didn't have the cable that connects it to the 7800 attached. If I had that cable plugged in, even if the other end wasn't connected to the 7800, the Dragonfly wouldn't work.

 

After determining that the issue was with the cable to the 7800, I moved it around a bit and successfully got the Dragonfly to boot. The issue seems to be at the end that connects to the 7800. By pulling the two wires apart a bit there, I got my Dragonfly to work consistently. I took this to mean that the wires were shorting out previously. It sounds like this is an issue unique to me, though. I just thought I'd share it in case this comes up for anyone else.

[+-^CrossBow^-]

3 minutes ago, chicgamer said:

 

When I first got my Dragonfly, I was worried at first that I received a defective unit, because it wasn't working. After a lot of troubleshooting (including trying different power supplies, different 7800s, etc), I discovered that my Dragonfly would turn on if I didn't have the cable that connects it to the 7800 attached. If I had that cable plugged in, even if the other end wasn't connected to the 7800, the Dragonfly wouldn't work.

 

After determining that the issue was with the cable to the 7800, I moved it around a bit and successfully got the Dragonfly to boot. The issue seems to be at the end that connects to the 7800. By pulling the two wires apart a bit there, I got my Dragonfly to work consistently. I took this to mean that the wires were shorting out previously. It sounds like this is an issue unique to me, though. I just thought I'd share it in case this comes up for anyone else.

Sounds more like a loose wire connection vs shorting but I haven't really looked down inside that 3D printed connector to know for sure. But yes I would say yours is an isolated incident.

 

[+chicgamer]

7 minutes ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

Sounds more like a loose wire connection vs shorting but I haven't really looked down inside that 3D printed connector to know for sure. But yes I would say yours is an isolated incident.

 

Would a loose wire prevent the Dragonfly from turning on?

[+-^CrossBow^-]

Not on the 7800 side I wouldn't think. In fact it will power on without being connected or plugged into the 7800 at all.

 

[+chicgamer]

Yeah, that's how I discovered the issue was the cable. If I had the cable plugged into the Dragonfly (even if the 7800 end wasn't connected), the Dragonfly wouldn't turn on. Without that cable plugged in, it would.

 

Just watched your video, by the way, and learned a few things. I need to check my cart to see if I have RAM on Force or not. I didn't realize that was a thing.  

[Dauber]

Just got my Dragonfly on Saturday...it's a pretty sleek little design and love it!

 

A couple of things, though:

 

1) Pac-Man Collection! XM Edition -- I can barely hear anything -- I have to turn my TV to max to get any kind of sound on it, and it doesn't sound any different from the TIA version (just barely audible). Is there any trick to getting the Yamaha sound to work on it? The two tracker demos sound perfect though.

 

2) Those of you in North America who need a power adapter -- this one works quite well for me: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06Y1LF8T5/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Edited January 19, 2021 by Dauber

[+sramirez2008]

41 minutes ago, Dauber said:

 

1) Pac-Man Collection! XM Edition -- I can barely hear anything -- I have to turn my TV to max to get any kind of sound on it, and it doesn't sound any different from the TIA version (just barely audible). Is there any trick to getting the Yamaha sound to work on it? The two tracker demos sound perfect though.

Watch @-^CrossBow^- YouTube video. He walks through a few settings for PokeyMAX, YM etc. The settings will make a difference as to whether you hear POKEY or really, really good TIA sound.

 

41 minutes ago, Dauber said:

 

2) Those of you in North America who need a power adapter -- this one works quite well for me: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06Y1LF8T5/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

+1 This is one of the two power supplies that I ordered/mention in the DragonFly Preorder thread.

[Dauber]

1 hour ago, sramirez2008 said:

Watch @-^CrossBow^- YouTube video. He walks through a few settings for PokeyMAX, YM etc. The settings will make a difference as to whether you hear POKEY or really, really good TIA sound.

 

+1 This is one of the two power supplies that I ordered/mention in the DragonFly Preorder thread.

 

If you're talking about the trim pots, they make zero difference with Pac-Man Collection! XM Edition -- the volume is still barely audible. POKEY is fine, TIA is fine. And again, the two music demos in the YM2151 directory sound absolutely fine.

[+sramirez2008]

Just now, Dauber said:

 

If you're talking about the trim pots, they make zero difference with Pac-Man Collection! XM Edition -- the volume is still barely audible. POKEY is fine, TIA is fine. And again, the two music demos in the YM2151 directory sound absolutely fine.

Not the pots, a little later in the video he describes the configuration settings for Pokey, PokeyMAX, YM etc. He even mentions that they make a difference with the PMC XM Edition. I know it made a difference for me.