weird phoenix glitch- otherwise known as UNLIMITED SHIPS!!!!

[Csonicgo]

I was turning on my atari with phoenix in it ( knowing that the atari has a bad switch) and it turned on and off and back on again rather quickly. I immediately noticed the screen was rolling, so I flipped the channel on my tv to 4 and back to 3. the screen was no longer rolling. I noticed the game was already in play, and the lives remaining was a blob of scattered pixels. I decided to play it in this state, and I got killed enough times to make it go back to the title screen, but it didn't. it kept going. in other words, UNLIMITED SHIPS! WOOHOO!

 

C'mon, try it! it's a blast! a good

"practice mode"

 

reply and tell me if it worked! all you have to do is flip the power switch a few times.... sometimes you get a weird green line that hides the enemies... fun, like new variations!

[VidGameKing]

dude, your gonna kill your 2600.

[Csonicgo]

because of a bad switch? naw.

[Tempest]

Sounds like a frying side effect. I could never get that to work on my old 2600, but others have had better luck. Cool!

 

Tempest

[Csonicgo]

I have autofire on, and the score is now 56,370, and I'm not even touching the controller.

[VidGameKing]

maybe you can beat whatever is the highest score record!!!!

[bjk7382]

I think 2600's are pretty tought beasts, and they can take a little bit of frying. I do it every once in a while to get unlimited lives on HERO. It is harder to do with a good switch.

[Goochman]

I thought Phoenix came with unlimited lives anyway? The game was so easy I never lost one

[Csonicgo]

uh, that game is hard, buddy.

[Mindfield]

Back in the day, I accidentally discovered "frying" and used to try it with all my games. Never killed the 2600, but had lots of fun seeing what kind of different effects frying produced in different games.

[Ralph3]

I fried my Frogger last week and had a few neat side effects.

I was even able to fry my Intellivision by pulling a cart out without turning off and put in another one. I did it with Math Fun, in the middle oif the game I pulled it out and put in Space battle, the monkeys turned into the space ships and crashed about 2 seconds later.

It's fun frying!!!

[RCmodeler]

Back in the day, I accidentally discovered "frying" and used to try it with all my games.  Never killed the 2600, but had lots of fun seeing what kind of different effects frying produced in different games.

 

What is "frying"? Why is it called frying? What exactly happens to the electronics during this state?

[bjk7382]

I fried my Frogger last week and had a few neat side effects.

I was even able to fry my Intellivision by pulling a cart out without turning off and put in another one. I did it with Math Fun, in the middle oif the game I pulled it out and put in Space battle, the monkeys turned into the space ships and crashed about 2 seconds later.

It's fun frying!!!

 

I would be careful taking the cart out when it is on. Atari put warnings in all of the instruction manuals "turn power off before removing or inserting cartriges" I think damage can be done to the game if that is done enough.

 

This is also why the 400/800 had doors on the top, preventing the carts from being pulled out when the power is on.

[NE146]

from: http://www.digitpress.com/eastereggs/

 

"Russ Perry Jr. and his brother, David, coined the term "frying" in regards to the technique of using the power switch on a VCS to (temporarily) alter a game's code. This article in Electronic Fun & Games may have been the first mention of how to use this trick."

 

And here's a recent discussion about it here:

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=10756

[+uosipa llamxew]

I think it would be interesting if everyone posted their frying results to one thread... I knew about frying when I was younger - ofcourse I had no idea why it worked or what to call it then... but the only game I had good results on was Space Invaders... and it would give me a rapid fire - double shot effect. It helps you get to the harder levels quicker for sure.

 

... boy I'd feel stupid now if someone told me that double-shot was game 24 from the select switch. I never did play many of those other versions of the game - Until about 1990, I refused to read a video game instruction booklet. It was about 2 weeks after I owned Super Mario Bros for NES before I discovered that the flower gave you firepower! LOL!

 

... I digress

 

[update]

 

I just read the article that NE146 linked to... and the double-shot in Space Invaders is the one they mentioned. DUH!

 

So how 'bout it... anyone else have some information of games to fry with beneficial results?! Wouldn't it be cool if John Saeger added an option to z26 to virtually fry the game so that you could get those weird effects. Ah, I can dream can't I?

[Ian Primus]

Actually, with Space Invaders, all you have to do is hold down the "Reset" switch when you turn on the power... I'd imagine frying would give a similar result though.

 

While removing a cart with the power on probably isn't the best of ideas, I don't think it would hurt the Atari any. While it is definitely possible to blow something, I think as long as you're sure to insert and remove the cart straight up (not short anything), it shoudn't hurt the machine. All it's really doing is confusing the processor, since all of a sudden all it's ROM is different, right while it was in the middle of executing code. It's very likely that the machine would crash, or do something really weird. But, be careful, it _is_ possible to damage the machine, especially if you short something while inserting and removing the cart.

 

Frying shouldn't hurt the machine either, although once again, it's very possible. The worst that could happen is that you would cause power spikes that could damage chips, but the Atari is pretty resiliant, and the voltages aren't nearly as critical as they are in other machines, so frying is very likely to screw up the contents of RAM, garble the graphics or change something about the gameplay, but it's less likely to damage the machine, since it doesn't have a switching power supply. If anything, you'd blow the voltage regulator.

 

Ian Primus

[email protected]

[bjk7382]

While removing a cart with the power on probably isn't the best of ideas, I don't think it would hurt the Atari any. While it is definitely possible to blow something, I think as long as you're sure to insert and remove the cart straight up (not short anything), it shoudn't hurt the machine. All it's really doing is confusing the processor, since all of a sudden all it's ROM is different, right while it was in the middle of executing code. It's very likely that the machine would crash, or do something really weird. But, be careful, it _is_ possible to damage the machine, especially if you short something while inserting and removing the cart.

 

Ian Primus

[email protected]

 

 

I was thinking of damage to the cart. Having the 5v dc jolts of current to the cartrige can't be good. I know the hardware is pretty tough, but the power fluxuations may screw the rom chip up. I have pulled a few games out when it was on. and no bad games yet so, it doesn't seem like too big of deal.

[slapdash]

Actually, I'm pretty sure that frying Phoenix gives you 255 free ships, not unlimited. But that's from memory, and it's been quite a while...

[+-^CrossBow^-]

Frying isn't so hard on the voltage regulator as it is on the adapter! I used to fry my 4switcher all the time and went through about 4 power supplies in the 6 years total that I had it. Of which about 4 years were actively being played nightly. We also left the adpater plugged in 24/7 which I think was probably better and is a practice I still do today. I still have most all my original power supplys for all my consoles. In fact the 2600 is the only one I can think of ever losing. Also the constant action of removing the power supplies was hard on the cord. Most of the power supplies with frayed cords are right at where the cord meets the plug base into the AC.

 

Video Pinball was always good one to Fry. There was one way I could get Video Pinball to give me unlimited balls...and also it would change the graphics slightly. I think where was an extra set of lines in the playfield where the ball would escape out if you weren't careful. These were in a different place from the ones you get with the difficulty switches. I suspect the frying was actually just accessing that part of the code but placing it in the wrong place. Can't quite remember now. Also I use a 7800 for all my 2600 and 7800 playing needs, and you can't really do the fry trick on a 7800. Especially with the DevOS bios installed...hehe..

 

[Csonicgo]

I have a custom.... adapter.... thing so I don't think it would hurt. I just tried that pinball thing. the flippers look like blobs, but it's fun.... sorta.