GRay Defender

Just watched this video on the Atari 3200, also knows as "Project Sylvia" and "Super Stella," which was meant to be the Intellivision killer.  Check it out...
 

Sweet.. Thanks for sharing... 🙂

I just watched this interview with Bob DeCrescenzo and I thought I'd share it.  Bob is such a nice guy and he has created so many games for the 7800 that is is almost incredible.  Though he can't say anything specific, I did see him at FreePlay Florida last year and he said he was officially working on something for Atari.  Can't wait to see what it is!  Enjoy the interview...
 

Someone donated a small one to me a year or so ago.  It had a few 8-tracks, which still play.  I haven't tried the turn table yet... 🙂
 
 

Someone donated a small one to me a year or so ago.  It had a few 8-tracks, which still play.  I haven't tried the turn table yet... 🙂
 
 

In thinking more about this, it really shows the mess that Commodore management was at this time.  The 128 and C65 were essentially the same, with an attempt at keeping C64 compatibility that was really poorly done (having a completely separate C64 mode) and held the new machine back.  C16 and Plus 4 that brought nothing new to the table.  And the incredible Amiga, which they should have placed all their chips in on, but didn't.  Also, by this time, their initial "business" lead with the PET was completely gone and wasted.  IBM had eaten their lunch in all respects at this moment. 
As with many computer/game companies at this time, they had a real lack of focus and too many irons in the fire. 

RetroUSB is back at it this year and they are releasing a new Xmas game for the NES as has been the norm for them for the last 15 years or so.  This time the 8-Bit Xmas title is a pinball game.  The game can be ordered here:  8 BIT XMAS 2023.  One of the cool things about these carts is that they have LED's that light up as the game is played. 

Here's a video of the gameplay...
 

I got my 2600+ from FedEx yesterday. My initial impressions are that it does feel like it is built really well although I was a little surprised at how small the length of screws used were for holding it all together. For those that didn't know, all of the guts of the 2600+ are located in the switch panel section of the unit. It uses a couple of different PCBs sandwiched and connected together to do everything. 
Here are my Pros thus far:
The cartridge slot is actually quite nice and seems to have a good connection with the games I've tested it with. But do make sure you clean any of your old cartridges you haven't used in a while to be sure that you are allowing as good a connection as possible and to prevent adding any crud from your old carts into the 2600+. 
The switches are kinda amazing on this thing?! They have a very satisfying click to the power and color/bw switch and the select and reset have a point where you can feel them engage and their spring back action is very nice. It makes me wonder if the switches can be adapted to OEM consoles...
My 2600+ shipped set to 16:9 mode. This will result in that fully stretched image that some like and some do not. I prefer to NOT have that stretched look so I promptly set mine to 4:3 mode.
The hot swap ability of games is quite nice and I advise using this method since you save a little bit of time loading up games this way. If you power cycle the 2600+ off/on each time, then you have to wait for the 2600+ to boot up internally first before it starts to load the game. The hot swap works exactly as it sounds too. The 2600+ detects when you have a game in the console. If you pull it out while powered on, it will blank out and then go to game load failed. Pop in a different game and a second or two later, it will show game loading and the game will appear on the screen.
Seems to work with most of the original library of games for both 2600 and 7800 that I've tested so far. Quite a few older 2600 homebrews have also come up and worked for me. Some home brew games I tested last night that worked were:
Berzerk: VE originally released during CGE 2010 I believe?
K.O. Cruiser (Although I still can figure out the controls on this one)
Go Fish! (Worked great!)
Ninjish Guy (Most modern home brew I've tried so far and it worked great)
Medieval Mahem (Seemed to work okay with joystick and...bonus! It was in stereo?!)
 
Now for the cons and most of this is just stuff I've noticed and it mainly effects the 7800 side of things:
First let me get this out there. NONE of the 7800 homebrews or graphic hacks I tested would load. As the 2600+ uses a lookup table based on the game rom checksum to know how to load up, this doesn't surprise me. Hopefully the lookup table and possibly the emulated being used can be updated to allow support for some 7800 home brews. But again, NONE would load up for me.
The ONLY original released game for the 7800 that hasn't loaded up for me yet in my testing, was Rampage. It will start to load the game, but then just gives a black screen for me with my actual cartridge.
Ballblazer was the first game I loaded up and it did load up and play great. But... the pokey emulation isn't quite there as the entire counter melody on the title tune is missing. So this tells me that the RNG from the pokey isn't being emulated as that counter melody uses that pokey feature specifically.
Commando loaded up and played correctly. The ONLY issue is that there is some slight graphical corruption on the title screen where the difficulty selection is. But very minor and the game itself displays fine.
Some games appear to have their button 1 and button 2 functions swapped? Although some of the games, I've not played for a bit so I might be wrong on this. But using a normal 2-button 7800 controller, the games did work and respond correctly.
Now for some oddball miscellaneous stuff I've noticed or find interesting that can be taken as a pro or con...
The 2600+ outputs a 720P signal. Although it seems this isn't quite a standard 720P signal as my TV takes a second or two to lock in and show the output. Also, my capture device in the game room usually has no issue with 480P, 720P, and 1080P sources. But it does NOT like the 720P from the 2600+ and stays in pass through mode. So I'm not currently able to get any direct captures from the 2600+ output.
I've heard from others that some games don't work for them while others report they do. Both 7800 Ms. Pac-Man and Crossbow are reported as non-working for some and working for others. In my testing with my actual cartridges, both games loaded up and worked without issue for me. But it is possible there are two or more revisions of these games that were released over the years that could be the cause for this if they have slightly different checksums than what is being expected for those games in the 2600+. 
The power LED is stupid easy to replace as there is NO soldering involved. The LED is held in place with a 2 piece bracket using small phillips screws. A 2pin JST connector is plugged into the leads of the LED. So all that is needed to change the LED with a different color if you wanted, would be to remove the small screws and put in a different LED. Plug the jst connector onto the leads and that's it. I've not checked the value of the limiting resistor in the 2600+ for the LED as yet, but as they were using a warm white LED, an those are fairly modern, it is likely the value being used will be good for any LED out there that is 5mm in size to fit in the bracket holder. I've installed a slow changing RGB LED into mine as I felt that fit better than a static color.
Flash carts:
No surprise, but most of the flash carts out there are NOT going to work with the 2600+. That said, I can confirm that the Dragon Fly 7800 flash cartridge does work! As the DF cart loads the game up outside of the console, the 2600+ is able to read the DF like a normal game and just loads up the game that the DF has loaded into RAM at that time. Also, the hot swap ability of the 2600+ allows for easy game changes on the DF because you can have a game loaded on the DF and playing, then use the DF menu to back out. Choose another game and then press the Enter button on the DF to start loading the other game. The 2600+ will detect this, and blank out with the Game Load Failed message, but then a few seconds later it will show Game Loading... and the game you selected on the DF will now be playing on the 2600+. So it is interesting that the DF's ability to control the 7800 consoles power on/off function seems to also trigger the 2600+'s cartridge detection routine. 
All other flash carts I have failed to load up with the Game Load Failed message which, is to be expected since other flash carts rely on talking with the console hardware directly to load up and show their on screen menu of games.
So my initial thoughts are that I think this is a great first step from this new Atari in trying to appeal to as many audiences as possible. There seems to be a lot more market hype on this 2600+ release than anything else Atari related I've seen in well over a decade and I do believe this will get non retro gamers back and into the hobby. With updates made to the console FW or outright hacking it in the future, I'm sure more games will be made to work and that will increase sales of the 2600+ and home brew along with games second hand. I see all of that as a good thing and it might signal a true actual rebirth for Atari and interest in the hobby.
 

Hello !
 
Please join us at World of Commodore 2023, Canada's largest Commodore computer expo.  It's being held at the Admiral Inn Mississauga, which provides convenient accommodations for those who are visiting from out of town.  The featured guest this year is Amiga engineer RJ Mical.  This is a two-day event, taking place on:
 
Saturday - December 2, 2023
and
Sunday - December 3, 2023
 

World of Commodore is organized by TPUG - Toronto PET Users Group, which was founded in 1979 and is the longest continually-operating Commodore users group in the world.  Members past and present include Commodore guru Jim Butterfield, legendary programmer Steve Punter, and renowned sensation Dave Bradley (RUN magazine columnist; YouTube's 8-Bit Commodore Man).
 
Full details of the expo can be found here:
http://www.worldofcommodore.ca
 

We're looking for guest speakers, exhibitors, and vendors.  While vendors are required to pay a table fee, there is no table charge for exhibitors who are not selling any products or services; exhibitors pay only for general admission.  To reserve a vendor's table, please visit the website above.  To reserve an exhibitor's table, please email your request to:  info@tpug.ca
 
Preference is given to guest speakers who are able to present in person.  However, we'd be happy to have you present virtually through Zoom if your project is something that retrocomputing fans would really enjoy.  Please get in touch by emailing:  info@tpug.ca
 

Thanks for being part of the Commodore community !
 

The first World of Commodore expo took place in 1983, in Mississauga, Canada.  Come join us in Mississauga (near Toronto) on December 2nd and 3rd for the 40th anniversary - more details are available at:  http://www.worldofcommodore.ca

Here's a listing of the scheduled speakers at World of Commodore 2023.

Rudy Panigas - Presenting in person.
World premiere of the PET Companion, a board for the PET computer that provides composite output, RGB2HDMI output, and audio output.
https://www.youtube.com/@RudysRetroIntel

Gregory Naçu - Presenting in person.
Advanced new features in C64 OS.
https://www.c64os.com

Dr. Myles Skinner - Presenting in person.
The Commodore 8-Bit Magazine Index.
https://www.tierceron.com/commodore/magazine_index.php

RJ Mical - Presenting in person.
Special chat with our headline guest.
http://www.mical.org

Frank Michlick - Presenting in person.
The results of the 4th annual Transmission 64 demo contest.
https://transmission64.com

Cam Farnell - Presenting by Zoom.
The MCM/70 Computer.
https://hackaday.io/cam.farnell

Dan Wood, with special guest David Pleasance - Presenting by Zoom.
https://theretrohour.com

Leif Bloomquist - Presenting in person.
Leif is a Senior Systems Software Engineer in the aerospace industry.
http://jammingsignal.com
Topics:
– Tracking the International Space Station (ISS) with a VIC-20.
– Tracking the International Space Station (ISS) with an Ultimate 64.
– C64 networking.
– Meatloaf WiFi interface.

Jaime Idolpx - Presenting by Zoom.
Updates from the Meatloaf WiFi project.
https://meatloaf.cc

Jessica Petersen - Presenting by Zoom.
Coding in TRSE (Turbo Rascal Syntax Error).
https://fuzzybad.itch.io

Ranko Rodic - Presenting in person.
New MiniMig developments – Amiga FPGA.
https://www.minimig.ca
 

I have that video saved.  And yes, @GRay Defender, this is a thing!

I guess I haven't been keeping up, I didn't even know this product was a thing... 😂

I guess I haven't been keeping up, I didn't even know this product was a thing... 😂

This 2023 plug-and-play console brings plenty of Atari gameplay to your living room, but it's not perfect. In this video, we run through the top five problems users tend to experience with the GSP, and more importantly, how to correct those problems.
 

Not to see who has the biggest or anything, but I'm curious about how many individual games you all own.  My number is 1876 (which is down by about 10% over the last couple of years).  For me personally, this helps explain why I've slowed down so much on collecting and tried to focus more on playing. 

Someone donated a small one to me a year or so ago.  It had a few 8-tracks, which still play.  I haven't tried the turn table yet... 🙂
 
 

Someone donated a small one to me a year or so ago.  It had a few 8-tracks, which still play.  I haven't tried the turn table yet... 🙂
 
 

Someone donated a small one to me a year or so ago.  It had a few 8-tracks, which still play.  I haven't tried the turn table yet... 🙂
 
 

Someone donated a small one to me a year or so ago.  It had a few 8-tracks, which still play.  I haven't tried the turn table yet... 🙂
 
 

It's in rough shape but in the spirit of this thread... 🙂

My recent interview with book author Brian Matherne:
 

Thank you, it was a pleasure interviewing him.  I just thought I would try something different rather than the same ol' reviews of his book.. 🙂

Thought I might start posting new video content here to share with you guys...
 

Thank you, it was a pleasure interviewing him.  I just thought I would try something different rather than the same ol' reviews of his book.. 🙂