CrossBow

Yeap...the first post on the AA forums has a demo I believe? https://forums.atariage.com/topic/353709-blockem-sockem-7800/

Well, most folks just live with it, or in the case of the audio, the new audio boards supposedly remove the hiss issues using ceramics. But again, that is because they are designing a new board specifically for the purpose of using ceramics when the originals weren't. So just depends. And yes, recapping a GG is more time consuming that other consoles but still not that big a deal and I always recap GGs that come to me unless they have been done recently already by someone else as was the case with the one I posted about. Although the caps they used are of questionable quality and the way they were done was a messy, they did seem to be doing the job and the person that owned this GG wasn't expecting it to have to be recapped, so I only cleaned it up, recapped the audio board to fix the issues I mentioned it was having and installed the new LCD upgrade that it was originally sent to me for. But yes, recapping the GG is mandatory at this point if it hasn't been done already. You should see what the caps looked like on that second one I posted before I redid them...ugh. Caught that one in time.

Well obviously I can suggest myself LOL! But I'm sure there are quite a few techs out there that can provide such services. Just have to ask around and see if there is someone close to you to try and save on shipping etc. I will say that in my opinion, I would stay away from those that recap using ceramic SMD style over the standard electrolytics. Yes the ceramic type will certainly last longer, but they aren't the correct type of cap that was designed to be used. I've installed a few and while they technically do work, I did experience some odd glitching on graphics in a few games and especially constant hissing from the audio. My guess is that is why there are other replacement boards you can purchase for the GG such as power boards that provide you with USB-C for power and have charging circuits on them to have LiPOs installed vs the older AAs... etc. There are even replacement audio boards you can purchase. But I've never had any issues using standard electrolytic caps and the original boards provided any leak damage is cleaned up and the caps are installed in a proper manner. One interesting thing about the GG is that you will heard a lot of folks refer to the caps in it as being early SMD style and that actually isn't true at all. They are standard radial electrolytic caps in a square housing with the leads bent to solder onto SMD pads. So using standard radial caps is just replacing with what was in there originally but with higher quality ones that should last much longer than the originals did. The pic above is what that board looked like after I cleaned all the old flux off it..etc. But it isn't what one of my normal recapped GGs would look like. Here is one I did most recently to give you an idea of how they really should look with proper quality brand caps.

I cannot this year as the cost is just too much right now for me. That said, I will be there in spirit with all the different consoles that will be there and setup for folks to play the new games and enjoy.

I haven't taken that many screen shots from the game but play it quite often. That said, this is one of the few I've kept over the years and is my favorite scene with all the planets aligned as they were. It was an accident I happened to land in this spot to do this but I'm sure glad I did and took the screen shot. This is from the PS4 version that I play and it still looks pretty amazing graphically.

Ninja Golf wasn't a game I ever knew about back then until I got into collecting about a decade later. I think Ninja Golf being a late release, likely came out not long after I had stopped playing consoles and switched to PC gaming. But I also know that part of the reason I started to play my 7800 less and less around '89 was because most locations in my town weren't carrying games for the 7800 anymore.

Crazy, the actual arcade cabinet was semi common when I was kid and I always drawn to it. And you know it was different because games like Operation Wolf and the later other Gun games never interested me, but anytime I saw a Crossbow cabinet I had to play and see how far I could get my friends. But like all arcade games back then, it was much more difficult than home versions and I think I was only able to get them to the ice caves before getting wiped out. Might have made it to the jungle screen, but again just way more difficult compared to the home versions. So yeah, I was very familiar with the game and it was actually Crossbow and Xenophobe that made me want a 7800 when I was younger in the late 80s. I never was able to get Xenophobe as I don't remember being able to find it, but I remember seeing it on the Sears wish catalogs back then. But Crossbow I was able to get and I'm pretty sure I got it from Toys R Us at that time.

And mine arrived yesterday! I was messing around with it quite a bit last night (I should have been doing other stuff...but...ehh). And it isn't perfect by any means, but it is right up there with my Dragon Fly on what it can do currently and since it can play Rikki & Vikki with full audio, it does have the DF beat in that regard. But ONLY that regard. Covox audio isn't working currently on the 7800GD and will have to be addressed in future FW updates. Some games have issues playing on the 7800GD, and the AV out is pretty picky on what will or won't work from it at the current time. There will be a hardware revision of the 7800GD to address the AV output stuff. Likely the next batch of them will have that in place.

I got to be really good at this game when I was younger and preferred to play my 7800 version over my step-bro's NES version. The elbow punch is the most powerful attack and using the enemy stance to your advantage is the key here. As you stated, the enemy has two states. They are either going after your and following the player on the same plane as you stated, or they are walking in your direction but on a different line of plane on the game screen. So what I did was move the controller up and down quickly to get the attacking enemy to switch to wonder mode and then come down and elbow punch them over and over. I also used the reverse jump kick but mostly once I got enemies locked in ontop of each other in a corners and such to wallop them. On the green Abobo's just before entering the final lair, I found a way to get them to come one at a time if you didn't go too far beyond the screen and then again using the elbow punch of them was key to taking them down quickly. I got to the point where I could pretty much beat the game anytime I played it only loosing 1 life. I think I was able to do it on a single life a few times even. I doubt I could now though as it has been 20+ years since I played this but I'm sure if I took some time it would all come back to me.

Oh I wasn't disagreeing with you! I know it is there, but I was essentially out voted on the issue by the other testers. So yes it could matter on the revision of console, but then it seems odd that this is the first time I can recall something like this on a game acting that different between revisions. The two systems I tested it with was an A3 and A1 series consoles. Same thing in regards to the elevator timings. I was still able to. and still able to get the elevators largely to always be in my favor once I get it locked in a few levels in. But apparently no one else was able to replicate that either?!

Exactly my though! for the time needed to do the cleaning and foil dot method, I think this is a better option because this only takes a few min to install and is likely to last for a very long time given everything is gold on gold contact, and the contact points themselves on these new mylars are much larger than Atari or the other Vendor's designs.

BallBlazer is best on the 7800 with the slightly increased color palette and especially much smoother overall game play speed! There is some improvement in the graphics on the 7800 version as well. Really noticed when you see the rotofoyls up close as they appear much more jagged and pixelated on the 5200 / 8-bit vs the 7800.

I brought this up a few times with Lewis during beta testing. Here is the odd thing. I was the only one of the testers to notice this slow down to any degree. There was much more of it and much worse in earlier builds. But yes it seems that once you have radios blinking away on all floors on a screen, that the system has trouble at that point. But again, it wasn't something that Lewis was able to replicate to the same degree I was showing. I even recorded screen footage of the plays where it would come up at 60fps and you could see the slowdown plain as day, but Lewis and the other testers couldn't replicate it or didn't notice it as they were playing on CRTs and I might have been the only one playing with AV upgrades etc in place. So this could be somewhat 7800 specific. We already know that in addition to the red-headed step child treatment is received under the Tramiel banner, that it also seemed very much to be a console that was pieced together from whatever they had lying around or whomever was able to provide them with the cheapest batch of parts that month. That various bodges inside them on a console to console basis kinda demonstrates this. The 6502C 'Sally' was also the same used in the 5200 and 8-bit computers. So the 7800 can operate with any of them from those other systems.

So I hinted about this in another thread elsewhere, but though it might be good to give it is own post. So a new challenger has emerged online under the website AtariRepairParts.com and as the name implies they provide replacement parts for Atari stuff. However, as they are very very new, the parts available is basically limited to just a few things. But, perhaps the most interesting is their replacement mylar and membrane buttons for the standard OEM 5200 controller (CX-52). Similar to another well known vendor, AtariRepairParts has created their own mylar and button replacements that are also gold plated. The main difference here is that they cost for a complete set is about 50% less of the other well known vendor. They also don't have any limits on the number of items you can order and have PayPal so payments are easy to make. I ordered two sets of these replacements for just under $50 shipped. That might seem like a lot for something so old, but again for the price of 2 sets to install into one controllers from AtariRepairParts compared to that same price for just a single controller from the other vendor, it is a good deal. I received them in yesterday and only ordered them a few days prior, so they arrived very quickly! Here is my initial impressions of these new replacement rebuild kits.. First lets talk about how everything arrived. It was delivered in a bubble mailer using a section of card stock and envelope to protect and prevent bending of the mylar flex. The membrane buttons were just loose in the padded envelope but as this is all very light weight and small, I don't have any issues with this packing. The first thing you notice is that the mylar is a very matte black finish in color overall. But you can still see the traces etc. Ever contact point on the flex is gold plated including the fingers that insert into the controller wire harness connector. Additionally, it could have been the way it looked, but I believe that section with the fingers is a tad longer than the stock mylar so they seat in further and more secure as a result. The mylar overall is also a little thicker than the stock mylar and more rigid as a result. But I don't find this to be a negative at all since it means it should be able to withstand the flexing and bending it has to go through much better over time. The mylar also has preaffixed adhesive pads so that it can attach to the keypad support plate, and each of the arms for the fire buttons on the mylar will attach to the vertical supports on the controller properly. In the past I've had to keep double sided tape on hand with replacements so this is a welcome thing to have! I do think another strip should be included for the top row buttons as it doesn't have one for that part. But if you consider the fact that the membrane buttons sit on top of that section, I guess it isn't as critical. The membrane buttons appear to be new and look and feel like the originals. This is good and bad because a lot of folks don't like the mushy feel of the original buttons and these will retain that original feel. However, similar to the mylar, each contact on the membrane has a gold plated disc that is secured to the buttons. So gold on gold contact will minimize any corrosion over the years from occurring. Installation is a breeze since everything is of the same size as original parts so it just all fits in place where it should. Even the small holes on the keypad to line it up on the support tray are present and in the correct location. So yeah provided you know how to take the original controller apart properly, installing a set of these should only take a few minutes time. I played a few games of The Last Starfighter to break it all in and I have to say that everything worked great! My only criticism is that the top row membrane buttons seem to sit a little lower than the originals and as a result I found them difficult to actually press and make contact. But they do work it just requires a little more direct pressing than I'm used to with my older buttons and foil taped contact pads hehe. Still, the quality of these replacement parts are very nice and I imagine the controller will not require much if any maintenance in the future since the only real failure point now would be the cabling or potentiometers inside the controller itself of which, there aren't any replacements for yet at this time. AtariRepairParts.com

I might be a bit partial to this game myself...hehe. Only I play the 7800 version which, I find to be smoother game play overall.

It is new and I only learned about this weekend. I've placed an order for 2 sets of them to check them out. As I know who owns the site I have the utmost faith in the seller and the product will likely be quality to boot.

There is another option to get them working again...that would cost less and you could do it yourself... https://atarirepairparts.com/

In regards to the AA sale... I only know that from talking with a few Devs that knew about this slightly ahead of the rest of us, that Albert has been looking to possibly take AtariAge more mainstream. And it is quite likely he needs the help and support of the current Atari do make that happen. But that also means that the questionable ports of games had to go. That said, there are some others that have been left out of the sale that I've questioned Albert about but he hasn't quite replied back. Namely I noticed that both Intellidiscs and Rob n Banks are still safe for now. Intellidiscs is clearly a remake/port of Deadly discs that existed back in the day for both the Intellivision and the 2600 from Mattel and Rob n Banks is clearly a port of the arcade game Lock n Chase. I found that interesting and odd. Also, it can't be coincidence that some of the home brew authors now have their games being offered digitally on the new VCS. I have to assume that a possible agreement between Al and those home brew devs has taken place. Because while the Devs can work with Atari directly on their games to get digital distribution, it could possible cut into Al's sales of physical carts as a consequence. Albert has been wanting to offer digital roms for awhile and just waiting on the best way to go about it with the forums and website integration. But... Atari has such a distribution in place or at least, the resources to make that more easily done... That was a thought a friend of mine brought up with me this weekend.

It was just announced that Rikki & Vikki comes with each 7800GD you buy from Stone Age Gamer. Apparently that was the reason for their increased base pricing over what it should have been is that they are including the ROM for R&V with the cart.

@Funkmaster V I kinda took it personal when you made the comment about having a techie guy on with you 😞, hopefully I'm not that annoying to folks and would hope they would let me know if I were...

This is correct and I was told by another who spoke with Tim Worthington on this, that he isn't planning to bring it back without a redesign due to parts he used no longer being cost feasible. So... to me, that essentially means the end of his kits for the 2600 until someone else comes along...

UPS dropped this off yesterday afternoon while I was cleaning a 7800 case shell... Inside, it contained a treasure trove of wonderous items to behold! And has created a huge challenge for me to find places where all of it will go!!! Better pics of what arrived... The cart only stuff below is the 32k enhanced version of Zaxxon (Part of the store sale that will be going away soon), and then I got dedicated test cartridges for use in console services. I've been using flash carts to do this for the past 5+ years and finally decided I needed Al to make me carts for the 5200. He hasn't offered the 5200 PAM diagnostics before but I believe he will be adding them to the store soon. I designed the labels on them but not sure he will continue to use those going forward or not. I also had him assemble those 5200 carts withOUT spring loaded dust doors on them. Reason is because most of the time when using them, you are likely to have the top cover removed on the 5200 while servicing it. Well, the pegs for the dust doors are actually part of the top shell molding so without that top cover, the carts can't be inserted easily. Without those dust covers, I can pop these carts into place without issue.

I received an A1 series 7800 main board in the mail recently where the owner stated it was working properly but was missing a pause button for some reason. Well, when I receive a 7800 system for services, one of the things I do is to pull up a test utility without any controllers plugged in. The reason for this is to ensure that the system controller ports are working properly. But you ask... "How does not having any controllers plugged in, help to know if the ports are working properly?" Excellent question! You see the TIA controls the trigger functions of the joysticks and depending on the mode the console is loaded up in, the components in use differ a little. But here was the issue with this one that might help explain things a little better... The issue was after powering it up without a controller plugged, it the menu selector of the utility kept selecting the first option, exiting, entering...exiting over and over. This behavior was as if the fire button was being held down. But without a controller plugged in?! Quickly using the select and reset buttons on the console I was able to get into the controller test screen and this screen was telling me that not ONLY was the first fire button being pressed, but both fire buttons were showing as being pressed down. It was showing the same behavior on controller port 2 as well. Then I plug in an actual controller and.... it stops auto selecting options and now shows the fire buttons aren't being pressed. Pressing the fire buttons would activate normally. In other words with a controller plugged in, the console seems to work exactly as it should. But that doesn't mean there wasn't a problem here because technically without a controller plugged in, it shouldn't read anything at all. Plugging a controller into port 2, would also remove the condition on port 2 and make everything appear to be fine. So what is going on? It turns out that the 7800 is pretty sensitive to the readings it gets from the controller ports and any deviation beyond a certain point will confuse the console. To correct the issue on this 7800 I had to replace at least 2 components and also replaced a 3rd for good measure. The main culprit was unfortunately the TIA chip. Yeap... I replaced the TIA because in most trigger issues the TIA is my first item to blame and usually that is correct, but it didn't solve everything in this case. I did confirm the TIA was faulty using my chip testing as it was showing an immediate fault with the Inputs and audio portions of the chip. Replacing the TIA solved half the issue. Basically controller port 1 was working properly now, but I was still getting errant trigger readings from port 2? This ended up being due to a marginal resistor located at R35. There is a pair of them that control each of the port readings in 2600 mode that each measure 220Ω. The one at R35 was only measuring 217Ω and while that should have been good enough, it was causing odd triggering issues. When I removed R35 from circuit, then the 7800 port 2 buttons were now working properly but of course, no fire button action in 2600 mode testing. So I replaced the resistor with a used one from another 7800 donor board. This replacement measures 221Ω and is much closer to the 220 reading than the original. Installed it, and sure enough everything is working properly again. There is also a 3906 transistor in this mix and it was also replaced out as they are cheap to have on hand and I've a few. But the two main issues were the TIA and this slightly out of spec drifted resistor at R35. Here is a pic of the console where I've outlined the components mentioned.

I was able to do the same to a 2600jr console over the weekend. It required having to first breadboard up the wiring so I could try different value resistors before dialing it in, but finally settled on 2k being the magic number. Bu this will depend on where you tap the audio from and might still have some variation from console to console. But anything more than 2k, and the AVox gets lots in the TIA audio. It is still heard just way lower and kinda hard to make out. Less than 2K and it seems to start to kill the TIA audio instead. Anyway, here are a few pics of my 2600jr in the lab where I did this. Here is the internal shot. You can see the wiring that runs along the back. This is to provide the audio input. The 3.5mm on the left rear of the console in this pic is the new audio input, and the original RCA for the RF and small 3.5mm next to it is my composite video output and audio out I had in place already. And here is what that looks like from the rear of the console. In this pic, you see the RF output and small 3.5mm next to it that is again the audio out. The singular and slightly larger 3.5mm on the right rear side, is the audio input.

The cable from ebay only offers composite and audio near as I can tell and most RGB setups from a console are NOT going to provide a composite signal, only the Red, Green, Blue, and Sync in most cases. Although it is advised that at least +5 be present on the cable since a lot of switchers require that +5 power to know when the signal is active on the cable and switch to it. I know that I always wire up +5 on the RGB ports I've installed. That said, ONLY my more recent installs using 9-pin cables will provide a composite video signal along with the RGB. In the case of your Intellivision, I believe it is an 8-pin din and only has the RGB, S, L/R audio, Gnd, and +5 on it. So it is possible that without the full composite signal on the RGB, that the switchers you were getting weren't working right or something. All of my current RGB installs as I said will include the +5v (Yours should have that as well on your Intelly), along with a full composite signal when possible depending on the console. HDRetrovision cables, and the Rad2x cables require the +5 and composite on the RGB to work for instance. But I'm getting off track now...