CrossBow

Oh yeah! Missile command is pretty much arcade like with it on the 5200.

The 5200 is my second favorite Atari console only bested by the 7800 for me. I've always like the original controllers since I first played the system using one of them. Over the past 20+ years now, I've done the foil dots bit on them to keep them going but after having to do it after every 2 or 3 years (due to the dots eventually falling off), I got sick of it and over the summer I purchased two gold set replacement rebuild kits from the new Atarireapairparts.com website. Installed them in a matter of minutes and I don't think I will have to touch them ever again at this point. That said, I also have a set of the Wico controllers (I don't like this, they don't feel right and they actually break stupid easy internally.). But the command control keypad that they also use is quite nice and well built. So I also have one of the older AtariAge redemption adapters that lets me use that Wico keypad and a Sega Genesis 3 button controller with the 5200. For games that require the more digital precision, that is the setup I will use. But even still I mostly use the original controllers when I play on the 5200.

Oh I get that, but I can only work off what I have in the service manuals and the tools that I know to use. That was why I purchased my chiptester from Backbit.io over a year ago was so I could better verify some of the more commonly used ICs and customs used in many consoles and computers back in they day. But even the chip tester isn't perfect as it reports a Rockwell 6502 as passing that clearly was showing issues on a 7800 when installed. So at the end of the day, I should have been made aware of the issue so I could have tested it more specifically. But it was already back in the hands of the owner and they feel satisfied with the work that was done and just plan to play it using their flash cart going foward. You mention cartridge ports, do you know a source for those exact ones? I can tell you that I do clean out the cart ports on each console using a size to fit cut credit card, with a section of t-shirt wrapped around it and then saturated first with my de-ox-id cleaner and then folowed up with 99.9 IPA until no more black or grey is being shown on the t-shirt section.

But I'm not so sure there is an issue. As I stated with my own testing. Even my actual cart doesn't seem to want to work most of the time in my actual 5200. But if I have my tongue and cart at the right angle, then I can get my cartridge to boot up and play. Also, they did confirm that the game loads up find on their Atarimax. So I do think the issue here is just poor contact with the PCB in regards to Activision games in general. And had I known that they had an issue with the game I would have tested it before sending it back. They stated it is the only game they have issues getting to work and since they can play it on flash cart, they aren't bothered by it at this point. You are making it sound like I didn't do enough testing with it but that couldn't be further from the truth. And there isn't anyway for me to test every single game that is out there on everyone of these consoles that comes in. For one I don't own ever game and two, the time needed to adequately test every game like this isn't something that 1 person can do when I usually have a few systems here at the same time to receive services. If the diagnostics say everything is good, and the games I play on it via flash cart work then I don't have any reason to believe there is anything seriously wrong with the console. I also don't consider a single game that doesn't seem to work as dictating there is a failure with the console. There has to be other games that would fail in similar fashion if there was a console fault and I and my client didn't encounter any issues other than my client having issues with his Decathlon cartridges. If they wanted to send it back for me to try replacing the CPU I can do that and it might get that one game working again sure. But they don't seem interested in doing that at this time and have stated they are very happy with the results Decathlon withstanding.

Likely something with the heuristic scanning of your virus software that is flagging code it doesn't like but it actually safe. I've got a lot of older emulators and some game installers that passed fine years ago but now seem to trigger my mal-ware bytes and I have to keep removing the files from quarantine and add them to the exclusion lists. Heck we have legit software we install at work that flags both our virus software and our hardware firewalls. The ONLY way to run that software and get it installed is to use outside networks and run the installer on the computer after taking it off the network because our network security just kills it instantly. In the case of the software at work, it is because the installer uses auto installing scripts to install several different software packages one after the other through a single EXE and this is interpreted as virus behavior. Our network security specialist refuses to account for this to change it since we found a work around anyway...

I believe it will but not everyone has a copy of the game to test since EXO just go released in the AA store and I guess no one that attended PRGE has been following this stuff or interested? Pretty sure John would have tried to test it as I'm sure he bought a copy of the game. The only downside with EXO is that the Savekey/AVOX doesn't work and from what I'm told those never will. The 2600+ only polls the ports in read only mode. It can't write back to them. So as a result... you can't save anything. EXO is a much more challenging game when you have to play it in one sitting LOL! This also means that the Keypad controller apparently can never be made to work either. So no Star Raiders with this current hardware they have released. I was able to get Petscii Robots to start up, but I wouldn't exactly call it playable. No music only TIA audio worked, and all of the graphics were messed up. But the actual game was able to be played provided you knew exactly what the garbage on the screen was representing LOL. As I've played Petscii Robots quite a bit I was just about able to get through the first map even with it all screwed up looking. But the fact that EXO is working means that large size games can be made to work and the improvements made to the pro system emulator in these new builds is crazy impressive!

See I don't own an Evercade so didn't know that was an issue but interesting to know. I just know that I've not had any issues with the actual update using the power cord it came with on my PC so I do wonder if some folks are using different USB cables etc.

Worked for me 1st try. however, the process I was given had the opposite order. I was told to update the console core with the update.img file first and then update the dumper. But for the dumper portion to work for me, I had to install a driver file first and then the dumper update worked without issue. Now that all of that is in place, I can go back and forth without too much trouble. Also be sure to use the cable that came with the 2600+ when doing this. It isn't just providing power and works great for data as well. Also, I'm on windows 11 and using a USB 3.0 port. But I've seen others state they could only get it working using a USB 2.0 port on their computers.

As I've said more than once already...No. I sent it back and then they reported to me that Decathlon wasn't working right and apparently that was an issue before they sent it to me but I wasn't aware that game was an issue until they had it back in hand and told me then at that time. I ran both the 1.1 and 2.3 diagnostics on it and nothing looked out of place nor did I see any issues with the games I tested it with being Blaster, Last Star Fighter, and I use both Ball Blazer and Rescue on Fractalus as burn in test games since they have built in demos I can start up and leave the console going for hours until I finally turn them off.

Yeap..apparently the request demand was too great so they decided to go ahead and release it at this time. Although I think the one I've been testing today is slightly newer as EXO is also working with the build I have. We might be on the verge to getting Rampage working though. I have a new build to update my 2600+ with that will dump data from my copy of the game to hopefully provide some clues.

Are you part of the new beta testing? If not...then again you say this now but just wait.

Well, all I can say right now from what I'm seeing first hand, is that at this rate... Atari is going to put me outta business on console upgrade services LOL!!! Oh well, it couldn't last forever right?

And there is more...hehe. A new FW beta release was given out yesterday to testers and from initial reports... it has nearly all of the 7800 homebrew now working including games with FM sound through the use of a Dragonfly cartridge. I will be able to confirm this for myself perhaps a little later on today... 😉

Interesting... I wonder why my client's 5200 doesn't seem to like the game though? They have tried two different carts without success on their 2 port unit and it also has a 4 port BIOS installed. I wasn't aware of the issue with the game prior to sending it back so I couldn't test it for myself. Still there has to be some hardware issue that might cause this? They did have a rockwell CPU but as it was a 2 port unit, it didn't have the timing issues that would normally be found with older Rockwells in the 4 port consoles.

I have a client that has sent their SMS II for me to do some work on. One of the requests was to see if I could add a separate Reset switch to the console because for some odd reason, Sega didn't think that was needed on the smaller model II SMS? Now, I've not looked into the reasons for why you want this that much, but I understand that some cheat options for games require the use of the soft reset function that the original models have? Well, in looking through schematics and other online stuff, all I could really find was info on how the soft reset function works on the PAL model of this console. That wasn't going to help me but as luck would have it, the NTSC model II SMS is literally just a smaller version of the model 1. Same chips...same schematics. So, in looking at the mode 1 schematics you find that the reset switch on the console was tied to pin 22 of the gate array IO chip. That pin doesn't appear to be connected to anything else on the system. In the model 1 console, when you press the reset switch, it just grounds pin 22 on the gate array chip and that sends a soft reset command to the rest of the system. As a result, the actual reset line on pin 26 of the Z80 CPU isn't really used on the model 1 SMS console. On the model 2 SMS, Sega instead decided to use a diode/resistor combo to cause a safe quick short circuit to the Z80's reset line when you power the console off/on. Or rather, when you apply power the console, it also sends a hard reset to the Z80 at the same time and that is it. That is the only way to reset a game on the SMS II console is by cycling power. Well, you can easily restore the soft reset function by using two lengths of wire and a momentary switch that you install on the console somewhere. Simply solder one end of a length of wire off pin 22 of the gate array IO chip (marked as 315-5216). This pin is marked and easy to find and is soldered to the board but has NO traces running to it. The other end of that wire you solder to one side leg of your switch. Then solder the other length of wire from the other leg of the switch to a point attached to ground. That's it... that is all you have to do! I made a quick video that demonstrates this in action below.

<--- raises hand...

I had not seen or heard of this trick yet! Very nice. I will give it a shot, but there is a difference between what I get and what the older TEDs were doing. The older 1.x version TEDs simply never show up as Hucards you can play on the Analogue and that is what this seems to get around. The issue with my TED 2.5 version and most other 2.x versions is that they do appear and we can run it, but then the TED boots up tossing an SD IO error or other error related to accessing the SD card. So I will see if this does anything different and report back.

Far as I know the boxes and manuals Al has been outsourcing for the past few years. I only state this as I've seen posts from him when he got these items back from a print shop and not been happy with them, or had the items shipped straight to PRGE so they were ready to be assembled to have for sale. I didn't know that Fred was the only one able to provide PCBs? What happened with Joe from Pixels Past? I want to say I've seen some projects with his logo on them that were more recent and weren't related to Atari, but still I remember Joe providing earlier PCBs in the mid 2000s.

The parts are being provided by Fred Quimby aka Batari on the AA forums. But I think the initial labels and manuals were likely printed by Al or whomever Al uses for those since I believe that is of the exact same quality. But the PCBs were coming from Fred.

I also had the 7800 when it was new back in the late 80s and for me it began with mostly the arcade ports. Although it was mostly those that I didn't already own for the 2600. So it was games like Pole Position II (That it came with lucky me!), Xenophobe, Crossbow, Rampage... stuff like that. You know, the at the time more modern arcade games. But then I only really played on my 7800 for about 2 years before turning to the PC darkside. Once I got back into retro game collecting and playing again, it is now strongly all about the 5th era or modern homebrews for me on this system as that is largely what I play on it most now.

Yes I placed an order for Elevator Agent last week when John first announced it!

Well, this pretty much confirms it. I'm not the only one to encounter this as it seems Games Radar confirmed this during their review of the console but I hadn't seen that review until this Reddit post finally popped up in my searches a bit ago. https://www.reddit.com/r/AnalogueInc/comments/18hs8nx/analogue_duo_turbo_everdrive_v25/ So yeah, it seems that the ONLY Turbo Everdrives working currently with the Analogue DUO are the latest TED PRO versions. It does anger me a little that according to the Games Radar review, this issue with the TEDs was known about months ago and passed onto to Krikzz but apparently nothing was done to address it and focus seemed to be with the newest TEDs working. So just have to wait and see if a FW update from Krikzz is needed for the older TEDs work, or if a FW update from Analog is needed to correct...or... Everyone just waits until the thing is jail broken allowing games to be loaded from the SD card anyway like the other previous Analogue consoles.

Yeah I'm really surprised since several YT vids for it state that they got their TED carts working with it. Mine does load like I said but I've tried several SD cards in it and they all come up with one of two errors when trying to load up the TED through the Analogue: SD IO error or FAT read error? But the SD cards are formatted as FAT32 and again it works on my actual TurboDUO and my TG-16 that I brought out of the closet to test with again. So there is a timing issue here and the TEDs above v.2 are supposed to work. Oh well...

It feels very solid. The CD drive is a bit odd though. You really have to push the discs in nearly all the way before it grabs them and loads them up. At first i thought mine wasn't working because I couldn't get the PCE CD game I inserted into it to eject out. But after power cycling it and pressing the button a few times it finally did and has been fine since. But, the main bummer for me is that my TurboEverdrive 2.5 doesn't work on it at all. I can insert it and the DUO sees it and lets me select it to play. But then the TED loads up with an SD IO error? However, the TED works fine on my actual Turbo DUO...so I don't know what that is about.

December has been quite a month for new pickups for the collections here at the ivory Tower! First up is that I got my Gleylancer re-release by Retrobit from Strictly Limited Games and also after more than a year, my copy of AsteBros came in. Both for the Genesis. And then I finally was able to get Stellar Assault for the Saturn for a good price direct from Japan and got in my physical copy of Bomb Rush Cyberpunk for the PS4 from IAM8BIT. Then the main last thing for the month that I was waiting on arrived today. It speaks for itself.