CrossBow
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Posts posted by CrossBow
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17 hours ago, OniDensetsu said:
Try a different Tv like a Crt if possible. They do have weird colors like that but maybe that TV is not liking the signal much.
I concur on this. I was looking online at other picstures of the super pong output and it appears that on CRTs it isn't nearly as saturated and blown out on the colors as what is shown above. That said, I did find another picture of the output on an LCD and it was similar to what the OP is getting. So my guess on this is that at least through RF, the signal for the colors is just going overboard on a modern display. Possible this might clear up and look closer to what you get on a CRT if you run it through a VCR and then use the composite output on the VCR to the TV or perhaps get the pong unit composite upgraded. Although that isn't something I'm versed in but I know it can be done.
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4 hours ago, MalakZero said:
Howdy folks, I'm happy to announce that I am now in the Pong owners club 🙂 I found this little guy for $10 at a yard sale, guy said "it worked when I put it in the attic."
Needless to say, it kinda didn't. I managed to fix the paddle jitter with some alcohol and electrical tape, but I'm not sure where to start with fixing this colour issue. Is there a faulty part or could it just be from battery acid corrosion? I'm cracking the unit open this weekend. Any insight is always appreciated!
The super pong units look like that normally? They have the different colors on different sides of the screen like you are showing.
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22 minutes ago, Silver Back said:
So I've been talking with people far more successful than me on YouTube and they seem to agree that rebranding to "The Atari Network" sounds more official and inclusive. Plus, surprisingly nobody is using it.
The thing is, the 7800 will always be my love and focus, and a lot of fans like the 7800 Pro Gamer moniker. I'm on the fence about what to do, but again if I'm going to do anything now is the time. What do you guys think?
Easy...
Rebrand the channel as suggested, but you...yourself... you keep your identity as the 7800 Pro Gamer. So basically you introduce things as..
"Welcome to the Atari Network I'm the 7800 Pro Gamer...."
- socrates63 and sramirez2008
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23 minutes ago, Dire 51 said:
Call me curious: what games are on those multicarts? I can make out a few of them.
I would have to fire it up to know for sure. But the pics on the labels do match the games that were put onto those carts. They were originally programmed and made by CPUWIZ at Atari age. The carts actually have an onscreen menu that pops up where you select the game you want to play. Both of the carts however, have some games on them that are glitched up either do to a bad eprom programing or because the eproms themselves were a bit off. Same with the Bob collection as Moon Cresta has one or two invisible enemies on each wave making it difficult to take all of them out, and Space Invaders will lock up on any level where you have the Shields active.
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1 hour ago, sramirez2008 said:
Not a fan of the OG controllers, but I have plenty of other options today.
Just adding ball tops to the controllers is enough to make them much more usable at that point! Highly recommended as I didn't care for the OG feel either.
- sramirez2008, socrates63, Smell Dawg and 2 others
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Been wanting this one in the collection for a very long time. It is just the disc and front manual but the disc is in good condition and I'm happy to have this regardless.
- socrates63, RickR, Smell Dawg and 1 other
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On 9/30/2023 at 11:23 AM, sramirez2008 said:
Just tested my multicarts. The laoding bars/sounds appear on the 2600 UNO cart and the Pluscart. They didn't show up on my Harmony, so I tried copying the ROMs from the UNO (just to make sure it wasn't something specific to the ROMs), but the bars/sounds still don't show. However, the games themselves run just as expected.
Btw, the Pluscart is one cool piece of tech. 10 year old me never expected to play Atari games on-line, complete with leaderboards.👍
The loading bars are present on the SC games because that part of the emulated tape loader was added to the Uno and Pluscart. But Fred didn't see a point to them so he opted to leave that loader screen out when loading up SC games on the Harmony flash carts.
That said, the Unocarts do have issues with multi-tape/load games. Survival Island for instance will basically lock up when you get to the island. New FW exists for the Uno that fixes this, but I use the newer FW that looks similar to the Pluscart and that hasn't been updated as yet.
- RickR and sramirez2008
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On 9/30/2023 at 9:39 AM, RickR said:
I've had them all as well. I sold off the Colecovision adapter and the Intellivision one too, but have kept the 5200 version. My plan was to sell off all my Coleco hardware and just use the Phoenix, so that's been ok. Similar plan for Intellivision -- sell off the INTV 2 and accessories and just keep the old Tele-Games version. But I ended up keeping the Intv2 itself because it only has one working controller and franky, I like it better due to the small size.
Another Colecovision came into my possession -- given to me because it is "broken". It has a composite mod, and the colors on screen kind of have a shifting rainbow effect from left to right. I figure maybe the wiring on the mod has a short, or just to replace the mod board. But I haven't had time to investigate that one. One of these days I'll make a post about it and I'm sure @CrossBow will know exactly what to do to fix it.
Supercharger - I'm one of those weirdos that bought it when it was new! I don't have the box though. But it still works great. I have always been amazed at the level of upgrade the Supercharger brought to the 2600. Supercharger "Frogger" is a masterpiece.
Actually rainbow shifting you see in the whites and text...
is unfortunately just how the composite output comes out on the CV. On good quality TVs you can even make out some of this rainbow banding through the RF output on the whites although not as pronounced.
Crayon King is kinda working on his own CV video upgrade setup that would provide RGB but also provide a new composite and s-video outputs too. If it comes out looking nearly as good as his other kits, it will be the one I'm likely to stock to have on hand for those that want composite and s-video even if they don't want or need the RGB aspect of it.
But, that said, his kit working the way it does, would also mean that the 2600 expansion module 1 would NOT come through the new AV upgrade. So you would lose that function unless the RF were left in place to handle that still. -
Well, another thought is that Atari could have been working on such a module, and then figured out how to do it within the cartridge and normal hardware of the system as both Berzerk and Baseball were released in 1983 after that article was published?
Another thought is that whomever they were getting their information from with Atari could have been mistaken about how the tech was being done, or it was deliberate as it would be quite something to have speech working from the console and games without extra hardware when the competition required separate modules to be purchased to accomplish this. It would be the shining gold star on Atari's image and on the hardware if it was suddenly announced that they could do the same thing without the extra cost required to consumers.
So it is all speculate at this point. We know Atari was able to do it as both of the games listed demonstrate. Perhaps mention of a module exists in some paper archives in some body's house still yet to be discovered?
- sramirez2008, - Ω -, DegasElite and 1 other
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22 minutes ago, sramirez2008 said:
I've always considered this to be the first "Tower of Power" setup vs the Genesis + 32 + Sega CD setups.
That said, I also find it funny that Atari came up with the least elegant looking solution for VCS gaming on a different console. That wouldn't get corrected until the 7800 was released.
- socrates63, DegasElite, MaximumRD and 2 others
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19 hours ago, D r Clu said:
Part of me wonders if a Intellivision adaptor or the other could be made to work on their own? 😄 That would be a nice tiny 2600.
Nostalgia: Started on Telegames model. And I have a 6 switch 2600 in the box.
I'm going to also answer similar to @MaximumRD and state that this should be possible yes. All of those 2600 clone add on devices work the same way. They are basically self contained 2600 consoles that are only using the power from the parent console to operate. They aren't using any of the actual logic from the parent console. The audio and video from these devices is done by the add on module itself as it is injecting its own audio and composite video output back to the parent console and through the parent consoles RF modulator.
So if you provided separate power for the devices and add AV jacks along with possible AV upgrade components likely being needed to get a usable composite signal, then yeah, they can all be converted to be stand alone 2600 clones. -
11 hours ago, TrekMD said:
That seller is smoking some cannabis or something more fancy! 😆
You would think that... but VecFevers have sold for nearly a grand in the past in USD money before. I think they are technically still being made as there are newer versions that have been released, but I believe the guy that makes them ONLY sells to actual game devs. I state this because I kinda had to go through some loops back in the day in order to get one by going through another dev to order it for me.
That said, I did just update my VecFever last night to the latest version and I gotta say, the Galaga and Bosconian emulated games are really nice!. The actual Time Pilot arcade game is also available to play but I still prefer the way Vector Pilot plays overall.
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@- Ω - this is what you are looking at if you want all of the Vector arcade games working on a Vectrex.
VecFever on Ebay. Need some deep pockets though!So glad I was able to get mine when I did years ago!
- - Ω -, TrekMD and sramirez2008
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Pretty sure we have talked about this before? But as will come to no surprise, my 7800 is my main console I use for both 2600 and 7800 gaming. I had a 4 switch woody originally when I was child, but it was given to my cousins in the late 80s when I got my 7800 and it replaced that 4 switch in our house back then.
I have just about each model of the 2600 (Minus a 2800 but I've few of the SVA IIs). I do like the Vader models, but I would say my favorite looking one would be the 4 switch woody. Again, it was what I had when I originally grew up with Atari so that will always have that spot even if I don't use one today.
- socrates63, Jinroh, MaximumRD and 4 others
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You guys better take a lot of pics for the rest of us!
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Most of my games that I either bought from many weeks of allowance collecting or on Birthdays/Holidays was because of the box-art and back of the box screen shots. And it was also the folly of some of the choices I made. My mother to this day will not leave me alone about my buying Sneak n Peek back in the day because I thought the graphics on the box looked so cool and fun!. And then we find out to actually play the game the 2nd player has to turn around and not look at where the first player ends up hiding..etc.
Such a crap game but I still state it had decent graphics for the time on the 2600 LOL!
But yeah...most of the games I bought back then were usually because I was familiar with the arcade game or because the artwork and screenshots looked awesome to me.
- sramirez2008, Sabertooth, socrates63 and 1 other
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Just now, Sabertooth said:
Thanks for the explanation. I've thought about upgrading to a 5x, but aside from the 2600, all of my consoles work fine through the 2x Pro. Good to know that the 5x can handle these issues!
Again there are threads over on AA that go into more detail about this and I think a few games even through the Tink5x might still have on occasional hiccup here and there. I do notice that when I've played ESB for instance, that while my screen doesn't go completely blank when I blow up an AT-AT, it does shift down one pixel for a second and then comes back up. Odd but you get to where you don't really notice it with the rest of the color cycling taking place at that time and the screen doesn't blank out so it doesn't jump out at me. So I do see a few things here and there, but at least with my fairly cheap AV setup, it handles it well.
I had a buy whose 7800 I did complain because on Battlezone on his CRT through both composite and s-video, the entire gameplay field would move up and down as he moved his tank. It didn't do this through RF so he blamed the UAV causing this, but in reality Battlezone also has incorrect scanline count issues and as I stated before, the other inputs are much less tolerant of this so it was being shown on his TV with a slight jitter up and down that moved with the tank.
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9 minutes ago, RickR said:
A theory I heard elsewhere: The release of the 2600+ may increase the value of 2600 and 7800 carts.
I guess it all depends on how well it sells, and to who. New users will def want to buy a lot of carts I would imagine.
Who will these new users be exactly? Other Gen x types like myself that grew up with the system but unlike us, they forgot about these systems and want to relive that past history? New generation of gamers that might think these old games are hip and cool? I'm genuinely curious to know because I feel that while this is a great step towards what most of us would have really liked in a console like this, I do think it will be a 'fad' that once the anniversaries have all come and gone, it will be back to them just publishing old IPs as new versions for modern consoles with a few possible new games here and there.
- Smell Dawg and Sabertooth
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8 minutes ago, Sabertooth said:
Here's my use case for the 2600+. On certain games, particularly GCC titles, I lose signal on my HD sets. This is on about 10 different 2600 and 7800 consoles on two 4K sets. All accessible processing on the TV is turned off.
The Retron77 mostly worked for this but is incompatible with certain legacy carts, homebrew, the XP line and 7800 carts. While I would have preferred an FPGA solution for homebrew/SD cart compatibility, I appreciate the effort here.
Sure, I can emulate my entire retro library on the modern VCS, but I like pulling out my boxes, looking at the art, the manual, and plugging in the cart. This is the same reason I prefer vinyl over streaming and MP3s.
Apparently the Tink5x Pro with its triple buffer mode corrects for a lot of this on 2600 games. I'm not aware of any 7800 games that exhibit this issue as it is caused by those 2600 games not adhering the proper scanline counts that NTSC signals use. On TVs they were much more tolerant of these slightly out of spec signals, but modern displays and the scalers don't expect these changes and so they either can't process when this happens (Blank screens), or they take a sec or two to adjust to the new sync.
I actually don't have these issues on my UAV upgraded consoles because I have them all going through my Extron multi av selector. It converts all of the composite and s-video inputs as a standard VGA output. So in my case, my Extron is cleaning up these out of sync issues. The ONLY game I have that still gives me issues on my setup is Buck Rogers on the 2600. The title screen and level number screens are a wavy scrambled mess, but the actual game itself will play without issue.
Should also note that even some CRTs will exhibit issues with composite and s-video upgraded consoles, because again, through RF it was expected to have some odd sync issues within the signal. But the CRTs expect a perfect scanline signal on composite and s-video which, just does not exist on some of these games created back in the day.
So, yeah, apparently a Tink5x Pro can handle these issues and my setup seems to work okay. I think there are also some modified ROMs for some of these problem games to correct for these issues that can be found.
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Well as everyone else is showing pics, I guess I better add some for what I was talking about or else it didn't happen right?
Here is a pic of my 2600 Parker protos for Star Wars:TAG (WIP), and what appears to be release candidate 1 for Gyruss. I've had these dumped and ST:TAG is different from the released games while Gyruss appears to be the exact same as the released game. Still I got these in the early '00s through Yahoo auctions back when that was still a thing.
As the labels are really hard to read now after over 40 years here are some zoomed in closeups with flash to make it easier to read the little label stickers on them. Starting with Gryuss...
Here is Star Wars:TAG and you can see it says WIP on the sticker indicating it isn't the final version and again, dumping it has shown differences in the game play slightly.
Here is a pic of the table top VFD games I mentioned. This isn't all that I own but are the ones that took me the longest to find for a good price.
And there here is a pic of the VCS emulator for the Jaguar that Bryan Edwaard wrote while working for Temporary Sanity Designs back in July 1995 along with photocopies of the ROM Release Form and a letter that talks about what might have been and ultimately didn't happen.
Oh..and I thought I would toss this in for good measure...
- Sabertooth, TrekMD, sramirez2008 and 2 others
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21 hours ago, Justin said:
That would've been a good way to repurpose the COLOR / BW switch
That would be problematic for some games that use that switch for additional functions. Star Master and Space Shuttle for instance. No, them placing the aspect switch where they did, sort mimics where the old channel select switch used to be on the 4 switch units.
Also, yes, they are using Stella as has been mentioned, but it was also recently confirmed that they are using Prosystem for the 7800 emulation. That... is a real shame honestly. But apparently they did look at using A7800 however, the Rockchip in use, just isn't powerful enough to handle A7800. So... yeah, they went with Prosystem.- Sabertooth and RickR
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1 hour ago, - Ω - said:
Well, I guess I'm going to have to file the Vectrex under "unobtanium", for me at least. If a cartridge is going to be more than the game unit, there does not seem to be much point in me devoting any more time to this endeavor. Shame, I was starting to get excited.
I honestly didn't mean to rain on your parade, but I thought you should know that those games and many of the other Atari vector based games were never released officially for the console and it honestly isn't quite powerful enough to run arcade accurate ports of those games. There are some home brews that are quite similar and many feel that the included Minestorm game that is built in on each Vectrex is just as fun as Asteroids ever was. Heck I think I like Stramash Zone more than Battle zone, but that homebrew is now fetching expensive prices as well these days.
Anyone getting into or starting with the Vectrex needs to know that it is very much a system that if you see a homebrew game or device that even remotely interests you that is currently available, you do NOT sit around and think about buying. You pretty much need to buy those items then and there to get them at their best price because they always increase quite a lot in the future in most cases.
I should also note, that while it hasn't been mentioned here. The games released by Kristof Tuts are worth owning a Vectrex for. Seriously, his port of Time Pilot called Vector Pilot is one of the best home brew games on any system. And the best part is that his games are not only amazing, but you can still buy them directly from him for far less money than scalpers on the 'bay would have you believe.
http://www.kristofsvectrexgames.be/
I will note that his website will trigger most AV browser guards so you might have to add that link to an exclusion list like I had to in order to get it to come up and work.
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49 minutes ago, nosweargamer said:
Has Atari mentioned if the screen resolution can switch between 4:3 and widescreen?
There is a switch on the back that I believe says 4:3 - 16:9 so ...yes.
- MistaMaddog, Justin and MaximumRD
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7 hours ago, - Ω - said:
I could probably swing $300 if it was in good condition and came with a couple of games like Battlezone and Lunar Lander. Honestly though though, I prefer not to go the shipping route on one though, I'd be afraid of receiving damaged goods.
Battlezone and Lunar Lander didn't officially get released on the Vectrex. Those versions you've seen are likely the actual arcade roms of those games running in a special emulation mode from a VecFever cartridge or possibly the PiTrex (I think it can do this..). Using the Vectrex screen and some hardware to make it work. Star Wars:TAG is also playable in this way. But getting a VecFever cartridge is going to cost you even more than a working Vectrex these days.
- - Ω - and sramirez2008
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UAV NTSC 4-switch 2600 quick install guide
in Atari 2600
Posted
As there can be some confusion on how to install the UAV into a 4-switch NTSC 2600 console due to the variants that exist, I thought I would try and collate all of the basic information needed for installing the UAV into these model 2600s. While the different revisions do have some slight changes between them, in all cases the area where to get the signals needed for the UAV to work are located in the same basic locations. This is is not a comprehensive guide but more of a quick reference for those that already know how to open up the 2600 and are semi familiar with the layout inside of the 4-switch NTSC consoles.
UAV (Ultimate Atari Video) Layout:-
The UAV has basically remained the same on its design and layout since around 2017 when the current revision D was released. I only use the basic UAV board in all of my installs as I find that easier to wire to and provides me in more flexibility overall. Below is a diagram showing you the spots on the UAV you need to be concerned with on NTSC 2600 Installations. In all installs, the UAV will need to have power, ground, color signal, and a few other video signals provided to it for it to function properly. Take NOTE that you attach the signal wires for S, 1, 2, & 3 along the center and smaller vias on the UAV. If you have a pre-built UAV with a header block soldered here, just solder wiring to the tops of the header pins to make it easier.
Different revisions:-
The 4-switch NTSC consoles come in revisions starting with rev12 and ending up with rev17 that I've seen personally. Meaning there are variants in between but the good news is that there are really only about 3 different layouts for the components between all of these revisions in the area that we are concerned with for the UAV. Look around the top of the main board to see which Revision of the board you have so that you know which of the sections below to refer to for your UAV install.
Power, Ground and Audio:-
All revisions of the 4-switch NTSC consoles share the same points for power, ground, and audio that can be used for UAV installations. While the top board trace layouts look different in the areas below and the location of the RF output RCA jack is in different spots, the actual points are the same and in the same locations. I've provided pictures that show how this area is on the Rev 12 - 14 and Rev 16 & 17 models below.
Revision 12 & 13 NTSC TIA signal locations for UAV:-
The revision 12 and 13 NTSC consoles is pretty straightforward as the signals are all in a line from the main resistor section just to the right of the TIA chip. The signals for S, 1, 2, 3, & Co In are shown below.
Revision 14 NTSC TIA signal locations for UAV:-
The revision 14 NTSC console layout is similar to the earlier revisions with the only change being where you grab the signal for connection 2 to the UAV. The signal points for S, 1, 2, 3, and Co In are shown below.
Revision 16 - 17 NTSC TIA signal locations for UAV:-
The revision 16 & 17 NTSC consoles have their signals in the same location as the Rev14 show above, with the one change being an extra 820Ω resistor that was added to the board layout that has to be disconnected from the circuit. This resistor is located directly right of the TIA and is marked as R234, although you cannot see the silkscreen indicating this until you lift the resistor out of place. If you do not disable this resistor, you will end up with incorrect color hues on all colors from the UAV that cannot be adjusted out with the color trimmer. You can either clip the leg of the resistor, de-solder it, or remove the resistor completely. The signal points for S, 1, 2, 3, and Co In are shown in the picture below. The picture shows an alternate location for the S signal, but you can also get it from the same location as the Rev 14 in most cases.
UAV output colors appear horribly off kilter?
As mentioned in the Rev 16 & 17 section, there is an extra resistor on the main board that has to be disabled. While this resistor doesn't have a dedicated location on the earlier revision 4-switch NTSC consoles, it was sometimes added from the factory and therefore bodged into place. Look the presence of this resistor either on the bottom of the main board attached to pins 6 and 9 of the TIA chip, or possibly soldered on the top component side next to the TIA socket. In these cases, it is easiest to just clip the resistor on one leg to disable it without fully removing it. You might want to add shrink tubing or some other way to insulate the lifted/cut leg of the resistor so it can't short against anything.
UAV output wiring:-
The output side of the UAV is along the same point that you attached the TIA color signal wire to. All of your output signal jacks will require a connection for the signal output and also ground. What I usually do in my installs is to run a shared ground wire for both audio and composite video from the ground pin near the composite output on the UAV. I then run another second shared ground for the chroma and luma outputs for s-video using the ground pin between Co In and chroma out on the UAV outputs. The diagram below shows the S-video connections on the female s-video as viewed from the front of the s-video jack.
What about that blue box thing on the UAV, what is that for? :-
The blue box near the output side on the UAV is a trimmer adjustment for changing the way color artifacting looks through composite output. However, this trimmer has no impact when used on the 2600 console as it was mainly put into place for using the UAV on the Atari 8-bit computers where more games used NTSC artifacting.