[Atari introduces NEW CARTRIDGE-BASED ATARI 2600+]

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. 

 

[What are the coolest items in your collection?]

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...

 

[Atari introduces NEW CARTRIDGE-BASED ATARI 2600+]

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.

 

[OMG! Really! - Vectrex prices on eBay]

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.

 

[Atari introduces NEW CARTRIDGE-BASED ATARI 2600+]

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.

 

[OMG! Really! - Vectrex prices on eBay]

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.

[Atari introduces NEW CARTRIDGE-BASED ATARI 2600+]

11 hours ago, TrekMD said:

An we'll be there helping disassemble the booth!  Right? @CrossBow

I will not be in attendance this year. The costs for me are honestly out of hand for it. The ITC will be there in spirit through all the consoles folks are enjoying the new games on.

[OMG! Really! - Vectrex prices on eBay]

I've got two as well, but the other is not in as good a cosmetic condition as it has at least one broken boss post on the shell and the vector lines are a mess. I suspect one of the ICs it at fault for that since It has been recapped...etc...with no change. So, in my case, my spare is a parts spare.

As for fair price I honestly don't know @- Ω - because I didn't technically have to pay for either of the two I own. The parts unit was given to me since it didn't work, and my actual working one was a gift from local collectors and friends to me for the 10th anniversary of my OVGE event I was hosting in the past here locally.

I thought working Vectrex only consoles were in the about $300 - $400 range these days with spare controllers easily hitting $100 ? The games will vary like with any console however.

 

[Atari introduces NEW CARTRIDGE-BASED ATARI 2600+]

On 9/18/2023 at 4:22 AM, Chubbz said:

Atari Age are using 2600+' to showcase new games at P.R.G.E.

Not exclusively though as Al has confirmed that most 'Brews' are only going to run on original hardware still. Trust me, there will be a LOT more actual 2600s/7800s in use in their booth vs 2600+ consoles.

[Wanna get into the TI-99/4A on the CHEAP?]

12 hours ago, - Ω - said:

@CrossBow did you ever get your TI up and running?  I forget.

I have not! I do have the case you sent installed onto the 32k expansion I got from Evie at BackBit but no... just haven't had any time to get it setup. Been quite busy with a large commissioned services project that I'm finishing up as we speak and have a small stack of client requests in the waiting queue as well.

 

 

[Post your latest/recent pickups!]

9 hours ago, sramirez2008 said:

My most recent ColecoVision purchase just happened to be Space Shuttle. Here’s my collection of Shuttle games, including another patch by Machine. 
Note: The Shuttle Orbiter (by Avalon Hill) box is by Marc. The rest are CIBs. It took me a while to find the 5200 CIB.

Getting the 5200 box is more difficult than it should be yes as I believe most of them were sold off in the 2600 boxes with a sticker or something over them to state it was the 5200 version inside.

[What are the coolest items in your collection?]

2 hours ago, DegasElite said:

Isn't this the design from Benjamin Heckendorn? I have seen something like this before.

Yeah I'm pretty sure that is a Ben early made VCS portable.

 

[Anybody still playing Atari Lynx?]

I don't play either of my two Lynx systems as much as I would like. Lack of time honestly. But I do have over 40 games for the system along with my AgaCart I purchased a few years back. I think some of my favorites on the system would be Xenophobe, Paperboy, Rygar, Zarlor Mercenary, and Xybots!

 

[What are the coolest items in your collection?]

1 minute ago, sramirez2008 said:

You had me at the Dreamcast Kiosk. The Galaga cocktail cabinet is not too shabby either.

The DC Kiosk I've had since 2004. It originally came out of an EB games (Before they turned in Gamestop), and then was acquired by a small retro game store that was just getting started around 2003 and they setup a booth at my 2004 OVGE event. They had the KIOSK for sale at the event for about $300 I think it was? But there were no takers as again in this timeframe, the DC was just last gen and no one cared about it. They offered it to me for $250 at the end of the event and I did NOT hesitate to purchase. It is mostly all original still although when I got it, the original lock had been removed and two large sections of velcro had been used to remove the front to change games out etc. It also was missing one of the controllers. I remedied all of this shortly after and it has a proper lock/key on it again and replacement controller that I did have to drill holes into to mount to the arm like the originals did. That said, it currently had DC# 3 in it as the original died within a few weeks of owning it and the second one died a few years later. Both due to failed GDRom drives in them. DC #3 has been in there for well over a decade and had more hours on it than the others and at last check, was still working fine. But I will state that if the GDRom should fail in this one, I would most likely put an ODE into it so that way I can have a lot of games at the ready to play.

The galga cocktail I've only had for about 8 years I think? It was serviced fully not long after I bought it but I'm sure the monitor is due for a recap at this point. It has been sometime since I powered it on but it was working great last time it was powered on.

 

[What are the coolest items in your collection?]

Tough one Steve. I don't have a top three but I've quite a few things that I think might qualify?

My two Parker Bros protos for the 2600 I got about 20 years ago.

My proto cart for the Jag that has the 2600 emulator on it with a few games that Bryan Edwaard created in the 90s. I believe this is a repro Bryan allowed to be made for a contest that I won this in.

My Dreamcast KIOSK

My Galaga cocktail cabinet

My little VFD table top games of Lupin and Tron from Tomy, and my Zaxxon from Coleco. Heck most of them I have I think are pretty cool!

My Ti-99 version of Dragon's Lair that I got as part of a deal with @- Ω - here in our forums.

It would go on and on dude...

 

[Atari 2600 or Atari 7800 - which one do you use for gaming?]

3 hours ago, sramirez2008 said:

Thanks for confirming. I have a few 7800's. Don't know if its possible to identify the extra timing circuit by S/N, but this consoles S/N is A1 885456395. I also have an A3 9B1 5287646 and a couple of consoles with the expansion module (S/Ns A1 74 5825114 and A1 74 5787980).

If you have Spiceware's Parrot bus stuffing demo, that will tell you pretty easily. that demo will NOT work on any 7800 I've seen with the extra timing circuit in place. It is a 2600 demo but runs even on the original older Harmony. So that is one program I use to test for it without taking the console apart.

 

[Atari 2600 or Atari 7800 - which one do you use for gaming?]

15 minutes ago, sramirez2008 said:

Thanks for confirming. I have a few 7800's. Don't know if its possible to identify the extra timing circuit by S/N, but this consoles S/N is A1 885456395. I also have an A3 9B1 5287646 and a couple of consoles with the expansion module (S/Ns A1 74 5825114 and A1 74 5787980).

Can't really tell by SN no. Pretty sure the extra timing circuit started to show up in '87 made units. But it was only for about a year because most of the units I've had that were made in the way late 87 and '88 had the spots to populate the parts for the circuit, but bypassed it with a zero ohm resistor. So it seems to have been something that was only needed temporarily until they sourced other parts to align with each other better on timing to no longer require it is my best guess.

 

[Atari 2600 or Atari 7800 - which one do you use for gaming?]

4 hours ago, sramirez2008 said:

My daily driver is my 7800. It was modified by...wait...for...it...CrossBow.🙂 It runs Space Rocks just fine.

I just took at look at your main board pics, and that one does NOT have the extra timing circuit present. So I do think that Space Rocks is one game that is affected by the extra timing circuit being in place or not.

I didn't work on or sell @socrates63 the 7800 he is using, so I don't know what mods or work was done on his 7800. But again, I wonder if it has the extra timing circuit and if it still active in circuit.

 

[Atari 2600 or Atari 7800 - which one do you use for gaming?]

1 hour ago, - Ω - said:

😢 You left out the often maligned, living room worthy piece of artistic beauty, the totally awesome Atari 5200... so I cannot vote. 😢

I think that is because at least for me... I don't consider the VCS adapter as being practical for playing 2600 games on.

And, your is AV upgraded and won't work with the VCS adapter anyway at this point. Or at least, it won't show a picture from the device since that doesn't go through the UAV.

 

[Atari 2600 or Atari 7800 - which one do you use for gaming?]

7 hours ago, juansolo said:

Yeah. It's not noticable on the BVM as it's a beast and will deal with it. On my PVM I was getting a bit of blooming with the stock UAV, a resistor on the luma line brought it down to the correct level, but we've recently traced it back to the IC that's causing it. When we do the doc for the PAL install of our current iteration of the AJM mod, I'll document it in there as it affects one of the resistors on the board depending on which IC your machine has fitted.

The new board we're kinda excited about. The PAL machine has always been a bit of a 'mare no matter which mod you do to it. We might have finally cracked it with a really simple mod (UAV is still better for most people on the NTSC, but I actually prefer it for that also). Once the next machine is done I'll have the installation documented. Then see how Karri gets on. I've a couple of other PAL users waiting in the wings to see how it all ends up.

Yeah, in further discussion on this and in looking at a base sample of pics of 7800s I've done over the past 2 years. It seems that roughly 1 in 4 will have that 74x32 chip in them. And I've never noticed any issues with the s-video output that I could tell? So I'm curious if examples can be provided to show me the difference and exactly what value resistance was added and how it was added exactly?

 

Also, we are getting way off topic so this should likely be moved to its own dedicated thread and I can't apologize enough for that!

 

[Atari 2600 or Atari 7800 - which one do you use for gaming?]

9 hours ago, juansolo said:

Haven't got a BBP, but that's good to know as my NTSC machine has the Asteroids BIOS in it currently so that wouldn't work either by the sound of it. I'll probably pick up a GD7800 when Saint has the fixes on it for RGB SCART. Tried one when it came with a machine to fix, really nice multi-cart. Makes life super easy and the RGB is a bonus.

Yes I have one of the earlier run 7800GDs. But I can only get my Rad2x to work with it the best so far. I've actually just placed an order for another Rad2x that I can use with it dedicated going foward. Although I could try to filter down the sync signal off the encoder of the 7800GD using a resistor and capacitor as I've done on some consoles and run that to provide a new c-sync to see if that works better. I did try kill the trace between the sync and composite pin outputs on the cartridge and soldered a 75ohm resistor between them. I can get stable video, but the audio keeps dropping out so it still isn't quite good.

Cleggy also sent me a PM about your s-video output being too bright on your NTSC console? I've not encountered that myself so I'm not sure if it is something I will look for or not going forward.

 

[Atari 2600 or Atari 7800 - which one do you use for gaming?]

8 hours ago, juansolo said:

Yup, as soon as he dropped it on there I grabbed it 😉 Will be doing some experiments with it (making a dual boot ROM ultimately with it and the Asteroids ROM on it). For no other reason than I can really. Plus I've a machine with a dead BIOS IC, so I need to write at least one regardless.

Well, what isn't on that git hub is a newer version of the Kilo BIOS that should allow the BackBit Pro to work since it won't work with PAL BIOS, or the modified BIOS that have games included. But I've not tested it yet since I don't have an Eprom burner of my own.

 

[Atari 2600 or Atari 7800 - which one do you use for gaming?]

30 minutes ago, juansolo said:

Once our burner lands we'll stick it in one for sure to try it and see.

i figured you already had it since that French guy on the AA forums stated he had one? It isn't a secret now that Bob has the entire thing hosted on github for folks to snag and burn them own so I figured that too was where you were getting it from.

 

[Atari 2600 or Atari 7800 - which one do you use for gaming?]

3 hours ago, juansolo said:

2600 wise though it has bother with some of the homebrews where mine doesn't. Granted the NTSC 7800's seem way more compatible with 2600 homebrew than PAL ones. They're really finicky. Though we've got one that does play nice with most things (kept for that reason) that's a VERY early one. 

Though I can't test for it myself and I know you have access to it now, since I've seen mention of it being used in places where I know I never sold it... The Kiloparsec BIOS is supposed to have stuff in place to help with 2600 brew compatibility on PAL 7800s?

[Atari 2600 or Atari 7800 - which one do you use for gaming?]

6 hours ago, socrates63 said:

I didn't do an extensive test. IIRC Space Rocks is one that didn't work.

Oh...that might be one that is effected by the extra timing circuit that some 7800s have. Disabling that part of the 7800 would likely correct the issue for you. I don't own that physically, but I know Space Rocks works in all of my flash carts I've used with my 7800. Well those that support games of that type anyway.