Atari 2600+ My experiences and helpful information

[CrossBow]

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.

 

[sramirez2008]

3 hours ago, CrossBow said:

Medieval Mahem (Seemed to work okay with joystick and...bonus! It was in stereo?!)

One of our families favorite games. I’ll pop my copy in and try it with Paddles as soon as my console arrives.

3 hours ago, CrossBow said:

That said, I can confirm that the Dragon Fly 7800 flash cartridge does work!

Excellent news for those of us with a DF. 
 

-Thx.

[CrossBow]

1 hour ago, sramirez2008 said:

One of our families favorite games. I’ll pop my copy in and try it with Paddles as soon as my console arrives.

Excellent news for those of us with a DF. 
 

-Thx.

Yeah I was surprised when he title music was coming out of different channels in the game room and when the game played and the sounds were following the fireballs etc. First actual true stereo 2600 game I guess? Although I hear that Skeleton+ has the same actual stereo in the game. 

Just remember that with the DF only the official released games are working and Rampage is still a NO GO regardless. None of the graphic hacks of original games would load. So the checksums are just too different for the emulator to know what to do it seems. Hopefully Atari updates some of that so that some 7800 homebrews will work since. But even my physical carts of Sirius and Plutos would NOT load that I got from CPUWIZ years ago. Not sure if those games were never added to the Prosystem look update tables or what?

 

[sramirez2008]

2 hours ago, CrossBow said:

Yeah I was surprised when he title music was coming out of different channels in the game room and when the game played and the sounds were following the fireballs etc. First actual true stereo 2600 game I guess? Although I hear that Skeleton+ has the same actual stereo in the game. 

Just remember that with the DF only the official released games are working and Rampage is still a NO GO regardless. None of the graphic hacks of original games would load. So the checksums are just too different for the emulator to know what to do it seems. Hopefully Atari updates some of that so that some 7800 homebrews will work since. But even my physical carts of Sirius and Plutos would NOT load that I got from CPUWIZ years ago. Not sure if those games were never added to the Prosystem look update tables or what?

 

Yeah, I’m just happy to play the officially released games. Too bad about Sirius & Plutos, but I can play my carts on original hardware. Hopefully we’ll see an update in the not so distant future that can help with some homebrews. I’ll test all of mine when I receive my unit and post my findings if they differ for games that haven’t been mentioned.

Edited November 22, 2023 by sramirez2008
Typo

[Scott Stilphen]

22 hours ago, CrossBow said:

Berzerk: VE originally released during CGE 2010 I believe?

K.O. Cruiser (Although I still can figure out the controls on this one)

Berzerk: VE was released at CGE 2K2

Manual for K.O. Cruiser is on my site:

https://www.ataricompendium.com/archives/manuals/vcs/ko_cruiser.pdf

[CrossBow]

1 hour ago, Scott Stilphen said:

Berzerk: VE was released at CGE 2K2

Manual for K.O. Cruiser is on my site:

https://www.ataricompendium.com/archives/manuals/vcs/ko_cruiser.pdf

Interesting, I did attend CGE2k2 but I don't remember buying it that far back as that was my first CGE I attended. I might have been for sale later. I know I picked mine up from the AtariAge booth at a CGE and the guy that did the enhanced stuff was there as well.

You know, it likely was back that far because my copy of Berzerk VE is also one of the few homebrews I have where the end label started to peel up nearly as soon as I got home with it since AA was still working on finding the best ways to do that stuff. The end label is hand cut as well on it.

Geeze...20 years ago?! 

Anyone get the new Bezerk Enhanced? I did NOT, but I'm hearing others state it only has like 2 voice phrases and they are hard to make out? 

 

[Scott Stilphen]

 PIctures of Mike Mike and his Berzerk: VE carts from CGE2K2

 

[MaximumRD]

Just an FYI in relation to the info you provided regarding flashcards, if you use Dev Mode to load a single game onto the HArmony it will be recognized and loaded of course because at that point the Harmony is simply acting like a single game cartridge. 

[Scott Stilphen]

20 hours ago, CrossBow said:

Yeah I was surprised when he title music was coming out of different channels in the game room and when the game played and the sounds were following the fireballs etc. First actual true stereo 2600 game I guess? Although I hear that Skeleton+ has the same actual stereo in the game.

The homebrew games I know of that have stereo audio are:

A-VCS-tec Challenge
Medieval Mayhem
Skeleton+
Synthcart
Toyshop Trouble

https://www.ataricompendium.com/faq/faq.html#hardware16

[CrossBow]

1 hour ago, Scott Stilphen said:

The homebrew games I know of that have stereo audio are:

A-VCS-tec Challenge
Medieval Mayhem
Skeleton+
Synthcart
Toyshop Trouble

https://www.ataricompendium.com/faq/faq.html#hardware16

I think someone posted info from Stella where it looks like only Medieval Mayhem and the various Skeleton games are configured for Stereo on the 2600+ at this time.

 

[sramirez2008]

3 hours ago, CrossBow said:

I think someone posted info from Stella where it looks like only Medieval Mayhem and the various Skeleton games are configured for Stereo on the 2600+ at this time.

 

Have you tried your Mateos yet? I’m sure it’ll work, but would like confirmation before my console arrives. 

[Scott Stilphen]

7 hours ago, CrossBow said:

I think someone posted info from Stella where it looks like only Medieval Mayhem and the various Skeleton games are configured for Stereo on the 2600+ at this time.

 

What of Air-Sea Battle, Combat, Indy 500, Space Invaders, and Street Racer?

[Scott Stilphen]

On 11/22/2023 at 10:13 AM, CrossBow said:

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.

 

Though seeing Atari in the news for releasing new games and hardware is nice, as good as Atari CEO Wade Rosen's intentions behind them may be, I see the 2600+ and Gamestation Pro as yet more rushed-to-market fodder.  Since both systems recently came out, I'm guessing they both use the same version emulators.  The 7800 emulator is apparently a version from as far back as 2009.  And if not for the Stella team getting involved, that emulator version would have been much older as well.  So, like the Retron 77 and some of the later Flashbacks, it's likely up to others to figure out how to upgrade them.  But the emulator issues aside, some people are already reporting other issues with them, from conflicting compatibility accounts with certain games, to systems freezing up.  One person even found a loose screw rattling around inside his 2600+.  The dipswitch multicarts are just laughable.  Those were barely acceptable 20 years ago, and 20 years before that, similar pirate multicarts that were commonly found overseas, but they weren't a thing back-in-the-day in the U.S.,and nobody in the U.S. is looking at them with any nostalgia in 2023.  They just make the 2600+ look like the overseas knockoff that it really is.  Why not just sell the 2600+ with hundreds of games built-in, and relegate the cartridge-dumping port as a rarely-used feature, instead of a critical one?  Does the single-sided piece of paper that's serving as the system's manual even mention how to clean the edge connector in cartridges if they don't work?  And given how most people buying this likely won't be involved in online message boards or even be aware of them, will try some old carts, find they won't work, and end up returning the system? (those with a Retron 77, did you find using carts with that to be a similar experience of having to clean cartridges that might otherwise work fine with a real VCS?)  Then you have Atari's campaign of "No cartridge left behind", when the Driving and keypad controllers don't work, and as for the light gun, it wouldn't matter if it did or not because the system only offers HDMI output, so you can't hook up the system to a CRT (unless you get an HDMI-to-RCA adapter.  And oh yeah, you can't plug the system into an AC outlet because no adapter was included.  No, these systems shouldn't have been released as-is, but now that they're out, the community will do all the real-world QC testing that Atari should have done.  Maybe the next version of them will fix some of these issues, but I've been telling myself that over the Flashbacks, and after 20 years of Atari releasing dozens of versions of those, they're still full of problems.  I've said it before and I'll continue to say it - nothing beats having a real system.

 

[CrossBow]

3 hours ago, Scott Stilphen said:

What of Air-Sea Battle, Combat, Indy 500, Space Invaders, and Street Racer?

Unless the audio is actually following the movement on the screen properly...it isn't stereo. In Combat, if I move my tank or plane from the left to the right, I expect the sounds to follow suite. But they do NOT. Player 1 sounds are always heard from the left and player 2 on the right. 

Ever listen to Pitfall II on a 'stereo' modded 2600? Sounds awful and some of the sounds end up getting drowned out due to the odd way the music seems to come from mostly one channel vs being split out. Solaris I will admit will occasionally sound cool when you hyper warp with a stereo modded 2600, but most other games just sound wrong to me since as I said, the audio doesn't really follow the action on screen accurately. Medieval Mayhem is the first time I've heard the 2 channels from the TIA being used to track the action seen on screen properly.

@Scott Stilphen you also seem to be making comparisons from the Atari of 10 years ago to the Atari of today, and they really aren't the same group of folks running things. To me, the past year and recent game releases and the 2600+ demonstrate to me that the current Atari or I should say, those currently operating as Atari, seem to care and seem to be trying. So I'm optimistic for now.

 

[Scott Stilphen]

6 hours ago, CrossBow said:

Unless the audio is actually following the movement on the screen properly...it isn't stereo. In Combat, if I move my tank or plane from the left to the right, I expect the sounds to follow suite. But they do NOT. Player 1 sounds are always heard from the left and player 2 on the right.

The definition of stereo is sound that is directed through two or more speakers so that it seems to surround the listener and to come from more than one source.  It's also referred to as stereophonic sound.  The VCS has 2 sound channel and was originally designed to have 2 internal speakers, with each player having their own speaker.

What you're describing is audio panning, where a sound starts off in one channel and moves over to another channel.  A lot of albums and movie soundtracks do this, but you can't have one without the other :)  In other words, having a stereo sound system doesn't mean you'll always have audio panning, but audio panning requires a stereo sound system.

[Scott Stilphen]

18 hours ago, CrossBow said:

@Scott Stilphen you also seem to be making comparisons from the Atari of 10 years ago to the Atari of today, and they really aren't the same group of folks running things. To me, the past year and recent game releases and the 2600+ demonstrate to me that the current Atari or I should say, those currently operating as Atari, seem to care and seem to be trying. So I'm optimistic for now.

I'm looking at what Atari Interactive has done in the last 20 years, starting with licensing games out to Jakks Pacific in 2003 and Basic Fun in 2006, and then their Flashback systems starting in 2004; same company, just with different CEOs.  Supporters of the 2600+ and Gamestation Pro say the main reason for buying them is so that you can easily connect them to modern TVs (via HDMI).  I'm saying, why not use a real system (eliminating all these compatibility and controller lagging issues), do an A/V upgrade to it, and use a $15 RCA-to-HDMI converter.  Isn't that a better, all around option?

Edited November 24, 2023 by Scott Stilphen

[CrossBow]

@Scott Stilphen The $15 RCA - HDMI converters you speak of have quite a bit of lag in that conversion and look awful since you end up with upscaled composite (complete with the dot crawl, ghosting, etc... ) through the HDMI so it still doesn't look any better than it would have just using composite by itself provided your TV still has a standard AV jacks on it for input. (Many aren't these days I've noticed...).

And the only way to get the current Atari to provide more games and products that are likely to want to buy is by supporting the current efforts where it at least appears they are trying. 

BTW, I've not noticed much if any lag on my 2600+ through my AV setup? Are there reports and measurements showing how much lag there is? As for compatibility yeah, it isn't where most would want it to be right now. But Albert has told me that they do plan to provide updates to not only allow more 2600 homebrew games to work, but also some 7800 as well. How much they improve on all of that, we can only wait and see. I also noted in my post at the beginning that some homebrews on the 2600 side do work. And while I've not tested my entire library of 2600 games, what they have on their compatibility chart seems to match up with what I've tested so far. In the 7800 side of things I can now confirm that that some games do have the buttons reversed. Commando for instance and Rampage doesn't load up at all. But far as I know and everyone else has tested, Rampage is the only official released 7800 game from back in the day that isn't working currently. So again, from a first offering of a console that looks the part for the most part more than any of the FB consoles have, and can take actual cartridges again, it works for what it was designed to do and with updates it should get better.

 

[CrossBow]

@Scott Stilphen The $15 RCA - HDMI converters you speak of have quite a bit of lag in that conversion and look awful since you end up with upscaled composite (complete with the dot crawl, ghosting, etc... ) through the HDMI so it still doesn't look any better than it would have just using composite by itself provided your TV still has a standard AV jacks on it for input. (Many aren't these days I've noticed...).

And the only way to get the current Atari to provide more games and products that are likely to want to buy is by supporting the current efforts where it at least appears they are trying. 

BTW, I've not noticed much if any lag on my 2600+ through my AV setup? Are there reports and measurements showing how much lag there is? As for compatibility yeah, it isn't where most would want it to be right now. But Albert has told me that they do plan to provide updates to not only allow more 2600 homebrew games to work, but also some 7800 as well. How much they improve on all of that, we can only wait and see. I also noted in my post at the beginning that some homebrews on the 2600 side do work. And while I've not tested my entire library of 2600 games, what they have on their compatibility chart seems to match up with what I've tested so far. In the 7800 side of things I can now confirm that that some games do have the buttons reversed. Commando for instance and Rampage doesn't load up at all. But far as I know and everyone else has tested, Rampage is the only official released 7800 game from back in the day that isn't working currently. So again, from a first offering of a console that looks the part for the most part more than any of the FB consoles have, and can take actual cartridges again, it works for what it was designed to do and with updates it should get better.

 

[Scott Stilphen]

I never used those converters and I'm not about to spend $150 on a 2600+ and a converter to do testing that Atari should have already done by now.  I mean, this is being marketed as a classic VCS, and yet the only video output is HDMI; you can't use it with a CRT w/o using some sort of 3rd-party adapter (which automatically leaves out any light gun games).  You mentioned the system puts out 720p, although it's not a standard spec (your own video capture device has an issue with it, so I would expect various TVs and converters would as well).  That's a hardware issue.  Do you think Atari will have a firmware update to address that?

As for lag, I've seen this video about the Gamestation Pro that shows some controller latency with using them wirelessly compared to wired:

Yesterday someone in the Atari 2600 Facebook group was complaining that neither a joystick or a paddle works with Astroblast, in either controller jack.

Just today I learned the difficulty switches on the system are reversed, even though they're apparently marked correctly on the pcb: https://forums.atariage.com/topic/357155-difficulty-switches-reversed/

Yarusso took several of these systems to PRGE last month for people to try out.... and nobody reported any issues with them?  I'm left to think there weren't many carts available to try, which would explain the silence on that end.

Lastly, as for your comment:

"And the only way to get the current Atari to provide more games and products that are likely to want to buy is by supporting the current efforts where it at least appears they are trying."

They already lost my support with $60 games like Mr. Run & Jump or $60-$100 re-issues of old, common 4K games.  Their latest batch of cart releases don't even include a manual (but then again, neither does the 2600+).  We've had most homebrewers including high-quality manuals with their games for years that not only were superior to Atari Corp's cheap sepia-colored manuals, but on par with some of Atari's and Activision's best manuals.  And Atari Interactive can't do that now?  Hell, they included full manuals with all of the Flashback systems.  Oh, but the boxes are nice, aren't they?  Sure, but how do you play the games?  What are all the different game variations with each game?  I see Rosen's Atari as a company that's more interested in putting out stuff with the Atari name on it, and making something that can be considered a collectible; actually using and playing the items is secondary.

I'm not supporting any company that dumps flawed product onto the market that they can't even bother doing any basic testing on.  Issues like difficulty switches and fire buttons being reversed are pretty simple to catch in testing, as new owners are now proving.  Seriously, this is amateur-level QC-ing stuff here.  Either Atari made no effort to discover these for themselves,or worse, they knew about them, and simply released it anyway.  Atari wants me to support their efforts?  They need to earn it.  Why should I financially support this or any other half-a@@ed efforts?  People buying one of these shouldn't have to run through every cartridge in their collection to see if it works or not - that's something Atari should have done, and they should have done it 6 months ago.  Atari's own marketing campaign slogan for this is "No cartridge left behind", right?  Much like most of the other 2600-like systems I mentioned, all these issues just reek of very little if any quality control testing being done.  It's as if they got it running on a bench, tested a few carts, labeled it "Good enough" and pushed it out the door.  The system just came out, and already people are asking about updates for it to fix some of these issues.  When Atari laid a similar egg 40 years ago with the 1200XL, they didn't try and fix it; they killed the system and replaced it with better systems.  But if you're okay with only having 'some homebrew' carts work, then I guess that's good enough for you.  That's modern gaming these days - push out an incomplete or flawed product, and then push out endless patches and fixes... but that's not classic Atari.  I never thought I'd see the day were playing a VCS game would involve loading times, and yet here we are.  All I can say is, I guess get used to seeing the "Loading Game Failed" message.

 

 

Edited November 25, 2023 by Scott Stilphen

[CrossBow]

I honestly don't own that many 2600 home brew games Scott. I mostly own home brews for other platforms. And the ones I do own for the 2600 I already knew wouldn't work on the 2600+. I've got multiple 2600s, and 7800s etc for my use to play these games one without issue. 

I bought the 2600+ because I like the idea they have put forth and because I think sales of it will encourage them to release something better in the future. Not sure about the reversed difficulty switches, but I can tell you that pretty much every 7800 game has their buttons reversed and...the color/bw switch does NOT pause 7800 games. Does nothing...

But I believe that has more to do with them using such an old version of the Prosystem emulator for the 7800 side than anything as these issues were present back then in emulation as well.

I can add that one thing that is quite confusing is that Atari's list of games doesn't specify if they tested a PAL version or NTSC. Because I've now found that in addition to Rampage, my actual Double Dragon cartridge will NOT even give me a loading game message. But... from my DragonFly cartridge the game will load up and run. So that alone tells me that Atari did LIKELY test many carts they had access too. But I suspect a large part of the testing and pass/fail was to simply see if a game loaded or not and they likely had others (testers) to load up their copies of these games and report back to them. As a result, games with multiple variants like Ballblazer, Choplifter, and I suspect Double Dragon, may or may not load up since the checksum table in the prosystem emulation on the 2600+ doesn't have a complete table of values to know what the games are.

And yes, Al has said many times that he is working with Atari so they can address these issues with FW updates that would also update the files on the 2600+ so that more homebrew games can be made to work including 7800 homebrew. 

But like all large companies, I'm sure that getting the 2600+ out the door in time for the Holiday shopping was more important so I suspect such an update won't happen for sometime. Still, I've bought other similar products not just from Atari, but others because such companies won't have much interested in fixing or releasing better stuff if they don't sell enough of what they have made already. They guys from Plaion have said that the success of the 2600+ will determine what other future products we might see.

 

Edited November 25, 2023 by CrossBow

[Scott Stilphen]

4 hours ago, CrossBow said:

IBut like all large companies, I'm sure that getting the 2600+ out the door in time for the Holiday shopping was more important so I suspect such an update won't happen for sometime. Still, I've bought other similar products not just from Atari, but others because such companies won't have much interested in fixing or releasing better stuff if they don't sell enough of what they have made already. They guys from Plaion have said that the success of the 2600+ will determine what other future products we might see.

Shades of E.T. again.  That's probably the most 1982-era Atari thing Atari Interactive has done yet.  As for the guys from Plaion, they likely have nothing to worry about.  Atari Interactive has been pushing questionable products for 20 years, and the same people who buy those will buy the 2600+ and Gamestation Pro in enough quantities to ensure similar products will continue to follow.  But I personally don't see anything 'plus' or 'pro' about either of them.

[CrossBow]

On 11/23/2023 at 3:09 PM, sramirez2008 said:

Have you tried your Mateos yet? I’m sure it’ll work, but would like confirmation before my console arrives. 

@sramirez2008 forgot to answer you on this. YES I've confirmed my old Mateos works just fine. However, again, the same limitations apply in that only the officially released games will load up since homebrews aren't in the lookup table for the 2600+ yet.

Some things to add that I confirmed yesterday in doing some more testing... as it relates to 7800 games.

My actual cartridge of Double Dragon will NOT load at all. In fact, the 2600+ never even attempts a game loading for it. Just always sits on Game Load Failed... But the cart works just fine in my actual 7800. So that leads me to believe that there is at least on other revision of Double Dragon for the 7800 out there. Because the NTSC rom from Trebor's pak will load up from my DF cart. But not my actual cart. I did notice that my actual Double Dragon cart is most likely one of the ones that uses an EPROM vs masked ROM. I know quite a few Absolute and Activision 7800 games back then were done that way. So I'm wondering if that has something to do with it also.

Another thing is that I've now confirmed there is an issue with Asteroids Deluxe. If you play on any difficulty above novice, then after the first wave or two, you will start to get random hyperwarps. If you start the game on Novice, it will still happen but not until you are several waves in, at about the same level as intermediate or expert would be. 

In talking with another AA member on this, the issue is related to something involving port 2. Because similar to Xenophobe, Rampage, and Rikki & Vikki, if you don't have a controller plugged into port 2, then random fire button presses seem to happen that can trigger a player 2 start etc. In the case of Asteroids, it appears to trigger random warps. Plugging in a second controller seems to minimize this issue in the game by about 90%. 

It is interesting to me that an actual bug/feature/ flaw..whatever you want to call it that happens on actual hardware, is also happening in this emulator since again, it is a hardware design issues between the paddle lines and the TIA that occasionally confuses the 7800 logic. Although it should be mentioned that as far as I know, Asteroids on actual hardware doesn't suffer this same issue while Rampage, Xenophobe and R&V do. 

So the point is that it might solve some glitching with 780 games if you have a 2nd controller plugged into the 2600+.

[sramirez2008]

19 minutes ago, CrossBow said:

Asteroids on actual hardware doesn't suffer this same issue

I can confirm that Asteroids Deluxe (at least my copy) has never suffered from this issue on actual hardware. I have logged many, many hours playing this game, on a couple of my 7800's and have never come across this issue. I'll test for this as soon as the console arrives, as I would like to play Asteroids Deluxe on my 2600+. Thanks for the updates. 

[Sabertooth]

I just spent a few hours with my newly arrived 2600+. Overall, it does what I want it to do, which is to eliminate signal drop on my 4K TV that I get when using original hardware for certain 2600 games - even with a RetroTink 2xPro. I know that the Retrink5x and the RetroTink4K can handle this, but I am not sure I want to invest the additional $300-700 for a handful of 2600 games. None of my other legacy systems have this particular  issue through my current set-up.

Here are some quick pluses and minuses:

+ I find the output to be cleaner than either a Retron77 or my modded hardware through an upscaler.

+ it records perfectly with my AverMedia Live Gamer 2 Plus.

+ Load times using the hot swap are minimal

+ No noticeable lag, despite some reports to the contrary

+ Nice build quality on the console, joysticks and (in particular) the new Paddles

+ It plays all of my "go to" 2600/7800 retail games without issue

+ Worked with my third-party controllers and legacy Atari controllers

+ Works with XP games

- Does not currently play 7800 homebrews and hacks. Although this is likely to be addressed in a future firmware update, I have a lot of 7800 homebrew.

- Does not load my copies of 7800 Rampage or Double Dragon.

- Difficulty switches are backwards

- No support for keypad controllers

- No support for the driving controller

- No scanline filters or save states; I think some modern creature comforts should have been implemented. If you're going to do it, do it.

Other thoughts:

I only have one Melody board homebrew and about 20 ways to play it, so I'm not overly concerned that the 2600+ doesn't work with these. 2600 homebrew that isn't chip assisted works fine. 

I'm looking forward to seeing how Plaion/Atari respond to early feedback and I'm hopeful that the promised firmware update addresses 7800 homebrew and specialty controller compatability. For now, this is better than the Retron77 but doesn't quite replace original hardware. It looks like I'll be leaving an original 7800 in the mix for the time being.

[Sabertooth]

Also, here's a good overview/review from GenX Grown-up: