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This talk of cart dumpers made me dig deep. back in 1997 I made a hardware 2600 cartridge dumper that would detect all the known at the time bankswitch formats and then dump the game. I managed to find the 8085 asm that runs it. The one major secret to making it work, is you need to latch all 13 bits of the address at the exact same time. I used two 8 bit latches for this purpose. Using your typical 8 bit microcontroller probably is non optimal because of this (seeing how its ports can only be updated 8 bits at a time). Using some latches would fix that problem, however. It looks like it detects all the usual stuff, but I remember have a few problems with decathlon/robot tank. These days that should be pretty easy to test for, now that we know better how it works. The fun part is that it then used Zmodem to automatically send a file, named via CRC, back to the PC thru a serial port / terminal program. At the time, I ran every cartridge I owned (mostly complete set) through it and everything dumped fine except for robot tank and decathlon, which I could dump sometimes. The rest autodetected just fine though. Later on I hacked this to autodump those power based multicarts, where you cycle the power to make them switch games, dumping each one after it cycled the power automatically. I can post some info and the asm if anyone was interested. It's very old and crusty now but back in 1997 I thought it was pretty hot stuff. haha. I still have the dumper itself, and I should take some pics of it and post those. I probably used it last 10 years ago to dump some carts.

Impossible! You have you make speculations about the product based on limited information, then relentlessly attack said product based on these unconfirmed speculations for hundred or thousands of forum posts. Repeat this process until either: 1) the product releases, and people actually like it in spite of your best efforts. 2) the product never releases, then you must continue to beat the dead horse for all of eternity (see Amico thread)

it looks like my algorithm did this: (which most likely isn't correct, but it was 1997) * dump 1200-12ff and save it * output 01fe * dump 1200-12ff again and compare * if they are different, this is FE, else it isn't the dumping part: (looks very rube goldberg) * output address 1ffc * turn off cart power(!) * wait awhile * turn on power * dump 4K of data to a buffer from 1000-1fff * read address 01fe * dump another 4K, and send all 8K it ended up working, but again these days we know so much more and it didn't have to be this hacky. looks like the other methods were relatively straight forward. * 2K checks to see if the data repeats exactly twice at 1000-17ff and 1800-1fff * F4 selects 1ff4, dumps 1200-12ff, then 1ff5 and dumps 1200-12ff again. if different, we found F4 * F6 works similar to F4, but uses 1ff6 and 1ff7 * F8 works similar to F4, but uses 1ff8 and 1ff9 * FA works similar to F4, but uses 1ff8 and 1ffa * 3F works by selecting bank 2 and bank 0 and comparing the data at 1200-12ff. banksel is done by selecting add 1000, selecting add 003f, writing D0/D1, then selecting add 103f. if the data is different we found 3F * E0 works by selecting 1fe0, dumping 1200-12ff, then selecting 1fe7 and dumping 1200-12ff and testing. if different, we found E0 * E7 is similar to E0, but uses 1fe4 and 1fe5, then dumps 1400-14ff so we avoid the first 1K, which would falsely detect E0 (since E7 has a 2K bank) I tended to choose addresses 1200-12ff because it would be past any RAM on the cartridge. I didn't have a magicard or video life so I had no way to test detecting those. the order that they are checked is important, F4 must be tested first, since it could be falsely detected as F8 the way I do it if F8 was tested first. My order: * FE * E7 * E0 * 3F * F4 * FA * F6 * F8 * 2K It looks like I had some prototype stuff in to detect RAM on F4/F6/F8 but didn't do anything with it. you can test this easily with the cart dumper by attempting to write to it though. you should be able to use "Relaxed" timing to do it. i.e. output address i.e. 0, then output AA, output address 1000, then wait awhile, output address 0 again, then output address 1080 to see if your AA shows up. repeat with 55 to make sure. that's about it for my 1997 level tech. it worked on my entire collection at the time, which was pretty extensive.

This demo still won't work for multiple reasons: Your background still appears to have more than 256 colors. Meaning you're not allocating any palettes for your 2bpp layer or your 4bpp sprites. Considering you're not doing your colors properly, I highly doubt your doing your VRAM tile math correctly. You're trying to use additive blending to brighten the pixels behind the light cone window while also using subtractive blending to darken the pixels behind the players shadow at the same time. This can't work. You can do either additive blending or subtractive blending, but not both at the same time. So once again, this won't work on a real SNES.

Market research indicates that people who repeatedly spend money on things like this enjoy being kicked in the nuts. Atari's just making sure that they get their money's worth.

I'm a little late to the party, but I recently updated my Atari 7800 Programming website with a complete explanation of the 7800 graphics modes including P#C# to bitmapping (in the sub-pages) https://sites.google.com/site/atari7800wiki/graphics-modes/palette-sprite-bits https://sites.google.com/site/atari7800wiki/graphics-modes/palette-sprite-bits/320a https://sites.google.com/site/atari7800wiki/graphics-modes/palette-sprite-bits/320b https://sites.google.com/site/atari7800wiki/graphics-modes/palette-sprite-bits/320c https://sites.google.com/site/atari7800wiki/graphics-modes/palette-sprite-bits/320d

Because I can buy a 40+ year old 2600 that can play 100% of all games , including homebrews (ARM or not) and cheap composite mod cheaper than this emulator. Pretty sad you call the hard working homebrew scene "IP-stealing hacks".

The extra 1400XL/1450XLD devices essentially run with no OS support. They use the additional PBI memory at $D600-D7FF provided by the 1400XL hardware, and a portion of page 2 reserved by the OS, but otherwise they seem to have been written to work with the stock XL/XE OS. There's also no sign of the mirrored "internal" PBI register IPDVI/IPDVS registers that are referenced in several internal docs, despite this being the most appropriate machine to have them. The handlers are hardwired to access $D1FF. Add $D6/D7 memory through some other way and there's no reason T:/V:/PDD couldn't run as a plain PBI device on an 800XL. The 1400XL T: device is clearly related to the 1030 line, as it includes the same ESC command assignments as the 1030 as well as the same sound and auto-answer commands as the XM301. ROM space is an issue, though. PBI devices only have 2K of ROM space for their handler ROM, and the 1030's T: handler is 2.8K. That's probably why the 1400XL T: handler is incomplete, notably missing support for tone dialing even though, as far as I can tell from the hardware, the hardware supports it. But then they spent ROM space on implementing a 1400XL unique ESC B command to switch the baud rate between 110, 300, and 1200 baud, despite the ACIA being hardwired into a 300 baud modem.... Incidentally, I just found a dump of the 835 firmware, and the first part of the 1030 firmware is essentially a patched version of the 835 firmware. I'm guessing that the XM301 probably has similar firmware as well based on the close relation.

Can't help myself. Deal with it!

I was hoping the "new" Atari would be better than the old Atari, but no, apparently they won't be. Just more overpriced emulation devices with bad compatibility. I guess the one thing Atari has learned over the years is that people here will buy every single device they crap out with an Atari logo on it no matter how bad it is. If this device kicked you in the nuts instead of playing Atari games there'd be somebody here saying, "Well, it's only 130 bucks, what do you expect? Something that plays 50 year old video games at a reasonable level of speed and compatibility while not kicking you in the nuts?"

Hm; ) [Swiety's progress]

Well that's a dumb strategy! Instead of making what they can sell, Atari should concentrate on making devices that a dozen or so people on an internet forum say they want with no evidence they'd actually buy it.

Hmmmm..Taco Horse

This attitude is why Atari has been producing pretty much nothing but trash. Because people will defend said trash, buy it anyway, and chastise people who point out it's trash.

Have just managed to boot up a bread boarded PicoCart! I used 10 cm wires, but used a Cartridge breakout board with the header pins on the back of the PCB, so the bread board could sit comfortably on the top of the 800XL. Now to start hacking around with the firmware, etc.

This one is long-overdue! Here's a proto of Greg Christensen's Caverns of Mars: http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-caverns-of-mars_41702.html The game underwent a few changes before its APX release (proto on the right): Main visible differences: _ no sound on intro screen _ no level selection / indication _ harder default game mode _ shooting sound is different _ no cheat mode _ no "yellow glow" _ slight graphic corruption near end of level

Thanks, guys! To finish this off, I'm attaching the printed documentation Steve provided with the ROM cart. Then, I'll put both the scanned documentation and the dumped cart on archive.org. Finally, I'll get all of this back to @imutant with our undying gratitude! RandyWing_Wart_Program_Instructions.pdf

Just a quick note to let everyone know that 2 new CIB games are available for purchase at www.IntellivisionCollector.com. X-Rally IntelligentVision's Lock'n'Chase: Revenge of Lupin. All copies are assembled and will be sent out within 7 days of purchase (or earlier). Direct Link: Lock'n'Chase: Revenge of Lupin Click Here! X-Rally Click Here! X-Rally has multiple different options to purchase (CIB, ROM, Board only, Full Cart & CIB + Rom). The ROM for Lock'n'Chase:ROL will be distributed from IntelligentVision @ www.Intellivision.us * IntellivisionCollector.com is only the distributor of this IntelligentVision game. The production run is limited to 150 copies. No further copies will be created afterwards.

Wow, now that's some revisionist history. You literally took everything Tommy and his team said at face value. In fact, you still continue to quote and cite their words as if they are gospel. You really need to step away and spend some time thinking about your role in all of this. You were certainly one of the individuals that gave this fraud credibility and I have never once seen you express any skepticism for anything that was claimed. Even now you seem dedicated to repeatedly attempting to argue and contradict the points being made here as if it will somehow vindicate your lack of rational analysis in the first place. Look, I think we can all admit that Tommy fooled a lot of people. It's just sad that you continue to be fooled and have never taken any responsibility for your role in the harassment others suffered while you stood ready to attack anyone who dared question.

I decided a long time ago that 320 modes are a bit like my wife shopping....best left alone and nothing good will come from me getting involved.

3) Tacos

You probably won't find anything online. The information comes from a text file recovered from one of Atari's mainframe computer tapes dated late 1984 (before the Tramiels got rid of the system). There are more unreleased APX titles mentioned, one or two previously unheard of and some six programs eventually picked up by other publishers. I'll gradually add the entries to Atarimania.

I mean, to be fair, you may have put more work and effort into the AMICO brand than Tommy or his company ever have 🤷‍♂️😂

Hi there! I'm the programmer of Amoeba Jump and from what you're describing, it sounds like Amoeba Jump isn't compatible with the flashback. Or rather: the flashback isn't compatible with an original Atari 2600. I suspect the flashback doesn't support the early HMOVE instructions which Amoeba Jump is using a lot. Nothing I can do about that.

No punishment, just delaying your times for next week so you have something to look forward to.

There is no glue anywhere on them. Period. They do not come with glue. We do not add glue to them. EDIT: I am not at my shop right now so I cannot physically verify this right at the moment, but to the best of my recollection, there never has been any glue holding it together. It is possible, although not probable, that there is glue on them and in shipping hundreds of them, I have never noticed glue. EDIT TWO: Nope, no glue. However, they are fused together at that point. So, my thought is this: Someone (or something) had to pull apart the two pieces. On a more probable note, the mylar is held into place by pegs in the keyboard case. It is my recollection that those holes are where the pegs are located. If it was forced into place, it could have resulted in damaged during an install attempt THIS IS ALL CONJECTURE ON MY PART and should be taken with a very small grain of salt. So, let's put this to bed, shall we? Someone (or something) pulled the two sheets apart. It could have been a very small gremlin inside of the shipping box or a very large gremlin outside of the shipping box. You can place your bets where you will. IMG_1694.MOV

Fixed on archive.org (I think). Here's the renamed file. Thanks again. Randy Wing_War_Program_Instructions.pdf

I Do think there's a middle ground here. You can look at said product; Call a spade a spade, Hope Nutari will do Better, decide it's not for you, discuss it a little bit, and then move on...

Credit to Vlad, at least he actually programmed on hardware. Kirk doesn't even own a SNES.

Lot of anger there man. I just don’t get why. Like, you haven’t actually done anything… I’m sorry if I’m not impressed by your clip art. This is like that dude who was making Road Rash on the Jag. All of you guys have two things in common: 1) you, and you alone, possess these hardware secrets and 2) you’re super defensive about it. Make something playable before talking down to folks.

I'm just sitting here, eating popcorn, watching to see how many of you get duped by current-day Atari, over and over again, despite being told by those of us who have dealt with said company, NOT TO EVER DEAL WITH SAID COMPANY, EVEN AS A CONSUMER. -Thom

a7800 is used by Atari on the VCS, I don't see why they'd switch to something else for 2600+, unless forced for technical reasons.

I think you're wrong about that, actually. Yes, we focus a lot on your weird punctuation, just because it's hard to ignore. Do you realize how hard is it sometimes to understand what you're trying to say because of that? BUT we also criticize your ideas because, to be honest, they're usually very debatable. Just look at the first post by Tanooki in that topic; he counters your three points one after another and that's it, he doesn't talk about your writing style at all. 🤷‍♂️ If I could give you one piece of advice, it would be to try to participate by replying to other topics instead of creating a lot of them (and only posting in them). I've been here for quite some time, posted a lot, but I only created ONE topic, and it didn't go very well. 😅 Creating a topic is kinda hard (except if it's to talk about a game you're developing for instance), because it highlights your opinion. So if people disagree, they will tear you apart. When you just post a reply to a topic you didn't create, people may just ignore you if they disagree. At first it was hard to me as well (English is not my native language either), but now I can even make other people laugh (willingly I mean) because I'm more familiar with AtariAge's culture and modern English language.

I think that to trigger FE you do something like this: put $01FE on address bus set bit 5 of the data bus: 1 = bank 0, 0 = bank 1 (*). The other bits are not relevant. change address bus (but keep the value on the data bus) to trigger the bankswitch Not sure if the last step is all you need to latch the bank number, or if you have to closely match the timing of a real console for it to work. ------------- (*) the order of banks in the "standard" FE rom used by emulators and flashcarts is reversed compared to the logical order they have according to the patent. The scheme also allowed up to 8 banks, but no game ever used more than 2.

Ladybug Arcade reimagining for Amico confirmed! It was also to promote the continuation of what was the VIP edition. Which they acted like was a limited thing. I was still interested in getting Amico at that time. I still wanted to see it succeed and still want to actually see it released. At this point I'm not going to put money towards it, as it's a horrible deal and Switch does everything it does and more at a better price. Also... How do you feel with all those cards falling on top of you?

Let's be completely honest for a second. 😉 By the time you posted that link, you were labelled as one of the main Amico haters (wrongly or not, it doesn't matter here). So to be fair, the way you shared it without any question or derogatory comment (even calling it a "good opportunity" 🙄) was suspicious. And we all know why you shared it: just to remind Tommy of his promise of never using crowdfunding, like bojay said. So in a way, Tommy was right, he saw through you (you phony 😉), but having someone banned from a topic based on a hunch, given you didn't break any rule, was unacceptable imho. It's like punishing someone for a crime he hasn't committed yet. And the problem is it was the same for most people that got banned from that topic. A few of them were aggressive, sure, but most of us were only banned because Tommy suspected we might have a secret agenda or something.

A video in your honor.

Sure, something like that could work somewhat, but this would need the software support on the 2600+ side of things. If the 2600+ dumper can be expanded, I would highly recommend that they put some thought into detecting more banking schemes. I still can't find my source code, but I found a note I wrote about the detection algorithm. I will summarize what I wrote:

Ugh. Here I thought I had gotten free of the owl. Back to the salt mines…

There is a way. Not super easy, but working - you can emulate bitmap mode with char mode. This is generally done for fast scrolling, but adding the 5th color is a worthy goal. how to do it the easy way: - say you have 40x24 characters screen (160x192 pixels). - reserve 8 KiB for 8 separate character sets - do a regular char mode screen with 24 lines. - switch to a new character set every 3 char lines (in a DLI that you already have) in regular video memory put something like .dta 0,1,2,3,..., 39 .dta 40,41,42,...,79 .dta 80,81,82,..., 119 (120 characters in 3 lines). Repeat it 8 times. Now all you need to do is to modify the routines pushing data to the screen to push the data to appropriate places in the character sets. You are losing 8*8 bytes per 3 lines, but it is generally a small price to pay. The next level is to rearrange the video memory bytes to better suit your needs and speed up soft-sprite routines. You also have these additional 8 chars that could be used for some purpose (normally these are scroll buffers and such). And now you can sprinkle the video ram with high bits set for the 5th color.

You can also check out my Flickr album of the kit I assembled here. https://www.flickr.com/photos/75619516@N06/albums/72177720307232662

We already got the best from it. It's called Super Metroid.

The choice of 7800 emulator is certainly make or break for the 7800 aspect of this device. If they go with a Prosystem emulator, homebrew compatibility will be poor and glitchy. I'd rather see a7800 emulator used. It was forked from Dan's original Mame a7800 driver, and is nearly cycle accurate at this point, allows for mid-scanline graphical changes, has faithful pokey emulation in it's most exotic modes, ym2151 emulation, etc. But 2600+ doesn't seem to be concerned with homebrew, so I won't hold my breath.

@MacRorie has laid to rest what the holes in the keyboard mylar really are, and what would have been required to make them, in this edited previous post he made.

I didn't get my times posted either and I took advantage of the long weekend (and an Analogue Pocket) to play more games. I will accept whatever punishment Carlsson declares Atari 2600: Blocks - 235 minutes (broke my high score twice more). I'm now up to 4,134,990. Qyx - 20 minutes Beamrider - 10 minutes Dig Dug - 12 minutes Atari 7800: 3-D Asteroids - 8 minutes Astrofighter - 12 minutes Beef Drop - 5 minutes Donkey Kong - 10 minutes Mean 18 Golf - 15 minutes NES: Bases Loaded - 4 minutes Arkanoid - 13 minutes Gameboy: Solar Striker - 21 minutes

Is it November yet?

And that all carts that use non-standard bankswitching are marked as untested, is what? A coincidence? If the Atari 2600+ would support these types of bankswitching, how should anyone verify without testing? Do you assume they develop a dumper that e.g. supports E0 bankswitching and does not not test it with an E0 cart? I am pretty sure they are untested, because when the list got compiled, there was no need to test them. Because at that time, the dumper wasn't supporting these types of bankswitching. However, this may improve until the release. And maybe even later too.

There is indeed a different cheat code in Towers II Enhanced. Good things come to those who wait.