Rodney Hester

Not AtariAge/merger related, but the good gentleman from Atari said they want to listen to their fans. Very well, I'll speak for myself. - We WANT you to succeed. Really. Really really. I don't give a crap how many iterations of owners and shenanigans the company has gone through over 50 years, I care about good product that both tickles my nostalgia itch and *makes me believe YOU care about your company and reputation*. That part's kinda big, because (and I'm going to focus now only on things the current iteration of the company has done)... - Stop goofing around with crypto and hotels. _Immediately_. Don't be That Company(TM) that will slap it's iconic logo on toasters to make a quick buck. Innovate. Captivate. Make us cheer for you. You can do that by... - Stop letting AtGames abuse your brand. Period, full stop. They are *HORRIBLE*. We don't need another Flashback, EVER. (Yes, that includes the latest two mini iterations, which had the potential for such greatness but ended up in such a bad state due to software that let the whole thing down...well, that, and the older great We Promise Paddles(TM)! No, wait, we lied... debacle. Not your manufacturing, but your name on the box, Atari!) We need QUALITY kit from Atari! What do you think gave them so much staying power in the 70s and 80s? Hint: It wasn't junk. (More on the software thing later) Not saying we don't like minis...they became their own market segment. But YOU make them - or at least get someone qualified and competent to do so! - Stop doing semi-creative things like the Atari VCS and then effectively abandoning it. Your hardware was good (OK, decent), and I'll forgive the launch price because you're still trying to get your sea legs as a company, but again, the *software*. You can't update to apply bug fixes out of the box because of bugs! HOW did this slip through? EVERY SINGLE CUSTOMER experienced this...but the maker didn't notice? WHY did you not put a HUGE banner at the top of your corporate and product home pages warning customers and giving them CLEAR direction on resolution _as soon as you knew_? Does writing HTML cost too much? Poor customer service kills, consistently. Also please don't make the customer apply their own thermal paste to prevent your product from sounding like a jet engine, please and thank you. That's embarrassing. (See my final words) - Stop assuming that if you don't wall off customers from using things in a manner enjoyable to them that they won't buy anything new. I'm looking at you, 2600+. It's a RetroN 77 in prettier casing and without the micro SD card slot. Why? There's a LOT of 40+ year old games we want to play that _you can't support by definition_ and are COMPLETLY UNOBTANIUM in the real world. You don't even get a dime off cartridge resales, so why block our ability to enjoy the old content by just loading it ourselves? That ONE absence *ruins the product*. As for the cartridge dumper and the front port control code, YOU own it now, not Hyperkin. Fix it! Expand it! Make it work with as many cartridge types as possible - people on THIS VERY FORUM already laid out _exactly how you can achieve this_ in enough detail any engineer could do it in software in minutes! No, it won't be perfect...but it will be _better_, and *we care about that*. Make sure paddles work CORRECTLY, right out of the box, and don't forget keypads and driving controllers! Yes, we know, some of you weren't alive when we were using this stuff...but you're the ones doubling down on your legacy, so grab it in a big bear hug and own it. We WILL notice. It WILL matter to both current _and_ future customers. No more half-assed cash-ins on nostalgia...build a product worth owning. The cost delta of manufacturing is shockingly less than you think. And for that matter, yes, we WILL entertain buying future new cartridge releases for your shiny hardware, _even if_ it has a SD slot! To be fair, again outside the high cost of the XP releases (which again I admit are currently a bit beyond your control being a new-ish commercial concern), the packaging itself is brilliant and lauded! We LIKE it! We WILL buy it! But not at the exclusion of your legacy! If you can't add a card slot to the thing (because I know there are LONG lead times on shipping and stocking), give a day-1 software update that will let us use an OTG adapter with a USB flash drive to run anything Stella or the 7800 emulator will accept. YOU CANNOT LOSE BY DOING THIS! - Listen to us when we tell you what we want and what's missing from the market space. You OWN THE JAGUAR CODE. Use it to make a mini Jag that will work with new controllers (because others are already making them, you know!) and blow our socks off with the legacy of that library...that will cost you VERY LITTLE. It's not niche! It's iconic and your customers have shown STRONG interest! Tap that market NOBODY has touched before! (Of _course_ there are others...but THIS is a quick win for you at the cost of making plastic molds and a software wrapper. Why aren't you already working on it? - You've done some very, VERY positive things. You licensed to LEGO. _Very_ smart move...I've yet to read a bad review. The Tiny Arcade VCS was brilliant...but would have been moreso with actual 2600 games, not NES retreads. I'll say it again...it's the _SOFTWARE_! Anyone can make a pretty box. YOU are ATARI. YOU can make a distinguished product! Atari 50...probably one of the most lauded and respected software collections from ANY publisher for years. The beautiful design and presentation mixing history and live gaming was absolutely inspired. Good job on that front! Get the people that put that together to shepherd the software that goes into your physical products! Overall, the greatest fault lies with poor software and testing, period. Eat your own dog food. Take a manufacturing sample home and, I dunno...PLAY IT. See where the flaws are. Better yet, send a few home with US and let US tell _you_ where things fall short before you commit! It's not hard! Many of us, including YT influencers, would no doubt be willing to sign (and respect) NDAs if necessary to improve the end result product. Use us! We know what we are doing and talking about...most of us have more time in this field than you do! We want to believe. *I* want to believe. Gone are the days when you can make 60% returns on licensing your name to cheap-assed annual churn products sold at CVS every Christmas. Your customers are adults, with refined tastes and higher levels of disposable income. Treat them with respect and they will give you all you desire and more. Fail to pay attention to them and you will suffer the fate of the many iterations of Atari that came before you. For once, I see a small glimmer of hope that you ARE different. Show us. We will be patient...but not forever. Welcome back, Atari.

This really needs to be preserved. @mickster, I'm happy to make arrangements to have a suitable USB CD-ROM shipped to your home along with specific directions on preservation-level (free) software to make a permanent archival copy if you're open to doing so.

Indeed, as a) I would like to be able to reproduce it myself so I understand both the mechanics of how MiSTer sees the device *AND* the core sees the device (which aren't the same thing!), and b) I strongly suspect that for at least the MiSTer switch setting you may need to 'lie' and send a different button ID for the paddle for it to be hot-swappable with a joystick in your adapter (again, only on MiSTer, due to the fact that the paddle input wants to come from a "button 3" for reasons).

@dualcam - Beautiful - thank you! Can you describe the steps you followed to configure the 2600-PDL for both MiSTer Main and the core (in terms of input settings)? Also, since the core expects the fire button to be registered as button 1 but paddle as button 3, is that accounted for (so that one can simply swap between joystick and paddle seamlessly without having to reconfigure device or core inputs)?

Is River Raid still stuttery/janky like it was on the first mini Flashback unit?

Not sure what, but something is set up very wrong. The driving controller on a D9 works exactly as it does on the Atari - in fact, I played a good bit of Indy 500 on the (hacked) RetroN 77 with it.

I get _worse_ jitter with the Duo Plus on MiSTer than I do with the D9. Granted, I am using narrow range on the Duo to match original hardware, which does contribute, but I get the same jitter from the Duo on RetroPie as well.

Yes, it was...and that's unfortunate. I understand why the spinner merge exists, but it's a shame that it complicates paddle handling for this core so much. To a certain degree, I agree with Sorge that the D9 shouldn't have special handling in Main...its usefulness as an adapter is extremely wide, but the fact that a single VID/PID can result in so many widely varied inputs based on the attached controller makes it very difficult to manage outside of dedicated emulators. Ugh.

And that's where the issue is. If instead of a separate 'paddle' button it simply uses Fire 1 for controller 1, the entire problem goes away for _all_ controller types (except possibly Driving, I have no idea what its ultimate fate will be).

Ordinarily, yes, but that's precisely what multi mode (in the 7800 core) is for. If it can separate axes into separate controllers, why not buttons?

Two quick questions: - What MiSTer USB hub are you using exactly (i.e. where did you get it from)? Different vendors handle supplemental power differently, and I suspect some may indeed have grounding issues. For reference, see this thread: https://misterfpga.org/viewtopic.php?t=840 and this product: https://ultimatemister.com/product/usb-hub-2-1-with-cables-and-bridgeboard/. Note that USB hub is unique in that it taps 5V DC power for USB directly from the bottom of the DE-10 Nano via the two pins in the upper-left corner of the photo and therefore does not require external 5V power via barrel jack, however, that also means that grounding for the entire board is achieved solely through the USB bridge and may be insufficient. (I am NOT an electrician and would welcome further input here!) I also found this commentary specific to poor grounding as part of the design: https://misterfpga.org/viewtopic.php?p=21713#p21713 Schematic for the 'generic' USB hub v2.1 (with barrel jack) here: https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Hardware_MiSTer/blob/master/releases/USBHub_2.1.pdf - How are you powering your MiSTer (is it via the I/O board or directly into the DE-10 Nano?), and is the power source 2-prong or 3-prong (i.e. does the power source have explicit grounding)?

That was sort of the thing I was driving at - no workaround should have been needed. If the input device is a D9, in ALL cases the input can be treated as a 2-button 7800 controller (with B and A buttons), where the analog axes map to the joystick directions. This works for the CX40 and clones, the 7800 controller (stick and pad), and paddles, all when connected to the D9. Not only is there no need for a separate single paddle button (which makes the second paddle's button useless in multi mode anyway), there's no need for complication of any kind. The analog axes of the joystick conveniently already map to the proper directions for the paddles in both single and multi mode.

Progress continues... I've more or less figured out how to map the buttons to B and A and the axes of the paddles within MiSTer Main (I'm not going to explain how yet because it's a PITA and somewhat broken). That being said: - I'm *still* getting wonky jitter even on yesterday's D9 firmware. Maybe I really do have 3 sets of marginal paddles, but that seems really hard to believe. LOL - The button mapping (in the core!) is still an unholy mess. Why does there have to be a separate paddle button defined (seriously - I see *no point* in this existing at all!), versus just using Fire1? If Fire1 is mapped to paddle 1's button (in multi-paddle mode) and Fire2 is mapped to paddle 2's button, both joystick and paddles (single or multi) will work perfectly with the D9 without any need of further (re)configuration. As-is, every time you swap controllers you have to redo the 7800 button definitions, which is a totally unnecessary PITA. It's that second paddle button that makes the MiSTer Main mapping a royal PITA as well, but until point 2 above is resolved, it won't make much difference. Not in ANY way trying to sound down on the core author or the D9 maker...you are both brilliant and awesome people, I'm just expressing a slight bit of frustration at being sooooooooooo close to Atari nirvana 40 years on. LOL Hopefully the feedback helps in some way. SO...CLOSE! 😃

I've successfully tested the new firmware in Windows, but since it shows up as a different device, I don't know the proper way to do the initial MiSTer "Define joystick buttons" setup. Can anyone describe what actions to take for each of those input questions? (Obviously the cribbed config I borrowed from Reddit isn't going to work anymore LOL)

I can't seem to edit my post...but I'm wondering whether this could be related to having fast USB polling enabled. The earlier video of someone playing Kaboom doesn't seem to exhibit this problem - mine is shaking like a Chihuahua in a foot of snow.