Thomas Jentzsch

Since VROOM! only uses the fire button of the paddles, Stella's auto detection must fail. Usually this is no big deal, since the user can fix that. But for doing that there must be UI access. We update the properties when a new version of Stella is released, but only where we have the ROM. And only if we remember doing that.

These games work (mostly) due to the quite reliable auto detection of Stella. However there are things which Stella cannot auto detect, like if a game needs phosphor to reduce flicker, is PAL-60 ... And sometimes Stella's autodetection fails. In case of MM there is a property defined for Stereo sound, which will be missing on the 2600+.

The problem is, that the checksum used by Stella is based on a known dump. But the dumps the 2600+ creates for games like Medieval Mayhem are different. That's because the bankswitching hotspots return more or less random values when they are read. Which is the case here, since the hotspots are in the ROM address range. Which means that the checksum most likely differs from the known checksum. And then Stella does not use the game's properties. There might be a solution to the problem and the Stella team might want to help here. But so far Atari has not really given us much motivation for doing that.

Do you have any games in your mind which would not crash immediately? Or why are you asking?

Yup.

Very cool, thanks for sharing the story. When he has exhausted the original game and still wants more Pitfall!, you might have a look at my hack:

Exactly, and then only 2600+ will remain. Which means, the references will become correct.

I have no 2600+ yet, but the power switch only makes sense, if it really powers off the console. And then the multi carts should react, no?

@Albert Do you already get help from Atari regarding cart production and shipping? IIRC that was one motivation for the sale, no?

Of course it does crash, because myDispatchResult is undefined.

Make sure that each bank has a different origin, then the Debugger can identify the labels correctly. E.g. bank 0 @ $1000, bank 1 @ €3000...

When you switch on the console, it boots the OS and then waits until a cart is dumped. The dump is then provided to the Stella emulator which starts the game. If the cart is unplugged, the emulation gets stopped and the console waits for the next dump.

We could try to identify the correct bankswitching on-the-fly. Then we should be able to recreate the cart state. But detection and state recreation will become complex. And probably not work in all cases.

Actually almost all variations are too easy. That's why I prefer playing Sadistroids.