Zaltran

November 20, 2020

On 9/15/2019 at 12:51 AM, Danjovic said:

DIY track and field controller for Atari 2600. Simple and easy to build (link).

Do you have links to where you got the components for this?

April 7, 2019

Any reason for crashing will almost certainly be unrelated to the individual game played, or to any event in gameplay. A few questions to better understand what happened:

How did the crash manifest? Did the screen freeze, or did it go black? The Screen Froze

Is it reproducible? didn't think to try

Were you playing a cartridge, or did you launch a .bin? .bin

Did you try pressing fry to return to stella, or plugging / removing a cartridge? no

Did you change any settings before launching the game? no, but I did a bunch of screen snapshots for image preview in the game select menu

The only known cause for crashes is the time machine. If you enable it in the settings (either on purpose or accidentally), it **will** crash the device within a few minutes after RAM is exhausted. Probably enabled by the image snapshot?

Sorry about that, next time I will have a note pad ready, so I am able to provide more information to help out. I have provided in responses in red that i can remember.

April 6, 2019

I haven't tested the paddles to see if they are working fine on my 2600.

The paddles were fine on the 2600

April 6, 2019

The UI can be fully navigated with the keyboard. Tab/Shift-Tab moves between UI elements, Ctrl-Tab/Shift-Ctrl-Tab moves between tabs, arrow keys and enter, etc do what you would expect. Basically, this is just like Stella on a normal PC, except there's no mouse support (the underlying graphics library doesn't support it on such a device). So the question of "how to change setting x" is to read the manual; it works the same here as anywhere else.

Ah, that is the missing component, Tab/Shift-tab. Thank you very much. I will google for the manual.

I tried plugging in paddles on the front of the r77, it sorta noticed them but would not move back and forth, but the fire button on player one worked I dont know if it is able too. I do not have a 2600daptor to check through USB, also I haven't tested the paddles to see if they are working fine on my 2600.

I was playing Ms. Pacman and it crashed when I died. I had to turn off the whole system.

I hope this helps....

April 6, 2019

I just tried it. Great Job.

Seems to work fine. Hooked up a Keyboard works fine.

How do you change the display from the scan line look to non-scanline? How do you access the options and settings with a keyboard on the R77?

Enquiring minds would like to know.

Thank you,

John

November 20, 2018

I see a few people saying they should do this and that, so why don't they do it themselves?

I think the r77 is a great device for what it is, made better with the community build. It is not perfect, but no mid to low price range device is.

Does anyone know if there is a HDMI mod for the original system that could be done? that would allow for full compatibility.

Edit: Just googled saw some types and ways to get something like that to work.

October 26, 2018

if we don't have a trackball will a joystick work in its place?

August 21, 2018

I usually don't care about attribution, but as you are adding labels... that breakdown is actually my work (and the pictures were taken on my table ) . The second part ("The future") was written by Stephen.

oh well thank you then....

August 20, 2018

Now we know why it has a nice weight to it...they screwed metal bars to the bottom

Do you have more pictures of the inside? I wouldn't mind seeing them..... oh never mind found Stephen Anthony's breakdown on github

August 18, 2018

I don't hate the Retron 77. I was just annoyed that it came out with so many problems that could have been avoided and the community had to fix them. Shouldn't have to do that with off the shelf products.

Well actually is does do what was it was intended to do, play cartridges. Not all cartridges are compatible, but with any moderately priced system, you will have that. Most all of the clone systems out there are not 100% compatible with all the cartridges. Hopefully Hyperkin will improve the OS on the system, but that does take time. Thankfully the community build was made available by some enthusiasts that love the product and the idea behind it.

August 14, 2018

I could be exposing myself as fairly dumb, but I need a bit of help.

I found an extra Micro SD card kicking around, so I decided to burn this image and give it a try. I'm pretty sure it was successful, since my Retron 77 does boot into the Stella UI, and it does play carts when I plug them in.

The problem is that I can't seem to find the roms on the SD card from the Retron. I know where they are when the card is plugged into the computer, but no matter where I poke around from inside Stella on the Retron, I can't see them. Little help?

The homebrew roms included with the image are in the Games folder. They are accessed by the R77 when you turn it on without a cart.

August 2, 2018

So here is the release of the RetroN 77 Community Build Image. This is a firmware replacement image for the RetroN 77 intended to be written (using an appropriate tool, not included) to a microSD card to be used with the Retron 77.

What it does do:

Brings a rather large quality of life update to users of the Retron 77, especially those that intend to run roms from the microSD card.

What it does not do:

Fix any existing controller, dumping or compatibility issues (other than those fixed by bringing the version of Stella being used to 3.9.3)

What it looks like:

Where to get it:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/w352be743uah97y/sdcard.remo.20180801-2122CB.zip?dl=0 If you are unfamiliar with Dropbox, look in the upper right corner for the Download dropdown, and select Direct Download to download the zip image package.

How to use it:

Read the included README.rtf - it contains important information you should know.

As mentioned the included image (sdcard.remo.20180801-2122CB.img) must be written (as an image) directly to your microSD card - this does not mean copy the image as a file to the card, it means use an imaging tool such as USB Image Tool or Win32 Disk Imager or Etcher

Caution is advised here, if you do not know what you are doing you may wind up wiping out your computers system (or other) drives. DO NOT DO THAT. Ask someone for help if you aren't sure what you are doing.

Once the image is appropriately on the microSD simply boot the RetroN 77 and you will immediately notice a difference. The RetroN 77 will no longer boot to the Hyperkin UI, but will boot directly to Stella.

In Stella you can then browse through your roms using Stella's launcher/rom selection UI. This of course means you are free to use subdirectories and have a much saner rom management/selection experience. I've changed the bindings to allow page up/down with the joystick here as well. Pressing Fry here will move you one directory upwards.

Pressing the Fry button while a rom is running will cause Stella to exit to its launcher/rom selection UI - so now you can play multiple roms without having to switch the darn thing on and off physically. Plugging in a cart to run it functions normally. Pressing the Fry button while you are using a cart will exit to Stella's launcher/rom selection UI. Inserting/removing a cart will restart Stella.

Some very important thanks:

A truly massive thanks to stephena for kindly lending me his time so that I was able to achieve my initial goals without inelegantly hacking into Stella itself, and then for taking even more time to make the wonderful Stella specific changes to the stella3-r77 branch for this build. What you see when you utilize this image simply would not have been possible without his talent and generosity. And of course this includes thanks to him as always for Stella itself : )

Thanks to Thomas Jentzsch for his testing, input, discussion and kindly giving permission to include his awesome titles in this distribution (yay!) , and to Atari Pixel for his work and for being a great partner in this project. Additional thanks to fellow AA members Sneakyturtleegg, gorfcadet, iesposta, ColecoJoe for image testing and feedback.

Note this image comes with no warranties expressed or implied, and is not supported by anyone. This means you are using this image entirely at your own risk, and that you fully accept that responsibility.

Thank you, this works great....

August 2, 2018

I'll be starting a new topic and releasing the public image there

Will you put a link to the topic here, I am searching for it and don't see a reference to it

August 1, 2018

Thanks to the very generously donated time and effort of folks here is a look at what the new Retron 77 Community Build UI looks like...

Where is the download for this image, I would like to try it out........

July 17, 2018

You can also backup the 128mb card and if something goes wrong just re-flash it with the backup image but stop worrying, this stuff is super easy and I would be surprised if you bricked anything

Yes but sounds like he has never done it before and if he can't flash the card with the new image he might just not be able to flash it with the old, so why take a chance if you don't have to.

July 17, 2018

Is that free? Did you basically image the 2gb card as a 128mb card?

yes and yes.

July 17, 2018

Care to explain step by step?

What I used is a program called Win32DiskImager. a very simple interface. I ran it as administrator, selected the image, selected the sd card and clicked write. That's about it.

July 17, 2018

Well, I will try to image the 2 gb card I have like the other guy did. Otherwise I needa find a 128 mb card someplace

the spare 2gb i had worked for me.

July 16, 2018

OK - looks like I will use the included factory card.

So, IF I do that - THEN I reform at it, then do those steps, right?

My recommendation is to use a different sd card so if you mess it up then you still have the original to use in the retron 77, you can write the image to the sd card without the step to format it.

July 16, 2018

I just bought a 64GB card to use, so I do not mess with the original card.

If I do these steps mentioned by someone else, this will not work? It must be a 128GB card?

If I format the card and THEN do these steps, will it work?

Steps:

1. Download an unzip the .img file above.

2. I use etcher from https://etcher.io/

3. Install etcher, run it, and select the.img file you downloaded for the first option.

4. Connect the Retron 77 SD card to your card reader, and select as the second option

5. Burn the file to your SD card. If all went well, you should get a confirmation notice

6. Copy your desired ROM files over to the 'Games' folder on the SD card

7. Play Atari. Note that there are no page transition animations. It works, but the UI is still basic. This will allow you to play 99% of the games the current Retron 77 cart dumper will not read.

I used a 2gb card with windows disk imager and it worked fine, it will only show up as a 128mb with about 60 to 78mb free

July 16, 2018

Here is a list of NTSC that I have tested that worked with the update that stephena released. Unfortunately I can't seem to figure out how to attach a spread sheet to this post so here they are:

here is an excel file now that know how to attach...

r77 test carts.zip

July 16, 2018

Thanks for the update and can confirm that it does indeed work.

did you place it on the original sd card or a new one?

July 16, 2018

Orange button "More Reply Options" then gray button that says "Choose File" then blue button that says "Attach This File"

cool thank you here it is

r77 test carts.zip

July 15, 2018

Here is a list of NTSC that I have tested that worked with the update that stephena released. Unfortunately I can't seem to figure out how to attach a spread sheet to this post so here they are:

Air Sea Battle, Asteroids, Atlantis, Barnstorming, Basketball, Bezerk, Bowling, Boxing, Breakout, Carnival, Casino, Centipede, Chopper Command, Circus Atari, Commando Raid, Combat, Cosmic Ark, Crackpots, Deadly Duck, Defender, Demon Attack, Demons to Diamonds, Dig Dug, Dodge 'em, Dolphin, Donkey Kong, Dragonfire, Eggomania, Encounter at L5, E.T., Fantastic Voyage, Fishing Derby, Football, Freeway, Frogger, Frogs and Flies, Front Line, Galaxian, Golf, Grand Prix, Haunted House, Home Run, Human, Cannonball, Ice Hockey, Journey Escape, Joust, Jungle Hunt, Kaboom, Kangaroo, Keystone Kapers, Kool-Aid Man, Krull, Laser Blast, Lock-n-Chase, Mario Bros., M.A.S.H., Math Gran Prix, Maze Craze, MegaForce, Megamania, Midnight Magic, Millipede, Missle Command, Moon Patrol, Mouse Trap, Ms. Pac-man, Name this Game (octopus), Night Driver, Othello, Outlaw, Pac-man, Pele's Soccer, Phoenix, Pitfall, Pole Position, Porkys, Q-Bert, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Racquetball, Realsports Football, Realsports Soccer, Realsports Tennis, Realsports Vollyball, River Raid, Seaquest, Skeet Shoot, Sky Divers, Sky Jinks, Slot Racers, Sneak'n Peek, Solar Fox, Space Attack, Space Canyon, Space Cavern, Space Invaders, Space War, Spider Fighter, Stampede, Starmaster, Star Fox, Star Raiders, Star Voyager, Star Wars Empire Strikes Back, Street Racer, Super Breakout, Swordquest fireworld, Swordquest Earthworld, Tank Brigade, Tank-Plus (combat) 27 telegames, Target Fun 27 telegames, Tennis, Towering Inferno, Trick Shot, Turmoil, VanGuard, Venture, Video Olympics, Video Pinball, Yar's Revenge, Warlords, Word Zapper

The following did not work:

decathalon, infiltrate, gunslinger (bad cart?), realsport boxing, robot tank.

July 15, 2018

The forum will let you attach zip files.

I could not find the option to attach anything, where is it located?

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