retrosix

The new design I made had a footprint error, just being remade now, should have them in 5 days. So slight delay but will keep you posted once ready to buy and test

New boards in, I will solder them up next week, test on the NTSC version too and then list them for £1 on my site (easiest way than manually gathering everyones addresses, manually booking in labels etc.. that way they can just be packed like all regular orders and go out nice and fast. I will limit it to 1 per customer on the checkout but if you want a few you can leave comments on the order and I can see if I have enough.

Not sure if you can "advertise" here so apologies if not and I can delete this post, but just wanted to let you guys know I've made replacement foam covers for the switches. Definitely needed. Atari 2600 Switch Foam Covers (retrosix.co.uk) Any feedback is welcome and if you want to see it on any other consoles etc... just let me know

Can never have too many. Once they land next week I'll test on NTSC and so long as it works on my NTSC and its clean enough I will announce the expected quality of this board with photos/videos etc..., planned improvements if this board isn't perfect, and then for everyone to email me their details for shipping test units out. I could even just make it free on the website and you just order, limited to one per customer. That will actually make it much easier.

Yes at the moment I just want ot make sure across at least all versions of 2600 we have room to move the board outside of the TIA. If not yes I can move those pads into the board at least. Will do that on next version

I can certainly work on the shape once I have opened up and played with more versions. Right now I've only focused on the 2600. Usually my stuff sells out in a month anyway at most and I am always improving and then ordering new versions. So this first version I have already allocated 50 to testers and ordered another 200 for sales. Once I get the feedback and look at more versions of the consoles I can possibly make a universal one. My only concern is, I have perfected this one to timings within 5 nanoseconds on things like the internal gate logic delay of the TIA and the order the LUMA pins get output, to get the sharpest edges. I cannot see other versions of consoles (7800 for example) having this exact identical filtering, timing and cleanup required. So I imagine a version per console to really get the best image from them all. But until I explore that, or you guys test for me, I won't know.

Not finished the shape yet. The final half castellated holes will be on production board (costs more to add them and no need to do at small test run level). But on that note, if you guys could measure me the distance you all get between the TIA pins (so the space I will have for my board) on as many models as possible that would be great. Basically finding the maximum size the board can be on the height to still fit inside the pins of all TIA chips that would be useful

You can solder both cables onto the mod, but I will also make a 2-in-1 composite + S-video cable that is just physically connected until near the end and offer that for sale too

Fits under the TIA. So no shield removal needed Composite, S-Video and RF can all be connected at the same time and all impedances and levels are unaffected by the other No price just yet but conservatively it will be £20 to £29 max.

Sure thing I'll get you a few sent out once they land

Yep RF is fully functional and can be connected at the same time also

Yep. Like this. Then we will be selling Composite and S-Video 1.8 meter cables with bar wire ends on the other side, for easy soldering to the mod.

Perfect. Yes if you could test them on the NTSC that would be good. I'll confirm it works on the one I have and then can send you some. Would love to know how it compares to the best (UAV?) and any improvements that you feel could be made too. I have 100pcs coming in a week for final tests and then I can get everyone who wants to test them out to send me their details

I can happily send you a few to test out no problem. It fits right under the TIA nothing to remove and just a few solder blobs. Checkout the tiktok video in the post it shows a prototype under the TIA with some extra bits added that are now on the next build so there wont be anything hanging off lol

That's the NTSC Pitfall on a PAL console

For those that don't know or haven't heard, the CleanComp is my composite mod requiring zero parts removed and zero wires, for the Atari 2600 (should expand and work across many others but will get to that after). I've spent a good few month's perfecting this, and documenting/open sourcing all my findings and work here Extracting Composite Video (Atari 2600) - RetroSix Wiki and here TIA Video Faults (Atari 2600) - RetroSix Wiki I feel I have the output almost perfect now, and compared to the other mods I have been sent images of (AUV, generic transistor mods on eBay, and Longsomething.. engineering?) I feel I have a much cleaner output. I will let you guys be the judges however and I have only modded around 20 boards so far with it but all with consistent and good results. Should be at production stage now on this next build. Hopefully this version is perfection, if not damn close. Now includes: - Dedicated video rail regulator for all noise removal - Pixel retimer for perfect edge sharpness and color alignment - Color adjust for saturation control - Signal drivers to sharpen edges of original luma, chroma and sync pins to more align all signals - Teardropped traces to reduce reflection and aid in impedance matching over entire board - Output impedance and LPFs for perfect zero ghosting/smearing/noise/drooping output Final result now should have: - No ghosting/smearing/drooping/noise - Perfectly sharp pixels - Perfect color alignment to pixel edges - Perfect composite IRE voltage levels and impedances - No checkerboards on edges of brightness changes If so, it should be as clean as a composite signal can be. S-Video will be included too which in theory will be cleaner than the composite, but so far the composite is looking cleaner than any S-Video mods I have seen so we can only wait and see I am after people who want to be sent free units to install and test for me, and provide some feedback, test images/video output etc... and see if the wider audience have any issues or can replicate the image quality we get. Here is the pitfall guy in all his glory. This is before the latest board revisions above which should correct the pixel retiming and remove that blue/yellow from the edges of the tree and pull the color over to the right slightly to get it clean. Older video from previous version before some other cleanup/fixes is here Any games or tests you would like to see to show off the image let me know and I'll be sure to do them.

I am just finalizing my new composite video mod and would like to test it on a ROM if one already exists? Ideally something with color bars, convergence pattern, checkerboard, animations etc... to test the quality of the video output. Has anyone already made one?