7800 Piggyback Expansion Module comes to life!

[jaybird3rd]

Products like this, no matter how technically impressive, entirely miss the point of coding on classic consoles. Part and parcel of coding on antique hardware is that it's technologically limited, so you suck it up and deal with it. The challenge is the entire point. If you don't want to deal with it, then why are you bothering? Go write Flash games instead.

 

And from a gamer's perspective-- Once you slap on this module, it's no longer an Atari 7800. It's a... I dunno... Curtari Vendelsystem. I have fond nostalgic memories of the Atari 7800, which is why homebrews for it still interest me. The Vendelsystem, on the other hand, I couldn't possibly care less about. If I want a version of Donkey Kong with better sound, I'll just fire up MAME. Ultimately, it all makes about as much sense as going to a Civil War reenactment and handing out AK-47s.

 

This isn't even addressing the installed base problem. The 7800 fan base is already pretty damn small. Fracturing it even further seems foolish at best. Even when major console manufacturers have attempted to introduce expansion modules, it's never been particularly successful.

 

But hey, maybe I'm wrong. If anyone has a more substantive rebuttal than "screew U zylonlame yuo suck!!11!", I'd certainly be happy to listen.

In principle, I tend to agree. I don't like the idea of bolting on so many upgrades to a classic system that it in effect becomes a different system. I don't think the 7800 Expansion Module crosses that line, but I can think of several additions that have been made to the 2600 and 400/800 computers that do, in my opinion. A case can be made for the Expansion Module and XBoard because their main features (POKEY and RAM) were add-ons that Atari used from the beginning, but I'm not so sure about some of the other stuff. I think hardware upgrades should be done sparingly and with great care, and should be limited to enlarging capabilities that the system already has (more RAM, bankswitched ROM, composite video mods, etc) or correcting serious flaws or omissions in the original design. If you take it too much farther than that (and again, I'm not necessarily saying that the 7800 Expansion Module does), you get this:

 

 

I've complained about this before, but I also wish that "mainstream classic homebrew development" (if that isn't a contradiction) wasn't so stuck on the idea of making carbon copies of old arcade games. They're great to have, and I wish more of them had been available when the 7800 relaunched in 1986, and I'm not trying to disparage anyone's work. But, now that we have emulation on every imaginable platform, I'm not sure why anyone would put hours and hours of development into a game that can only come as close as possible to recreating another game (which you can already play anyway). Setting aside the possible legal issues, what experience does that give the player that he or she can't already get? I'd much prefer to see original games, but with the way the homebrew market has evolved, I think it's in danger of discouraging original games rather than encouraging them ("hey, this doesn't look like anything I recognize, so I don't think I like it").

 

Having all these upgrades also puts more pressure on developers to support them all so that people will feel that they're getting their money's worth out of them, which will make games more difficult and time-consuming to produce ("hey, why doesn't this game support AtariVox, SaveKey, HSC, POKEY, two-button controllers, and the extra RAM?! It sucks!").

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

@ZylonBane I can see your point and certainly understand where you are coming from. That said, I just think that it is cool and fun just to see what can be accomplished. Of course this will not be the classic 7800 we are use to and I will continue to play and enjoy my 7800 as it was originally intended, at the same time having the 7800 as the core for something even better is fascinating to me. Personally I love the blending of new ideas and tech and combining them with our beloved classic and retro platforms to get even more fun and life out of it. In some ways I see these things as "what could of been" had development continues. Also, any new hardware, software, add-on etc for any classic system can only be a good thing to help keep interest in it. I don't see it so much as "splitting the market" as much as just adding another option or choice. New ideas and implementation and improvements, like adding a compact flash hard drive to an Amiga, who would of thought back in the day? Having most of your Amiga software on a tiny flash card and loading instantly and silently on the original platform? I'd have killed for this back in the day! Or my Atarimax USB flash cart on Colecovision? Awesome accessory! As long as projects like this help keep the memory of the original console going as well as bringing something new to the table I'm all for it! Bring it on!

 

Lastly, screew U zylonlame yuo suck!!11!

 

PS. I DO hope very much though that any games or apps created for this module are based on new ideas and concepts and not just re-hashes of Pacman/Donkey Kong/Centipede etc.

Edited July 14, 2010 by OldSchoolRetroGamer

[nathanallan]

PS. I DO hope very much though that any games or apps created for this module are based on new ideas and concepts and not just re-hashes of Pacman/Donkey Kong/Centipede etc.

I hear ya, and would love to see a Zelda remake for the "new" 7800! Plus any new stuff it can do, I know it's a great system.

[Underball]

Products like this, no matter how technically impressive, entirely miss the point of coding on classic consoles. Part and parcel of coding on antique hardware is that it's technologically limited, so you suck it up and deal with it. The challenge is the entire point. If you don't want to deal with it, then why are you bothering? Go write Flash games instead.

 

And from a gamer's perspective-- Once you slap on this module, it's no longer an Atari 7800. It's a... I dunno... Curtari Vendelsystem. I have fond nostalgic memories of the Atari 7800, which is why homebrews for it still interest me. The Vendelsystem, on the other hand, I couldn't possibly care less about. If I want a version of Donkey Kong with better sound, I'll just fire up MAME. Ultimately, it all makes about as much sense as going to a Civil War reenactment and handing out AK-47s.

 

This isn't even addressing the installed base problem. The 7800 fan base is already pretty damn small. Fracturing it even further seems foolish at best. Even when major console manufacturers have attempted to introduce expansion modules, it's never been particularly successful.

 

But hey, maybe I'm wrong. If anyone has a more substantive rebuttal than "screew U zylonlame yuo suck!!11!", I'd certainly be happy to listen.

I pretty much think you're a troll all the time on here, but on basic principal - yeah, I tend to agree.

 

Also - from what I've seen in that H2 Harmony 7800 thread, it looks like it might even be feasible to incorporate all of the expansion module ideas into one of these H2 cart's logic and bankswitching on the FPGA, negating the need for this module in the first place.

 

I dunno. Could be fun.

[DracIsBack]

Products like this, no matter how technically impressive, entirely miss the point of coding on classic consoles. Part and parcel of coding on antique hardware is that it's technologically limited, so you suck it up and deal with it.

 

I don't know if I agree, though I understand what you are saying. A couple of things:

 

- From the moment of inception, GCC always intended for there to be 7800 games with sound chips and extra memory. RESCUE ON FRACTALUS and BALLBLAZER showed that right off the bat, as did the GUMBY sound chip. Part of the intended design was to do things in the cartridge. It didn't happen as much as intended because Jack was cheap, but the plan was there.

 

- As the NES showed with several MAPPER chips, the console could be 'slightly' upgraded to do new things without changing the original design. When I look at this, I see the 7800 getting mappers like the NES did. It's still a 7800, but upgraded as 'intended' originally, I guess. I look at it as the 7800 getting some boosts the same way the NES did in order to play Mike Tyson's Punch Out, Super Mario 3 and Castlevania 3. None are really possible on the stock NES, but most people consider those games part of the NES experience. It's not like the 7800 can suddenly now play Halo as well as the XBox due to a crazy enhancement.

 

- From a homebrew perspective, this (if successful) greatly reduces the need to create/overwrite cartridges with POKEY chips/extra RAM etc. Now a developer can worry about writing a game and spend less time worrying about how to build the games to run them.

Edited July 14, 2010 by DracIsBack

[+Allan]

Products like this, no matter how technically impressive, entirely miss the point of coding on classic consoles. Part and parcel of coding on antique hardware is that it's technologically limited, so you suck it up and deal with it.

 

I don't know if I agree, though I understand what you are saying. A couple of things:

 

- From the moment of inception, GCC always intended for there to be 7800 games with sound chips and extra memory. RESCUE ON FRACTALUS and BALLBLAZER showed that right off the bat, as did the GUMBY sound chip. Part of the intended design was to do things in the cartridge. It didn't happen as much as intended because Jack was cheap, but the plan was there.

 

- As the NES showed with several MAPPER chips, the console could be 'slightly' upgraded to do new things without changing the original design. When I look at this, I see the 7800 getting mappers like the NES did. It's still a 7800, but upgraded as 'intended' originally, I guess. I look at it as the 7800 getting some boosts the same way the NES did in order to play Mike Tyson's Punch Out, Super Mario 3 and Castlevania 3. None are really possible on the stock NES, but most people consider those games part of the NES experience. It's not like the 7800 can suddenly now play Halo as well as the XBox due to a crazy enhancement.

 

- From a homebrew perspective, this (if successful) greatly reduces the need to create/overwrite cartridges with POKEY chips/extra RAM etc. Now a developer can worry about writing a game and spend less time worrying about how to build the games to run them.

I agree with what Dracisback just said except for the two extra joystick ports and the SIO port. Although you could still make that argument with the SIO port since the Computer Ad-on was going to have an SIO port.

 

Speaking of wish.....

 

What is the point of the extra joystick ports and the SIO port on this expansion model if there is no keyboard? I'm a little confused about this.

 

Allan

[jaybird3rd]

As the NES showed with several MAPPER chips, the console could be 'slightly' upgraded to do new things without changing the original design. When I look at this, I see the 7800 getting mappers like the NES did. It's still a 7800, but upgraded as 'intended' originally, I guess. I look at it as the 7800 getting some boosts the same way the NES did in order to play Mike Tyson's Punch Out, Super Mario 3 and Castlevania 3. None are really possible on the stock NES, but most people consider those games part of the NES experience.

That's a logical argument, but let me answer it in the following way. Those upgrades to the NES made sense because, at the time they were created, the NES was still a mainstream console, and Nintendo wanted to get a little more life out of it. Nothing wrong with that. But in mid-2010, when the 7800 has long since been superseded by newer platforms that have all the capabilities that can be reasonably added to the 7800 (and more), does it make sense to go back and add those capabilities to the 7800 now, or does it make more sense to simply develop games on the newer platforms that give you those capabilities out of the box, without all the Frankenstein upgrades?

 

Or, to ask the same question somewhat differently: should homebrew developers choose a platform that is appropriate for their game ideas, or should they take those ideas to an older platform and pile on the upgrades until it is capable of executing those ideas? Which is the sounder development philosophy?

 

EDIT: I should mention that, when I talk about "piled-on Frankenstein upgrades", I'm not referring specifically to the 7800 Expansion Module. These are more general comments about the dangers of upgrading older consoles in what I consider to be inappropriate ways. As I've said, I don't think the 7800 Expansion Module or the people behind it are guilty of doing this.

[Gemeni]

You guys should start to work on some launch titles for the add on maby make a new unique game instead of porting old games we've seen before.

[Underball]

I suppose one could make the argument that since the original model of the 7800 itself has an expansion interface, obviously expansion modules were planned or at least allowed for. But since the cheap ass Tramiels removed the expansion module from the design later on, the developers here are forced to deploy it on the cart port, rather then where it would have originally been intended.

[DracIsBack]

That's a logical argument, but let me answer it in the following way. Those upgrades to the NES made sense because, at the time they were created, the NES was still a mainstream console, and Nintendo wanted to get a little more life out of it. Nothing wrong with that.

 

One of the things I like about this add-on is that Steve Golson is participating. Kind of makes me wonder what life would be like had Warner been the ones competing with the NES and had GCC been kept on to continue.

 

But in mid-2010, when 7800 has long since been superseded by newer platforms that have all the capabilities that can be reasonably added to the 7800 (and more), does it make sense to go back and add those capabilities to the 7800 now, or does it make more sense to simply develop games on the newer platforms that give you those capabilities out of the box, without all the Frankenstein upgrades?

 

Can only speak for me. I like it because it gives a sense of what 'might have been' while also solving a real problem in that some homebrewers want to use a POKEY and more memory (as 7800 games did back in the day, albeit sparingly) and won't have to source parts.

 

Or, to ask the same question somewhat differently: should homebrew developers choose a platform that is appropriate for their game ideas, or should they take those ideas to an older platform and pile on the upgrades until it is capable of executing those ideas? Which is the sounder development philosophy?

 

I do see what you're saying. That said, part of why I'm interested in this particular project is because some kick-ass homebrew developers are supporting it out of the gate.

[GroovyBee]

You guys should start to work on some launch titles for the add on maby make a new unique game instead of porting old games we've seen before.

 

Some of us already are .

[jaybird3rd]

Can only speak for me. I like it because it gives a sense of what 'might have been' while also solving a real problem in that some homebrewers want to use a POKEY and more memory (as 7800 games did back in the day, albeit sparingly) and won't have to source parts.

I understand. These considerations, and Golson's involvement, are what keep the 7800 Expansion Module within the bounds of propriety, in my opinion. I'd be a lot more concerned about it otherwise. But if somebody comes up with a daughterboard for the Expansion Module that adds something like a 65816 and oodles of 16-bit RAM (like people are doing now for the XL/XE computers), that's taking it way too far. If your game really needs that, you should develop it for the SNES or the Genesis and leave the 7800 alone.

[DracIsBack]

But if somebody comes up with a daughterboard for the Expansion Module that adds something like a 65816 and oodles of 16-bit RAM (like people are doing now for the XL/XE computers), that's taking it way too far. If your game really needs that, you should develop it for the SNES or the Genesis and leave the 7800 alone.

 

 

That I agree with! 3D texture mapped graphics, mode 7 effects and 32 channel 5.1 sound are probably going to make it seem a little weird!

 

The other thing that I like is that GroovyBee and Opcode (both of whom have been shown to push the 7800 and Colecovision in interesting ways) are supporting out of the gate.

 

Also, given the amount of effort that everyone has been putting in on this thing, I'd hoped people would be a little more positive about this, even if they don't plan to buy it.

Edited July 14, 2010 by DracIsBack

[Gemeni]

@jaybird3rd

 

Okay we get it already I don't think their going to push it too far pretty much everything on this expansion module they were thinking of adding to it back in the day weren't they?Plus some people of the original people from GCC are working on this too so thats cool right?

 

Your kind of trolling right now

Edited July 14, 2010 by Gemeni

[jaybird3rd]

@jaybird3rd

 

Okay we get it already I don't think their going to push it too far pretty much everything on this expansion module they were thinking of adding to it back in the day weren't they?Plus some people of the original people from GCC are working on this too so thats cool right?

 

Your kind of trolling right now

Trolling? I've written three or four short paragraphs on that topic. If that's too much reading for you, you should give up on discussion forums and stick to Dr. Seuss.

[8th lutz]

I think an expansion module needs a balance of arcade ports and games that aren't arcade ports. The expansion module already has that in programmers involve.

 

Some homebrew programmers strengths in programmer are doing arcade ports like PacManPlus. GroovyBee is more into doing original games. Opcode is known for doing arcade ports or Msx computer ports for the Colecovision in the past. The 7800 Expansion module is something new for Opcode since the MSX computer and the Colecovision doesn't use a 6502 processor.

[jaybird3rd]

Also, given the amount of effort that everyone has been putting in on this thing, I'd hoped people would be a little more positive about this, even if they don't plan to buy it.

I think that's a very important point. Despite the concerns that I've mentioned (and that Curt and Co. have done a great job of balancing with their stated design goals), the Expansion Module really is an exciting development for the 7800, and it deserves all the support that 7800 developers and players can give it. I don't want my cautionary notes to be interpreted as raining on anyone's parade, because that certainly is not my intention.

[sh3-rg]

I love the idea of the expansion module. It's not a super computer plugged into the top of a 7800 with the intention of making up for poor coding skills, it's a pass-thru that allows people to make the games they want without having to produce super-expensive carts every release. Games made for it will still be very much 7800 games for me.

[+wood_jl]

Products like this, no matter how technically impressive, entirely miss the point of coding on classic consoles. Part and parcel of coding on antique hardware is that it's technologically limited, so you suck it up and deal with it. The challenge is the entire point. If you don't want to deal with it, then why are you bothering? Go write Flash games instead.

 

Point taken. This commentary is kind of how I feel about "Video Board XE" for the Atari 130XE.

 

However, it seems there were some Atari plans (however serious they were is a question) for 7800 expansion module, so isn't this kind of completing a vintage plan? That makes it interesting.

 

This isn't even addressing the installed base problem. The 7800 fan base is already pretty damn small. Fracturing it even further seems foolish at best. Even when major console manufacturers have attempted to introduce expansion modules, it's never been particularly successful.

 

The 7800 fan base is small, but what's left may be comprised of many "hardcore" enthusiasts who could possibly embrace this....and of course nobody knows, so speculation borders on worthlessness. Because anybody who's still playing a 7800 in 2010 is somewhat hardcore - as opposed to largely casual Sega Genesis users in 1995 (not now, but when the system was popular/current) very few of whom would buy a 32x - the situation and timing are different than when a major manufacturer turned out an expansion module; I suspect most "classic" systems in the current age have a harder-core (and smaller) fanbase than they did when they were popular in the mainstream.

[BigO]

If it could (magically) incorporate the functionality of a multi-cart w/SD card somewhere near the proposed price point there'd be a bigger audience. As it stands, it'd take one serious killer app for me to buy this. But, I'm not the biggest 7800 fan you'll (n)ever meet.

[Gunstar]

It seems that everything it uses is atari technology, and extra ram, I think it's cool, probably a LOT closer to what Warner Atari originally intended befor the Tramiels labotimized it. I think it's very cool and the excuse I need to go buy another 7800 system. Atari failed to fullfill a lot of not only it's promises, but the un-edited dreams of the hardware engineers. I think it's great that people in the Atari community are finally taking it upon themselves to right wrongs that Atari made...Kinda like Quantum leap for Atarians! Kudos I say, and to hell with those who think different. To me, an electronics hobbiest, one of the greatest things for me is upgrading my old hardware far beyond it's original design anyway. I used it stock for years, now I want to use it suped-up hotrod style! So kiss my stark-white butt.

[Ben_Larson]

I kinda see where you guys are coming from, but in reality what Curt is doing is not *that* much different than what homebrew authors do. He's also having to work with the technical challenges of the system to create something, only he's creating hardware instead of software.

 

The main problem I see is that the homebrew (software) market is already small as it is - the homebrew market for the add-on is, of course, going to be even smaller.

 

Now if there was some way to write games that could autodetect the expanded capabilities in software and work in an expanded or non-expanded system, that seems like it would solve that problem though...

Edited July 15, 2010 by Ben_Larson

[Gemeni]

Is it possible to add a/v outputs on the new module?It would be great to have, gets rid of the hassle of having to mod the 7800 and drill holes in the back to fit the a/v ports.

[GroovyBee]

Now if there was some way to write games that could autodetect the expanded capabilities in software and work in an expanded or non-expanded system, that seems like it would solve that problem though...

 

Its damn hard to run without 128K of RAM if your game is designed to need it.

 

There are several ways to detect the module. All of which will be explained in the documentation.

[ttom]

Always nice to see the continued support for the 7800.