Atari Flashback 4 Review

[garyd97]

So I was at CES earlier this week, and representatives from AtGames were there. I talked briefly with them; they seemed like nice enough folks who see some value in the older games market.

 

Did you happen to ask them if they planned on adding an SD slot on the next model?

[rjchamp3]

If I knew they were with CES I would have embarrassed them with my emails and my distrib emails and not being answered and told EVERYONE how they really are

[Zwackery]

Don't kid yourself the MOST evil corrupt company they lie and cheat, I had serveral broken systems for business they never responded, MY distributor EMAILED them 10 times a YEAR ago no response, they take ur money and run warranties don't work because it will NEVER be replaced or fixed...... I was warned about atgames

 

Sorry to hear that you had multiple bad experiences.

 

I preordered on 10/24/2012 and got a message from jlee@atgames.net confirming the order and payment, then another email on 11/11/12 from order@atgames.net letting me know about the shipping delay, and then another from them on 12/13/12 about the impact of the shipping strike being resolved and orders being shipped. That email also had info about the paddles being on backorder due to high demand.

 

 

[rjchamp3]

Yeah regardless but thank you!!!! Lucky I have great customers and we took care of it NO thanks to atgames we need to CUT TIES with China

[awace]

wow i was going to post a long rant and decided not to LOL

1st I dont know if i like emulated machines I like the flashback 2 cause it seems to sound real and the game play is exact exept the yars revenge does not work and i wonder if the game rom it self was bank switched lol and the flashback cant play it cause it locks up during play I think its because the game was written to show the actuall game code on the screen as colors but it cant since the thing is a different animal now if you wanted to make a Real atari 2600 retro device you would just take the original schamatics and the original chips and resitor per resitor including the 740t 5v regulator and that big cap and those 4 diodes and using the three original chips the 2600 had and a smaller footprint pcb then just licence the built in cart from flashback to put it on a blob on the pcb then switch the a10 line or pin 6 i cant remember the mod was so long ago on the flashback II anyway then using the original chips on a 2600 but make the board smaller and possibly those chips smaller you could make a real atari 2600 exactly the same but smaller pcb and smaller chips mabie one to to the work of all 3 using cad then just bank switch roms on a concatinated 1g stick or something like what they already have but exept the rom lines going into the 2600 would be going into a real 2600 not a emulation machine meaning game play would be exactly the same the only thing is you would have to change the RF mod section to compoisite video witch is why I like the flashback II with the cart mod now the crockrocks.bin game is actually on a weird chip cart i got from someone here on atariage cant remember and cant say anwyay but its a 27512 chip with 8k on it I for the life of me cant remember how i got it on the eeprom burner i can copy it with the super old eeprom burner at my dads house the 8 gang one will copy 8 chips from a master its awesome now the other eeprom burner can to cool things since i have the manual and can understand its menu i can change from say a 2732 to a 2532 to play real pac-man midway roms fast or cheat roms on real coin op pcb no checksum it dont care only mame cares about that ..

now if you know the memory sticks chips on the flashback 4 please let me know if i can remove said chip and put it into a usb stick in place of the chip on the usb stick then change contence or is there a nother chip that aranges the 1's and zeros on the other chip and my idea wont work on the usb stick cause whell i understand but still want to know if its still shoving the a10 line and the other lines the original 2600 flashback II wanted cause if so you could still make a cart slot it would be way harder but if it worked i see no reason not to beable to do it that way ..

this is the reason my original space invaders cabinet locks up the roms come loose rom there 3 socket mod to make a 2716 chip run in a tms2716 configuration using those 3 sockets makes them lose and its always reading rom info constantly I think the atari 2600 does that too otherwise you would not beable to change from my asteroid hack homebrew hackomatic III hack my rocks look like ® and (aw) for my name but if i start flashback II with built in asteroids vector type then swap to turn on cart if you use the double pole double throw switch correctly like a train reverse switch gnd in middle and turn one jumper on and the other off or that other one on and the other one off for each state the rocks if built in asteroids was started 1st then switch to external one wait for © page to load then swap back to built in game the only thing that changes on asteroids is the shape of the rocks witch is the only thing differnt...... this is WHy i was wondering about the nes on chip menu type thing is that just in the cart rom selection menu to PICK youre game from the china gui selection menu then once u pick a game does it send the a lines a10 line to the rom hole for the 2600 like the flashback II did or is it a completly differnt animal if so is there a line on the memory chip that changes so if you piggie backed a nother chip on top with other roms but with same names like you do to a nintendo player choice board would it load if you swapped the a10 line and does those new memory chips even have a equated a10 line? ..

Also are the paddles 1meg ohm like the coloeco ones I got at axeman surplus and repaired my Atari ones witch now wont geek and have new grease and are tight and gitter free....

also last question the plug play paddle 1 player i found jumper for 2 player and added my own paddles and wondered why that was 500k or not 1meg ohm either do u think it was a $ issue... I know the law is the law but is that a SD slot on that u tube but not stuffed and if you stuff it with the slot and missing caps and resistors will it work?.... is there any prototype pcbs u used to protype we could learn about cause its more about learning about those memory sticks im interested than the actuall sd slot on the flashback 4 cause if i want to change roms i can swap a 2732 chip and use the usb willaim burner usb one to send .bin now the old eeprom burner i think u have to change from bin2hex.exe then send hex to the old eprom burner then once its in there it burns a .bin file to the chip but if you read it back its .hex the thing is i can always find the power pins and unhook from the usb burner and bend up and then connect to the correct power pins I did this to the tms2716 chips I also even read a REAL Midway Space invaders general instraments 9316 chip LOL hmm i bet i could have read a sattalite chip now that i know back to atari the 9316 chip needed nothing more than power in the right spots not hooked to the eeprom burner wrong then the a10 line i read it as a 2716 LOL and downloaded the rom then played it on space invaders in mame it worked... ok then i tried to see if the hack hackem pesco pacman hack would run on the flashback II it does using the bank switch 2764 long chip the board i got from albert Witch was Blank when i ereased what he sent me the cart with as not to get him in trouble I shreded the lable and ereased the chip but the cart pcb is cool it uses a pal chip to bank switch and works with hackem on the flashback so I dont know if its the cart or the bank switch keeping pitfall II off the flashback II I would think if you could figure out the bank switching it might work I could always drive to activision and ask but I dont work currier anymore so I would be very doubtfull i would do that lol ..

I do how ever wonder if yars revenge the mod one on the flashback 4 would play or would the original one since it displayes the code on the screen it might not work if the machine was not wired the same because the memory address would have to be exactly the same as the original 2600 so in a sence the programmers of yars revenge copy proofed the game by the hardware arcitecture of the 2600 and knew we would try to emulate it on a plug play and probably figure HA it wont work on any other machine i wonder if they did that if they did and you know the person who programmed yars revenge did you predict plug play crap machines running atari roms or is it just coincidentlal and just happend that way.

 

 

ok last questions lol ..

is there a sequence you can input using the infra red joysticks to allow infra red programming to the SD slot thats not there I think this is what you would have to do to get into the menu to get games into the thing you would have to hold a sequence of buttons on the wireless joysticks to get into the SD mode and would have to synk with windows or just use the sd card would not that be cool if you could use the infra red joysticks to send data that would be a hack in it self you could do all sorts of arduino projects using the infra red and also the joysticks could be used for more than the flashback4 too since they just transmit codes you could make a reader .. now like the original 2600 there is 2 joystick ports and the wireless at same time so i assume they would both fight each other and the wired ones would override the wireless? and can u have 4 paddle breakout Good luck getting the 4 freinds over at the SAME time lol party mode high score contest .. on the 800 super break out lets you have 8 players cause 4 ports 8 paddles 4 sets w 2 paddles per paddle ..

now when you put 1 9 7 2 code does it bring up paddle menu or are paddles included? or are paddles still in ? mode as i already see flashback 4 on ebay i was wondering if basic fun had anything to do with it or is that just the keychain ones....

? thanks for reading a nother of my 333 to 606 am rants LOL sincerly awace Adam Weisbrod ..

 

 

PS I DONT WANT TO OFFEND ANYONE... by my bitchy bitching i just needed to vent I love that there is a nother flashback and more games means more FUN and if youre getting some $ then even if its made in chine who cares if a american is getting $ from it then im going to buy one from wallmart and SHIP you the warenty card have u sign the warenty card and then Ill be happy lol..

[awace]

I am going to read the other posts now lol

.

[awace]

In this video, I take an exclusive early look at the Atari Flashback 4 from AtGames, which will be released in the US in time for the holidays. This is part 1. Part 2, which will be released a week or so after, will feature more live footage to get an even better sense of the quality of the system and its capabilities. Look for part 1 of 2 of Armchair Arcade's next exclusive video review, coming soon, on several new Sega-related products from AtGames, which will also be released in time for the US holiday season.

 

The YouTube video.

 

Disclosure: I provided unpaid consulting services to AtGames during the creation of this product. This consulting was related to product performance and marketing feedback, but did not involve anything related specifically to its engineering or production. All review units were provided by AtGames.

 

The link to the blog post on Armchair Arcade.

1st off thank you for doing this and also Cool release on my birthday NICE!

[awace]

No, the included infrared controllers only work with the Flashback 4. They also sell wired joysticks and paddles separately that work with everything that uses Atari-style joysticks, including the two controller ports.

You need to call these people RIGHT NOW and have them ship the flashback II joysticks in single boxes for $14.99 the original price they were in 1980-1982 for one flashback II joystick cause if they dont offer joysticks there losing out on some $ almost every one wants a Atari 2600 joystick and the stelladaptor whell do the math they would make $$ $$ $$ it dont have to be the 40 anaversery one w wireless joysticks just the joystick the non ir ones by them selfs or as a boxed set pair for $26

 

Also if they sell paddles they have to be brother proof he is older than me and on the paddle plug play an ebay pair of paddles broke on 1st try my brother used I guess old plastic is brittle if they plan to have paddles they better be wired the same and be 1meg ohm or they better abandon the paddle cause if its not 1meg ohm they why bother.. also the driving paddle is a old tv leaf switch rotory switch and woud be hard to make now but a opto iso would work great and since there is 5v on the joystick port they could have it put out the same signal as the original driving controler as there are some awesome indy hacks out there for the flashback 5 witch will have a rom hole just no roms for the do it youre self hackers who know what to load up... now if it does mame or nes or snes let us know so we can start to either hack our own or write our own games for this new platform LOL

thanks..ps make shure the paddles are 1meg ohm or they just SUCK tell them that..

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Some structure in the sentences would help reading. For now I skip.

[awace]

It looks like Space Invaders is taken directly from their Taito "Space Invaders" all-in-one. Front Line is an odd choice, but it likely came with whatever Taito license they were able to negotiate, although I wonder where they got the rights to the Coleco-made ROM. I do find the use of the pirate box shot amusing, however.

1st off Tatio owns Space Invaders Not coleco Learn youre ©'s TAITO WROTE space invaders or had Midway write it for them LOL it was 1st made on Taito or Midway Hardware probably Taito Midway for hire LOL like Miss packman plus Namco not for hire.. so once you licence it from Taito it dont matter witch mame or emulation rom you rob you licenced it from Taito you can do what ever you want thats the beauty of licenceing it then making it in CHINA they don't care about © law like we do here IN usa if its licenced from Taito China could care less where you got youre code LOL think about it.

the space invader actually looks like a mame rom to me LOL..

also Remember they Licenced the Rights to all the Games so there is no pirate anything you just want to make us thing coleco is better..

Ok coleco Dkong is better than the arcade cause you can play at home Rolling on the floor laughing cause it just was...

although the Atari 800 donkey kong is the best of all cause you can chomp rivits from right to left and sneak off from right side to left and back on rivit board and remove rivit w out falling then the lhasa apso looking flames are hillarous since we had a lhasa apso I always said watch out for those poopasses LOL I always thought Atari800/400 Donkey Kong Licenced by Nintendo of a america was the best one I think either Atari had help from nintendo or just knew Donkey Kong cause every nuanonce of the elevator board is the same as far as the jumping and weather you miss is same as arcade the timing is off but thats because youre playing nintendo v/s /vs vs nintendo LOL and atari400/800 so the timing on the rivits is off but game play is the same i cant remember if you can get dkong feet near the ape when its on other side of u on rivit board and youre in cage jumping left after already in air or right it on arcade gives 100 points but if ape switches side you die...

I like the fact that there are coleco type roms if there coleco or mame it makes it even better and those pirate shot I dont know what that means I aassume you mean those fake marquee cardboard backrounds on the emulation those are cool cause it took time tomake those too... I was just giving a lot of crap to u about coleco I loved coleco just hated the joysticks if i had a coleco i would mod the joystick into a Stand up arcade or a wood box and have the joystick hooked to a Real joystick or a atari soldered to the original one so it would still work but you could use the atari or arcade one this would inprove all coleco game play....

[awace]

I'm not sure what you're referring to. To my knowledge, AtGames has never made a Taito anything. Might you be thinking of the 2004 Arcade Legends Taito plug-n-play from Radica Games (5-in-1; you're probably not thinking of this one, since its Space Invaders is clearly a port and doesn't look like what's in Bill's footage) or the 2011 TV Games "Retro Arcade featuring Space Invaders" Taito plug-n-play from Jakks Pacific (10-in-1)? The emulation engine in the Jakks product was developed by Code Mystics and is, in that specific incarnation, for Generalplus hardware. It would not work on AtGames' ARM hardware. However, since Jakks' system was running the arcade ROM, it's reasonable to assume this FB4, also emulation-based, is running the arcade ROM, too, hence the resemblance. It certainly doesn't look like anything a 2600 could output. I have to say, though, that it's odd to have an arcade emulator programmed for the product, to play just one game.

 

 

 

Pirate box shot? I assumed the packaging shown in Bill's video was the actual box that AtGames will use, or at least a mockup of what they intend to use.

 

Bill, do you have a list handy of what new games (paired with the companies they're from) are in the FB4? I know you showed the full game selection menu in the video, but I have no idea which of those games were in their FB3 and which are new--and I'll admit I'm too lazy to look up and compare the lists side by side myself. Besides, I'm not familiar enough with the 2600 library to know which of those titles are from third parties, besides Taito.

 

onmode-ky

 

 

 

hhhmmmm

ARM hardware you say does this mean we couuld just buy a sd card with the rom contence as rom and the then a special section of the sd card with memory to allow android to run this whole thing LOL

I wont tell if you wont tell One day i was googling laser asteroids on scope clocks and found a ARM hardware ftdi game machine to emulate pacman midway on a z80 ARM hardware type thing so I would think the thing is just a custom emulation like the vertiacl arcade 100 in one board boy those chineese shure can make emulation work good I have a device I got from the HAMVENTION® IN OHIO one year and bought a emulation mp4 player whell it plays mpeg or mpg depending on what you name file and it also plays game boy advance games too it also has lyrics on videos but i deleted the chineese rock videos on it a long time ago..

the cool thing is one day i figured out it plays snes games too its called a PMP because it looks like a psp portable but w no optical drive and takes mini sd cards I can put 500 snes roms on a 4 gig stick mabie 2000 or more but scrollling threw that many roms on that thing takes 3 days lol it comes on and sais unis Com PSP when you hook it to computer it says action game device and lets u use it as a drive it has 8gig on it says VP-709 on the back it has no serial number inside and you cant pawn it but it does emulate snes and gameboy advance games and also has some capcom games on it and some arcade games some chineese to american and american to chineese and chineese to chineeese it really could learn u chinees if you already knew it if you was to try to speak american good luck its kind of weird but they seem to have a grasp on english inside on the pcb it says student project #??? i cant remember but still no serial number as its sold only in china I would assume to americans as a toy...

it also plays mp3s and has a touch screen it has a cool chineese tom and jerry game using partial touch screen and with the super nintendo and the game boy advance mario2 it looks way better than the game boy advance and I would rather have it since lord of the rings is 8gig ok whell 5gig from hauppauge tv tuner to pc mpeg but takes an 8 gig dvd to skrink it down to 4 gig lol anyway it has emulation and it seems to play exactly the same exept some of the snes roms have weird sound but i think thats the snes...

this fb4 looks cool and if it has 75 games probably would keep you entertained for hours...

the reason i ask about the android os is the arm I thought ran android software and there is a atari 800 emulation for the puppy linux and i was thinking if that thing runs 2600 and some mame why not atari800 you would just need the emulation emulator to run on the arcitecure and if its linux based then it should be easy to find a port... for the 800 this would be awesome if someone made a 800 emulation device with 320k of course but make it exactly like atari800.exe even let them have some of the$ since they wrote one of the best emulatiors out there also Altirra emulator wouuld be awesome since it plays missile command fullscreen on my 1920x1080 vizio Tv at 60Hz with fullscreen strech 16:9 ratio no overscan chopping this means Someone could come out with a Atari800 emulator plug play device with a H: drive and then you could pick files to put from the h drive into the d1: drive with a little emulation rerighiing the thing would have a joystick to mouse emulation witch they have for windows letting you use the joystick to move the mouse i did it with stelladaptor once i might do it again its fun then we could have a atari800 emulation plug play box w SD slot or mini sd slot then we could play any game we wanted cause the roms could be on Sd anyway and anyone who comes forward with rom rights could just have it removed from the list or just have basic as the rom and classic atari antic games and then atariage then onto other games you could just load them youre self get the ape guy he could help and the ben heck dude we could have a a400/800 flashback

 

 

 

[awace]

I'm surprised there isn't more talk about this on AtariAge. Maybe we felt burned or generally so unimpressed with the 3, that 4, 5 and beyond is just a footnote. No sudden screams of "ATARI RISES AGAIN! THIS IS THE COMEBACK FOR ATARI!". Nope, just another dedicated console.

 

First off, IR controllers are just plain bad. I have a Famiclone with IR controllers. A cord is reliable. Your cat can walk over it, and it will still work. Cat gets in the way of the IR path, and you lose a life in a game. At least there's a corded option.

 

So with Space Invaders and such, is there potential for more? There were a TON of games available for just the 2600 platform, but licensing seems to keep most of them off.

 

Also, was this project made on a tight deadline?

You are right on If I had Rights to a Atari Licence i would just Use the original 3 chips and just miniturize the original atari2600 pcb then make it emulate those 3 chips then make A REAL atari 2600 remake of the original Hardware but w joystick ports in the front basicly the 2600 sears 7800 looking one w the red leds was cool but the buttons sucked.. if they could make a damn cart slot and make it original pokey and stella chipset w those 3 chips even if they are in one chip they would have a original atari2600 and then make a cart port but no roms and make it take sd sticks Duh how hard could that be to make a system that would take old atari carts or come with asteroids An atari game then have a memory stick hole that would in a nother mode read atari.bin 2600 rom files but not come with any as we would know what to put in there if you dont know what the memory stick hole would be for then just think of it as a expantion slot so you could scroll threw any directory in the memory stick but nothing would load since its a atari 2600 the other mode would be a slector cartridge with the ability to pick files on the memory stick and then it moves them into ram while holding the cartridge in a nother ram but when you switch to the cartridge it would only switch the a10 line like the flashback II did exactly like the flashback 2 did so mabie pitfall II would run..

[awace]

Yikes, there are actually people who pronounce "composite" with the stress on the first syllable?

 

What did you know composite does 16:9 ! if you have a SDTV digital TV Tube newer tube tv w a digital tuner in it and it says SDTV on it if you hook a ps3 fat to it it will go into a mode it WONT GO INTO W OUT THE TV witch allows 16:9 viewing of bluerays and keeps it in that mode for the ps3 too I didnt know the ps3 had this 16:9 mode 480i untill i loaded Linux on to it and it would let me use 480i witch was this mode ..

it is NOT the same as normal composite but i also didnt know composite could output more than composite witch is what it is the 480i mode is a chomper mode that didnt exist when composite was invented they just figured out a way to transmit 480i on a rca cable in close to the same way as composite its just 16:9 i thought you needed svideo to do 16:9 but you dont witch is cool.

as far as how to pronounce compawzsite WHO CARES LOL.

[awace]

Gone

 

Secret Quest, because of b/w switch issue.

 

Minus 1.

 

New

 

Blackjack

Breakout

Crystal Castles

Football

Front Line

Haunted House II (Return To Haunted House from Atari Flashback 2 & 2+?)

Jungle Hunt

Polaris

Pong (Atari Flashback 2 Arcade Pong by Curt Vendel or JAKKS Atari Joystick one as taken from Video Olympics?)

Slot Machine

Slot Racers

Space Invaders

Stellar Track

Street Racer

Tempest (Crappy single level from Atari: 80 Classic Games in One! or now complete?)

Warlords

 

Plus 16, that makes 15 additions, 75 total.

 

No

 

Video Olympics

Casino

Indy 500 as "Race" by Sears Telegames

Millipede

Quadrun

Radar Lock

Solaris

Arcade Asteroids

Asteroids Deluxe

Lunar Lander

Space Duel

Yars' Return

 

Since Taito has significant involvement, it would have been nice to see a completed Elevator Action, I see why Jungle Hunt was left off JAKKS'.

 

Also, there are no Coleco games and Asteroids is by Atari, thus has been on all Atari Flashbacks in one form or another!

 

No Crap with out a black and white switch you can not call it a atari 2600 as Adventure uses the b/w switch to allow a child feature in the cave .

 

[S1500]

awace, step back, take a deeeep breath.

[Gregory DG]

Sorry I haven't read the entire thread, but did we figure out why they included the arcade-looking Space Invaders rather than the 2600 version?

[awace]

on fourth Mt dew now I think Im going to stop with the caffeine and goto bed now Thanks for reading if youre sleepy then read one of my LOOONG posts...

I know I hated grammer class..

and should have not learned to skim read although thats what you should do when reading my posts is skim over them..

WHO READS atari age unless there really board

[Bill Loguidice]

Sorry I haven't read the entire thread, but did we figure out why they included the arcade-looking Space Invaders rather than the 2600 version?

 

Yes. It was Taito's request, so they programmed a new Space Invaders that took advantage of the chipset. I think most of us here would have preferred the original game (though again, you have some switch issues with selecting all the modes), but I bet just as many buyers enjoyed the new version.

 

A 5 is in the planning stages and it may have a surprise or two. I'll provide more details when I'm both given access to a near final product and am allowed to talk about it.

[+bcombee]

@awace, I wasn't indicating that the Front Line game in the Flashback 4 was the version from the ColecoVision. I was noting that the original Atari 2600 release of Front Line was from Coleco, so I was curious as to the ownership of that particular program code. Coleco licensed the game originally from Taito, but they or a company under contract did the adaptation, so who owns the copyright on that particular object code was uncertain to me. If you look on the back of the original box (https://atariage.com/box_page.html?SoftwareLabelID=198&ItemTypeID=BOX), you'll see two copyright notices; one for Taito and one for Coleco. I'm sure Taito has the right to license the game to AtGames, but I wasn't sure how they got the rights to the Coleco-made adaptation.

 

Coleco did license or sell a lot of those game rights to Atari in the mid-80s which led to the Atari releases of DK and DK Jr. If you look on the boxes for those (https://atariage.com/box_page.html?SoftwareLabelID=149), you'll see copyright notices for Nintendo, Atari, and Coleco.

[ZylonBane]

WHO READS atari age unless there really board

 

If all posts were like yours, I'm pretty sure the answer to that would be "nobody".

[garyd97]

 

Yes. It was Taito's request, so they programmed a new Space Invaders that took advantage of the chipset. I think most of us here would have preferred the original game (though again, you have some switch issues with selecting all the modes), but I bet just as many buyers enjoyed the new version.

 

A 5 is in the planning stages and it may have a surprise or two. I'll provide more details when I'm both given access to a near final product and am allowed to talk about it.

 

Hopefully they do it right this time with SD slot and wired controllers.

[rjchamp3]

I'm hoping another company makes the 5-6 that might come out I do however intend to get the 76 game version for kicks lol

[Bill Loguidice]

No, AtGames will be doing the 5.

[rjchamp3]

No, AtGames will be doing the 5.

Oh just F......wonderful YES they respond to ship an order BUT u will never get a customer service or product problem RESPONSE EVER

[Atariboy]

I wonder if it will include Battlezone. It doesn't run correctly in the Flashback 3 or 4 (The radar doesn't always pick up on targets and it has some other major bugs) but it was still one of the few highlights in Atari's lineup that used to be free and clear to use.

 

When you take away the games that require the paddle and take away the arcade ports like Phoenix that need licensing, it leaves precious little else there in Atari's VCS lineup that is much fun (There are perhaps 10 2600 games that Atari rereleases that I play very often and I suspect that goes for most people that aren't revisting things like 3D Tic TacToe very often).

 

So the loss of one of those highlights is going to sting since supposedly it has been sold off to another company. And it's a great single player game where as several of the gems like Maze Craze and Combat require a second player which makes it hurt even more if it's not there.

Edited November 18, 2013 by Atariboy