godzillajoe Posted October 15, 2014 Share Posted October 15, 2014 Better leave it to the pros then. Many mistakes are repairable though. What were you trying to do? Install a video mod. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted October 15, 2014 Share Posted October 15, 2014 Install a video mod. If you cut traces, it may be possible to repair them with solder. On the topic of Hokey chips, I'm going to assume that the average joe can't tell the difference between Hokey sound and Pokey sound. Pokey chips are getting very rare now, so it's better to just include the hokey on the SD cart by default so people aren't tempted to sacrifice more BallBlazers when they don't have to. Of course there's also a price argument. Some users may not care about Pokey sound or prefer vanilla TIA, so a cost reduced model wouldn't be out of the question. I'm reminded of Everdrives and PowerPaks for SNES coming with sockets for DSP1 chips. People are sacrificing good games like Super MArio Kart or Pilot Wings just to play Super Mario Kart hacks on their Everdrive. I sacrificed a minty Ballz 3D cart for my Everdrive. I think there are a couple junk sports titles that used DSP too. But a substitue for DSP1 does not exist. Pokey substitutes have been made and will be available shortly, so I would recommend people to use those. Also Albert should seriously consider selling Hokey chips by themselves in the AA store, considering how many arcade and other classic hardware used them. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trebor Posted October 15, 2014 Share Posted October 15, 2014 I'm going to assume that the average joe can't tell the difference between Hokey sound and Pokey sound. Agreed, presuming there is any audible difference. A technical difference, absolutely...Knowing batari's work though, I'm pretty confident it will sound exact. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DrVenkman Posted October 16, 2014 Share Posted October 16, 2014 I've already had to sacrifice a spare 600XL as a chip-donor after POKEY, ANTIC and GTIA were all bad on one of my 1200XL's. I'd prefer to not have to sacrifice any more working machines than necessary whenever we can finally buy Concerto carts. (And I've already got an otherwise-busted 130XE that I'm planning to pull the POKEY out of for that run of POKEY-enhanced Donkey Kong that's in works ). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted October 16, 2014 Share Posted October 16, 2014 (edited) I was holding onto a spare BallBlazer cart (picked it up for two bucks at Game-X-Change). I was planning on loaning out and having someone make a homebrew out of it. Before long, it may not even be necessary... Edited October 16, 2014 by stardust4ever 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
7800fan Posted March 1, 2015 Share Posted March 1, 2015 I know this thread's a few months old but I am just catching up to this flash cart. I didn't see all the details. Will it: work with 2600 games on 7800 system or do I need to keep Harmony for that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trebor Posted March 1, 2015 Share Posted March 1, 2015 I know this thread's a few months old but I am just catching up to this flash cart. I didn't see all the details. Will it: work with 2600 games on 7800 system or do I need to keep Harmony for that? The intent is for it to have full compatibility with 2600 games, per batari. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted March 1, 2015 Share Posted March 1, 2015 Harmony Encore is out now but the new 7800 flash cart should be backwards compatible with it. Since I now have a 7800 and the 7800 flash cart will likely do everything the Encore does, I'm going to skip buying the Encore and wait for the 7800 Concerto. Besides, the original Harmony plays 99% of existing ROMs out there, with the notable exceptions of Zippy, Boulderdash demo, the 32-in1, and a handful of other games. Vast majority of released originals and homebrew work fine with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg2600 Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 Harmony Encore is out now but the new 7800 flash cart should be backwards compatible with it. Since I now have a 7800 and the 7800 flash cart will likely do everything the Encore does, I'm going to skip buying the Encore and wait for the 7800 Concerto. Besides, the original Harmony plays 99% of existing ROMs out there, with the notable exceptions of Zippy, Boulderdash demo, the 32-in1, and a handful of other games. Vast majority of released originals and homebrew work fine with it. That's a viable option for you yes, but I couldn't be without a Harmony for such a long time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 That's a viable option for you yes, but I couldn't be without a Harmony for such a long time. For those of us who own an original Harmony and an Atari 7800, I believe the wait for a 7800 flash cart is worth it. But if you don't already have a Harmony, by all means, get one! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+batari Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 Concerto was plodding along well until last October when I hit a snag. It was basically working but there was a mysterious bug that seemed to corrupt every ten-millionth byte fetched from RAM. I tried every angle I possibly could, soending hundreds of hours and several months to no avail so I set it aside last month in frustration. Then I discovered that there is a different brand of memory chip with the same specs and footprint (although the chip is obsolete and no longer manufactured) but I managed to find one for testing, and found everything was working 100% with the new chip. I can't use this old obsolete chip or the one that proved flaky, obviously. So I am going to either drop down from 1MB to 512k RAM (using the same chips from Harmony Encore, which are known reliable) or use two of them for 1MB. I leaning toward 512k but possibly a 1MB option with the second chip and extra support logic. So Concerto is back on track finally and you should be hearing more regular updates. 16 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Machine Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 Great news on the Concerto! I really would love to see this come out. Anyone that works this long and hard on a project deserves to catch a break! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 Concerto was plodding along well until last October when I hit a snag. It was basically working but there was a mysterious bug that seemed to corrupt every ten-millionth byte fetched from RAM. I tried every angle I possibly could, soending hundreds of hours and several months to no avail so I set it aside last month in frustration. Then I discovered that there is a different brand of memory chip with the same specs and footprint (although the chip is obsolete and no longer manufactured) but I managed to find one for testing, and found everything was working 100% with the new chip. I can't use this old obsolete chip or the one that proved flaky, obviously. So I am going to either drop down from 1MB to 512k RAM (using the same chips from Harmony Encore, which are known reliable) or use two of them for 1MB. I leaning toward 512k but possibly a 1MB option with the second chip and extra support logic. So Concerto is back on track finally and you should be hearing more regular updates. Sucks that the RAM chips were flakey. Did the errors occur at regular intervals or completely random? Also Hokey-Pokey will come preinstalled or at least as an option, correct? If not, I happen to have a spare BallBlazer laying around that I can harvest the Pokey out of. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctorclu Posted March 6, 2015 Share Posted March 6, 2015 So Concerto is back on track finally and you should be hearing more regular updates. That is good. I have decided I will follow 7800 activity when a flash option is available again, so I will follow this thread only. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
busterm Posted March 6, 2015 Share Posted March 6, 2015 Awesome news, Im looking forward to the Concerto. In all honesty I would be 100% ok with 512K Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted March 7, 2015 Share Posted March 7, 2015 512kb is the sweet spot. I hope this ROM will run on it as it would be a cool tech demo to run on real hardware... http://atariage.com/forums/topic/226949-bad-apple-full-motion-video-on-the-2600/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted March 7, 2015 Share Posted March 7, 2015 Personally, I would like to see it have the full 1 meg. Mitch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted March 7, 2015 Share Posted March 7, 2015 Personally, I would like to see it have the full 1 meg. Mitch I'd rather see 4 megabytes. Since each bank in an Atari ROM removes a byte from each 4kbyte bank, the theoretical maximum is 16 megabytes with 4k * 4kb banks, but a read to any byte of any bank would initialize a bank swap. However, 2k *4kb banks would have 2kb usable in each bank, with 2kb of bank swap area. If we use mirroring, we get 2k * 2kb = 4mb of ROM storage. Without mirroring, a 4mb ROM could have 1k * 4kb banks. 1kb of each bank would be used for bank swapping, leaving 3kb per bank of 3 megabytes usable ROM storage. So anything less than 4 Megabytes flash storage is wasted potential as far as 2600 is concerned. 7800 uses up to 32 kilobyte addressable per bank but I have no idea how the bank swapping scheme works... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DrVenkman Posted March 8, 2015 Share Posted March 8, 2015 I'm in favor of whatever solution gets these devices into the hands of eager 7800 fans as soon as practical. I'd love a built-in HOKEY/POKEY option but so long as the board is scarred to allow the user to add one, I have an extra 130XE that I can scavenge one from (that machine needs the DRAM replaced and I can't be bothered - it's my chip donor). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CPUWIZ Posted March 8, 2015 Share Posted March 8, 2015 I'd rather see 4 megabytes. Since each bank in an Atari ROM removes a byte from each 4kbyte bank, the theoretical maximum is 16 megabytes with 4k * 4kb banks, but a read to any byte of any bank would initialize a bank swap. However, 2k *4kb banks would have 2kb usable in each bank, with 2kb of bank swap area. If we use mirroring, we get 2k * 2kb = 4mb of ROM storage. Without mirroring, a 4mb ROM could have 1k * 4kb banks. 1kb of each bank would be used for bank swapping, leaving 3kb per bank of 3 megabytes usable ROM storage. So anything less than 4 Megabytes flash storage is wasted potential as far as 2600 is concerned. 7800 uses up to 32 kilobyte addressable per bank but I have no idea how the bank swapping scheme works... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jinks Posted March 8, 2015 Share Posted March 8, 2015 Sounds like the ram rom is hokey poked to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tep392 Posted March 8, 2015 Share Posted March 8, 2015 Do the games get copied from the SD and run out of the RAM? Is that why we would need so much RAM? So someone could write a 4Mb game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted March 8, 2015 Share Posted March 8, 2015 Why the frowny face? If Atari 2600 is gonna use reads to bankswap, then a 4 megabyte ROM is theoretically possible even if highly impractical. But I have no idea what a programmer would fill those 2048 * 2kb banks with. Honestly I'm happy with whatever comes out. I have a desire to try these 7800 homebrew WIPs like Pacman/Ms Pacman 320, etc on real hardware... While one megabyte would be better, if 512kb is all it can do due to the manufacturing issues, so be it. That's still enough to run that "Bad Apple" ROM as a glorified FMV tech demo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CPUWIZ Posted March 8, 2015 Share Posted March 8, 2015 The confused face was because none of what you wrote made sense to me. For one, my SuperCart 2600 Rev.B, that is gonna arrive from China in about 2 weeks, does 256K bankswitching, without wasting a single byte in the ROM. And the other confusing thing was, that the 7800 bank size is 16K and not 32K. And my little MegaCart board can already do 1MB bankswitching, Schmutzpuppe's Frankie Goes To Hollywood - Relax demo is the only 1MB ROM, but that is besides the point. And I think that the Concerto cart should be able to play that ROM, so 512K is not sufficient IMHO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RevEng Posted March 8, 2015 Share Posted March 8, 2015 Do the games get copied from the SD and run out of the RAM? Is that why we would need so much RAM? So someone could write a 4Mb game. Yes, on all points. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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