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Atari Flashback Portable!


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I posted the official final game lists for all of the 2017 AtGames products on Armchair Arcade: http://armchairarcade.com/perspectives/

 

The only one missing is the Atari Flashback 8 Gold Activision Edition Console because we're still waiting on confirmation on one of the titles.

I've read about atGames including an Atari 2600 game called "Dan Kitchen's Tomcat", but I don't see it on the current lists.

It is in the list of games in their/your June 2017 announcement.

 

Has this unknown game been on any released hardware or September 2017's hardware?

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I've read about atGames including an Atari 2600 game called "Dan Kitchen's Tomcat", but I don't see it on the current lists.

It is in the list of games in their/your June 2017 announcement.

 

Has this unknown game been on any released hardware or September 2017's hardware?

 

It's not an unknown game. It was released back in the day. And yes, the current list is accurate. It won't be appearing on the Activision one either.

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I've read about atGames including an Atari 2600 game called "Dan Kitchen's Tomcat", but I don't see it on the current lists.

It is in the list of games in their/your June 2017 announcement.

 

Has this unknown game been on any released hardware or September 2017's hardware?

 

Release info for this old game: http://atariage.com/software_page.php?SoftwareLabelID=563

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Other than the games included are there any hardware differences between the 2016/17 version of the Flashback Portable? Should I just wait for the 2017 version at this point?

The differences look minor, and you can load up nearly all of the missing ROMs. Depends on if you "need" it now or can wait. If I were taking a long flight or something, I'd get it now, there are tons in Target stores from what I've seen. I'm pretty impulsive though, and got it on the first day.

 

Bill will likely chime in soon, and certainly by July 28th when preorders start. You've waited this long.

 

The HD "gold" tv consoles are worth waiting for, though.

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New review of the Atari Flashback Portable 2017

 

 

 

I can only conclude that the emulator programmers at atgames must be tone-deaf, the pitch of the sound as shown in IJH's videos for both the 2017 Flashback Portable and the Flashback 8 Gold is frequently an octave lower than the real machine.

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OMG! The "fix" for using Dintar816's Pac-Man was to use Dennis Debro's version!!

Look at John's video.

 

The different screen sizes, I would guess, is that John H's "older" one was the pre-release version that did have a larger screen.

Good news is that this year's model does show better color.

I can't say about the left-right viewing angle from a video because you physically have to see it with both eyes.

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The sounds are definitely off. Stella isn't always perfect either, but it will greatly improve when we add low-level emulation of the sound hardware (probably for the next major release). But even now, it still sounds more realistic than those in the video above.

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Awesome review! :)

 

Interesting that the original pacman flickered just as much as Debro's. How exactly are the controls different, is the bw switch a toggle and does it still display P1 and P2 Hard on advanced?

 

I liked the blinky platform scroller with the slinky! :)

 

For anyone who hasn't found them yet, there are a bunch of AFP game ROM's linked in my signature and also Flashback BASIC, a BASIC for writing games with enhanced SuperCharger quality graphics that can run on the AFP and the SuperCharger.

 

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Re: Flicker
It was a great choice by Debro.
Since the 2 Players are used 3 times, flickering both at a steady 20Hz saves programming intelligent flicker.

IMHO it is less distracting than having the enemies change brightness all the time, but I'm probably in the minority with that opinion!

 

P. S. OMG! The "fix" for using Dintar816's Pac-Man was to use Dennis Debro's version!!

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Re: Flicker

It was a great choice by Debro.

Since the 2 Players are used 3 times, flickering both at a steady 20Hz saves programming intelligent flicker.

 

IMHO it is less distracting than having the enemies change brightness all the time, but I'm probably in the minority with that opinion!

 

P. S. OMG! The "fix" for using Dintar816's Pac-Man was to use Dennis Debro's version!!

 

I can see the difference on phosphor, but not on the portables LCD. I think it's because the portable combines frames like some LCD Televisions do so the 15 hz ghosts in the original pacman get a boost for fitting in evenly.

 

We could take advantage of the frame combiner further by dropping a ghost and having the three ghosts and pacman all render every other frame - imo that looks best on phosphor and LCD's with frame combiners because it fits in evenly into the frame combiner.

 

Dirty Hairy's emu has an interesting tripple frame combiner which would be optimal flicker enhancing for rendering Debro's 20 hz characters because they fit into that algorithm without spilling over.

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I can only conclude that the emulator programmers at atgames must be tone-deaf, the pitch of the sound as shown in IJH's videos for both the 2017 Flashback Portable and the Flashback 8 Gold is frequently an octave lower than the real machine.

Holy hell really? Now the HD Ataris are messed up too? I'm not paying $80 for the Activision Gold if it's got crappy sound :facepalm:

 

OMG! The "fix" for using Dintar816's Pac-Man was to use Dennis Debro's version!!

Look at John's video.

 

The different screen sizes, I would guess, is that John H's "older" one was the pre-release version that did have a larger screen.

Good news is that this year's model does show better color.

I can't say about the left-right viewing angle from a video because you physically have to see it with both eyes.

tumblr_m3h97gaBiq1rs9ie3o1_1280.gif

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Holy hell really? Now the Ataris are messed up too? :facepalm:

 

They are not messed up. The sound emulation is the same as always. Some sounds play in a lower register, but there's no real issue beyond that. If they didn't bother you before, they won't bother you now. With that said, there will be a few tweaks to the HD console from the reviewer units.

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In IJH's video, listen at 3:47, 4:58 and at 6:19, then compare to Stella or Real Hardware.

 

For the 99 percent of folks it does not matter. Honestly it plays great and the ability to have an SD cart to play 95 percent of the library for $50 portable is a deal.

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For the 99 percent of folks it does not matter. Honestly it plays great and the ability to have an SD cart to play 95 percent of the library for $50 portable is a deal.

 

Then I'm happy to be among the 1 percent of people who do care about decent sound quality. If the other 99 percent don't care what comes out of the speaker or how important sound effects are to 2600 games, I pity them.

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Then I'm happy to be among the 1 percent of people who do care about decent sound quality. If the other 99 percent don't care what comes out of the speaker or how important sound effects are to 2600 games, I pity them.

 

After playing an entire weekend with the FB portable AFTER my review, I have to say that the sound is close enough to be enjoyed by nearly everyone. People looking for a 1:1 100 percent emulator are not going to find that. For the price, I do think that this is a great product. The sound is close and I personally was not bothered by it whatsoever.

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