RetroN 77

[insertclevernamehere]

I had an R77 that lost the signal to the TV after using it about 5 times over a period of several months.  Luckily the 3rd party seller through Amazon sent me a replacement after I paid for shipping.  That was at least a year ago and after having used the replacement about 5 times it too is going on the blink.  It keeps randomly losing the signal and I lose the picture for a second.  I pulled the HDMI cable out and back in again.  Still happened.  I plugged the HDMI cable into a different input.  Still happened.  That’s both R77’s I’ve had now fail after I used them only a few times!  What a heap of junk this console is!  No way am I wasting any more money buying a third one.

[insertclevernamehere]

Soooooo, I tried the R77 on a monitor and another tv.  For that, I used another, shorter hdmi cable.  It worked with no problems.  I then hooked the R77 up to my tv with the shorter hdmi cable, needing to move the R77 closer to the tv too, and again, no problems.  I'm surprised that the hdmi cable could spontaneously not work and be the culprit rather than any device hooked up to it but on the surface, that's what seems to have happened.  I don't know for sure because I don't know how these things work but I am worried that what's really happening is that the signal from the R77 is getting weaker and the shorter length of the new hdmi cable is the only reason why it worked.  And it's just a matter of time before I will need an even shorter hdmi cable, with my R77 on top of my cabinet below the tv rather than inside the cabinet, and/or eventually the signal dying altogether.  Fingers crossed that when I play the R77 again on Monday, it still gives me zero problems.

[+Nathan Strum]

HDMI cables are notoriously fragile. At the college I work for, we keep spares on hand because we know they're just going to fail (particularly with faculty plugging laptops into projectors and monitors). It doesn't take much either - the wires inside are incredibly thin, and the connectors are susceptible to getting bent. Intermittent problems are not uncommon. It's likely not the length - just the fact that you changed cables. (Unless you're using a ridiculously long HDMI cable.)

[+GoldLeader]

On 2/5/2023 at 2:02 PM, insertclevernamehere said:

Soooooo, I tried the R77 on a monitor and another tv.  For that, I used another, shorter hdmi cable.  It worked with no problems.  I then hooked the R77 up to my tv with the shorter hdmi cable, needing to move the R77 closer to the tv too, and again, no problems.  I'm surprised that the hdmi cable could spontaneously not work and be the culprit rather than any device hooked up to it but on the surface, that's what seems to have happened.  I don't know for sure because I don't know how these things work but I am worried that what's really happening is that the signal from the R77 is getting weaker and the shorter length of the new hdmi cable is the only reason why it worked.  And it's just a matter of time before I will need an even shorter hdmi cable, with my R77 on top of my cabinet below the tv rather than inside the cabinet, and/or eventually the signal dying altogether.  Fingers crossed that when I play the R77 again on Monday, it still gives me zero problems.

 

On 2/5/2023 at 2:28 PM, Nathan Strum said:

HDMI cables are notoriously fragile. At the college I work for, we keep spares on hand because we know they're just going to fail (particularly with faculty plugging laptops into projectors and monitors). It doesn't take much either - the wires inside are incredibly thin, and the connectors are susceptible to getting bent. Intermittent problems are not uncommon. It's likely not the length - just the fact that you changed cables. (Unless you're using a ridiculously long HDMI cable.)

 

I rather thought this as well,...

 

Like what if you got the length of cable you want, but spend more, like get an Audio Quest (Cinema Quest) or something?...Better be sitting down when you look up what they run,  but they are good!

[Trouble for Turmoil]

Hey, I saw on the Stella 6.6.0 GitHub page that I can disabling overclocking through an option. How can I do this? I tried to find it when I installed the update on the Micro SD card and plugged it into the console but I didn't see the option. I need to know as I only have a small window to do anything on the system with the update or else the whole thing crashes and I gotta format the SD card again to try again. Please help and thank you!

[Atariboy]

Out of curiosity, are there plans to update the Retron build to 6.7 so that it will be compatible with Gorf?

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Sometime, but no plans. The Stella team is currently taking a longer break.

Edited July 25, 2023 by Thomas Jentzsch

[Atariboy]

Has anyone ever used the Retron 77 with the 8BitDo arcade stick? The USB 2.4g receiver plugged into my OTG cable lights up and connects to the stick just fine, but nothing is registering from within Stella.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

18 minutes ago, Atariboy said:

Has anyone ever used the Retron 77 with the 8BitDo arcade stick? The USB 2.4g receiver plugged into my OTG cable lights up and connects to the stick just fine, but nothing is registering from within Stella.

Have you tried mapping it in the Advanced Settings?

[Atariboy]

7 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

Have you tried mapping it in the Advanced Settings?

Yeah

 

It acts strangely when I select to map something. I'll press the confirm button (or whatever you'd call it on the Retron itself) to select to map a function and as soon as I release the button the mapping function on the Retron closes. 

 

I then tested my OTG cable with a Hori gamepad for PS3/PS4/PC set to PC mode and saw similar results. I thought my cable had gone bad but moved back to my usual Mayflash F500 Elite and it's acting fine on my Retron.

 

Would love to get my 8BitDo arcade stick working on here with the controller's USB 2.4g wireless receiver.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

4 minutes ago, Atariboy said:

Yeah

 

It acts strangely when I select to map something. I'll press the confirm button (or whatever you'd call it on the Retron itself) to select to map a function and as soon as I release the button the mapping function on the Retron closes. 

That's the dialog confirm button, not the individual one. So you did not map anything. Please check the Stella User's Guide how the mapping should work.

 

Do you have a joystick for front ports which you can use in parallel, e.g. for navigation. Or have a look at the index_r77.html.

4 minutes ago, Atariboy said:

I then tested my OTG cable with a Hori gamepad for PS3/PS4/PC set to PC mode and saw similar results. I thought my cable had gone bad but moved back to my usual Mayflash F500 Elite and it's acting fine on my Retron.

 

Would love to get my 8BitDo arcade stick working on here with the controller's USB 2.4g wireless receiver.

Do all the joysticks work fine on a normal computer? 

[Atariboy]

The controller is fine. While connected via the same 2.4g receiver, it works fine in both my Switch and PC. And it's connected to its receiver while plugged into my OTG cable connected into my Retron right now (Solid blue light on both the stick and receiver, which indicates that they're connected).

 

Just so that I can't screw anything up, I plugged in an Atari joystick this time into the front left controller port and selected to map joystick up while using the Atari joystick (It's more intuitive for me than using the system's own buttons to navigate the menus). No inputs from the 8BitDo would register.

 

Edit: The Hori gamepad when connected to my PC is fine with all buttons and the d-pad registering at this online controller test site. Just retested that on the Retron in case it was user error earlier. With Stella stating "Select action for 'P0 Joystick Up' event", no inputs on the Hori gamepad are registered with the gamepad in PC mode (I also tried PS3 mode and PS4 mode just for the heck of it).

Edited August 6, 2023 by Atariboy

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Sounds like the R77's OS is missing some required functions. Maybe @DirtyHairy can provide more info here.

[fluxit]

7 hours ago, Atariboy said:

Has anyone ever used the Retron 77 with the 8BitDo arcade stick? The USB 2.4g receiver plugged into my OTG cable lights up and connects to the stick just fine, but nothing is registering from within Stella.

If your 8bitdo arcade stick can be set to a mode other than x-input(what the xbox controllers use,) such as "Switch," or "dinput"- do that.  The version of the linux kernel on the R77 is too old to support x-input.

 

Some devices also only work properly  with the R77 if they are plugged into the OTG before power is applied to the R77.  Many devices do not work if hot-plugged, though many *do*.  A non-working device may also render the hot-pluggability of the R77 non-functional until power to the R77 has been removed.

[+Living Room Arcade]

11 Months Later

 

Just got my Retron 77    the other day.  It looks well made.  Looking forward to firing this bad boy up and seeing what it can do.  

[akator]

^ I've been really happy with my R77 with the updated Stella.  Some people have had issues with paddle inputs but I haven't.  There have definitely been hardware quality issues with these consoles.  My first one was DOA but the second one has been perfect.  Some people have had other issues with overheating and memory, etc., so be sure to read through this thread if you run into problems.

[+Living Room Arcade]

1 hour ago, akator said:

^ I've been really happy with my R77 with the updated Stella.  Some people have had issues with paddle inputs but I haven't.  There have definitely been hardware quality issues with these consoles.  My first one was DOA but the second one has been perfect.  Some people have had other issues with overheating and memory, etc., so be sure to read through this thread if you run into problems.

Much appreciated.