PAL asteroids rom chip

[Jason_Atari]

Because asteroids was never released in PAL cart form due to it being built into the console, does that mean the actual cart PAL rom chip is on the pcb? If so i assume the PAL and NTSC boards would be a lot different.

[+Mitch]

No, the OS chip in the PAL 7800 that includes Asteroids auto-detects what system it is on and plays the correct version, NTSC or PAL.

 

Mitch

[+slx]

Because asteroids was never released in PAL cart form due to it being built into the console, does that mean the actual cart PAL rom chip is on the pcb? If so i assume the PAL and NTSC boards would be a lot different.

 

On the later Atari computers the boards are identical AFAIK. PAL/NTSC is determined by the VLSI chips (ANTIC/GTIA) and the clock crystal. Swapping these three turns an NTSC into a PAL machine and vice versa.

[+Mitch]

It is somewhat similar on the 7800. Though the universal 7800 motherboard was only ever used in PAL 7800s.

 

Mitch

[davyK]

Is the PAL version adjusted for speed?

 

I really like 7800 Asteroids but I'd like to know if I'm playing at the right speed.

 

I've tried both versions in an emulator and they seem quite similar in speed - the PAL version being slightly jerkier which would make sense because of the lower frame rate.