Analogue Pocket

[+5-11under]

2 minutes ago, Emehr said:

Super late reply but from what I've played, the MiSTer Lynx core is impeccable.

...

I can't attest to every game but MiSTer has totally won me over. I won't get rid of my Lynx but...if I had to...

The MiSTer FPGA is my Zimba 3000.

[+cubanismo]

On 12/15/2021 at 12:24 AM, karri said:

It would be nice if it could pass the AUDIN (both ways) and both cart strobes to the real hardware. As it is running real carts it should work with Alpine Games, EOTB and future 2M carts with large eeproms.

Just got an Analogue Pocket and all the adapters, and it does not in fact work with Alpine Games. It displays the intro screen, fades to black, and just stays there forever, while on real hardware it moves on to the theme music and menu screens. Does this indicate Analogue are doing something wrong in their cart adapter or FPGA code?

[+jgkspsx]

Which release of Alpine Games? Maybe they're all the same but maybe not.

[+karri]

6 hours ago, cubanismo said:

Just got an Analogue Pocket and all the adapters, and it does not in fact work with Alpine Games. It displays the intro screen, fades to black, and just stays there forever, while on real hardware it moves on to the theme music and menu screens. Does this indicate Analogue are doing something wrong in their cart adapter or FPGA code?

It means that the dumper does not pass AUDIN to the cart. So it was not a Lynx after all...

[+cubanismo]

10 hours ago, jgkspsx said:

Which release of Alpine Games? Maybe they're all the same but maybe not.

I got it from Songbird a few years ago when I got my Lynx stuff. Not sure how to tell which version/variant that is.

 

9 hours ago, karri said:

It means that the dumper does not pass AUDIN to the cart. So it was not a Lynx after all...

That's a bummer. I filed a support ticket with Analogue, and they told me the appropriate team is looking at it. I'll report back if anything comes of it.

 

Most games give you a little info screen before you launch them and generate a "library" entry on the Pocket's menu (Just shows the info again if clicked. It doesn't store the cart dump AFAICT), but Alpine Games doesn't. I don't know if that's just because it's not in the "official" retail library so some checksum doesn't match, or if it's related to this issue, but just thought I'd note it.

 

FWIW, the El Cheapo BennVenn SD cartridge does work, and another user says the RetroHQ GameDrive does as well, so it's not just a simple dumper.

[+jgkspsx]

2 hours ago, cubanismo said:

I got it from Songbird a few years ago when I got my Lynx stuff. Not sure how to tell which version/variant that is.

Ahhh, that's the Songbird one then. I have the original release. I am afraid to plug it in to the adapter but maybe I will try it.

[Fadest]

My original also not works. 

I think Karri is right about the AUDIN

[+karri]

I tried to run AdaCart on Pocket. When you choose to play a real cart there is power for a very short time. You can see the blue leds light up on the cart. But before AdaCart has time to load the game the Pocket cuts the power from the cart.

[42bs]

On 4/15/2024 at 7:53 AM, karri said:

It means that the dumper does not pass AUDIN to the cart. So it was not a Lynx after all...

I don't think it is a dumper. If you remove a cart while playing, it will read garbage (or $ff) from some point. But for AUDIN, yes I think they do not handle it correctly.

[42bs]

I tried T-Tris and when I pull out the card, I can continue to play, only the samples are missing as these are "streamed" from card.

 

The driving-school card is working AFAICS. It uses also AUDIN for bank switching. But I did not test all of the 400 questions 🙂

[42bs]

Oh, I really hope they very soon add an option to change button mapping. The current one is horrible. IMHO A/B should be the horizontal and OPT1/OPT2 the vertical button.

[roots.genoa]

I wasn't sure I understood Karri properly but indeed, the Analogue Pocket doesn't dump carts, it's not like the 2600+ or the RetroN systems. That's the whole point of the FPGA, behaving the closest to the original hardware, even though there are necessarily differences (for starters because the RAM can't be recreated in the FPGA).

[+karri]

2 hours ago, roots.genoa said:

I wasn't sure I understood Karri properly but indeed, the Analogue Pocket doesn't dump carts, it's not like the 2600+ or the RetroN systems. That's the whole point of the FPGA, behaving the closest to the original hardware, even though there are necessarily differences (for starters because the RAM can't be recreated in the FPGA).

Sorry, my assumption was wrong. The eeprom works with the real cart while playing. The high score gets updated and you can reset the eeprom. So the cart is active while playing. My concern was becase Aga Cart was powered down as it could not provide a cart image fast enough.