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"Dragonfly" my version of the Atari 7800 SD cartridge


rj1307

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11 hours ago, Dauber said:

Just got my Dragonfly on Saturday...it's a pretty sleek little design and love it!

 

A couple of things, though:

 

1) Pac-Man Collection! XM Edition -- I can barely hear anything -- I have to turn my TV to max to get any kind of sound on it, and it doesn't sound any different from the TIA version (just barely audible). Is there any trick to getting the Yamaha sound to work on it? The two tracker demos sound perfect though.

 

2) Those of you in North America who need a power adapter -- this one works quite well for me: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06Y1LF8T5/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

 

I think I'm going to spring for the 5A version for the following reasons:

 

1) The one end of the cord is easily swappable with longer/shorter versions as needed (I've got a million of those PC power cables around with varying lengths).

2) It apparently will introduce less noise, i.e. it has noise filtering properties (I still use RF on my 7800).

3) I'm feeling a little fancy!  ;)

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0888DQ343/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_JNLbGb5JGHJAE?_encoding=UTF8&th=1

 

 

Edited by MattelAquarius
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I'm using a modified Triad adapter that I bought from Console5 like 2 years ago? I just cut the end and swapped the wires to reverse the polarity. As for the Pac-Man XM version, you are correct in that setting the trim pots seems to make zero difference including the YM trimmer. So I'm honestly not sure how Pac-man collection is operating or what exactly it is using? But I do know that once you set the RAM setting on the cart to Forced, that you no longer get the TIA audio in that game and it will show on the title screen as XM Enhanced. On my timmers, I had to set both of the pokey trimmers to the lowest setting as they were just too loud compared to the TIA audio from my console. But this can and will likely vary from console to console. I've done a lot of UAV upgrades on 7800s over the past 4 years now and even though I use 1% resistors in my installs for the audio section, I still find that pokey and TIA will have different volumes between each other. Most of the time the Pokey is still just a tad softer compared to the TIA but not by much. The DF cart is the exact opposite so that is why I mention the triim pots.

 

BTW, all the information I cover in that video can also be found in the DF manual. I bugged @rj1307 a bit in some PMs regarding these settings and honestly if I had just RTFM, I wouldn't have had to bug him about it.

 

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7 minutes ago, sramirez2008 said:

@-^CrossBow^- Great video.?

It is okay, there are some things I got wrong on this vid for sure. It was until i was adjusting the contrast brightness of the video for the menu screens that I then realized it can't be an OLED screen because it is using a backlit panel and OLED doesn't require backlighting. So it is just a really clear LCD screen. I was assuming (My fault on that.) it was OLED since RJ provides the option for some color choices on your display. I went with the White text on Blue as you see in the vid. 

 

And the most glaring omission in my vid is not even mentioning Mr. Jankowski to begin with as the creator of the DF cart!!! I made sure to add that in the vid descriptions, but most people don't look at those so... yeah there are issues with this vid. Thank you for watching it though and hopefully the rest of the information is useful to others looking to possibly get one for themselves.

 

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8 minutes ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

And the most glaring omission in my vid is not even mentioning Mr. Jankowski to begin with as the creator of the DF cart!!!

And don't worry about it at all :)
Dragonfly was not created for "fame" or to raise my prestige, but because I was pissed off because nothing was ready to buy. Neither CC2 nor Concerto were available. It was the same with AgaCart, I got bored of waiting for LynxSD forever.

 

Please clarify, because I do not fully understand: is there a problem with the Pokey volume setting?

 

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6 minutes ago, rj1307 said:

And don't worry about it at all :)
Dragonfly was not created for "fame" or to raise my prestige, but because I was pissed off because nothing was ready to buy. Neither CC2 nor Concerto were available. It was the same with AgaCart, I got bored of waiting for LynxSD forever.

 

Please clarify, because I do not fully understand: is there a problem with the Pokey volume setting?

 

The only issue I have with the Pokey volume was how load it was intially compared to TIA. Commando was the most obvious where I saw this since the music was way louder than the sound effects. I also could barely hear Popeyes foot steps or punches in that WIP also. Lowering the trimmers for both POKEY to min brings it more in balance. The FM started to distort on my console if I had it set too loud so I adjusted it to around 90% or so as I thought it was bit too low initially compared to other sounds.

 

But the issue we are touching on is that the trimmers seem to make no difference at all on Pac-man collection XM? Although it sounds fine on my setup but then I'm not using RF anymore for audio and have RCAs installed in dual mono for that on my personal 7800.

 

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If you run PMC_XM with the RAM function set to Force, the Yamaha module starts up and the YM potentiometer is adjusting properly. The PL and PR potentiometers will be inactive.
If you run PMC_XM normally, without RAM, no potentiometer will react because it is a TIA sound.
I have just checked it on unmodified PAL and NTSC consoles.

 

Referring to the previous entry, if you want to turn down the POKEY sounds even more, you can replace the 22k resistors with 47k:

volume.thumb.jpg.de907b9e6bc41ac1016ff5fab29dc9d0.jpg

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Well for the time being I'm quite happy with how everything sounds through my DF cart. I was going to suggest possibly using a different trimmer with larger values to adjust further but changing out those resistors would do the same.

 

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I think it was good to see the inner workings of the cart. It's also important to make note of the pots, but your walkthrough of the multiple settings via the configurations was great, especially the explanation for the "FORCE" RAM setting. 

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1 hour ago, 7800 said:

I skimmed over past posts and didn't see anything, but...

 

... is there a way to display the FULL file names, or file names without the header?

Not currently no. The SDcard is formatted to Fat32 and the initial file systems on the DF cart uses 8.3 naming format. So you will always see the .A78 extensions. However, when you have selected a file, the name that is programmed into the header will appear on the screen in full. I've already modified the headers on a few files for the music demos that have been provided so that I know what the song is being played vs just going off the small file name. I've also been renaming a few files here and there to better fit in the 8.3 structure so I know what they are instead of them showing up truncated like they would in an actual DOS OS environment.

 

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@-^CrossBow^-: watched the video last night.  Thanks for putting that together; despite the couple of things that you caught with it, it's still an excellent overview of the cartridge and its capabilities.

 

@rj1307: good job, it's a really nice piece of hardware :D  Although I'm a Concerto user at present, having options is a good thing and I may eventually add a Dragonfly to the arsenal at some point.

 

It's really great to see how much activity there is for the 7800.  For what was for the longest time a largely-unloved console, it sure seems to be attracting a lot of the right kind of attention these days :thumbsup:

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I'm working with @bhall408 on Argon, which is based on MAME for 7800 emulation.

 

I took @rj1307's `outrunjazzed.a78` and changed the cart type field to $41, which would normally indicate a second pokey at $4000. I modified `a78_rom_p450_pokey_device` so that it's actually at $440. We're panning $450 mostly right and $440 mostly left, and it sounds really nice (see attached file).

 

I wonder, is there a mechanism by which we can get the .a78 format extended to indicate that a cart expects to see a pokey at $440?

AcidJazzedStereo.aac

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21 minutes ago, ZihuaCode said:

 

I wonder, is there a mechanism by which we can get the .a78 format extended to indicate that a cart expects to see a pokey at $440?

AcidJazzedStereo.aac 2.65 MB · 0 downloads

There are threads about the cartridge header definitions in the 7800 Programming forum. @Trebor, @RevEng or @tep392 might have links or docs handy. 

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17 hours ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

Not currently no. The SDcard is formatted to Fat32 and the initial file systems on the DF cart uses 8.3 naming format. So you will always see the .A78 extensions. However, when you have selected a file, the name that is programmed into the header will appear on the screen in full. I've already modified the headers on a few files for the music demos that have been provided so that I know what the song is being played vs just going off the small file name. I've also been renaming a few files here and there to better fit in the 8.3 structure so I know what they are instead of them showing up truncated like they would in an actual DOS OS environment.

 

Yeah, I noticed selecting the file will show the complete name. However, when I select the file... it shows the name but also loads the game soon after. Is there a way to select the game to show the name... without the game loading? Maybe a setting to press select once to show the name, then press again to load it?

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2 hours ago, ZihuaCode said:

I wonder, is there a mechanism by which we can get the .a78 format extended to indicate that a cart expects to see a pokey at $440?

Since a78 is a bit of a pact between active homebrewers and emulator authors (and now flashcart creators) the usual protocol is to announce your extension in a78 header changes thread, ideally with an updated header example. If there's no pushback (there rarely is) then I'll update the header spec at 7800.8bitdev.org.

 

You can implement with bit 8 of the cart-type word at offset 53. (i.e. the low bit of 54) I think we also likely need to implement the next bit up as a flag for stand-alone YM2151 at $461/2. I'll put in the announcement when I get a sec, if you like.

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1 hour ago, Eagle said:

Another Dual Pokey Music for Dragonfly users.

This time Byzex (Zybex composed by Adam Gilmore) cover by @samurai vel tatqoo - this song is fantastic

This song is played 4 time per frame - 240 Hz

Almost no time left for Sally.

 

Be Amazed!

 

 

ByzexByTatqoo240Hz.a78 32.13 kB · 3 downloads

This is exceptionally good. It almost sounds like SID but a little softer which is nice.

 

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13 minutes ago, RevEng said:

You can implement with bit 8 of the cart-type word at offset 53. (i.e. the low bit of 54) I think we also likely need to implement the next bit up as a flag for stand-alone YM2151 at $461/2. I'll put in the announcement when I get a sec, if you like

MAME currently uses the value 1 and 2 (thus bits 0 and 1) of 53 to indicate A78_ACTIVISION and A78_ABSOLUTE.

Maybe we should use bits 2 and 3 for POKEY 440 and YM2151? Or perhaps leave that bottom nibble alone and use bits 6 and 7.

 

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19 minutes ago, ZihuaCode said:

MAME currently uses the value 1 and 2 (thus bits 0 and 1) of 53 to indicate A78_ACTIVISION and A78_ABSOLUTE.

Maybe we should use bits 2 and 3 for POKEY 440 and YM2151? Or perhaps leave that bottom nibble alone and use bits 6 and 7.

 

Yeah, you're right. It looks like that detail got missed in the docs somehow, likely because nobody has actively coded a homebrew in either of those formats. bits 2 and 3 it is.

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