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"Dragonfly" my version of the Atari 7800 SD cartridge


rj1307

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4 hours ago, DrVenkman said:

Guys, the point wasn’t the color accuracy (or lack thereof) for my crappy quick snapshot. The point was that the title screen code works on my NTSC machine. 

Oh I know. Just have to keep in mind that the OCD in me started to compare my output to yours and then that starts me down that rabbit hole that @Trebor has to keep pulling me out of in regards to the funky colors and hue shifts that are especially noticed from the 7800.

 

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1 minute ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

Oh I know. Just have to keep in mind that the OCD in me started to compare my output to yours and then that starts me down that rabbit hole that @Trebor has to keep pulling me out of in regards to the funky colors and hue shifts that are especially noticed from the 7800.

 

I get it. But a couple factors really skew the photo colors here: first, my iPhone XS has a really bad issue with weak reds, especially off a CRT. Second, I took the photo in “golden hour” evening conditions with the low afternoon/evening sun shining into the room. Third, the walls of my game room are a golden orange because this was my kids’ playroom for ~15 years and they loved the color. I’ve never gotten around to repainting it, just replaced their kid stuff with my own kid stuff, lol. So yeah, white balance is shot to hell and the pic was heavily edited on my phone before posting.

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On 4/21/2021 at 1:26 AM, killersquirel said:

I just got mine and tried it out today. Bentley Bear's Crystal Quest freezes on the menu. Does this happen for other people? What happened to the order thread? 

Okay, I saw this post yesterday and realized I don't think I had tried that one on my Dragonfly. So I fired it up tonight and it loads and runs fine, complete with POKEY music.

 

HOWEVER, and this is a bug report for @rj1307 when he's feeling better and can look into it: the game seems to ignore the difficulty switch settings; as folks may or may not know, the two switches actually matter for how BBCQ actually plays - they control the movement, jumping and firing button assignments, or whether UP on a stick or gamepad jumps. 

 

The same binary file I have on the SD card on my Concerto works as expected, but does NOT work with regard to the difficulty switch settings on my Dragonfly. I have a physical BBCQ cart as well, so I'm pretty broadly familiar with the game's controls and don't think this is user-error. :) FWIW, the binary I am using is from @Trebor's ProPack. 

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8 hours ago, DrVenkman said:

HOWEVER, and this is a bug report for @rj1307 when he's feeling better and can look into it: the game seems to ignore the difficulty switch settings; as folks may or may not know, the two switches actually matter for how BBCQ actually plays - they control the movement, jumping and firing button assignments, or whether UP on a stick or gamepad jumps. 

Dragonfly does not have any effect on things like the operation of the difficulty switches. I cannot imagine how I could block their operation?

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On 4/21/2021 at 11:09 AM, rj1307 said:

This is not true, no one is using the IRQ for YM yet. 

I've recently experimented with the YM IRQ and it works well. I was resampling VGM files but at 50/60Hz the main instruments weren't too bad but timing for percussion was out. So I used the YM IRQ and resampled at a higher frequency. Attached is the VGM for Shinobi playing at about 2kHz (you can change tracks by pressing the trigger).

shinobi.a78

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5 hours ago, rj1307 said:

Dragonfly does not have any effect on things like the operation of the difficulty switches. I cannot imagine how I could block their operation?

I’m sure that’s true. But the point is, when run from my Dragonfly last night using the .a78 binary referenced above, the difficulty switches don’t change the control scheme of BBCQ as they should. The same binary, run from Concerto, does. As to why? I don’t know. 

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2 minutes ago, DrVenkman said:

I’m sure that’s true. But the point is, when run from my Dragonfly last night using the .a78 binary referenced above, the difficulty switches don’t change the control scheme of BBCQ as they should. The same binary, run from Concerto, does. As to why? I don’t know. 

Did you power cycle the 7800 between switch changes? 

 

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Just now, -^CrossBow^- said:

Did you power cycle the 7800 between switch changes? 

 

 I don’t recall. I can try again tonight to be sure if I’m not too tired. Got the second dose of Pfizer this morning and might be pretty wiped out by then. :) 

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9 minutes ago, DrVenkman said:

 I don’t recall. I can try again tonight to be sure if I’m not too tired. Got the second dose of Pfizer this morning and might be pretty wiped out by then. :) 

I'm only asking because on my 7800, I know that when I was playing that game on my Mateos, I couldn't get the switch selections for the controls to work unless I turned the 7800 off/on. I can't recall if my actual Bentley cart requires this or not, but thought it was normal as I figured the game detected the switch selections on boot up and set the control method accordingly.

 

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On 4/21/2021 at 12:09 PM, rj1307 said:

This is not true, no one is using the IRQ for YM yet. 

 

1 hour ago, playsoft said:

I've recently experimented with the YM IRQ and it works well. I was resampling VGM files but at 50/60Hz the main instruments weren't too bad but timing for percussion was out. So I used the YM IRQ and resampled at a higher frequency. Attached is the VGM for Shinobi playing at about 2kHz (you can change tracks by pressing the trigger).

 

You quickly revised my assurance  :D 

 

For people who are unable to recreate Shinobi, I include audio samples, this is great! 

 

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7 hours ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

Did you power cycle the 7800 between switch changes? 

 

 

7 hours ago, DrVenkman said:

 I don’t recall. I can try again tonight to be sure if I’m not too tired. Got the second dose of Pfizer this morning and might be pretty wiped out by then. :) 

 

Okay, 8-1/2 hours after the second vaccine dose and I'm getting tired and draggy, but before I probably fall asleep at 8:00pm like the old man I am turning into, I ran a quick test: Jesse (@-^CrossBow^-) nailed it. Since I know the switches were set the way I like them on the real cart, which I confirmed first, I then swapped in Dragonfly and selected BBCQ from the menu, the powered up the system again. Now the controls work perfectly, just as I expected. 

 

The switches were set differently last night when I first tried the game and I must have switched them to my preferred configuration while the game was running, but never power-cycled the system in between. 

 

So, mystery solved!

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8 hours ago, killersquirel said:

I checked out the instructions, but don't see how you update the firmware. How do you update the firmware for the Dragonfly?

 

1) Turn off Dragonfly, and remove its SD card

2) Use a computer to copy the newest update (dragon.bin) file to the root folder of your Dragonfly's SD card

3) Insert SD card into Dragonfly and turn it on (you should see a brief message on the LCD screen saying "Bootloader")

4) You may confirm the installed version through the setup menu (Hold down ^v buttons while turning on Dragonfly, then scroll to "Software version")

5) Once confirmed, power off Dragonfly, remove SD card, and delete the "dragon.bin" file from the SD card

 

Keep an eye on this thread for future updates posted by rj1307.  I've linked his latest update post below:

 

 

 

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17 hours ago, MattelAquarius said:

 

1) Turn off Dragonfly, and remove its SD card

2) Use a computer to copy the newest update (dragon.bin) file to the root folder of your Dragonfly's SD card

3) Insert SD card into Dragonfly and turn it on (you should see a brief message on the LCD screen saying "Bootloader")

4) You may confirm the installed version through the setup menu (Hold down ^v buttons while turning on Dragonfly, then scroll to "Software version")

5) Once confirmed, power off Dragonfly, remove SD card, and delete the "dragon.bin" file from the SD card

 

Keep an eye on this thread for future updates posted by rj1307.  I've linked his latest update post below:

 

 

Thanks. I apparently did update the firmware and now I will check to see how I can see the logo.

 

 

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6 hours ago, killersquirel said:

Thanks. I apparently did update the firmware and now I will check to see how I can see the logo.

 

I only tried it a couple times myself (It looks great!).  To trigger it, I think you must have the Dragonfly powered on, without a game loaded into it, and then power up the 7800.  Since I'm unable to go test right now, hopefully someone will chime in with a clarification/correction to the steps.

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24 minutes ago, MattelAquarius said:

 

I only tried it a couple times myself (It looks great!).  To trigger it, I think you must have the Dragonfly powered on, without a game loaded into it, and then power up the 7800.  Since I'm unable to go test right now, hopefully someone will chime in with a clarification/correction to the steps.

That’s exactly correct.

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After turning on the cartridge and waiting for a while, you can turn on the console, the logo will appear. But remember to activate the logo in the Menu after updating to version 1.07, it is in the penultimate position (before "Developer"). 

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