Concerto firmware thread

[+darryl1970]

Sorry if I should know this. I just saw that the firmware was updated to .95. Where do I download the latest firmware from?

 

Thanks!

[+Karl G]

3 minutes ago, darryl1970 said:

Sorry if I should know this. I just saw that the firmware was updated to .95. Where do I download the latest firmware from?

 

Thanks!

This post:

 

 

[+darryl1970]

6 minutes ago, Karl G said:

This post:

 

 

Thanks @Karl G. 

[+Trebor]

Unfortunately, some disappointing results with the newly arrived Concerto utilized under my AT84 serial console.  I tried four brand new SD cards:

 

-2GB Class 2 by Transcend

-4GB Class 4 by Gigastone

-16GB Class 4 by SanDisk

-32GB Class 10 by SanDisk

 

For each card, the cart starts up fine, menu navigation is flawless and Concerto either loads the ROM completely or almost completely.  After that, it's a bust.

 

My cart arrived with Firmware 0.95 already applied.  My OEM POKEY is not installed.  I've only tested two games among the four SD cards, but of course have the entire library loaded on the card.  Considering the result with the most basic 7816 cart type (Dig Dug), to a more robust 78SG (Ace of Aces), I haven't perceived the need to test much further yet under the same console.

 

 

 

I will be trying the same test on at least one A3 and one A1 serial console as well. However, I may not get to that until (much) later in the week(end).

[+Trebor]

For giggles, a few quick other tests keeping the 32GB Class 10 in play under the AT84 serial:

 

2600 Bowling:

Appears to loads fully to cart, thereafter, screen shows white and black rolling lines.

 

7800 Choplifter:

Freezes at 80% loading.

 

7800 Midnight Mutants:

Freezes at 90% loading.

[+mksmith]

Just now, Trebor said:

A few quick other tests keeping the 32GB Class 10 in play under the AT84 serial:

 

2600 Bowling:

Appears to loads fully to cart, thereafter, screen shows white and black rolling lines.

 

7800 Choplifter:

Freezes at 80% loading.

 

7800 Midnight Mutants:

Freezes at 90% loading.

Results sounding similar to mine Robert - menu is working perfectly for me also. Fred has mentioned he has a few things he is going to test on the loading side going forward ? 

[Mikebloke]

1 hour ago, mksmith said:

Results sounding similar to mine Robert - menu is working perfectly for me also. Fred has mentioned he has a few things he is going to test on the loading side going forward ? 

Yep, hoping this solves a lot of the issues some of us is having. Like you, menu in 0.95 seems to work near perfectly.

 

(Ps: I noticed you can read text files as well but I don't think you can leave it, or it freezes, not sure which!).

[+splendidnut]

I sent Fred my CPU that was found to be having issues with the Concerto (menu working, but games not loading at all).  Hopefully it will help him figure out some of these issues. 

[+DrVenkman]

Got my Concerto today (yay!), managed to open it and get POKEY installed (double-yay!) and inserted a brand-new-from-the-package Sandisk Ultra 32GB SD card. I left the card pre-formatted (FAT32) and merely copied Trebor's entire ProPack onto it, then created a second folder called "2600" for my Harmony Cart contents (except for my own collected roms of hacks and homebrews, all of my 2600 roms are from Rom Hunter's Collection at Atarimania).

 

I closed the cart, put it into my daily-driver 7800 and fired it up. Menu works flawlessly including navigating up and down directory trees.  Since I have an NTSC console, I used Trebor's most-recent pack (Retail 2.0) to test every NTSC rom. Nearly all work perfectly but there are some problem children:

 

Alien Brigade (both versions, joystick and lightgun) - loads, but when the title screen starts up, the alien hand never moves very far from the left edge before jumping back to the left off-screen and reappearing; there's a repeated percussive sound, much like Commando and Ikari Warriors (both of which work perfectly). The full title-page sequence never plays.

Realsports Baseball - freezes at "Loading: 90%"

Tank Command - freezes at "Loading: 80%"

Tower Toppler - freezes at "Loading: C0%"

Waterski - freezes at "Loading: 80%"

 

Perhaps those two Froggo titles that fail to load at the same point will help isolate what's going on there. I don't have either one of those carts, but I do have the 7800 Anniversary Multicart #2 that Perry (I think?) put together a few years ago; it has Waterski on it and works perfectly (for a terrible game, that is ). 

 

Most of the hacks and homebrews I've tried seem to work well; I tested the last public release of BBQC from Trebor's collection and as the title screen was playing, I started a game as normal (I own this one on cart, for comparison). Gameplay was fine but sound was almost inaudible; with the TV turned waaaay up, I could hear extremely low-volume notes from the music. I power-cycled the console, loaded the rom again, but this time let the theme music play for 10 seconds or so before starting a game. The second time, the music played normally.  Commando and Ballblazer both work (and sound great!) as does Beef Drop (with POKEY sound). 

 

I only tried a handful of 2600 titles but my results were very hit and miss (H.E.R.O. works, for instance, but neither Robot Tank nor Pitfall II work). Honestly, not too concerned about 2600 compatibility (I have a Harmony Cart already), and ~125 unique cartridge titles so it's not a big deal for me.

 

My daily driver 7800 is an A1 serial number machine with the expansion port; it has Sony SRAMs and the by-pass resistor discussed a week or so ago, and an NCR SALLY, date-coded week 6 of 1985. TIA is an AMI chip with a date code of week 7 of 1987.

 

I have a fully-socketed AT84 unit as well, but it's in storage. If it would help test compatibility, or to narrow down any issues, I can dig it next weekend and do some tests with it as well. I am also happy to run any tests from the 7800 diagnostics/utility rom as well.

 

This is the card I’m using, fresh from Amazon as of about a week ago and just opened tonight. 

[schnuth]

I sent Fred my CPU that was found to be having issues with the Concerto (menu working, but games not loading at all).  Hopefully it will help him figure out some of these issues.  [emoji4]

This has been my problem too. Hopefully he can figure it out.

[+darryl1970]

@batari,

 

I just tried to flash from .93 to .95.

 

I was able to connect my Concerto and download the EEPROM. I also copied the HBIOS to my SD cart.

 

Everything seemed fine. When I put my Concerto into my 7800 (the one that works consistently), it went to a black screen. It didn't even attempt to update.

 

I turned the power off, waited, and  re-powered. It looked like it was trying to go into 2600 mode.

 

I took it back to my PC, connected the cart, and the Harmony Programming Tool found the car just fine.

 

I tried to re-download the EEPROM, and I get an error:  Wrong answer on prepare command.

 

I am kind of stuck at this juncture.

 

--Darryl

 

 

UPDATE: I forgot to remove the POKEY chip!!!!!!

Edited January 5, 2021 by darryl1970
Figure it out...

[+darryl1970]

Tried "Download Bios" From the file menu. Got more detail:

 

 

EDIT: I forgot to remove the POKEY chip!!

Edited January 5, 2021 by darryl1970
Figured out

[+Mitch]

42 minutes ago, DrVenkman said:

 Nearly all work perfectly but there are some problem children:

 

Alien Brigade (both versions, joystick and lightgun) - loads, but when the title screen starts up, the alien hand never moves very far from the left edge before jumping back to the left off-screen and reappearing; there's a repeated percussive sound, much like Commando and Ikari Warriors (both of which work perfectly). The full title-page sequence never plays.

Realsports Baseball - freezes at "Loading: 90%"

Tank Command - freezes at "Loading: 80%"

Tower Toppler - freezes at "Loading: C0%"

Waterski - freezes at "Loading: 80%"

 

 

Did you notice that the last four games you listed are all 64K games? The only four that use Atari's 64K bank-switching method.

 

Mitch

[+DrVenkman]

25 minutes ago, Mitch said:

Did you notice that the last four games you listed are all 64K games? The only four that use Atari's 64K bank-switching method

I did not, but that's why I tested all the NTSC retail releases - I was hoping a smarter person than me might notice something.  

I have also found/noticed a few odd duck homebrews that don't seem to have sound - Bob D.'s Pac-Man 40th Anniversary Collection (formerly known as "Pac-Man Collection XM Enhanced"). Of course I don't have an XM or a Dragonfly cart + YM module, but I thought I'd at least get TIA sound, as I do in an emulator. Similarly, @Muddyfunster's Danger Zone NTSC demo has no sound for me. 

[Dauber]

4 minutes ago, DrVenkman said:

I have also found/noticed a few odd duck homebrews that don't seem to have sound - Bob D.'s Pac-Man 40th Anniversary Collection (formerly known as "Pac-Man Collection XM Enhanced"). Of course I don't have an XM or a Dragonfly cart + YM module, but I thought I'd at least get TIA sound, as I do in an emulator.

 

 

[+Muddyfunster]

18 minutes ago, DrVenkman said:

Danger Zone NTSC demo has no sound for me.

@DrVenkmanin game sound should be ok as that's pushed via TIA.

 

The title music doesn't work on Concerto as it uses Pokey mapped at $450. Concerto supports Pokey at $450 but not on 48K binaries and Danger Zone is 48K + Pokey. I think @batarihas that on his roadmap to add at some point. 

[Mikebloke]

7 hours ago, splendidnut said:

I sent Fred my CPU that was found to be having issues with the Concerto (menu working, but games not loading at all).  Hopefully it will help him figure out some of these issues. 

Thank you for your sacrifice! Hopefully Fred gets to the bottom of it all

[Dauber]

Btw, just from one removal via the flathead screwdriver method, my POKEY is about to lose a leg. Any way to avoid this???

[+DrVenkman]

I’ve removed, inserted, soldered and desoldered hundreds of IC’s and never broken a chip leg.  The key to removal from a socket is to use a very small flat-blade screwdriver. Slide the blade under one side and pry up gently to simply break surface friction and start to lift one end just a tiny bit.  Then do the same on the other side. Repeat a couple times as needed, alternating sides and going slowly and deliberately to avoid unduly bending any legs. If you do bend one, take some needle nose pliers and very gently and slowly bend the leg back into shape.  

[Swami]

1 hour ago, Dauber said:

Btw, just from one removal via the flathead screwdriver method, my POKEY is about to lose a leg. Any way to avoid this???

In addition to what dr venkman said, magnifying cheater glasses are helpful to make sure all the legs are lined up with socket holes when inserting back into the socket; Especially if your eyesight isn’t what it used to be when you got your last prescription. 

[John Stamos Mullet]

12 hours ago, Muddyfunster said:

@DrVenkmanin game sound should be ok as that's pushed via TIA.

 

The title music doesn't work on Concerto as it uses Pokey mapped at $450. Concerto supports Pokey at $450 but not on 48K binaries and Danger Zone is 48K + Pokey. I think @batarihas that on his roadmap to add at some point. 

On mine, it never gets to the game. The AA logo screen shows with the jet fly by, and then - nothing. buttons don't react, reset, select, nothing.

 

Is it supposed to go into the game on Concerto?

[+DrVenkman]

3 minutes ago, John Stamos Mullet said:

On mine, it never gets to the game. The AA logo screen shows with the jet fly by, and then - nothing. buttons don't react, reset, select, nothing.

 

Is it supposed to go into the game on Concerto?

The same thing happens for me with the Beta 4 version contained in Trebor’s ProPack. However, the last one posted in the Danger Zone WIP thread (RC 4, I think?) does load all the way. 

[John Stamos Mullet]

6 minutes ago, DrVenkman said:

The same thing happens for me with the Beta 4 version contained in Trebor’s ProPack. However, the last one posted in the Danger Zone WIP thread (RC 4, I think?) does load all the way. 

cool! thanks.

[+Muddyfunster]

13 minutes ago, DrVenkman said:

The same thing happens for me with the Beta 4 version contained in Trebor’s ProPack. However, the last one posted in the Danger Zone WIP thread (RC 4, I think?) does load all the way. 

The one in the Trebor pack is an older version, the RC4 in the Danger Zone thread is a much newer build (Dec 31st 2020)

[Dauber]

2 hours ago, DrVenkman said:

I’ve removed, inserted, soldered and desoldered hundreds of IC’s and never broken a chip leg.  The key to removal from a socket is to use a very small flat-blade screwdriver. Slide the blade under one side and pry up gently to simply break surface friction and start to lift one end just a tiny bit.  Then do the same on the other side. Repeat a couple times as needed, alternating sides and going slowly and deliberately to avoid unduly bending any legs. If you do bend one, take some needle nose pliers and very gently and slowly bend the leg back into shape.  

 

That's exactly what I do, and one of the pins is almost dangling by a thread.