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Do you think it was intentional on atari's part to make the cart slot tough to fit third party carts?


sirlynxalot

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I seem to have weird issues with a handful of carts when booting them up on my various 7800 systems.


In particular, one copy of Ballblazer will not start up (get these glitchy color bars when powering up) if I insert the game cart.
If I remove the PCB from the cart housing and stick just the bare PCB into the system, all is well.  Boots up on first try.
Other games sometimes require a few insertions to start up...Karateka and Super Huey most notably.  And then 90% of my library works fine on the first try.
 

It seems like the tolerances are super sensitive on the 7800.  In the case of the Ballblazer cart, it seems that even a millimeter can make a difference between booting or not booting.  The carts seem to act the same way on my various 7800 systems, so I don't believe it's a matter of carts or cart slots being dirty (I clean both regularly).  

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On 8/8/2022 at 9:40 PM, Jinks said:

I think it was intentional 3rd party carts were made to not fit the Atari. 

 

By the logic of the people of this world in 2022 that is true. 

 

 

Is it that much of a stretch?  Apparently Atari were pissed when groups like Activision and others started releasing their own unlicensed 2600 games and even engaged in litigation to try and bar third parties from doing so.  They certainly showed they had the motivation to do something like this to stub the toe of third party developers and perhaps incentivize customers to focus on buying 1st party atari games only.

 

 

Edited by sirlynxalot
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On 8/6/2022 at 1:00 AM, sirlynxalot said:

Imagic games just don't fit in the slot and some other third party carts don't either.  Do you think it was a deliberate design decision or just happenstance things worked out that way?

Having modded may 7800's the tightness of the slot varies from machine to machine. I suspect a lot of it was the molds getting old/worn and/or being less accurate. I often end up dremmeling the cups to make them more cart friendly.

5 hours ago, sirlynxalot said:

Here's another random question, can you play PAL games on an NTSC system without modification? 

Nope, the NTSC 7800 essentially locks them out. Thing is putting the PAL/NTSC bios in there that removes the lockout doesn't help much as where a few NTSC games work ok on PAL 7800's with a little bit of graphics corruption, the same isn't really true when it comes to running PAL games on an NTSC machine. Most of them simply don't work.

Edited by juansolo
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7 hours ago, juansolo said:

Having modded may 7800's the tightness of the slot varies from machine to machine. I suspect a lot of it was the molds getting old/worn and/or being less accurate. I often end up dremmeling the cups to make them more cart friendly.

Nope, the NTSC 7800 essentially locks them out. Thing is putting the PAL/NTSC bios in there that removes the lockout doesn't help much as where a few NTSC games work ok on PAL 7800's with a little bit of graphics corruption, the same isn't really true when it comes to running PAL games on an NTSC machine. Most of them simply don't work.

Another thing I've found on at least two 7800s that I've serviced. Was that the actual port itself seemed to be soldered too low to the PCB and as a result, it wasn't standing as tall as others. This would result in the PCB of a cartridge not making as much contact with the pins inside the cart slot as perhaps it would on another 7800. What I've done in those cases, was to desolder the port completely. And then stick it back into the vias on the PCB, attach the cart sleeve and then press the cart port to the top of the sleeve and then solder them back down. This makes the carts not have to seat as far into the slot and ensure they are making a much better connection with the fingers/pins/connectors inside the cartridge slot.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Was just thinking about this some more.  The carts I had the most problems with fitting in my 2600 were actually all Atari branded games.  All with the flap on them (rather than exposed PCB).  Always seemed like the flap just wouldn't want to open.  I'd kind of forgotten as they work so much better on my 7800.  It came back to mind though as the last AA order of mine was 2600 games and for whatever reason all of those are hard to fit on my 7800.  They will work, but it takes a fair amount of wiggling around each time to get them to catch just right.  Feels like the old 2600 issue back in the day, like the flaps just don't want to open.  Strange as I have other AA 2600 games from before and they're all still just fine.

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I have another question that doesn't really deserve a separate thread.

 

If I were to import a pal 7800 from Europe to the US, would the US ac adapter work with it and be an effective way to power it?  Additionally, would it be likely that the pal video signal (rf?) Could be picked up by my relatively modern US lcd tv that has no problem picking up the rf signal of my US 7800?

Edited by sirlynxalot
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1 hour ago, sirlynxalot said:

If I were to import a pal 7800 from Europe to the US, would the US ac adapter work with it and be an effective way to power it?

Yes.  However, someone with more familiarity than I with the inner workings of the PAL consoles would have to comment as to whether or not timings may be affected.  Some things don't care if they're running on 50Hz or 60Hz mains electricity; others do.

1 hour ago, sirlynxalot said:

Additionally, would it be likely that the pal video signal (rf?) Could be picked up by my relatively modern US lcd tv that has no problem picking up the rf signal of my US 7800?

Probably not, but maybe.  It really depends on the TV in question and there's no good way to answer that question in most cases unless you're the manufacturer.

 

What I can say is that the console will be outputting video on PAL UHF channel 36, which is not the same as North American UHF channel 36; your TV may not be able to lock on to the console's signal.  The bandwidth assigned to channels also differs between PAL and NTSC, and colour generation is different.

 

I have seen cheap LCD TVs that can handle PAL and NTSC (and probably SECAM as well), but it's not something that tends to be a touted feature.  That said, starting in about the mid-1990s VCRs capable of handling multistandard video conversion started appearing on the market - so if you can find one of those and the RF sections are still working, you could conceivably connect the 7800 to the VCR's antenna input, set that input to PAL, and set the RF output to NTSC at which point it feeds to your modern TV.

 

Make sure that any multistandard VCR you're looking at can actually handle broadcast format conversion, however.  I grew up with a Sony multistandard TV and Panasonic multistandard VCR that could play back anything - but if you wanted to watch an NTSC tape, both the VCR and TV had to be manually set to NTSC.  There was no conversion being done, just straight PAL-to-PAL, NTSC-to-NTSC, or SECAM-to-SECAM playback depending on how their respective switches were set.

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3 hours ago, x=usr(1536) said:

Yes.  However, someone with more familiarity than I with the inner workings of the PAL consoles would have to comment as to whether or not timings may be affected.  Some things don't care if they're running on 50Hz or 60Hz mains electricity; others do.

No problems with timings, it will work fine.

 

3 hours ago, x=usr(1536) said:

Probably not, but maybe.  It really depends on the TV in question and there's no good way to answer that question in most cases unless you're the manufacturer.

 

What I can say is that the console will be outputting video on PAL UHF channel 36, which is not the same as North American UHF channel 36; your TV may not be able to lock on to the console's signal.  The bandwidth assigned to channels also differs between PAL and NTSC, and colour generation is different.

 

I have seen cheap LCD TVs that can handle PAL and NTSC (and probably SECAM as well), but it's not something that tends to be a touted feature.  That said, starting in about the mid-1990s VCRs capable of handling multistandard video conversion started appearing on the market - so if you can find one of those and the RF sections are still working, you could conceivably connect the 7800 to the VCR's antenna input, set that input to PAL, and set the RF output to NTSC at which point it feeds to your modern TV.

 

Make sure that any multistandard VCR you're looking at can actually handle broadcast format conversion, however.  I grew up with a Sony multistandard TV and Panasonic multistandard VCR that could play back anything - but if you wanted to watch an NTSC tape, both the VCR and TV had to be manually set to NTSC.  There was no conversion being done, just straight PAL-to-PAL, NTSC-to-NTSC, or SECAM-to-SECAM playback depending on how their respective switches were set.

The frequencies they operate on are different. We have a set here in the UK that we can force to US frequencies and get some semblance of a picture from a US machine for testing. However it's super bad and it's black and white as the tuners are usually not multi-standard, where the TV might be on other inputs.

 

With VCRs and video cameras you might have more luck, the latter of which purely by their nature of being likely to be used in other countries. FWIW though you'll be taking the already terrible PAL 7800 output, standards converting it, then displaying it on an NTSC screen via RF... Chances of it looking even remotely reasonable are pretty low in all honesty.

 

Your best bet by far is modding the PAL machine for Composite or S-Video out. Now that will be PAL still, so you'll need a display that can deal with that, but you'll have better luck finding one that can, than one with a PAL compatible RF tuner.

Edited by juansolo
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I managed to find my TV's instruction manual and with respect to the antennae/coaxial cable area where I plug in my NTSC atari consoles via RF, it says the following:

"ANT/CABLE—Antenna input that supports analog (NTSC)

and digital (ATSC) off-air antenna signals and analog and
digital cable TV (QAM) signals."
 
So it seems unlikely that it would support PAL.  I was kinda hoping in this day and age of globalization and greater interconnectedness that Asian TV manufacturers (in my case Toshiba) would just make their sets compatible with both standards so that they wouldn't need to make two different products, but in any case, that's not an advertised feature for my set.
Edited by sirlynxalot
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32 minutes ago, sirlynxalot said:

So it seems unlikely that it would support PAL.  I was kinda hoping in this day and age of globalization and greater interconnectedness that Asian TV manufacturers (in my case Toshiba) would just make their sets compatible with both standards so that they wouldn't need to make two different products, but in any case, that's not an advertised feature for my set.

Just because it isn't listed or advertised to support it, doesn't mean that it won't. I had an old Insignia brand LCD that would work on both NTSC and PAL but it only state NTSC on the box and manual. Now, it did show the PAL games shifted down a bit on the screen, so sometimes the image was cut off a little, but it did provide a stable/color picture. That said, my Sony I use in the game room now is much newer than that older TV was, and it does NOT support PAL fully as it does give me a stable picture, but only in black and white. So honestly the only thing I can advise is that you don't know until you try it.

 

What you could do, is use a 2600 and a flash cart to try loading up one of the PAL demoscene... demos to see what you get from your TV.

 

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36 minutes ago, sirlynxalot said:
I was kinda hoping in this day and age of globalization and greater interconnectedness that Asian TV manufacturers (in my case Toshiba) would just make their sets compatible with both standards so that they wouldn't need to make two different products, but in any case, that's not an advertised feature for my set.

Which is pretty much exactly the case.  There's also the fact that use of RF as an input method (for consumer devices, anyway) is more or less dead, so it's not really a design priority when it comes to these things.

 

FWIW, it is possible that your TV does support multiple broadcast standards, but they have to be accessed and/or enabled through a diagnostic menu or similar.

 

Also, in keeping with what @juansolo said re: picture quality: modern analogue TV tuners tend to be crap.  We have three Samsung TVs here that range in age from 2 to 10 years old, and the progression of decline in analogue picture quality is very visible as you move from older to newer.  Other manufacturers have been reported to be similarly affected.

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11 minutes ago, x=usr(1536) said:

Which is pretty much exactly the case.  There's also the fact that use of RF as an input method (for consumer devices, anyway) is more or less dead, so it's not really a design priority when it comes to these things.

 

FWIW, it is possible that your TV does support multiple broadcast standards, but they have to be accessed and/or enabled through a diagnostic menu or similar.

 

Also, in keeping with what @juansolo said re: picture quality: modern analogue TV tuners tend to be crap.  We have three Samsung TVs here that range in age from 2 to 10 years old, and the progression of decline in analogue picture quality is very visible as you move from older to newer.  Other manufacturers have been reported to be similarly affected.

 

I'm pleasantly surprised with the quality of the RF on this TV. The TV is from around 2012 so things could have become much worse in that time.

 

I was messing around in the onscreen TV menu and while there was nothing labeled as such to switch from NTSC to PAL format, there were options to both automatically or manually try to tune in channels.  I've never done this so don't know if it would help at all with the PAL signal, but thought it was interesting.

 

 

Crossbow, good idea on the flash cart and testing a PAL game on a 2600, but I don't have one of those currently.  That reminds me, I do have a PAL dreamcast game that I could try, which I've always played with the in-game 60hz option - though if I switch it to 50hz for a test, it would be going in through standard RCA video cables rather than RF. If that setup works, it could suggest my TV has an unadvertised ability to support PAL in some instances... might try it out today.

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The only thing with running a PAL game on an NTSC console via a cart doesn't do is change the frequency that the RF modulator is operating on. That's likely to be the thing that you'll have the biggest problem with when plugging a PAL console into a US TV via RF. That only goes away with a Composite or S-Video mod, then you're just dealing with your set being multi-standard over those ports which is much more likely. But as Jesse says, that's still really hit and miss. I've got different models of the same era TV, a 14" and 21" Sony, that are and are not respectively. So a lot of it is trying and seeing.

 

There are two options (currently) open to you as I see it. Composite/S-Video mod a PAL console, plug in and see. You are much more likely of having a set that will work like this than over RF. Or use emulation for the very few PAL games that don't exist on NTSC. The PAL machine as I've said is a huge compromise in itself. Do not expect anything close to the NTSC machine in terms of picture quality from it. You can get close with our mods that address some of the fundamental flaws, but as standard it is significantly worse than an NTSC machine, and simply putting a UAV in there doesn't make it that much better. Put it this way, anyone getting into 7800s here I recommend to import an NTSC machine.

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Ah probably good advice. I didn't know the PAL console video output was substandard compared to the US machine even with a PAL tv.  I should probably just put the idea by the wayside, I was mainly attracted to the idea from a collecting original hardware standpoint, as some of the rare US games are like $100+ while PAL copies are like $20... but there's a lot of impracticality to getting a duplicate console and hunting down carts when I should probably really just get a flashcart or emulate on PC for purposes of actually playing the rare games 😅

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Oddly enough, I just checked my YouTube subscriptions and noticed that the following video had been posted only a few hours ago:

 

 

It tends to be a bit Nintendo-centric and mainly covers gameplay differences due to different mains voltage frequencies, but it does have a decent generic overview of what happens with NTSC machines in PAL territories and vice-versa.

 

One nitpick: he mentions a few times that Japan is a 60Hz country.  This is technically correct, but only for the Western half.  The Eastern half is 50Hz, but at the same output voltage (100V) as the rest of the country.

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This video actually better explains the differences not only between the PAL & NTSC regions but why half the world uses either 50Hz or 60Hz AC frequency, which does affect the console's clock speed to properly match the TV's refresh rate...

 

 

Overall, my rule of thumb is only play European (i.e. UK) developed games on PAL systems as NTSC games made in Japan & US aren't optimized for PAL systems.

 

 

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