BackBit Pro - 7800 + Pokey adapter now available for pre-order!!!

[+batari]

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

I'm looking at what's happened with the Concerto and am wondering about how much of a future it may have at this point.  Having choice in potential replacements is a Good Thing™, and, in my specific case, multi-system support would be a huge plus.  Sure, the up-front cost may be higher than the alternatives, but add a second adapter to the order and it's automatically cheaper than buying a second flashcart for another system.

I have been wanting to stay out of the drama in this thread, but now people are talking about me, so...

 

Concerto's design was finalized in 2014 and it was designed to play everything available at the time. But of course Concerto does have a flexible architecture so with good programming it can support some things it was not designed for. So if anyone is disappointed, they should be disappointed not in my product but in me for not figuring out how to add enough features, not being expedient at tracking down all of those corner cases the 7800 throws at you, and for not releasing as many firmware updates as expected. And I accept that criticism as life gets in the way sometimes, and I am not able to be as prolific as some of these rockstars like Evie!

Now that being said, I get that there are soon to be other options in the arena. So you ask, does Concerto have a future? So my answer is, of course it does! So I assume the questions on people's minds are whether Concerto will support certain titles? What can it do and what can't it do? Well, I am not going to use this thread as a soapbox for Concerto, this is about Evie's amazing work. So visit one of the pinned Concerto threads for info about that, as I should probably post a status report on various things in the next day or so.

 

 

 

[+Gemintronic]

Comparing the Concerto to Backbit is like comparing a swiss army knife to a steak knife.

 

When you want to eat steak a steak knife just works.   You get a swiss army knife because it does other things too.

 

So, I'll keep my steak knife.  Save up for a swiss army knife.  Collect adapter ends like pokemon.

[+x=usr(1536)]

4 hours ago, batari said:

I have been wanting to stay out of the drama in this thread, but now people are talking about me, so...

 

Concerto's design was finalized in 2014 and it was designed to play everything available at the time. But of course Concerto does have a flexible architecture so with good programming it can support some things it was not designed for. So if anyone is disappointed, they should be disappointed not in my product but in me for not figuring out how to add enough features, not being expedient at tracking down all of those corner cases the 7800 throws at you, and for not releasing as many firmware updates as expected. And I accept that criticism as life gets in the way sometimes, and I am not able to be as prolific as some of these rockstars like Evie!

Now that being said, I get that there are soon to be other options in the arena. So you ask, does Concerto have a future? So my answer is, of course it does! So I assume the questions on people's minds are whether Concerto will support certain titles? What can it do and what can't it do? Well, I am not going to use this thread as a soapbox for Concerto, this is about Evie's amazing work. So visit one of the pinned Concerto threads for info about that, as I should probably post a status report on various things in the next day or so.

Fred, I appreciate your reply and agree that this is not the place to get off-track with further replies in these topics.  I've started a new thread specifically to respond:

If anyone interested could please take this part of the discussion over there, it would be appreciated.

[evietron]

3 hours ago, Gemintronic said:

Comparing the Concerto to Backbit is like comparing a swiss army knife to a steak knife.

 

When you want to eat steak a steak knife just works.   You get a swiss army knife because it does other things too.

 

So, I'll keep my steak knife.  Save up for a swiss army knife.  Collect adapter ends like pokemon.

Yep, BackBit is definitely not a steak knife. I don't particularly care for steak actually, though I do enjoy a good hamburger.

 

As for the 7800, I've made a number of fixes just in the past few days:

- Faster startup & some stability fixes

- Can now be operated without the reset wire

- Improved POKEY accuracy, sounding great on Popeye for instance

 

Next I'll be working on supporting additional banking schemes for some of the modern homebrews.

[madmax_2069]

Great, all this talk about steak knives and steak is making me hungry for a steak now.....

 

I've had an eye on the Backbit Pro, I'm eventually going to be getting one, it's a very interesting flash cart that works on multiple systems, it's a job well done. 

[+-^CrossBow^-]

1 hour ago, evietron said:

Yep, BackBit is definitely not a steak knife. I don't particularly care for steak actually, though I do enjoy a good hamburger.

 

As for the 7800, I've made a number of fixes just in the past few days:

- Faster startup & some stability fixes

- Can now be operated without the reset wire

- Improved POKEY accuracy, sounding great on Popeye for instance

 

Next I'll be working on supporting additional banking schemes for some of the modern homebrews.

I've already replied to you on this in your forums as well, but wanted it to be known that if you have a modified BIOS such as the common built in Asteroids BIOS or the newer Kiloparsec BIOS that the reset wire is still required to use the adapter. Not sure what the difference is but it must be something with the detection routine? Additionally 2600 games still do not load up on either of the 7800s I have here with modified BIOS on them.

 

Pokey is much improved for sure! It seems it still doesn't work when using $810 and Milli and Molli is still coming up silent for me so I'm not sure how Pokey is setup for that game. Many of the pokey sound demos work now but might still have some screeching notes or out of tune notes whereas before they were silent or made faint clicks where audio should have been present.

 

Popeye and Keystone Koppers are sounding excellent though so thank you for the updates!

 

 

[+mksmith]

4 hours ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

Pokey is much improved for sure! It seems it still doesn't work when using $810 and Milli and Molli is still coming up silent for me so I'm not sure how Pokey is setup for that game. Many of the pokey sound demos work now but might still have some screeching notes or out of tune notes whereas before they were silent or made faint clicks where audio should have been present.

Millie & Molly has the pokey @ 450. Saying that the pokey detection code is now a couple of years old in the demo and Mike has made some changes to 7800basic which I need to update to.  The latest release of 7800basic has pushed my available space past the point of not being able to compile so I need to clean up some things to provide a newer version to try.  Once I can do that I'll put up a newer version here if that helps.

 

[+Muddyfunster]

4 hours ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

Keystone Koppers are sounding excellent though

Confirmed ! 

[+mksmith]

@evietron Hi Evie, here is an updated Millie & Molly demo with the pokey set to $450 rather than the manual detection of the earlier version.

millieandmolly_demo.78b.a78

[+-^CrossBow^-]

@evietron has been very busy this week and Backbit Pro FW 1.91 was released yesterday. The biggest changes are additional POKEY audio support and 7800 game support All the original 7800 released games are now playable on BBpro with only a few oddities I will note below:
- Fatal Run comes up to title screen and then seems to immediately start a game on its own within a second. Game plays okay but is also auto skipping the end of level scenes where you see people live or turn into grave markers. But it is at least playable now.
- Summer Games is fully playable but has thin flickering white horizontal lines during the opening ceremony screen. Rest of the game plays and looks correct.
- Tower Toppler Now loads up and plays but has the same flickering horizontal lines during the game play screen as Summer/Winter Games
- Winter Games has the same exact issue as Summer games with flickering thing white horizontal lines, but again only during the opening ceremony. Rest of the game looks and plays correctly.

On the subject of the Reset wire and 2600 games here is where it gets odd in the case of my main test 7800 unit here in the ITC Lab:

This 7800 is an A3 unit that had most of the chips soldered to the board but in its life it has had the TIA and CPU replaced. It has the Kiloparsec BIOS installed, Extra timing circuit disabled, and has a UAV installed but no longer has the RF Modulator.

 

First the reset wire requirement. Evie was able to remove the need for this extra wire to be installed a few FW revisions back. However, on my 7800s this wire is still required in order to get the BBPro to even boot and work properly. What happens is that without the reset wire attached, if I power on the 7800 with the BBPro in the cartridge port, then I will see the BBpro LED light up and stay lit. Once the 7800 logo loader has displayed, it then just takes me to Kiloparsec. So it seems the BBpro adapter isn't being seen as a game cartridge without the reset wire in place.

 

Now there is one situation where it is possible for me to start up the BBpro without the reset wire, but it requires me to have to remove the SDcard from the BBpro adapter and then power it on. What happens then is instead of Kiloparsec loading up, it will be black for a second or two and then bring up the BBpro screen stating the SDcard is missing and to insert it. I can then insert the SDcard and press a button on the controller where the SDcard is then read and shows the menu of games. If I make a selection, the 7800 will reset and back to Kiloparsec instead of loading the game I've selected. So while I can get the BBpro to at least come up and allow me to select games, it doesn't work for me without the reset wire still in place and connected.

 

Now on 2600 games, I get the exact same condition described in that if I choose a 2600 game, the 7800 resets itself and then I get the Kiloparsec game indicating again, that a game cartridge isn't being detected. But... If I remove the reset wire prior to selecting a 2600 game and then choose a 2600 game to play, the 2600 game will immediately come up and play. So in the case of 2600 games, the reset wire forcing a reset after game selection is what causes the 7800 to not come up in 2600 mode it seems. I've heard from others that the latest FW is working for them and they no longer require the reset wire to be attached. So I have to suspect the custom BIOS with built in games is part of the issue as both of my Kiloparsec 7800s do this as does another 7800 currently here for additional services that came with the modified NTSC BIOS that plays Asteroids without a game. In the case of that machine, it brings up Asteroids but otherwise behaves in the same manner with the BBpro adapter and requires the reset wire to be in place in order to work properly. At some point this weekend, to test this... I will revert my lab 7800 back to a stock BIOS and see how the BBpro behaves.

 

@mksmith Millie and Mollie does work but not all sound is being played I don't believe and the music is still a bit off on the main tune that plays. That is with the binary you posted above.

 

If anyone else has managed to receive one of these 7800 adapters for their BBpro I'd be curious to know what results you have in regards to the reset wire being needed or not?

 

Edited March 10, 2023 by -^CrossBow^-
Formatting edits...

[+mksmith]

13 hours ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

@mksmith Millie and Mollie does work but not all sound is being played I don't believe and the music is still a bit off on the main tune that plays. That is with the binary you posted above.

Thanks Jesse for testing 😄 Most of the music had issues playing in A7800 until Mike make some big upgrades last year to the pokey engine within it.  I can definitely understand this being really complex to get right!!  The other complexity might be that most of the music is copied into the 16k RAM and played back starting at address $5000 (length dependent on tune) as there is no space in the banks to play out of ROM.

[+-^CrossBow^-]

Another quick update on the current status of the BBpro 7800 adapter...

 

In short, if you have a custom BIOS installed like the built in Asteroids BIOS or the newer Kiloparsec BIOS, then the reset wire is still currently required and 2600 games will not load up without first disconnecting the reset wire from the cartridge in order for them to start up. I've now confirmed this by reverting one of my 7800s back to a stock BIOS and sure enough, the BBPro works pretty much as expected with a stock BIOS.

 

So the current status is for those with a stock NTSC BIOS, the BBpro 1.9.2 FW does NOT require the reset wire to be attached to operate it. But, without the wire the reset button on the BBPro will not work and you have to power cycle the 7800 to change games. This isn't really any different from current flash carts we have now so not a huge thing. 7800 games and 2600 games do come up and seem to work properly provided you still have a stock BIOS installed in your 7800 console.

 

I've provided videos to @evietron privately to show what is happening and to possible assist in seeing if this can be figured out in regards to custom BIOS use.

 

 

[turbo graphics 220]

I'll probably get one of these because of 7800 support but also for the coco 3, msx and Intellivision which can be pretty hard to find flash carts for. Being able to run software 100% is super important but some carts on the 7800 have 3 chips that all have to be simulated, yes new software is important as you will eventually get more new games than old games like what the c64 gets these days.

Does this use flash memory or sram because flash memory wears out every time you change a game.

I also live in Australia so I hope you can ship it there.

Anyway good work so far 😀

[+selgus]

On 3/12/2023 at 3:13 PM, -^CrossBow^- said:

In short, if you have a custom BIOS installed like the built in Asteroids BIOS or the newer Kiloparsec BIOS, then the reset wire is still currently required and 2600 games will not load up without first disconnecting the reset wire from the cartridge in order for them to start up. I've now confirmed this by reverting one of my 7800s back to a stock BIOS and sure enough, the BBPro works pretty much as expected with a stock BIOS.

 

What is the purpose of this reset wire and where does it connect to on the schematic? I would like to understand this and see if I need to make any modifications to my portable. Thanks!

[+-^CrossBow^-]

The reset wire attaches to a female dupont connector on the 7800adapter for the BBpro. The other end of the wire is clipped or soldered to pin 13 off the 4013 flip flop to trigger a power off/on reset of the system that is needed for the adapter to set the 7800 into known states for loading up the games.

 

But as of the latest firmware, provided you have a stock BIOS, the reset wire isn't really needed now. It will require power cycling the console if you want to change games though. There is a button on the BBPro cart to reset and take you back to the game menu, but I've only gotten this to work on the 7800 side of things with that reset wire still in place. It is a small trade off for now and I'm sure most folks would rather NOT have that reset wire required. 

 

Again, the reset wire isn't really required at this time with latest FW unless you are using a custom BIOS like the modified Asteroids built in BIOS or the one from Bob that has Kiloparsec built in. 

 

Does that help?

[+-^CrossBow^-]

1 hour ago, turbo graphics 220 said:

I'll probably get one of these because of 7800 support but also for the coco 3, msx and Intellivision which can be pretty hard to find flash carts for. Being able to run software 100% is super important but some carts on the 7800 have 3 chips that all have to be simulated, yes new software is important as you will eventually get more new games than old games like what the c64 gets these days.

Does this use flash memory or sram because flash memory wears out every time you change a game.

I also live in Australia so I hope you can ship it there.

Anyway good work so far 😀

You would need to direct questions like this to @evietron as she is the creator and developer behind the BackBit Pro and its various adapters I'm only an enthusiasts like most of us here.

 

While not everything for all systems is currently working through her different adapters, she does strive to first have full support of the original released library of games for the systems and then adds as warranted beyond that for additional supported stuff. So as an example her Intellivision adapter originally only worked with most of the original released games minus those that used extended RAM. She has added support for that and to the best of my knowledge all of the original releases for the Intellivision along with many of the homebrews are working minus those that use some other banking scheme not brought up or require something that she isn't able to emulate on the adapter.

 

In the case of the 7800 adapter, all of the original released games are working minus Tower Toppler that seems to have some quirks with controls. Several home brews I've tested worked such as Bentley Bear and a few others, but the more recent released home brews aren't at this time or might play with some graphical/audio issues still to be worked out.

 

[+selgus]

17 minutes ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

The reset wire attaches to a female dupont connector on the 7800adapter for the BBpro. The other end of the wire is clipped or soldered to pin 13 off the 4013 flip flop to trigger a power off/on reset of the system that is needed for the adapter to set the 7800 into known states for loading up the games.

 

Okay, so the signal from the BBpro is simulating the second stage of the flip-flop, to reset the different ICs. I'm curious what the modified BIOS does that requires this reset, that the stock BIOS doesn't. Guess I could look into that.

 

I replaced the flip-flop on my portable, with a mcp-130. So if I was looking to do the same, I would probably patch into the input of that supervisor IC.

 

But yes, that helps.. thanks!

[RevEng]

2 hours ago, selgus said:

 I'm curious what the modified BIOS does that requires this reset, that the stock BIOS doesn't. Guess I could look into that.

The stock NTSC bios doesn't appear to run before the BBpro menu appears - there's no fuji, and therefore no encryption signature check on the cart, and more importantly, no lock on the console mode. Leaving the console unlocked appears to be integral to the operation of the cart, and whatever BBpro is doing to avoid that lock just doesn't work on modified BIOSes. 🤷