Brad_from_the_80s Posted January 14, 2023 Share Posted January 14, 2023 Greetings Atarians... As before, I have created a new CFW for the new AtGames Atari Flashback 50th Anniversary Edition. With an OTG cable and USB storage device this allows you to dump the /rom partition to USB and customize it with new roms and boxart as you like or possibly run a package like Nexus. It works the same was as before. The presence of "mount_sd.ini" file in the root of your USB storage device will trigger the dump and remapping of /rom to USB. The /emulator has been modified to use all-games.ini file located in /rom as before. FULL DISCLOSURE: This CFW is for the GOLD 50th Anniversary Edition. I do not have a non-Gold unit to dump firmware or test with. If you have a non-Gold unit then this CFW will probably just turn it into a Gold edition without the included paddles. However, as always, USE AT YOUR OWN RISK. I tested this briefly on my own AFB50 Gold, flashing the firmware and adding Pac-Man to the UI, and everything worked fine. But I have not tested any more than that as I still prefer my AFB9. The attachment includes the custom firmware image, the mount_sd.ini flag file, and a sample custom startup script that dumps the /emulator partition to USB and executes from there. There are a couple of curious new binaries in /emulator, which may have to do with APL support, but nothing to really worry about. Flashing process is the same as with the prior Flashback X (which this device is almost identical to). Place the "atari_update.img" file in the root of attached USB storage device and power on the unit to flash it, then delete the firmware file. Please refer to the earlier thread: NOTE: Like before, depending on the read/write speed of your USB device you may have to be patient on the initial dump, or delete any broken files and try again if you have issues. Smaller storage devices of only a few GB are preferable, as the unit may not be able to read very large thumb drives. Also of note and probably mentioned elsewhere, the basic support for a /Games folder for .a26 files on a USB device is supported by the new units right out of the box. Enjoy! AFB50_GOLD_AR3080_CFW.zip 8 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BIGHMW Posted January 17, 2023 Share Posted January 17, 2023 Will she work with ARM-based games like those that Champ Games has out (Galagon, Gorf Arcade, Qyx, etc.) or games like the awesome looking rubyQ??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rocketfan Posted February 6, 2023 Share Posted February 6, 2023 On 1/13/2023 at 10:04 PM, Brad_from_the_80s said: As before, I have created a new CFW for the new AtGames Atari Flashback 50th Anniversary Edition. Brad, thanks so much for creating this and making it available! I am a little near-sighted when it comes to looking around here and just noticed this tonight. LOL. Yes, if you apply your custom firmware to the Atari Flashback Gold 50th Anniversary, you can then boot with a thumb-drive with the Nexus build applied and play much more content. For example, I just played Atari 8-bit Shamus on my Flashback 50th Anniversary Gold. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hpo Posted February 6, 2023 Share Posted February 6, 2023 6 hours ago, rocketfan said: Brad, thanks so much for creating this and making it available! I am a little near-sighted when it comes to looking around here and just noticed this tonight. LOL. Yes, if you apply your custom firmware to the Atari Flashback Gold 50th Anniversary, you can then boot with a thumb-drive with the Nexus build applied and play much more content. For example, I just played Atari 8-bit Shamus on my Flashback 50th Anniversary Gold. Hi folks, thanx so much for your work! I'm a newbe and own a Atari Flashback Gold 50th. Also i've updated it with the new FW created by Brad. Can someone explain how i can play with an "Nexus build" and how can i find a nexus build ? And how do i know which Nexus build can i use to play? Sorry for all the questions and my bad english. I would be very happy if someone can explain me in easy steps how i can install the Nexus thing, where i can download it and so one... All the best, hpo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rocketfan Posted February 7, 2023 Share Posted February 7, 2023 15 hours ago, hpo said: Can someone explain how i can play with an "Nexus build" and how can i find a nexus build ? The Nexus build is just a set of files to copy to your thumb drive. Some of the details can be seen here: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hpo Posted February 7, 2023 Share Posted February 7, 2023 14 hours ago, rocketfan said: The Nexus build is just a set of files to copy to your thumb drive. Some of the details can be seen here: thanks rocketman...ok, so - a few more questions: Whats the difference between "Nexus pure 25 sep 2022" and "Nexus 1.5.1 slim" ? Do i only need to copy one of both on a sd-card and start booting the system? Many thanks in advance. Best, Hpo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rocketfan Posted February 8, 2023 Share Posted February 8, 2023 (edited) @hpo Nexus pure is strictly limited to Atari content. "Pure Atari". Nexus 1.5.1 Slim has the Atari content plus more - mainly 8 and 16 bit era content, but mostly (maybe 95%) are games that can be played reasonably with a single action button. It is called "Slim" because there was an earlier build with a bunch of non-game media on it that made the upload too huge to manage. Examples: The slim build has a port of the excellent platform game VVVVVV on it in the Ports section. Cheril Perils Classic by the Mojon Twins (Mario-like game) is in the SG-1000 section. However, if you are an Atari purist, or just have a much better way to play non-Atari games, you might consider the pure version. Either way, just download the .zip for the one you choose and unload it at the root of your flash drive. So at the root you will have /emulator /rom and so on. After you have applied the custom firmware update, yes it is as simple as booting with the thumb drive plugged in the splitter cable. I HIGHLY recommend a good quality brand thumb drive like Sandisk or similar. Edited February 8, 2023 by rocketfan 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chicane71 Posted February 8, 2023 Share Posted February 8, 2023 Hi all First of thx Brad, Draxxon, rocketfac etc for the efforts so far! I recently got the AFB50 "standard version" - AR3070 - here in Australia on discount for around AU$79 (separately I also have the AFB9 Gold and AFBX Standard and the original 2600 vader, slim, 7800 with few hundred carts etc). Am keen to "crossflash" the above CFW, has anyone done this in the past with the AFB50 or AFBX etc? (given the AFBX is very similar from a board level, did folks have any issues there?) Having the reset / recovery switch now being readily accessible on the bottom of the AFB50 is great! Can I backup the existing firmware and reflash that from stock or if it becomes bricked (noting ATGames don't have any on their website as yet..)? Curiously their paper instructions now mention downloading and using DriverAssistant_v4.8.zip and AndroidTool_Release_v2.69.zip along with the "Game" directory and .a26 files on the USB drive with Y-Cable Happy to experiment to help others out. Thx! 🙂 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+remowilliams Posted February 8, 2023 Share Posted February 8, 2023 Just flashed this to my AFB50Gold and grabbed the 2600 directory from the NexusPure release. Everything seems to be working great - thanks for the work and the releases! 🙂 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rocketfan Posted February 9, 2023 Share Posted February 9, 2023 @chicane71 Welcome to the discussion! My answer: It's not totally simple to back-up and re-flash the firmware, since AFAIK you need a firmware package to flash - not an individual partition backup. The firmware package has to be built to update one or more partitions. Brad's custom package will only update what is needed, not all of the partitions. I have not used the Windows tools in a long time, so not sure how to approach a firmware backup with them. I use something called rkflashkit in Linux. There is a write-up of using that in the link below if you have an Ubuntu system handy. Anyway, if you can make a backup of the partitions on your standard unit, then it would be easier to understand the differences between a standard and gold unit. Maybe there are no real differences at all except the roms included. If you made backups and provided them somehow, then the risk (or lack) could probably be known. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brad_from_the_80s Posted February 9, 2023 Author Share Posted February 9, 2023 (edited) On 2/5/2023 at 9:48 PM, rocketfan said: Brad, thanks so much for creating this and making it available! I am a little near-sighted when it comes to looking around here and just noticed this tonight. LOL. Yes, if you apply your custom firmware to the Atari Flashback Gold 50th Anniversary, you can then boot with a thumb-drive with the Nexus build applied and play much more content. For example, I just played Atari 8-bit Shamus on my Flashback 50th Anniversary Gold. No problem! There have been several downloads and I've heard no complaints, and good to hear the Nexus builds are working. On the firmware bit, there is no official firmware flash update from AtGames, and quite possibly never will be. I had to create a firmware image from scratch by extracting the partitions I was interested in changing. It's not quite rocket science, but a little bit involved when it comes to repacking and reassembling into a firmware image, and certain details you just have to know or know what to substitute. But to maybe just back up your full original firmware partitions you'd just have to use right tools. I think I used rkDumper to extract partitions, a privileged command-line tool which required a DriverAssistant downgrade to work properly, and then you can flash the partitions back without going the custom firmware route by using the Windows AndroidTool/RkDevTool. .... Theoretically. I've never done it this way. Do this at your own risk, etc. But the only partitions of interest and involved in the custom firmware are /emulator and /rom. Actually if you could just dump and send those to me from a standard unit I could probably make a non-Gold firmware. I would guess that the Gold and non-Gold units are exactly the same except for rom libraries and however they serialize these in software (if they even do, I can't recall now). But... we won't really know until somebody sacrifices their standard unit to apply this firmware, lol. I guess if I saw one real cheap somewhere I might try it myself, but not a priority for me. Although the hardware is very similar, there are a couple of years difference in the production runs and I would not try a 50th firmware on an AFB X or vice-versa. Edited February 9, 2023 by Brad_from_the_80s 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+remowilliams Posted February 9, 2023 Share Posted February 9, 2023 11 hours ago, Brad_from_the_80s said: On the firmware bit, there is no official firmware flash update from AtGames, and quite possibly never will be. I had to create a firmware image from scratch by extracting the partitions I was interested in changing. It's not quite rocket science, but a little bit involved when it comes to repacking and reassembling into a firmware image, and certain details you just have to know or know what to substitute. This reminds me of the first Community Build firmware I did for the Retron 77. Though they made it easier by providing their entire tool chain : ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chicane71 Posted February 15, 2023 Share Posted February 15, 2023 Hi all Thanks @Brad_from_the_80s, @rocketfan and others! Sorry for not getting back earlier, as I went down the rabbit hole of wanting to get a backup of the existing AFB50 device and trying to understand the 40+ pages of the AFBX CFW posts 😃 From that thread, from how I figure it a 2600 ROM packs e.g. ATARIv3.1.rar, themes, all-games.ini mods, evolved to 5200/800XL/7800/GBA/... and other customizations for CPU Overclocking etc which looks interesting. In short, was able to successfully flash the AFB50 Standard with the AFB50_GOLD_AR3080_CFW 😀 This converted it to the Gold Edition as suspected - with the extra 20 games (tested Barnstorming as an example) - total 130 games as below. Serial still has the 3070xxxx convention (so no checking there if it is 3080xxxx - which is the Gold from screenshots I've seen on YT reviews etc.) Note the differing f/w versions (similar to AFBX's) AR3070_V0.0.5 vs AR3080_V1.0.0 Curiously, the Space Invaders "new" (not the original 2600 one) menu item is blank and unplayable when the USB thumb drive is attached (using an older 4GB Toshiba) with the OTG cable, but once the drive is removed is appears and plays OK... Have tested with original Paddles with Kaboom (bit jumpy - will try and clean pots to see if helps), Driving (Indy 500) Keyboard controllers (Basic Programming and Kids "Sesame Street" ones), Star Raiders keypads etc - though from reading elsewhere may not be achievable. Will going with the alternate Stella versions in the Nexus f/w address these? Can / should I overclock it (not sure of base clock of the AFB50). Now need to go through the Nexus setup process... 🙂 Cheers and thanks! TL;DR - on how I backed up Was initially looking at the RKflashkit Linux GUI utility to back the partitions up. This included installing Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL2) with Ubuntu, etc but then fell over trying to get GNOME going, dependencies with Python3, systemd dependencies breaking WSL2 etc. Got too hard at this stage for me. But found a Windows utility called rkDumper (v.1.1.1.4) on xda-developers (https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/tool-rkdumper-utility-for-backup-firmware-of-rockchips-devices.2915363/). While it connected and saw the AFB50 in recovery mode OK, with the correct Hardware IDs (VID/PID being RK3066/PX2 2207:300a), however it had issues reading it at first. The thread suggested downloading the version of DriverAssitant [sic], had to revert from v5.0 to v4.3, then it read and then dumped successfully. Folks mentioned v4.8 supposedly has issues as well. First tried the command:rkdumper dump but it gave the message: Partition "data" skipped Then tried other various combinations, with one showing a message with it dumping the final partition: Partition "data" (0x0000e000) Filesystem file size is not equal partition size. However, I think the best one is I came up was this command: rkdumper /last /part dump rkDumper (version 1.1.1.4) Utility for Rockchip's firmware backup (c) RedScorpio, Moscow, 2014-2022 RedScorpio.lab@gmail.com updater version 1.0.1.0 Copyright c RedScorpio, 2022 RedScorpio.lab@gmail.com Name "rkdumper" log = True debug = True ask = False registry = ? No updates ==========================[ START ]========================== Detected OS: Windows 8 Pro [build 9200] x64 Real OS: Windows 10 Pro [build 19045] x64 -- Devices enumerating -- USB devices table (found 20 devices): 1 Device #0: USB Root Hub (ports: 4) 1.1 Device #1: USB Hub (ports: 4) <snip remainder of my USB device tree.. 🙂> 2.13 Device #19: USB Hub (ports: 2) VID = 0x0424, PID = 0x5742, REV = 0x9200 (USB 3.1) Found: LOADER device (RK3066/PX2 2207:300a) #15 --- Firmware dumping --- Found LOADER Rockchip device First 0x0010 NAND blocks reading "PARM" sign found (RKAF/RKFW FW dump) FlashInfo Manufacturer: Toshiba (0x01) Flash size: 128MB (0x00040000) Full size: 128MB (0x00040000) Block size: 128KB Page size: 2KB ECC bits: 16 Access time: 32 Flash CS: 0 (0x01) Configuration file for RKAndroidTool v.1.xx (8-bit) created Configuration file for RKAndroidTool v.2.xx (16-bit) created Partition "misc" (0x00000800) saved (format: Linux/Unix ELF64 file) Partition "recovery" (0x00005000) saved (format: Android boot image) Partition "boot" (0x00000800) saved (format: RockChip KRNL signed file) Partition "resource" (0x00000800) saved (format: Rockchip resources image file) Partition "kernel" (0x00005000) saved (format: RockChip KRNL signed file) Partition "rootfs" (0x0000a000) saved (format: SquashFS image) Partition "rom" (0x0000e000) saved (format: SquashFS image) Partition "emulator" (0x0000e000) saved (format: SquashFS image) Partition "data" (0x0000e000) saved (format: ext4 image) -- Rockchip device resetting -- Found LOADER Rockchip device Command to reset sent successfully Have kept both output extracts in case... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brad_from_the_80s Posted February 20, 2023 Author Share Posted February 20, 2023 Nice work and as expected. Well there's your answer. Enjoy! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rocketfan Posted February 27, 2023 Share Posted February 27, 2023 @chicane71 Thanks for the detailed information. Glad it worked as Brad had predicted. If you have a way to post the dump files to a google drive or similar, Maybe PM me a link I would like to store them off if ever needed. If not, no worries- since we know the custom firmware is working it's not a big deal either way. I would be interested in getting an "md5 checksum" on your resource partition from your standard unit if you can generate that - like 7-zip adds that to your Windows context menu IIRC. Just want to double-double check it is same as the Gold unit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cambam2221 Posted March 6, 2023 Share Posted March 6, 2023 what do i need to do to get rom_iv (intellivision) to work from the roms menu instead of the lfb folder? would rather have intellivision on the main page instead of in the legends folder I'm pretty sure it's a path problem but not positive Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cambam2221 Posted March 6, 2023 Share Posted March 6, 2023 Or if anybody had the intellivison flashback folder from the nexus 7.5 build? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chicane71 Posted March 6, 2023 Share Posted March 6, 2023 (edited) Hi @rocketfan thanks for that. I have taken two dumps - the one with the "full" partition dumps (1 MB / 10 MB) - is that what you were after? Have recovery as well - let me know if you need others... More than happy to upload them, is there a place I can u/l these to (PM me if you want)? Have tried the Nexus 1.5.1 Slim but seems to be a bit unstable (am a newb with it admittedly) in terms of lag when selecting games / menus and some freezing etc. (used a 4GB USB 2 Stick) needed a power shutdown. Any suggestions? Not necessarily after all the 3rd party consoles etc as could use a RPi4 for that - but something with the 2600 library etc with 3Dbox art, descriptions with all-games.ini etc. (7800 maybe a bonus). Cheers! Edited March 6, 2023 by chicane71 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rocketfan Posted March 8, 2023 Share Posted March 8, 2023 On 3/5/2023 at 7:53 PM, cambam2221 said: what do i need to do to get rom_iv (intellivision) to work from the roms menu instead of the lfb folder? What appears is determined by the all-games.ini file in each folder, which is just a text file. The ".goto" entries are a "fake" file type that triggers the reload at a different folder. So, edit the file in the lfb folder with your favorite text editor and look for the roms_iv entry, copy that and place it in the "main" all-games.ini contained in /rom. Then you also want to grab the artwork files for that entry (rom_iv.goto.png, rom_iv.goto.s.png) and copy them from the rom_lfb folder to the /rom folder. That should do it. While I'm at it, here is the entry so you don't have to copy it, just use this text and place in /rom/all-games.ini with appropriate space around it like the other entries: [Mattel IntelliVision] File=/rom/rom_iv.goto Platform=Utility Sort=Mattel Intellivision Year=2021 Genre=unclassified Description=The Intellivision is a home video game console released by Mattel Electronics in 1979. The name Intellivision is a portmanteau of "intelligent television". Development of the console began in 1977, the same year as the introduction of its main competitor, the Atari 2600. Note= \ Please do not turn off the system while restarting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rocketfan Posted March 8, 2023 Share Posted March 8, 2023 @chicane71 Thanks for the checksums! From the Gold anniversary unit dump of resource (I did in Linux) I get: sha256sum resource.backup b76ce35fb09c86be98503a1829755a93bd0aa809b4ed88ac3635721ecaf3cfdf resource.backup From the flashback X I get the same: sha256sum resource.backup b76ce35fb09c86be98503a1829755a93bd0aa809b4ed88ac3635721ecaf3cfdf resource.backup What this proves is the contents of the resource partitions on the three types of units are all identical. The resource partition is like the device tree and where the overclock changes were done. It makes feel just about certain the hardware has remained identical since the X, and gives me confidence the overclock firmware update from the Flashback X could be applied. I will try it and report back. On 3/6/2023 at 1:06 AM, chicane71 said: Have tried the Nexus 1.5.1 Slim but seems to be a bit unstable (am a newb with it admittedly) in terms of lag when selecting games / menus and some freezing etc. (used a 4GB USB 2 Stick) needed a power shutdown. Any suggestions? The thing that cured my instability problems was when I went from my grab-bag of older memory sticks (I had lots of old 4GB no-name sticks around) to good quality Sandisk sticks. No, I don't work for Sandisk, but they have been good for me, and are still pretty cheap these days! If you experience read errors, timeouts, etc. on these devices you will never see an obvious error message - since there is no real interface to provide it - something just won't work. That said, the Anniversary units are new territory, and maybe for some reason Nexus will not be as stable on those. If you only want Atari content for the device, it was done by another AtariAge user and is available as "Nexus Pure". Spoiler https://archive.org/details/nexus-pure-sep-25-2022 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cambam2221 Posted March 9, 2023 Share Posted March 9, 2023 @rocketfan I did that and it brings up the menu and artwork but when I select a game it goes to a black screen then loads to the intellivison menu again Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rocketfan Posted March 10, 2023 Share Posted March 10, 2023 @cambam2221 Not sure yet, but can you upload your /rom/all-games.ini here for me to take a look? Just attach it to a post. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cambam2221 Posted March 10, 2023 Share Posted March 10, 2023 @rocketfan ok here it is but I don't think that's the problem the "nes on a chip" actually start but no button control and the int. files just don't do anything. Just curious is the virtual number pad working for intellivison like it does for colecovision? all-games.ini Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rocketfan Posted March 11, 2023 Share Posted March 11, 2023 21 hours ago, cambam2221 said: I don't think that's the problem Yes, I agree - it looks fine, and as you say the correct menu appears. Also - yes, the virtual number pad works OK in Intellivision. You press start on your main joystick to bring it up. I just played a few Intellivision games to make sure it's working for me, which it is. Does it do the exact same if you go in through the Legends Flashback menu options? If so, I think one of your Intellivision folder or emulator folder are messed up. I suggest go back to your Nexus .rar file and unload those again. I mean unload /rom_iv and /emulator onto your thumb drive again to start fresh. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cambam2221 Posted March 14, 2023 Share Posted March 14, 2023 @rocketfan ok tried redownload and unzipped emulator and rom_iv and same thing int. Files don't work so I'm guessing there is something in the lfb folder right? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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