The Atari 2600+ is live for preorders!

[Dionoid]

3 hours ago, Ben from Plaion said:

3 hours ago, zzip said:

Is it possible to side-load roms of carts that don't work via USB?

Sorry I dont know the answer to this, USBC port has only been used for power and firmware updates.

I really hope that the Atari 2600+ only plays actual cartridges and doesn't allow side-loading roms through USB-C.

To me, the whole point of the 2600+ is to insert a cartridge and then play the game on my HDMI TV.

Rom files I can already play using an Atari 2600 emulator on my PC, laptop, phone, smart TV ...and many other ways.

Edited September 21, 2023 by Dionoid

[+Defender_2600]

3 hours ago, donjn said:

I mean, why have color and black and white? Change that to scanlines off or on?

No in 2600 mode:

 

"The console switches are just generic inputs that can be read by the processor. It's the game that determines their function. And as time passed, and their original function wasn't needed anymore (on screen menus were used instead of difficulty and select switches, and B&W TVs were less common) they were often reused for other purposes, including pausing the game.

So they need to stay generic inputs that the emulated game can read. If they're removed or repurposed for something else, you'll break compatibility."

 

 

[Blinky]

Hi @Ben from Plaion Nice to see you here.

Anything you can share about the type of MCU used on the dumper and will the source code be available?

 

21 minutes ago, TrogdarRobusto said:

we will address the whole PAL compatibility topic

One more question for that. Will 50Hz PAL/SECAM games output HDMI @ 50 Hz ?

[donjn]

13 minutes ago, Dionoid said:

I really hope that the Atari 2600+ only plays actual cartridges and doesn't allow side-loading roms through USB-C.

To me, the whole point of the 2600+ is to insert a cartridge and then play the game on my HDMI TV.

Rom files I can already play using an Atari 2600 emulator on my PC, laptop, phone, smart TV ...and many other ways.

Yeah its this kind of attitude that drives me nuts.

Why take away options? Just because you might have all the carts does not mean everyone else has.

If you dont want to use a USB-C to load roms, dont do it. How does someone else using it affect you?

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

25 minutes ago, Dionoid said:

I really hope that the Atari 2600+ only plays actual cartridges and doesn't allow side-loading roms through USB-C.

To me, the whole point of the 2600+ is to insert a cartridge and then play the game on my HDMI TV.

Rom files I can already play using an Atari 2600 emulator on my PC, laptop, phone, smart TV ...and many other ways.

Agree with donjn here, ugh WHY? You don't want it to have a feature, an option that others might want that has absolutely no effect on what you want to do with it? That's just stupid. Options are never a BAD thing, your choice to make use of an option is up to you, oddly, amazingly maybe, it's not all about you. 🙄

[zzip]

27 minutes ago, donjn said:

Yeah its this kind of attitude that drives me nuts.

Why take away options? Just because you might have all the carts does not mean everyone else has.

If you dont want to use a USB-C to load roms, dont do it. How does someone else using it affect you?

I think it would be a pretty big deal if it couldn't play Pitfall II carts.    Being able to sideload the ROM is better than not being able to play the game at all.

[donjn]

4 minutes ago, zzip said:

I think it would be a pretty big deal if it couldn't play Pitfall II carts.    Being able to sideload the ROM is better than not being able to play the game at all.

I agree. I think the ability to side-load roms would make this one of the best pieces of retro hardware ever.

[BassGuitari]

2 hours ago, donjn said:

I can't think of one reason to have composite out. Old Atari’s do that already.

Not without modding, they don't.

 

2 hours ago, donjn said:

I’ve been waiting 40 years for a real Atari that does proper HDMI out. Let us have our day in the sun LOL

You were waiting for an HDMI-equipped Atari 2600 for 20 years before HDMI even existed? 😜

[donjn]

1 minute ago, BassGuitari said:

You were waiting for an HDMI-equipped Atari 2600 for 20 years before HDMI even existed? 😜

Not literally, but VGA, then HDMI, etc..
Basically what I meant was a way to play an Atari 2600 console on my computer monitor (whatever medium that might be) without resorting to using old hardware and cheap composite to HDMI devices that suck.

[Dionoid]

48 minutes ago, donjn said:

Yeah its this kind of attitude that drives me nuts.

Why take away options? Just because you might have all the carts does not mean everyone else has.

If you dont want to use a USB-C to load roms, dont do it. How does someone else using it affect you?

If Atari/Plaion would have chosen the design principle to allow the 2600+ to play both actual cartridges and rom files, I believe this would have harmed the quality of the end product. That's basically what happened to the Retron 77: because this machine also allowed to play rom files, Hyperkin didn't put much effort in the cartridge dumper, which turned out to be a gimmick.

Now Plaion is really putting effort in supporting (almost) all cartridges, which IMO is a good thing. So I'm happy Atari/Plaion isn't supporting rom side-loading.

Edited September 21, 2023 by Dionoid

[Dr Karnov]

There are so many ways to play ROMS already and so few ways to run games from cart.

 

In my opinion, this system lives or dies by its ability to play games accurately from real carts.

[donjn]

7 minutes ago, Dionoid said:

If Atari/Plaion would have chosen the design principle to allow the 2600+ to play both actual cartridges and rom files, I believe this would have harmed the quality of the end product. That's basically what happened to the Retron 77: because it also allowed to play rom files, Hyperkin didn't put much effort in the cartridge dumper, which turned out to be a gimmick.

Now Plaion is really putting effort in supporting (almost) all cartridges, which IMO is a good thing.

It's a bit "Jack of all trades, master on none" kind of thing IMO.

I get what you are saying but the Retron 77 is just not as "sexy" as the 2600+ at all. Not to mention this is being sold by Atari itself.
Even then, your opinion makes no sense. In what world do more options make things worse?

Are you saying the time they spent making sure side loading roms work would take development time away from making the cartridges work?

 

 

Edited September 21, 2023 by donjn

[donjn]

Just now, Dr Karnov said:

There are so many ways to play ROMS already and so few ways to run games from cart.

In my opinion, this system lives or dies by its ability to play games accurately from real carts.

No doubt, but if I want to play HERO on this thing I gotta go on Ebay and spend $30 or $40. Yes, a lot of games are $5 but there are also a lot that are over $20. Very old games, that might not work all the time.

Sticking these old, corrosion-filled games into a shiny new unit...How much testing have they done on that front?

 

[Dionoid]

42 minutes ago, donjn said:

In what world do more options make things worse?

Less options usually means the core functionality works better and is more robust. That's true for most products in this world IMO. And the core functionality of the Atari 2600+ is to play actual cartridges on HDMI TVs, according to Atari.

42 minutes ago, donjn said:

Are you saying the time they spent making sure side loading roms work would take development time away form making the cartridges work?

Yes, exactly. Not only time spent making, but also testing.

Anyway, this is probably a theoretical discussion, as I don't think rom side-loading will be supported in the Atari 2600+ release version.

Edited September 21, 2023 by Dionoid

[Dr Karnov]

1 minute ago, donjn said:

No doubt, but if I want to play HERO on this thing I gotta go on Ebay and spend $30 or $40. Yes, a lot of games are $5 but there are also a lot that are over $20. Very old games, that might not work all the time.

Sticking these old, corrosion-filled games into a shiny new unit...How much testing have they done on that front?

 

I hear what you're saying but MyArcade are about to release a ROM box for people who want to play that way. I figured that the 2600+ was geared towards people who wanted real cart functionality 

[MrBeefy]

Them allowing you to sideload ROMs would cut in on them selling you $30-$60 carts.

 

Obviously they are going to want to sell carts. While they don't own the IPs to say Activision games, people buying those on the secondary market net them $0.

 

I would not be surprised to see them try and license other multicarts  from companies. Atari now owns the M-Network games too. They would rather sell you a new cart of games, than you sideload them or find them at some gamestore.

 

I see no problem with sideloading, but I think it makes zero sense for Atari to do it if they intend to sell new carts.

[fluxit]

What would make me want to purchase a 2600+ is if Atari opened up the actual capabilities of the machine through the cart port.  Then 'reloaded' carts could include the original game, and say- flip that single dip switch to 1, and you get a modern version that isn't using emulation, with updated graphics and sound.

[Dionoid]

15 hours ago, Ben from Plaion said:

Hi @Ben from Plaion, did your team consider to support SB (SuperBanking) 128k-256k bankswitched games for the Atari 2600+? This would allow to play the cartridge 'Circus Convoy' by David Crane and Garry Kitchen from Audacity Games, and probably also future games by Audacity Games, like Dan Kitchen's 'Gold Rush'.

 

About SuperBanking: There are either 32 or 64 4K banks, accessible at hotspots $800 - $81F (32 banks) and $800 - $83F (64 banks).  All mirrors up to $FFF are also used ($900, $A00, ...). See https://github.com/stella-emu/stella/blob/master/src/emucore/CartSB.hxx

 

Edited September 22, 2023 by Dionoid

[Ben from Plaion]

16 hours ago, donjn said:

• Does the Hyperkin Ranger with the built-in paddle work?

   

 

I heard back this morning and it does work.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

50 minutes ago, Dionoid said:

About SuperBanking: There are either 32 or 64 4K banks, accessible at hotspots $800 - $81F (32 banks) and $800 - $83F (64 banks).  All mirrors up to $FFF are also used ($900, $A00, ...). See https://github.com/stella-emu/stella/blob/master/src/emucore/CartSB.hxx

@Ben from Plaion

I have the same question regarding EF(SC) (16 4K banks = 64K, hotspots at $1FE0..$1FEF, e.g. Grizzards, Robot Zed, Zippy the Porcupine, Space Taxi), DF(SC) (32 4K banks = 128K, hotspots at $1FC0..$1FDF, e.g. Penult) and BF(SC) (64 4K banks = 256K, hotspots at $1F80..$1FBF).

 

See:

https://github.com/stella-emu/stella/blob/master/src/emucore/CartEF.hxx

https://github.com/stella-emu/stella/blob/master/src/emucore/CartDF.hxx

https://github.com/stella-emu/stella/blob/master/src/emucore/CartBF.hxx

Edited September 22, 2023 by Thomas Jentzsch

[DEANJIMMY]

On 9/20/2023 at 7:57 PM, MASTER260 said:

Also, I guess the SD card port is good for games people sell as homebrew ROMs too, but, still.

As I run out of shelf space, for my C64 I buy new homebrew games as download only and load it from SD via Kungfuflash. So for old games an SD slot might support piracy for new games not much.

So loading new roms from SD card would be nice but the 7800 compatiblity is most important for me.

[Ben from Plaion]

14 hours ago, Defender_2600 said:

Hi @Ben from Plaion and @TrogdarRobusto,

 

I have some questions that have been partially discussed in the forum and for which official attention and answers would be greatly appreciated.

 

- Will the Atari 2600+ consoles sold in Europe be compatible with 2600 PAL50, PAL60 and NTSC cartridges? Or will European consoles only support 2600 PAL50 cartridges?

 

- Will the Atari 2600+ consoles sold in Europe be compatible with 7800 PAL50 and NTSC cartridges? Or will European consoles only support 7800 PAL50 cartridges?

 

- Will the new cartridges ("Berzerk Enhanced" and "Mr. Run and Jump") sold in Europe be PAL50, PAL60 or NTSC? Or will these new cartridges be region free, including both PAL50 + NTSC?

 

- Which emulator is used for the 7800? The 7800 developer and beta tester community would prefer "a7800" emulator to be used. It was forked from Dan's original Mame a7800 driver, and is nearly cycle accurate, allows for mid-scanline graphical changes, has faithful pokey emulation, ym2151 emulation, etc.

 

- The Atari 7800 has a pause button. With Atari 2600+, in 7800 mode, will it be possible to use the color/black-white switch as a pause button? See here and here for further information.

 

- Will the Atari 2600+ support 720p output? Thinking not only of those who own small diagonal LCD TVs (or in any case of older construction) but also those who have some fantastic CRT TV capable of 720p input.

 

- Will HDMI output produce a completely clear image? Since it looks like there will be no option to choose additional filters then I hope that no filters will be applied by default.

 

- I'd just like to share a thought, in case there will be a hardware update at some point. The Atari 2600+ with its cartridges has been compared to a turntable with its vinyl records, and that's romantically nostalgic. But if the turntable is defined as the "Analog" source par excellence then at the same time it is understandable that some people want an Atari 2600+ equipped with a _native_ analog video output (in addition to the HDMI output already provided). I know there are many "HDMI to Composite Converters" but they will produce additional latency compared to a _native_ analog video output. Since Retro-Bit and Hyperkin currently produce several consoles equipped with both HDMI and Composite output, then I assume that there is still significant demand for analog video output in this market.

 

Thank you very much for your answers and kind attention.

 

- Will the Atari 2600+ consoles sold in Europe be compatible with 2600 PAL50, PAL60 and NTSC cartridges? Or will European consoles only support 2600 PAL50 cartridges? The console sold in all territories is the same unit, it runs both PAL and NTSC 2600 cartridges.

 

- Will the Atari 2600+ consoles sold in Europe be compatible with 7800 PAL50 and NTSC cartridges? Or will European consoles only support 7800 PAL50 cartridges? Same answer as above - the console runs bath PAL and NTSC 7800 cartridges.

 

- Will the new cartridges ("Berzerk Enhanced" and "Mr. Run and Jump") sold in Europe be PAL50, PAL60 or NTSC? Or will these new cartridges be region free, including both PAL50 + NTSC? All 4 carts arriving with the Atari 2600+ are NTSC format.

 

- Which emulator is used for the 7800? The 7800 developer and beta tester community would prefer "a7800" emulator to be used. It was forked from Dan's original Mame a7800 driver, and is nearly cycle accurate, allows for mid-scanline graphical changes, has faithful pokey emulation, ym2151 emulation, etc. Prosystem 1.3. I was advised to use a7800 and we did try, but I dont beleive it was fully compatible with arm based chips like the Rockchip 3128 we use.

 

- The Atari 7800 has a pause button. With Atari 2600+, in 7800 mode, will it be possible to use the color/black-white switch as a pause button? See here and here for further information. I'll ask about this.

 

- Will the Atari 2600+ support 720p output? Thinking not only of those who own small diagonal LCD TVs (or in any case of older construction) but also those who have some fantastic CRT TV capable of 720p input. Default resolution of the console is 720p.

 

- Will HDMI output produce a completely clear image? Since it looks like there will be no option to choose additional filters then I hope that no filters will be applied by default. Its completely clear, bilinear filter is off and nothing else is applied. 

 

- I'd just like to share a thought, in case there will be a hardware update at some point. The Atari 2600+ with its cartridges has been compared to a turntable with its vinyl records, and that's romantically nostalgic. But if the turntable is defined as the "Analog" source par excellence then at the same time it is understandable that some people want an Atari 2600+ equipped with a _native_ analog video output (in addition to the HDMI output already provided). I know there are many "HDMI to Composite Converters" but they will produce additional latency compared to a _native_ analog video output. Since Retro-Bit and Hyperkin currently produce several consoles equipped with both HDMI and Composite output, then I assume that there is still significant demand for analog video output in this market. Yes, it would of been a nice to have but I didnt believe the benefit vs cost made it warrented. 

[Ben from Plaion]

59 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

@Ben from Plaion

I have the same question regarding EF(SC) (16 4K banks = 64K, hotspots at $1FE0..$1FEF, e.g. Grizzards, Robot Zed, Zippy the Porcupine, Space Taxi), DF(SC) (32 4K banks = 128K, hotspots at $1FC0..$1FDF, e.g. Penult) and BF(SC) (64 4K banks = 256K, hotspots at $1F80..$1FBF).

 

See:

https://github.com/stella-emu/stella/blob/master/src/emucore/CartEF.hxx

https://github.com/stella-emu/stella/blob/master/src/emucore/CartDF.hxx

https://github.com/stella-emu/stella/blob/master/src/emucore/CartBF.hxx

I'll ask about this. Most likely I will be asked to provide the carts to test / configure.

[Ben from Plaion]

1 hour ago, Dionoid said:

Hi @Ben from Plaion, did your team consider to support SB (SuperBanking) 128k-256k bankswitched games for the Atari 2600+? This would allow to play the cartridge 'Circus Convoy' by David Crane and Garry Kitchen from Audacity Games, and probably also future games by Audacity Games, like Dan Kitchen's 'Gold Rush'.

 

About SuperBanking: There are either 32 or 64 4K banks, accessible at hotspots $800 - $81F (32 banks) and $800 - $83F (64 banks).  All mirrors up to $FFF are also used ($900, $A00, ...). See https://github.com/stella-emu/stella/blob/master/src/emucore/CartSB.hxx

 

I'll get back to you.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

10 minutes ago, Ben from Plaion said:

I'll ask about this. Most likely I will be asked to provide the carts to test / configure.

I am sure Al can provide you with test cards. If no ROM images are available, Stella has test ROMs in his repository.