The Atari 2600+ is live for preorders!

[TrogdarRobusto]

I can confirm what many of you are already seeing, that the next container of Atari 2600+ units has arrived at our warehouse and units will start shipping today. We expect for all outstanding orders made at Atari.com to be shipped by Friday.

Starting next week, all new orders should go out within 24 to 48 hours. Ideally we won't run out of stock again.

[Dalton]

I made a cartridge for one of my friends. The cartridge works perfectly with my Atari 2600+ and Junior, while on friend's 2600+ unit there are some issues, for example with Pitfall: https://youtu.be/R6XAbcDEF_A

It's NTSC version. You can hear clicking noise, like a helicopter.

Do you know what could be the reason of that? Is his "plus" faulty?

 

What is more, on my unit River Raid NTSC works smoothly, while on his unit it works like it was 15 FPS.

On the contrary, on my unit River Raid PAL is not smooth... 

 

[protomank]

1 hour ago, TrogdarRobusto said:

I can confirm what many of you are already seeing, that the next container of Atari 2600+ units has arrived at our warehouse and units will start shipping today. We expect for all outstanding orders made at Atari.com to be shipped by Friday.

Starting next week, all new orders should go out within 24 to 48 hours. Ideally we won't run out of stock again.

Patiently waiting for the day the plus comes to Brazil

[Bitsized]

12 hours ago, TrogdarRobusto said:

I can confirm what many of you are already seeing, that the next container of Atari 2600+ units has arrived at our warehouse and units will start shipping today. We expect for all outstanding orders made at Atari.com to be shipped by Friday.

Starting next week, all new orders should go out within 24 to 48 hours. Ideally we won't run out of stock again.

Wondering if this is the same for the Bezerk and Mr Run & Jump cartridges; my order (from amazon) still has not shipped and I recently informed amazon that I was still interested in the product despite the delay.  Any clarification on this?

[Bitsized]

12 hours ago, Dalton said:

I made a cartridge for one of my friends. The cartridge works perfectly with my Atari 2600+ and Junior, while on friend's 2600+ unit there are some issues, for example with Pitfall: https://youtu.be/R6XAbcDEF_A

It's NTSC version. You can hear clicking noise, like a helicopter.

Do you know what could be the reason of that? Is his "plus" faulty?

 

What is more, on my unit River Raid NTSC works smoothly, while on his unit it works like it was 15 FPS.

On the contrary, on my unit River Raid PAL is not smooth... 

 

My Activision copy of Pitfall (NTSC) also makes this noise.

Edited December 6, 2023 by Bitsized

[Dr Karnov]

12 hours ago, Dalton said:

I made a cartridge for one of my friends. The cartridge works perfectly with my Atari 2600+ and Junior, while on friend's 2600+ unit there are some issues, for example with Pitfall: https://youtu.be/R6XAbcDEF_A

It's NTSC version. You can hear clicking noise, like a helicopter.

Do you know what could be the reason of that? Is his "plus" faulty?

 

What is more, on my unit River Raid NTSC works smoothly, while on his unit it works like it was 15 FPS.

On the contrary, on my unit River Raid PAL is not smooth... 

 

In the next few days I am planning on posting some video on here comparing PAL River Raid running in 60hz on standard firmware compared to running in 50hz on a beta build of the new firmware, so people can see the difference 

Edited December 6, 2023 by Dr Karnov

[Dalton]

30 minutes ago, Bitsized said:

My activision copy of Pitfall also makes this noise.

The question is, what is the reason of that? It plays perfectly on my 2600+. I can understand that 60hz/50hz mismatch can cause some issues with video (River Raid), but how the audio in Pitfall can be affected?

[Ben from Plaion]

ITS FUNTIME !!!!!!!!!!

 

 

[JetSetIlly]

7 hours ago, Dalton said:

The question is, what is the reason of that? It plays perfectly on my 2600+. I can understand that 60hz/50hz mismatch can cause some issues with video (River Raid), but how the audio in Pitfall can be affected?

Pitfall is unusual in that the value it uses for silence is not "zero", but "four". The value I am referring to is the value in the AUDV0 and AUDV1 registers of the 2600.

 

There is nothing wrong with using a value other than zero to represent silence so long as the audio buffer is kept up to date. However, if the audio buffer runs out of data the audio device will begin to output a "zero" signal. It does this because it wants to output "silence", which as far as it's concerned, is represented by "zero".

 

What this means is that if the emulation is not keeping up with the required sample rate, the audio device is constantly outputting a continuous signal of "fours" and "zeros" in an a more-or-less alternating pattern. This causes the speaker to flutter, producing the "helicopter" sound heard in the video. When Pitfall Harry jumps, or some other sound effect is activated, the effect will disappear.

 

It's a bit weird and I only know of Pitfall that uses a non-zero value for silence, so you probably won't hear this audio effect with any other ROM.

Edited December 6, 2023 by JetSetIlly

[Thomas Jentzsch]

22 minutes ago, JetSetIlly said:

There is nothing wrong with using a value other than zero to represent silence so long as the audio buffer is kept up to date. However, if the audio buffer runs out of data the audio device will begin to output a "zero" signal. It does this because it wants to output "silence", which as far as it's concerned, is represented by "zero".

I wonder which audio setting the 2600+ is using. For the R77 we reduced the default.

 

@Ben from Plaion Do you know?

Edited December 6, 2023 by Thomas Jentzsch

[Dalton]

34 minutes ago, JetSetIlly said:

Pitfall is unusual in that the value it uses for silence is not "zero", but "four". The value I am referring to is the value in the AUDV0 and AUDV1 registers of the 2600.

 

There is nothing wrong with using a value other than zero to represent silence so long as the audio buffer is kept up to date. However, if the audio buffer runs out of data the audio device will begin to output a "zero" signal. It does this because it wants to output "silence", which as far as it's concerned, is represented by "zero".

 

What this means is that if the emulation is not keeping up with the required sample rate, the audio device is constantly outputting a continuous signal of "fours" and "zeros" in an a more-or-less alternating pattern. This causes the speaker to flutter, producing the "helicopter" sound heard in the video. When Pitfall Harry jumps, or some other sound effect is activated, the effect will disappear.

 

It's a bit weird and I only know of Pitfall that uses a non-zero value for silence, so you probably won't hear this audio effect with any other ROM.

Thank you for explanation!

However, why the problem occurs only on some Atari 2600+ units, and not on all of them? What it depends on?

 

The guy who has problem with Pitfall says that he has similar issues in HERO. 

[Ben from Plaion]

18 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

I wonder which audio setting the 2600+ is using. For the R77 we reduced the default.

 

@Ben from Plaion Do you know?

I'll ask.

[JetSetIlly]

1 minute ago, Dalton said:

Thank you for explanation!

However, why the problem occurs only on some Atari 2600+ units, and not on all of them? What it depends on?

 

The guy who has problem with Pitfall says that he has similar issues in HERO. 

 

I've just done some digging in HERO and it turns it that it also uses a non-zero value of silence but only once a game has been started.

 

Question: does the person who is having the problem hear the sound during the attract screen, or does he only hear it once a game has started?

 

[Dalton]

He says that he hears the sound as if the character was flying, while its not flying. So I assume it's once the game has started.

[JetSetIlly]

Just now, Dalton said:

He says that he hears the sound as if the character was flying, while its not flying. So I assume it's once the game has started.

Thanks. From the description it sounds like the problem I've described. But why it only affects some 2600+'s and not others, I have no idea.

[Brad_from_the_80s]

[SuperZapperRecharge]

5 hours ago, JetSetIlly said:

Pitfall is unusual in that the value it uses for silence is not "zero", but "four". The value I am referring to is the value in the AUDV0 and AUDV1 registers of the 2600.

 

There is nothing wrong with using a value other than zero to represent silence so long as the audio buffer is kept up to date. However, if the audio buffer runs out of data the audio device will begin to output a "zero" signal. It does this because it wants to output "silence", which as far as it's concerned, is represented by "zero".

 

What this means is that if the emulation is not keeping up with the required sample rate, the audio device is constantly outputting a continuous signal of "fours" and "zeros" in an a more-or-less alternating pattern. This causes the speaker to flutter, producing the "helicopter" sound heard in the video. When Pitfall Harry jumps, or some other sound effect is activated, the effect will disappear.

 

It's a bit weird and I only know of Pitfall that uses a non-zero value for silence, so you probably won't hear this audio effect with any other ROM.

David must have had to save a byte. There is no 6507 04 opcode so perhaps some graphics data.

[JetSetIlly]

7 hours ago, SuperZapperRecharge said:

David must have had to save a byte. There is no 6507 04 opcode so perhaps some graphics data.

I think it was a deliberate choice. The instruction at address f5f3 is an immediate load of the value 4. It's a value that is buried inside the program and it doesn't appear to be accessed by anything else.

[eCockpit89]

Waiting for my 2600+ to be delivered today...

[+LS650]

18 hours ago, Brad_from_the_80s said:

[Brad_from_the_80s]

12 minutes ago, ls650 said:

I see the resemblance, lol.  And here I thought I was just picking up coin and running away from some goldfish.

[pseudografx]

On 12/5/2023 at 7:09 PM, Thomas Jentzsch said:

That core is waaay outdated. Since then the emulation core has been changed completely.

I would understand if it drops a frame and then jumps by 2 frames. But it sometimes drops a frame, displays the dropped frame and then jumps by 2 frames.

That might be (and IMHO is) an issue with the video recording where the capture device (camera) does not run at the same framerate as the TV.

[Warboss Gegguz]

Mine finally arrived at Indianapolis.

Here's hoping I get it tomorrow.🥂

[Warboss Gegguz]

Columbus now.

[Dr Karnov]

PAL River Raid running on shipped firmware in 60hz:

 

 

Same cart, running in 50hz on beta firmware