The Atari 2600+ is live for preorders!

[Crimson Cross]

2 hours ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

Try the ROMs you are interested in in Stella and enable the info overlay (Alt+L). 2K, 4K, F8 and F6 are confirmed to work, others may follow. But e.g. DPC(+) and CDF(J) will most likely never work.

Thank you for the reply and info...

[Crimson Cross]

2 hours ago, Albert said:

Three of the games are 4K, one is 8K, and one is 32K. 
 

  ..Al

So with the confirmed 2k & 4k working the 4k games are on my early list to get and where will you put a compatible homebrew list here on the forum and will it be pinned?

Edited September 8, 2023 by Crimson Cross

[Spriggy]

3 hours ago, CPUWIZ said:

Discord is not safe either.

Ahhhh .. the one who knocks.  Hope your doing well boss!

But I digress .......

[LatchKeyKid]

3 hours ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

Try the ROMs you are interested in in Stella and enable the info overlay (Alt+L). 2K, 4K, F8 and F6 are confirmed to work, others may follow. But e.g. DPC(+) and CDF(J) will most likely never work.

Thanks.  I've seen f4 referred to as the "atari age board" so I assumed it came about only in the age of homebrew long after the commercial window of the original 2600.  Is that the case and would it not being an original release size/pattern factor into the lack of initial support?   I don't know if Albert/Atari Age own(ed) the format or if it was open or even if it was just called that since so much homebrew originates here.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

8 minutes ago, LatchKeyKid said:

Thanks.  I've seen f4 referred to as the "atari age board"

Never saw that. And it would be wrong anyway.  

8 minutes ago, LatchKeyKid said:

so I assumed it came about only in the age of homebrew long after the commercial window of the original 2600.  Is that the case and would it not being an original release size/pattern factor into the lack of initial support? 

Fatal Run was the only classic game which used F4. But it was sure developed by Atari back then.

[BigO]

Can someone help me understand why a software emulation of a game console could not directly interact with the cartridge during game play?

 

I mean, every cartridge dumper sets addresses on the address bus and reads data back from the data bus.

 

Is general purpose I/O too slow to set an address and read back the data  from the bus in real time (at physical 2600 speed)? If so, is it not possible or practical to memory map an old fashioned 5 volt prom/eprom/eeprom with modern hardware?

 

I once had thoughts of trying to modify an open source emulator to interact with a physical cartridge. I never took it any further than thinking it would be cool to have a cartridge slot in a PC drive bay. 

 

At first glance, I thought I'd buy a 2600+. But I can dump simpler cartridges and run emulators already. If I had one, I might be tempted to just transplant the guts of one of my Flashback 2's in for (I think) improved 2600 homebrew compatibility.

[LatchKeyKid]

1 hour ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

Never saw that. And it would be wrong anyway.  

Fatal Run was the only classic game which used F4. But it was sure developed by Atari back then.

Thanks again and I'm glad to hear it.  Hopefully it means that it'll be supported as well soon as most of the homebrew that I like seems to use that.  When I was first getting into the scene and looking up various terms, I found threads like this that called it "the atari age board" incorrectly...  assuming this F4 is the same thing!

 

 

[Thomas Jentzsch]

10 minutes ago, LatchKeyKid said:

Thanks again and I'm glad to hear it.  Hopefully it means that it'll be supported as well soon as most of the homebrew that I like seems to use that.

Are you sure they are using F4 and are not ARM based (DPC+ or CDF)? Earlier homebrews like Marble Craze, Strat-O-Gems and Medieval Mayhem use F4. But many of the more modern 32K games (e.g. from ChampGames) are using an ARM based cart.

10 minutes ago, LatchKeyKid said:

When I was first getting into the scene and looking up various terms, I found threads like this that called it "the atari age board" incorrectly...  assuming this F4 is the same thing!

If you read closely, there is only one person in the thread who calls it that way.

[Albert]

The reason it was called an AtariAge board is because these were produced by AtariAge, and at one point they were also available for sale in the AtariAge Store (something I plan on offering again).  So in that context, they were AtariAge boards.  Not that the F4 scheme was something AtariAge created.  Those same boards also support 8K (F8), 16K (F6), and 64K (EF) games, similar to the current board I use for those same bankswitching schemes.

 

 ..Al

[LatchKeyKid]

17 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

Are you sure they are using F4 and are not ARM based (DPC+ or CDF)? Earlier homebrews like Marble Craze, Strat-O-Gems and Medieval Mayhem use F4. But many of the more modern 32K games (e.g. from ChampGames) are using an ARM based cart.

If you read closely, there is only one person in the thread who calls it that way.

 

Assuming that Stella is reading them correctly, they're just F4 (or "F4*" specifically in case the asterisk matters) like with Princess Rescue and the Zuniga series of platformers.  I have other homebrews that I really enjoy that use DPC+ and SC but I was already excluding them as I don't assume they're supported due to the added hardware.  I *hope* that they eventually will be since it's using an emulator but I don't expect it right out of the gate.

Edited September 8, 2023 by LatchKeyKid

[LatchKeyKid]

5 minutes ago, Albert said:

The reason it was called an AtariAge board is because these were produced by AtariAge, and at one point they were also available for sale in the AtariAge Store (something I plan on offering again).  So in that context, they were AtariAge boards.  Not that the F4 scheme was something AtariAge created.  Those same boards also support 8K (F8), 16K (F6), and 64K (EF) games, similar to the current board I use for those same bankswitching schemes.

 

 ..Al

Thanks for the clarification.  The thread I linked was just the first I found with a quick search when writing the post but I'd seen them referred to that way elsewhere as well.

[+5-11under]

1 hour ago, BigO said:

Can someone help me understand why a software emulation of a game console could not directly interact with the cartridge during game play?

 

I mean, every cartridge dumper sets addresses on the address bus and reads data back from the data bus.

 

Is general purpose I/O too slow to set an address and read back the data  from the bus in real time (at physical 2600 speed)? If so, is it not possible or practical to memory map an old fashioned 5 volt prom/eprom/eeprom with modern hardware?

I think it could be done... ARM carts have the ability to send the data at fast enough speed... a (second?) processor should be able to read that data at fast enough speed. I'm not an expert on emulators, so I don't know how difficult that would be to implement with an existing emulator.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

25 minutes ago, LatchKeyKid said:

 

Assuming that Stella is reading them correctly, they're just F4 (or "F4*" specifically in case the asterisk matters) like with Princess Rescue and the Zuniga series of platformers.  I have other homebrews that I really enjoy that use DPC+ and SC but I was already excluding them as I don't assume they're supported due to the added hardware.  I *hope* that they eventually will be since it's using an emulator but I don't expect it right out of the gate.

Stella supports them all. The dumper in the 2600+ is the bottleneck.

[LatchKeyKid]

2 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

Stella supports them all. The dumper in the 2600+ is the bottleneck.

Is it confirmed that the 2600+ uses Stella?

[Thomas Jentzsch]

1 hour ago, BigO said:

Can someone help me understand why a software emulation of a game console could not directly interact with the cartridge during game play?

I think this might be possible. But I think this will require new emulators or a major rewrite of existing ones. The current emulators are build upon ROM images, which allow random, parallel and fast access of any address at any time. While the cartridge access is serial only for the current address.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Just now, LatchKeyKid said:

Is it confirmed that the 2600+ uses Stella?

Yes, latest version.

[JakMarcin]

Hi guys,
I have tried to follow the discussion but could not find the definitive answer. Will the Atari 2600+ with the C40+ joystick allow me to play games like Donkey Kong, Pole Position II or Mario Bros from the Atari 7800? All these games use only one button and the machine is supposed to be compatible with 7800 cartridges. 

 

 

By the way, just to give you my thoughts on the whole idea of the Atari 2600+. I think it is brilliant, it has an iconic look and it allows me to play alone or with my children the games I used to play in the arcades almost 40 years ago.   I don't want a Playstation 5 or Xbox because I don't have time to play games. I just want to play casually for up to 30 minutes from time to time. Being able to play games on my TV that I played as a child is something I will enjoy. 
When I saw the Lego Atari 2600+, I wanted to buy it at first (even though it cost more than 200 euros), but then I realised that I would not be able to play with it. Now I can put an iconic looking machine next to my TV, switch it on from time to time and play Dodge'em or hopefully Donkey Kong Jr. with my kids 🙂 The beauty of this is that there are no strings attached, no game passes, subscriptions, online codes. Just pure quick fun with the joystick. I am not sure in how far I am representative, but maybe there is more of us.  

[+jgkspsx]

43 minutes ago, JakMarcin said:

Will the Atari 2600+ with the C40+ joystick allow me to play games like Donkey Kong, Pole Position II or Mario Bros from the Atari 7800?

I don’t see why not. However, 7800-compatible gamepads are relatively cheap and really nice to use, and ProLine joysticks aren’t hard to find either.

[turbo graphics 220]

I was hoping it would have an extra button like the VCS has, it works really well there and a lot of the images hide the front.

I think if they manage this launch properly this could really get a lot of people back into atari and buying retro games again which is why I don't rag on it too much. Being able to sell real retro games in stores is one of the most impressive things a game company has done. I am far more excited to get Mr Run and Jump and Bezerk than if something like gta 6 was announced. At eb games the paddles sold out really quick but they got more so I was able to get before they sold out the 2nd time. Actually the system on the box does look far smaller than the real thing or even the videos if the joystick is used for scale so I think it will be far lighter than the real thing. I did preorder every game and a joystick. I was going to get a 2nd stick but I'll hold off and see if I'll get the system too, if you take the cost of the joystick and the cart out the system could be a good deal depending on how well done the shell is.

[tep392]

Any word if the 7800 emulation includes POKEY or Yamaha emulation to support homebrew carts that take advantage of those sound chips?

[+madman]

There's been a change of plans, folks. The 2600+ will no longer support 7800, it will support 5200 carts instead. Using the same cart slot. 

 

Yes, this is real and yes it's clearly a marketing mistake, but a big one IMO. 

 

[famicommander]

45 minutes ago, madman said:

There's been a change of plans, folks. The 2600+ will no longer support 7800, it will support 5200 carts instead. Using the same cart slot. 

 

Yes, this is real and yes it's clearly a marketing mistake, but a big one IMO. 

 

All that community knowledge they just bought already coming in handy!

[Defender_2600]

6 hours ago, JakMarcin said:

Hi guys,
I have tried to follow the discussion but could not find the definitive answer. Will the Atari 2600+ with the C40+ joystick allow me to play games like Donkey Kong, Pole Position II or Mario Bros from the Atari 7800? All these games use only one button and the machine is supposed to be compatible with 7800 cartridges. 

 

Game compatibility list:

 

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0609/3658/5381/files/Atari-2600Plus-Compatibility.pdf

[roots.genoa]

2 hours ago, madman said:

Yes, this is real and yes it's clearly a marketing mistake, but a big one IMO.

Also, these days, I would avoid the word "kickstart" in any communication regarding a retro system. 😅

[+madman]

4 minutes ago, roots.genoa said:

Also, these days, I would avoid the word "kickstart" in any communication regarding a retro system. 😅

I noticed that too.

 

If Atari is using a 3rd party marketing firm, fire them. Know your customers and know your competition, but more importantly, know your company. If Atari's marketing people think the 2600+ plays 5200 games they don't know their company. I await the backlash from the 2600+ fans who will say I'm overreacting to a simple mistake. This isn't hyperbole, it's just flat out wrong.