The Atari 2600+ is live for preorders!

[Flojomojo]

They don't need to sell a million of these, just "enough" to have a cartridge-playing thing on the market. I don't know any kids who would find DIP switches interesting, but I hope those that do continue their interest in NASA and STEM. 

[hizzy]

The Pat video is interesting. Some of it is not accurate 100% but the gist of it is true - For the 2600+ to be appealing to some Atari fans it needs to be better and Atari needs to find workarounds for some of the challenges of making at Atari console in 2023. So, in short, it's better than an R77 but still needs work for it to be something really good.

 

I wouldn't have minded seeing the inclusion of a SD slot with an Atari branded SD card included

Edited September 12, 2023 by hizzy

[+5-11under]

In the least, they should use double-wide DIP switches. At least you can get a fingernail on them:

[Flojomojo]

4 minutes ago, Zoyous said:

True, but some of us older kids have kids of our own though! Mine takes an interest in older games from time to time. Although my kid definitely is focused more on Pokemon, Minecraft, and Roblox, we have played some 2600 games together.

That's cool. Just beware of overdoing it!

[donjn]

3 minutes ago, hizzy said:

So, in short, it's better than an R77 but still needs work for it to be something really good.

Technically no, it is not better than Retron 77 for what we know.

Visually? Absolutely! Visually, it is everything a lot of us want.

Personally, I want an Atari 2600 that has HDMI out, runs most games, and LOOKS like the original Atari. Yes, I tried the Flashbacks and don't like the performance.
As someone mentioned earlier, it’s a unicorn I am chasing as well, and hope someday the frustration ends.

 

But I am growing tired..

 

This looks like the Atari but won't run Activision games.

This runs Activision games but doesn't look like the Atari.
This does both but wont run multi-carts...arghh..

 

 

Edited September 12, 2023 by donjn

[+jgkspsx]

37 minutes ago, donjn said:

I just sometimes wish the Atari 5200 wasn’t the red-headed stepchild of the company.

Easily done! Build a time machine, travel back to 1982, and convince 30x as many people to buy it as actually bought it.

[LatchKeyKid]

13 hours ago, Albert said:

I just grabbed a bunch of 2600 homebrew games that I have built, including three PAL games and one PAL60 game.  They all ran.  This includes:

 

- Juno First (PAL60) (32K F4)

- Star Fire (PAL) (8K F8)

- L.E.M. (16K F6)

- Lady Bug (16K F6)

- 2005 Minigame Multicart (32K F4)

- AStar (PAL) (4K)

- Go Fish (PAL) (8K F8)

- Colony 7 Trak-Ball (32K F4)

- Drive! (4K)

- Cannonhead Clash (4K)

 

The PAL games all ran with the proper colors, which was nice to see. 

 

Here are a few photos.  Excuse the mess, we are in the middle of packing as we will be moving soonish.

 

 

 

 

Juno First is a PAL50 game, and it ran fine, but the colors were wrong.  Which makes sense, since it's basically an NTSC game with the wrong color pallet. 

 

 ..Al

Excellent and thanks!  It's good to see 32k f4 games working.

[Zoyous]

7 minutes ago, Flojomojo said:

That's cool. Just beware of overdoing it!

Yeah, I'm not like that.

[GraffitiTavern]

17 minutes ago, donjn said:

Kids don't play Atari 2600, us older kids do..
I mean, the bulk of the Atari 2600 retro customers are over 40 years old.

I'm getting one and I just turned 25, not even a huge retro gamer but I love gaming history and enjoy some real hardware coming out not made by the Big Three

[radiohead]

57 minutes ago, Zoyous said:

I think kids will find the DIP switches interesting. Hell, they're interesting to me and enhance the physicality of the cartridge experience (even if I understand that it's not really using the cartridge like the original system did). It'd be cool if they put a hidden game on there that you can find with some unlisted combination.

My sons are 25, 21, 19 and all have retro gaming systems (Sega Genesis, XBOX, PS2, GC) and buy used games. They also buy vinyl records, as well as the physical media of newer Switch games instead of DLC. I agree a new audience may appreciate the tactile-ness of handling carts and switches. But the (newer) 2600+ games need to be killer apps that that audience would respond to (like the 2600 version of HALO or RPG, side scrollers titles. Simple arcade shooters like Outlaw are not going to accomplish that.)

49 minutes ago, donjn said:

Kids don't play Atari 2600, us older kids do..
I mean, the bulk of the Atari 2600 retro customers are over 40 years old.

Getting out my reading glasses and tiny pliers to select a game (which, let's face it, they only did this because they don't want multi-cart menu systems to work so that they can sell you Outlaw for $60 and future Atari dip-switch combos) is downright ludicrous, but we will see.

 

True. I'm not looking forward to re-purchase pricey special edition editions to 40-year-old games. I've been quite spoiled by AtGames and the Stella PC emulator to play Pong or Asteroids roms easily and inexpensively via a menu library. But the tactile experience described above wasn't there. I'm hoping there will be a workable balance between these two sides. 

Edited September 12, 2023 by radiohead

[+littaum]

On the subject of why Atari hasn't tested more of the released games for the 2600+ console, one could suspiciously assume they're trying to hide something, but it can certainly boil down to not everyone scoured the thrift stores in the late 80's/early 90's and built up a Smaug-level Atari horde like some of us.  And companies can certainly change over time such that things and knowledge from even a decade prior are no longer available.  In the back of my mind I remember a similar situation happening with Activision's early entries into the "retro" market - most notably, the 2600 Action pack from the mid-90's for the PC.    And I was right!  There was an article in the 2600 Connection (issue 27 - reprints available here) about Activision in the mid 90's contacting Jerry Greiner and Tim Duarte about getting some of the Activision games and manuals to help with their compilation since they no longer had any of those materials.  So a company needing the assistance of the community to recover things that company themselves published is nothing new.

 

[+wongojack]

3 hours ago, donjn said:

Here is the YouTube video with Pat the NES Punk regarding the Atari 2600+.
I know we are still in the early stages but these guys you want on your side.
They are usually pretty reasonable (although sometimes overly harsh)...

 

 

I saw this but didn't watch it.  Pat is pretty harsh on Atari stuff usually.  Ian is more reasonable, but Pat will definitely never own or play this thing.

They do usually get the details right though.

 

Edit - I watched it.  They get most of the details right.  Could nit pick the facts about stella and the bank switching details, but their warning about the device seems spot on to me.

[roots.genoa]

3 hours ago, Flojomojo said:

They don't need to sell a million of these, just "enough" to have a cartridge-playing thing on the market. I don't know any kids who would find DIP switches interesting, but I hope those that do continue their interest in NASA and STEM. 

In retrogaming exhibitions, there are always a few young kids that are indeed intrigued with old stuff, even if it's kinda tedious to play. Some kids are just more curious, especially the ones who like to tinker with stuff. Not all of them spend their time on Tik Tok, thankfully. 🙂

[donjn]

I threw this together in Photoshop and more of what I would imagine a cool menu system would look like for Atari to sell multi-carts using a software menu rather than dip switches.

They could even do "Space" or "Sports" packs, etc.

 

This might be more hackable though, with a built-in software-driven menu system, people might be able add ROMs etc.
I suspect any system sold by Atari will do anything it can to avoid the use of downloading illegal ROMs, and obviously, the dip switch system is part of that.
Though not 100% related, this might be why there is no SD card either. Luckily for Atari, they can use the phrasing of "its more authentic" and gives you more of "that feel" by using dip switches when in reality I really think its more of a piracy measure. They do not want you Atari Flashbacking this thing..

 

Edited September 12, 2023 by donjn

[hizzy]

I don't think dip switches are a deal breaker. I want it to play Pitfall II and the best AA games!

[+jgkspsx]

I find the dip switches charming.

 

I really really hope it can play Pitfall II.

[DirtyHairy]

4 hours ago, jgkspsx said:

I find the dip switches charming.

 

I really really hope it can play Pitfall II.

Pitfall II cannot be dumped easily. The DPC contains sprite data in ROM, inaccessible via the VCS bus.

[DEANJIMMY]

On 9/12/2023 at 4:43 AM, Albert said:

I just grabbed a bunch of 2600 homebrew games that I have built, including three PAL games and one PAL60 game.  They all ran.  This includes:

 

- Juno First (PAL60) (32K F4)

- Star Fire (PAL) (8K F8)

- L.E.M. (16K F6)

- Lady Bug (16K F6)

- 2005 Minigame Multicart (32K F4)

- AStar (PAL) (4K)

- Go Fish (PAL) (8K F8)

- Colony 7 Trak-Ball (32K F4)

- Drive! (4K)

- Cannonhead Clash (4K)

 

The PAL games all ran with the proper colors, which was nice to see. 

 

Here are a few photos.  Excuse the mess, we are in the middle of packing as we will be moving soonish.

 

 

 

 

Juno First is a PAL50 game, and it ran fine, but the colors were wrong.  Which makes sense, since it's basically an NTSC game with the wrong color pallet. 

 

 ..Al

The explanation for the wrong Juno First colors, that PAL60 cartridges are NTSC with PAL color map makes sense.

So I will keep my 2600 Jr ready for play, as my PAL60 cartridgess will have wrong colors and some hombrew catrts might not work because of additional stuff on board?

 

My focus is on the 2600+ 7800 mode anway. I hope untested games like Commando (essential) and Midnight Mutants will finally get a P...

I have no 7800 NTSC HW and hope to finally get some NTSC games with correct colors working on the 2600+. If so, it will replace my modded PAL 7800 in the living room with the plus.

Hope more new games for the 7800 will be released. On the plus I won't have to ask my typial question, if it works on PAL with corect colors

 

Now to something completely different: Scanlines!

Does the 2600+ will have any scanline filters?

I love the Trinitron style output of my Retrotink5x, where my modded 2600/7800 consoles are currenly connected to.

I really think about an hdmi - rca converter to feed it to the retrotink5x, if no good scanline filters are available on the plus.

Sounds weird, I know

[+GoldLeader]

1 hour ago, DirtyHairy said:

Pitfall II cannot be dumped easily. The DPC contains sprite data in ROM, inaccessible via the VCS bus.

 

Having a custom chip in Pitfall II,  I'd assume once the ROM was dumped it doesn't go back to access anything in the cart.  Is this correct?  (I have no idea how any of this works so I'm just guessing...)

[+GoldLeader]

Throwing my 2 cents in,

 

Re: Dip Switches

 

I think they did it to save money, pure and simple.  That said,  I don't mind it.  It's an easy solution.  And it may depend on your collection, but I have a couple of carts with dip switches.  Esp.  a big 256 in 1 multicart,  from before I knew about Harmony.  It had lots of rare and different games...And lots of dip switches.  Came with a big list of games and how to set the switches to get them.  At first I was playing through stuff alphabetically,  then I got tired of being precise with the dip switches and began to just throw a few random switches and pop in the cart.  Random gaming at its finest!

[Thomas Jentzsch]

6 minutes ago, DEANJIMMY said:

So I will keep my 2600 Jr ready for play, as my PAL60 cartridgess will have wrong colors

Unless Atari offers an option to tell Stella, yes.

6 minutes ago, DEANJIMMY said:

and some hombrew catrts might not work because of additional stuff on board?

Right. At least for now.

[+batari]

2 hours ago, DirtyHairy said:

Pitfall II cannot be dumped easily. The DPC contains sprite data in ROM, inaccessible via the VCS bus.

The sprite data may be read from the VCS bus, though it has to be done using a fetcher. You set the pointers for one of the fetchers to the beginning of sprite data (I think that storing zeros to the "top" and "bottom" pointers should suffice?), then the entire 2k DPC ROM can be fully dumped by reading that fetcher 2048 times.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

12 hours ago, donjn said:

Effectively like Stella's launcher, just with sides reversed.  

[Crimson Cross]

On 9/11/2023 at 10:43 PM, Albert said:

I just grabbed a bunch of 2600 homebrew games that I have built, including three PAL games and one PAL60 game.  They all ran.  This includes:

 

- Juno First (PAL60) (32K F4)

- Star Fire (PAL) (8K F8)

- L.E.M. (16K F6)

- Lady Bug (16K F6)

- 2005 Minigame Multicart (32K F4)

- AStar (PAL) (4K)

- Go Fish (PAL) (8K F8)

- Colony 7 Trak-Ball (32K F4)

- Drive! (4K)

- Cannonhead Clash (4K)

 

The PAL games all ran with the proper colors, which was nice to see. 

 

Here are a few photos.  Excuse the mess, we are in the middle of packing as we will be moving soonish.

 

 

 

 

Juno First is a PAL50 game, and it ran fine, but the colors were wrong.  Which makes sense, since it's basically an NTSC game with the wrong color pallet. 

 

 ..Al

2005 Minigame & L.E.M. are on my radar and I ordered Drive with Backfire & Bee Ball, I look forward to seeing a list of homebrews work for the Atari 2600+...

[zzip]

22 hours ago, Flojomojo said:

That's cool. Just beware of overdoing it!

One of my kids has gotten bitten by the retrogame bug and has started hitting retrogame shops to collect physical media

 

Only thing...  for him "retro" means Wii/GBA era