The Atari 2600+ is live for preorders!

[Bakasama]

35 minutes ago, napabar said:

100% these are compatible.  I believe it was the Master system that was designed to be Atari compatible, and when Sega went to the Genesis, they designed it in a way for the controller to feature extra buttons, but be backward compatible with the Master system, which was designed with the Atari standard.

I recall the Genesis controllers can be plug in the 7800 too but might damage the system without an adapter due the voltage differences.

[protomank]

2 hours ago, Albert said:

I just tested Marble Craze, and it works fine. 

 

 ..Al

Man, I hope Amazon Brazil picks the Atari 2600+ for selling. This device is a beauty by itself, and then that Atari logo with lights on... amazing job into getting a classic design into a smaller form.

And thanks for the updates, as a software engineer, I know pretty well how transparency into product development is translçated into great products, because you catch some issues that might seem silly, way before and the consumer is much happier because of that.

[T.A.P.]

I'm really looking forward to getting mine and playing with it. I have a giant stack of carts I'm just waiting to play.

 

Have you had a chance to try the Halo 2600 game? Will that work on the 2600+?

[Albert]

Just now, T.A.P. said:

I'm really looking forward to getting mine and playing with it. I have a giant stack of carts I'm just waiting to play.

 

Have you had a chance to try the Halo 2600 game? Will that work on the 2600+?

It's a 4K game, it should work fine.  I will test it at some point, I plan on testing all AtariAge homebrew games, I just don't have a ton of time to do so right now. 

 

 ..Al

[napabar]

4 hours ago, Bakasama said:

I recall the Genesis controllers can be plug in the 7800 too but might damage the system without an adapter due the voltage differences.

The only gotcha I've ever heard of was with the Commodore 8-bits computers.  Apparently, it can fry a chip.

Edited September 27, 2023 by napabar

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

I am not going to lie, I personally LOVE the 2600+ is smaller, I know, I know many would have loved an exact replica but I appreciate not only having the classic styling and look in a new product while being somewhat smaller and more compact as I have several versions of the originals already so it will be easy for the 2600+ to stand out from those. 

[turbo graphics 220]

2 hours ago, napabar said:

The only gotcha I've ever heard of was with the Commodore 8-bits computers.  Apparently, it can fry a chip.

You can fry chips in the c64 just by touching the controller port pins and even just plugging and unplugging controllers in when its turned on.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

39 minutes ago, turbo graphics 220 said:

You can fry chips in the c64 just by touching the controller port pins and even just plugging and unplugging controllers in when its turned on.

IIRC there is a fuse to prevent this.

[+karri]

1 hour ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

IIRC there is a fuse to prevent this.

There may be a fuse but it will not help protecting pins from static spikes. ESD protection is usually built-in in modern chips. Typically the ESD protection is done by diodes protecting from over and undervoltage.
ESD Protection for the C64 Control Ports | hackup.net

[DhaemonX]

Anyone know if the Atari people here have tested Pitfall II since that compatibility list came out?

I want to buy it but unsure if it'll work with the 2600+ 😕

[Thomas Jentzsch]

18 minutes ago, DhaemonX said:

Anyone know if the Atari people here have tested Pitfall II since that compatibility list came out?

No need to ask. It cannot work.

[Ben from Plaion]

I'm testing some original carts today and came across some curiosities in the collection...Atari loaner carts exactly 40 years old

[DhaemonX]

22 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

No need to ask. It cannot work.

Well ain't that a kick in the gonads.

Any reason why they can't get it to work?

[+jgkspsx]

4 minutes ago, DhaemonX said:

Well ain't that a kick in the gonads.

Any reason why they can't get it to work?

It has been explained at least a hundred times in this very thread. The cart contains a microprocessor of its own that is needed to access the full game data.

[Ben from Plaion]

This cart works on a 2600+

[e1will]

1 hour ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

No need to ask. It cannot work.

Thomas, do you know if there a list someplace of the games (both old-school and homebrew) that have been released with dumper-incompatible components such as ARM code or DPC chips?

[Thomas Jentzsch]

7 minutes ago, e1will said:

Thomas, do you know if there a list someplace of the games (both old-school and homebrew) that have been released with dumper-incompatible components such as ARM code or DPC chips?

I don't think such a list exists. But I am sure, we could compile one. We "only" have to list all DPC(+) and CDF(J) games. And maybe a few others like Chetiry. If you browse through your games list using Stella's launcher, the game type (here CDF) will be displayed in the lower right.

Edited September 27, 2023 by Thomas Jentzsch

[DhaemonX]

1 hour ago, jgkspsx said:

It has been explained at least a hundred times in this very thread. The cart contains a microprocessor of its own that is needed to access the full game data.

Sorry, I did try the search function of this forum but the search results are all disjointed.

If anything that's for taking the time to at least let me know this. Saved me some $$$ since I won't be buying Pitfall II.

[DhaemonX]

Anyone know if the Star Raiders gamepad works with the 2600+ and plays the game correctly?

 

Note: I searched the forums and could not find an answer. 

Edited September 27, 2023 by DhaemonX

[ForceInfinity]

24 minutes ago, DhaemonX said:

Anyone know if the Star Raiders gamepad works with the 2600+ and plays the game correctly?

 

Note: I searched the forums and could not find an answer. 

Ben posted on this in a different thread.   I had to delete my initial response 

 

 

Edited September 27, 2023 by ForceInfinity
Responded initially based on 2600+ compatibility but then saw Ben from Plaion’s post indicating otherwise

[ForceInfinity]

On 9/25/2023 at 11:48 AM, Ben from Plaion said:

Tested it a couple of times with some sesame street edutainment games, didn't work. Developer said it's likely easy fix, I need to send him the keypad for him to look at.

I find this surprising because Basic Programming  and Star Raiders are both listed compatible.  Maybe we need clarification on what pass means on that list?

[Albert]

I will hunt down a Video Touch Pad or any keypad controller and verify whether it works in the 2600+.  Star Raiders was one of the few 2600 games I had as a kid (I practically begged for it for Christmas one year), so I'm eager to know if this combination works as well. 

 

 ..Al

[donjn]

Not to bring up Pitfall II again, but at this time, we know it does not work.

IS THERE EVER a chance it could work with the Atari 2600+, or is that impossible?

 

[Flojomojo]

4 minutes ago, donjn said:

Not to bring up Pitfall II again, but at this time, we know it does not work.

IS THERE EVER a chance it could work with the Atari 2600+, or is that impossible?

The 2600+ wouldn't be able to use the extra chips in the Pitfall II cartridge, since it works by simply dumping the files into a software emulator. There's no reason the emulator couldn't run Pitfall II directly, though -- so long as there's a way to get the ROM file into the emulator via USB or similar. 

 

Analogy: My Analogue Super NT, a FPGA system that simulates Super Nintendo, works a bit like this, but in reverse. I can run SuperFX cartridges like Doom and Star Fox from the cartridge since the system can access the extra hardware. But I can't run the ROMs from the SD card since it doesn't have the SuperFX chip to work from. This is why people want a real VCS-on-a-chip or an FPGA Atari, so the system can interact directly with the cartridge hardware, not just download the data. 

 

Short answer to your question: possible to fake it, but unlikely they'd implement a hack for one game. 

[donjn]

11 minutes ago, Flojomojo said:

The 2600+ wouldn't be able to use the extra chips in the Pitfall II cartridge, since it works by simply dumping the files into a software emulator. There's no reason the emulator couldn't run Pitfall II directly, though -- so long as there's a way to get the ROM file into the emulator via USB or similar. 

 

Analogy: My Analogue Super NT, a FPGA system that simulates Super Nintendo, works a bit like this, but in reverse. I can run SuperFX cartridges like Doom and Star Fox from the cartridge since the system can access the extra hardware. But I can't run the ROMs from the SD card since it doesn't have the SuperFX chip to work from. This is why people want a real VCS-on-a-chip or an FPGA Atari, so the system can interact directly with the cartridge hardware, not just download the data. 

 

Short answer to your question: possible to fake it, but unlikely they'd implement a hack for one game. 

If they implemented that, wouldn't that open up the way for multi-carts?
And if that is true, Pitfall 2 would end up becoming the one thing they have to sacrifice to keep multi-carts and downloadable roms away from this system.