The Atari 2600+ is live for preorders!

[Ben from Plaion]

On 11/2/2023 at 4:47 PM, protomank said:

Heu Ben, any chance of sharing the internals of this joystick?

I am curious on the pcb and the stick piece format.

 

Here you go

[Bakasama]

So the only part that is interchangeable between the models is the part that covers that joystick shaft.

Edited November 14, 2023 by Bakasama

[+mksmith]

Thanks @Ben from Plaion

 

Lots of failure points in the older joystick with the 'domes' eventually flatting out and the outer ring of the shaft breaking (I think you can see stress fractures on yours).

 

Looks like these might last a long time!

[+mksmith]

8 hours ago, karri said:

lol...

 

There is also the ProSystem emulator with tons of possibilities. I am currently thinking about making an Retro Adventure pack with 48k games. Thumbwheel selectable. The question is if there is access to a software Pokey for better bg music. Some nice bossa novas, perhaps...

 

Make sure you target $4000 for the pokey 👌

[Ben from Plaion]

8 minutes ago, Bakasama said:

So the only part that is interchangeable is the part that covers that joystick shaft.

Nothing is interchangeable.

[Dr Karnov]

I've never even used an original CX40. I've always only used 7800 joypads.

 

I'm looking forward to giving the CX40+ a whirl 

[Ben from Plaion]

5 minutes ago, mksmith said:

Thanks @Ben from Plaion

 

Lots of failure points in the older joystick with the 'domes' eventually flatting out and the outer ring of the shaft breaking (I think you can see stress fractures on yours).

 

Looks like these might last a long time!

Yes that design on the outer ring really surprised me, I mean it worked, I was fascinated by it. Think the shaft on the original was nylon which helped have bend on the joints around the ring

 

Saw a lot of flat domes.

[Ben from Plaion]

4 minutes ago, Dr Karnov said:

I've never even used an original CX40. I've always only used 7800 joypads.

 

I'm looking forward to giving the CX40+ a whirl 

Some games I prefered a Joystick, some a Joypad. 

 

Kind of laughing at you trying the Joystick and saying "Fuck is this all about"

[Thomas Jentzsch]

15 minutes ago, mksmith said:

Lots of failure points in the older joystick...

And I found them all back then!  

[Dr Karnov]

1 minute ago, Ben from Plaion said:

Some games I prefered a Joystick, some a Joypad. 

 

Kind of laughing at you trying the Joystick and saying "Fuck is this all about"

Luckily, I've still got 2 x 7800 pads so I can always just revert to them if I can't handle the stick.

 

What games are best suited to stick would you say?

[Ben from Plaion]

Ones where you constantly move in all 8 directions like Missile Command and Berzerk.

 

Then a platformer like Mr Run and Jump I prefered the Joypad.

 

Plus using the Joystick is quite an effort, The CX40+ is slightly lighter in the initial phase of the directional throw which imo made playing a touch easier - but remember I am wholley bias! Your milage may vary.

[Electric-Dreams]

1 hour ago, Ben from Plaion said:

 

Here you go

Alright! So this is a brand new design. Thanks for the video ! I can't wait to test it and see how it compares to my original CX40s upgraded with the Best Electronics CX40 Gold PCB. They will be difficult to beat 😇

[protomank]

1 hour ago, Ben from Plaion said:

Ones where you constantly move in all 8 directions like Missile Command and Berzerk.

 

Then a platformer like Mr Run and Jump I prefered the Joypad.

 

Plus using the Joystick is quite an effort, The CX40+ is slightly lighter in the initial phase of the directional throw which imo made playing a touch easier - but remember I am wholley bias! Your milage may vary.

First, thank you @Ben from Plaion, really nice to see the inner parts. It will be very durable with the ball being in the stick itself, much like the Mega Drive/Genesis d-pad. Rubber contacts is a bit trick, it depends much on the material quality, it can become stitch in a couple of weeks or last years. Lately is more of the last in my experience; for example only one button in my Dualshock 4 controller started getting stuck a bit after beating it very hard in Spiderman, but it took 8 years for that to happen, so not an issue. Of course, in an ideal world, I would make it using microswitches, but well, you can just hack the controller yourself to do that if you really want that 

 

About the d-pad vs stick, I do agree; playing some games with a d-pad almost feels like cheating, it makes them too easy; and some like HERO were really made taking in account the stick for movement acceleration, so it just feels better with it.

[Ben from Plaion]

7 minutes ago, protomank said:

First, thank you @Ben from Plaion, really nice to see the inner parts. It will be very durable with the ball being in the stick itself, much like the Mega Drive/Genesis d-pad. Rubber contacts is a bit trick, it depends much on the material quality, it can become stitch in a couple of weeks or last years. Lately is more of the last in my experience; for example only one button in my Dualshock 4 controller started getting stuck a bit after beating it very hard in Spiderman, but it took 8 years for that to happen, so not an issue. Of course, in an ideal world, I would make it using microswitches, but well, you can just hack the controller yourself to do that if you really want that 

 

About the d-pad vs stick, I do agree; playing some games with a d-pad almost feels like cheating, it makes them too easy; and some like HERO were really made taking in account the stick for movement acceleration, so it just feels better with it.

Thing is with microswitches, and it was discussed, you end up with a hard stop, no gradually rising squidgy resistance at the end of the directional action, it then feels too alien compared to the original joysticks action.

 

Of course it's possible to engineer some kind of rubber or silicone stopper alongside the microswitches, but that adds further time, complication and cost.

[+Defender_2600]

3 hours ago, Ben from Plaion said:

Yes that design on the outer ring really surprised me, I mean it worked, I was fascinated by it. Think the shaft on the original was nylon which helped have bend on the joints around the ring

 

 

It was a design that I still find surprising today. If you have an 'original' one and in good condition, try using it playing Decathlon, as it warms up with movement it becomes more elastic and soft.

 

And we must not forget the chemical degradation, these were produced about forty years ago.

[Tavi]

2 hours ago, Ben from Plaion said:

Thing is with microswitches, and it was discussed, you end up with a hard stop, no gradually rising squidgy resistance at the end of the directional action, it then feels too alien compared to the original joysticks action.

 

Of course it's possible to engineer some kind of rubber or silicone stopper alongside the microswitches, but that adds further time, complication and cost.

Micro-switches are in my opinion and experience the most durable option though.

I am still using the exact same Quickshot and Wico micro-switch internal joysticks I used with my first 2600, around 40~ish years ago. I also guarantee young me was not gentle with them. The last few decades I clean the internals every few years and other then that they click along just as well as the first time I used them.

Cheaper is not always the better choice, as Hyperkin found out when their Retron joysticks started failing rather spectacularly after a few weeks of standard usage. Requiring a redesign and free warranty replacement for the failed joysticks.

Edited November 15, 2023 by Tavi

[MarcinJ]

2 hours ago, Defender_2600 said:

 

It was a design that I still find surprising today. If you have an 'original' one and in good condition, try using it playing Decathlon, as it warms up with movement it becomes more elastic and soft.

 

And we must not forget the chemical degradation, these were produced about forty years ago.

I remember playing Decathlon on the Commodore 64 by holding the base of the joystick and shaking it wildly left and right. It was an easier way to run faster. 😃

[John Stamos Mullet]

Any updates on shipping out of units? The original November shipping date is next week, and I just checked my pre-order and it still shows as “unfulfilled”.

 

 

[T.A.P.]

Amazon pushed my preorder to 11-25  

[+Defender_2600]

1 hour ago, MarcinJ said:

I remember playing Decathlon on the Commodore 64 by holding the base of the joystick and shaking it wildly left and right. It was an easier way to run faster. 😃

As a child I used to take my CX40 to a friend's house to play with the C64, as the CX40 was the only joystick model that hadn't broken.

 

To play Decathlon I rotated the CX40 90 degrees to the right so that the left/right directions became up/down.

[+karri]

9 hours ago, mksmith said:

Make sure you target $4000 for the pokey 👌

I thought $4000 was for RAM and $450 for pokey.

 

The best solution might be to dedicate $ff00 - $ff79 to contain the relevant bits of the A78 header starting from the bytes defining the size of the ROMs and with the bits that describe POKEY, SRAM, paddles, joysticks etc. Then the emulator could look for the info from there and know how to do the mappings. You could have some MAGIC cookie at $ff00 telling the 2600+ that this info is available.

[Dr Karnov]

First unboxing I've seen of the normal retail release:

 

https://youtu.be/qopIQVQGLnA?feature=shared

[Dr Karnov]

I think the review embargo is lifted today, so I'm sure we'll see some more 2600+ content

[Ben from Plaion]

15 minutes ago, Dr Karnov said:

I think the review embargo is lifted today, so I'm sure we'll see some more 2600+ content

I saw this list this morning and it's huge. Big day today.

[+mksmith]

3 hours ago, karri said:

I thought $4000 was for RAM and $450 for pokey.

 

The best solution might be to dedicate $ff00 - $ff79 to contain the relevant bits of the A78 header starting from the bytes defining the size of the ROMs and with the bits that describe POKEY, SRAM, paddles, joysticks etc. Then the emulator could look for the info from there and know how to do the mappings. You could have some MAGIC cookie at $ff00 telling the 2600+ that this info is available.

Modern homebrew yes but original retail games or early homebrew with pokey is @ $4000. The prosystem emulator may not support it correctly.