The Atari 2600+ is live for preorders!

[Hawkeye68]

According to this CNN review, Adventure and Yar's Revenge cannot be recommended due to "dangerous" flashing.

 

https://www.cnn.com/cnn-underscored/reviews/atari-2600-plus

 

We still enjoyed our childhood favorite Adventure’s lo-fi looks and sounds, and its small but satisfying puzzles. But Adventure and Yars’ Revenge use flashing, which can cause seizures, motion sickness and migraines. Even though we know these games are beloved, we can’t recommend them, not even with photosensitivity warnings.

 

Just comical.  I wonder where this killjoy was at when we were all buying strobe lights at Radio Shack and Spencer's.

Edited November 17, 2023 by Hawkeye68

[Chemical Burrito]

56 minutes ago, donjn said:

Its easy to say cleaver things like this to get likes but dont group one group in with the other.

I, nor anyone I knew ever complained about the CRT screens and their lines and blooming. 

 

Huh?  Some of us were videophiles even back in the old days.  It's not a problem if you weren't, though.  I do agree with the point being made earlier that deliberately distorting the display to put in lines where they don't exist is ... strange.

[Albert]

5 minutes ago, Hawkeye68 said:

According to this CNN review, Adventure and Yar's Revenge cannot be recommended due to "dangerous" flashing.

 

https://www.cnn.com/cnn-underscored/reviews/atari-2600-plus

 

We still enjoyed our childhood favorite Adventure’s lo-fi looks and sounds, and its small but satisfying puzzles. But Adventure and Yars’ Revenge use flashing, which can cause seizures, motion sickness and migraines. Even though we know these games are beloved, we can’t recommend them, not even with photosensitivity warnings.

 

Just comical.  I wonder where this killjoy was at when we were all buying strobe lights at Radio Shack and Spencer's.

That is so ridiculous. 

 

 ..Al

[+Neon Wraith]

14 minutes ago, Giles N said:

Take it easy guys - no need to panic (yet).

 

46 years from now, some geek will make for the 2600+ a Super 2600 AtariMax Multicart + which will run every original cart even more perfectly and make 98,5% of later homebrews (46 years of them!!) to work too…

 

Just sit back and relax folks… its coming…

You forgot to mention that it will serve you a beer as well.

[Chemical Burrito]

5 minutes ago, Hawkeye68 said:

According to this CNN review, Adventure and Yar's Revenge cannot be recommended due to "dangerous" flashing.

 

Just comical.  I wonder where this killjoy was at when we were all buying strobe lights at Radio Shack and Spencer's.

Just wait until this reviewer sees ... well, any game by Jeff Minter.

[donjn]

1 hour ago, THX-1138 said:

I have seen a crash tonight. I was playing Berzerk (as badly as I ever do) and screen froze, part of it corrupted and the sound effects that were happening stuck as a buzzing sound.  Controller was not working, no switches on the console worked, Game Reset did not work I had to power it off. 

Very bad sign. Remember, the Atari 2600+ is a rom dumper. Once the rom is dumped the game either works or it doesnt, technically you dont even need the cartridge anymore.
If you get a crash that means the emulator crashed.

 

[+Defender_2600]

1 hour ago, THX-1138 said:

I have seen a crash tonight. I was playing Berzerk (as badly as I ever do) and screen froze, part of it corrupted and the sound effects that were happening stuck as a buzzing sound.  Controller was not working, no switches on the console worked, Game Reset did not work I had to power it off. 

 

I would try testing it with a different power brick, this way I solved the same problem with a Genesis mini.

[+bent_pin]

43 minutes ago, Hawkeye68 said:

According to this CNN review, Adventure and Yar's Revenge cannot be recommended due to "dangerous" flashing.

 

https://www.cnn.com/cnn-underscored/reviews/atari-2600-plus

 

We still enjoyed our childhood favorite Adventure’s lo-fi looks and sounds, and its small but satisfying puzzles. But Adventure and Yars’ Revenge use flashing, which can cause seizures, motion sickness and migraines. Even though we know these games are beloved, we can’t recommend them, not even with photosensitivity warnings.

 

Just comical.  I wonder where this killjoy was at when we were all buying strobe lights at Radio Shack and Spencer's.

This was written by someone who get paid by the word.

[infinite.pies]

Just arrived here in New Zealand.

 

Now, can I actually make myself wait until Christmas to unbox?

Edited November 17, 2023 by infinite.pies

[+jeremiahjt]

26 minutes ago, infinite.pies said:

Now, can I actually make myself wait until Christmas to unbox?

You know that old saying, "it's Christmas time somewhere," or something like that.

[H.Fraenkel]

Special edition of my popular video series "Torturing kids with retro games": My son Luke and I unpack the new Atari+ to test it just in time for its release. How does a boy from the Playstation 5 generation react to classics from the Stone Age? We show gameplay from Adventure, Combat, Video Pinball, Missile Command and Dodge 'em. In the video description you will find my preliminary pros and cons and some more details in English.

I'm afraid Luke had the most fun with the bubble wrap ...

 

Video: https://youtu.be/UO19-_6dwm0

 

Edited November 17, 2023 by H.Fraenkel

[MittyOz]

Just picked mine up at EB Games here in Melbourne, Oz.

 

First impressions:  The build quality is quite good.  The switches are almost indistinguisable from my original console.  On/Off and Color/BW are very stiff.

 

Power supply:  Surely they could have included one for the price.  I just plugged it into my computer which was nearby and works, but another USB C powersupply I've got didn't work?  What specs are required for this?

 

Games.  Tried Space Invaders, colors are correct played beautifully, except:  If you complete one set of invaders and then start another one, there is this weird audio glitch that seems to occur.  Be interested if anyone else notices this.

 

Casino:  For some reason I love this game. I bought the paddles.  BUT for some reason, there is no sound, which for me was the best part of Casino!  Again curious if anyone else has the same issue.

 

Will try a few more games.  Joystick is a bit stiff as mentioned in reviews, paddles are stiff but smooth.  Physically everything is very authentic, and it's just so damn CUTE!

 

EDIT okay so Casino does have sound, but had to turn console OFF and ON again to get it.  Not sure if you're officially meant to be able to change cartridges without turning power on/off, but that's what I've been doing and it works so far.  Every PAL game looks exactly as it should on my original console.  

Edited November 17, 2023 by MittyOz

[Thomas Jentzsch]

6 hours ago, Albert said:

Stella uses the same mechanism for determining the bankswitching scheme for 2600 games.  It generates an MD5 checksum, looks the game up in its internal database, and if found, it knows how to run the cart.  Otherwise I think it makes an attempt to determine what bankswitching scheme might be used (or if it's just a 2K/4K game), but I don't know how well it works.

Pretty good. Which saves the 2600+ because the MD5 checksums of most bankswitched dumps will differ from the MD5 keys used in Stella's internal database. This is because the bankswitching hotspots return random values, which means the MD5 is always different. Before we can use the MD5 checksums for the affected games (~90% of the bankswitched ones), Stella would have to significantly modified. 

 

BTW: Maybe the 7800 emulator is also affected by this problem. No idea.

[Hawkangel]

5 hours ago, Hawkeye68 said:

According to this CNN review, Adventure and Yar's Revenge cannot be recommended due to "dangerous" flashing.

 

https://www.cnn.com/cnn-underscored/reviews/atari-2600-plus

 

We still enjoyed our childhood favorite Adventure’s lo-fi looks and sounds, and its small but satisfying puzzles. But Adventure and Yars’ Revenge use flashing, which can cause seizures, motion sickness and migraines. Even though we know these games are beloved, we can’t recommend them, not even with photosensitivity warnings.

 

Just comical.  I wonder where this killjoy was at when we were all buying strobe lights at Radio Shack and Spencer's.

Didn’t affect me or anyone else I knew back in the day…or now.

This is such a silly comment to make in a review. 

[DirtyHairy]

5 hours ago, THX-1138 said:

I have seen a crash tonight. I was playing Berzerk (as badly as I ever do) and screen froze, part of it corrupted and the sound effects that were happening stuck as a buzzing sound.  Controller was not working, no switches on the console worked, Game Reset did not work I had to power it off. 

That's not good, it means that Stella crashed. However, Stella has been rock solid during gameplay for a long time, so this is most likely either caused by a bug in changes made by Atari / Plaion, an out-of-memory or a hardware issue (we have seen plenty of issues with bad RAM and overheating on the R77). @Ben from Plaion is Time Machine disabled in the Stella configuration? I forgot how much RAM is in there, but if Time Machine is turned on saved state will accumulate and may crash Stella if there is not enough RAM.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

6 hours ago, THX-1138 said:

I have seen a crash tonight. I was playing Berzerk (as badly as I ever do) and screen froze, part of it corrupted and the sound effects that were happening stuck as a buzzing sound.  Controller was not working, no switches on the console worked, Game Reset did not work I had to power it off. 

When did that crash happen? Close after the start (most likely a bad dump) or later on (could be anything).

[ForceInfinity]

Bleh.... people getting their 2600+ units already?   Maybe I should've ordered from Amazon instead of Atari itself 😕    Anxiously awaiting my unit

[infinite.pies]

6 minutes ago, ForceInfinity said:

Bleh.... people getting their 2600+ units already?   Maybe I should've ordered from Amazon instead of Atari itself 😕    Anxiously awaiting my unit

Many of us that have got them already are in New Zealand and Australia, where it’s already Friday. They’re on the shelf at my local retailer today.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

My package has passed DHL step #13 (of whatever):

Even though it is already in Germany and has been released by the customs ("Shipment has been given a release status by Customs."), the estimated delivery is still the 21nd.  

[Dionoid]

20 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

Even though it is already in Germany and has been released by the customs...

You apparently didn't order it through Amazon.de? Because I think Germany is a big distribution hub for the rest of Western Europe, so customs shouldn't be involved in case you ordered it from Amazon.de.

Edited November 17, 2023 by Dionoid

[Thomas Jentzsch]

34 minutes ago, Dionoid said:

You apparently didn't order it through Amazon.de?

I did not order.   (this is coming from Plaion)

[+karri]

Putting a copy of the header in the rom has the advantage that the developers can test their work on the 2600+ while developing new homebrews. I really hope that Atari takes this path instead of md5 hashes.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

4 minutes ago, karri said:

Putting a copy of the header in the rom has the advantage that the developers can test their work on the 2600+ while developing new homebrews. I really hope that Atari takes this path instead of md5 hashes.

I think that train has left the station long ago.

[Beatley82]

Got mine yesterday morning in UK (Thurs) from Amazon *smug face*

Edited November 17, 2023 by Beatley82

[+karri]

1 hour ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

I think that train has left the station long ago.

My point is still valid. If you want to be able to run complex homebrews on 2600+ you need to tell the emulators how to run them. All schemes requiring updating md5 databases are pretty slow and tedious to maintain.

 

The other option is to allow the end user to tick boxes in a menu to tweak the settings for a game. Perhaps this is the best practical solution after all. The settings could then be automatically saved for the md5 hash. So you only need to do it once.