The new Atari 2600+ w/HDMI out and 2600/7800 support

[BillDMatt]

The more I think about it, at that price, I'll still most likely get one,  been wanting to get into some 7800 games and I hate playing them on my Switch with through the Atari 50,  I like the original joysticks for these games.     I'll just  set it up side by side with my modded 2600, so when I want to play my Homebrews I'm all set.

[BillDMatt]

5 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

No magic will fix that, sorry. And since there is not even a SD cart option like the R77 has, there are even more limitations. At the moment this looks like the inferior, little brother of the R77.  

Even the chip is not better (and from 2014): 

https://gadgetversus.com/processor/allwinner-h3-vs-rockchip-rk3128/

I don't know if I would say inferior,   no 7800 game support on the Retron and the paddle compatibility is horrible.     

[Atari Dogs]

Is there a pause button or save?

[Thomas Jentzsch]

3 minutes ago, BillDMatt said:

I don't know if I would say inferior,   no 7800 game support on the Retron and the paddle compatibility is horrible.     

I am not into the 7800, but I get your point. The paddles are terrible on the R77, but we have to wait how well they work here. I am not that optimistic though.

 

And the missing SD card slot is IMO a severe disadvantage. Unlike with the R77, you cannot even play any ROMs (e.g. modern homebrews). Or update the emulator.

[alex_79]

1 minute ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

And the missing SD card slot is IMO a severe disadvantage. Unlike with the R77, you cannot even play any ROMs (e.g. modern homebrews). Or update the emulator.

Maybe the USB power connector will allow to use an USB stick or card reader with an OTG Y-cable.

[BillDMatt]

1 hour ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

I am not into the 7800, but I get your point. The paddles are terrible on the R77, but we have to wait how well they work here. I am not that optimistic though.

 

And the missing SD card slot is IMO a severe disadvantage. Unlike with the R77, you cannot even play any ROMs (e.g. modern homebrews). Or update the emulator.

Yeah I'm a bit concerned about the paddle support as well, because the paddle support on the atgames Flashbacks are also bad .   So hopefully that's not the case.    and I get your point about sd card slot and ROMS.    

Edited August 22, 2023 by BillDMatt

[m.o.terra kaesi]

I agree with some votes here: if this thing doesn't work with (enhanced) homebrews it's garbage.

The HDMI connectivity is to less for a buying argument.

 

But if it does support homebrew and the picture quality is accurat, this will appeal to many here!

I would look forward to an Atariage AND Atari.com coexistence. Win-Win for all!

[Mockduck]

Yeah we'll have to see how it actually plays, hopefully it's better than the Retrons. 

[Thomas Jentzsch]

19 minutes ago, alex_79 said:

Maybe the USB power connector will allow to use an USB stick or card reader with an OTG Y-cable.

Yes, but will it boot from the card? Seems unlikely.

Edited August 22, 2023 by Thomas Jentzsch

[m.o.terra kaesi]

For me it would be irrelevant if there is a SD slot as long as it would run a UNO-Cart.

But as Thomas Jentzsch supects, it probably won't run anything past regular carts.😑

 

[82-T/A]

Just bought it, and clicked ADD to everything that showed up on the left except the clothes. I got the extra controller, and the paddle controller bundle too. I ordered it so fast that I almost had it shipped to the wrong house, I couldn't jam in my credit card numbers fast enough. Really looking forward to it!!!

[mactari]

1 hour ago, doubledown said:

I assume its just a ROM dumper like the Retron 77 (or similar)...so multi-carts, and fancy homebrews probably won't work.  

1 hour ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

Since the cart port is effectively a ROM dumper, no carts including an ARM (Harmony, PlusCart, Champ Games...) chip will ever work. These carts cannot be dumped.

 

Okay, I've been away too long. This looked enough like a 2600 in the marketing email that I was curious (though a 4-switcher? COME ON!!! ).

 

What's a ROM dumper do -- exactly what it sounds like? Just reads the cart and saves the ROM? I googled up a little on the Retron 77 and it didn't sound great. Is it a respected device?

 

What's an ARM cart? Literally a cart with an ARM processor? I found, eg, this from https://champ.games/turbo-arcade

Quote

Game Details
64K ROM
CDFJ+ Bankswitching (ARM enhanced)  

And Stella's relatively recent release notes make it sound like I'm on the right track...

 

Quote

Added ARM chip auto detection.

But I'm not sure what that all means. (I'll keep googling if that's now too noob a question to bother answering.)

 

I guess I'm wondering how these work on real hardware, but, again, I haven't paid enough attention recently. Guess it's time to search the forums like mad... Sounds interesting. I guess when you hit the right address the ARM catches it and fakes a bankswitch? But then I wonder how the ROM dumper works.

 

I wish this 2600+ was a Kickstarter or something where you had an iota of protection. The "Pre-orders are considered final 30 days after the order date" phrase scared me a little. Let's pretend it's delayed -- when can I order and know my money's not going to disappear? I have ordered a t-shirt from them, and it eventually came, though it took two and half months just to ship. Some of their other offerings ("invest in us! But you don't really get anything approaching actual equity") seemed a little squirrelly. 

 

Anybody order some of their more expensive items and were pleased?

[mactari]

Sorry, hit submit and nothing happened so hit submit again. That was a mistake.

Edited August 22, 2023 by mactari
duped post

[zzip]

Trying to view the back,  there's 3 switches,  2 difficulty + I can't tell what the third one is?

[Thomas Jentzsch]

30 minutes ago, mactari said:

But then I wonder how the ROM dumper works.

It won't work for any ARM carts. And going by the compatibility list, it doesn't even work for some original carts (like from Parker, M-Network and Tigervision). The "untested" holes in the list "coincidentally" fit to the same carts for which the dumper doesn't work on the R77. 

[M-S]

 I think some people are misunderstanding what this console actually is, it is going to be able to play most homebrew games, but it's not going to be able to play games that go beyond the limits of a standard 2600, these games usually have extra hardware inside of the cartridge that help the CPU with processing.

 If Atari was able to do better than emulation for the same price, I guess it would be something like the hardware of the Flashback 2, which would be more or less 30U$ plus an upscaling chip, probably like 20U$, a cartridge and maybe the higher quality shell would amount to 129,99U$. But I'm not considering they would need to modify the chipset for RGB or S-Video and that Atari sued the creators of the chipset and they will probably never work together again.

[82-T/A]

44 minutes ago, mactari said:

Anybody order some of their more expensive items and were pleased?

 

I've been very pleased with them. I've ordered TWO Atari VCS systems from them. I ordered one through their original Kickstarter program, and then ordered a second one just a couple of weeks ago (I wanted one in both family rooms). I have personally never had any problems with them. It's Atari... which while we say it's still different from the old Sunnyvale, CA company... it's still the Atari corporation, and backed at least by the fact that they were able to license and ship the Atari VCS successfully.

 

To that point, I think this new Atari is way better than the Atari of 1996... (not dissing the Jaguar, I love my Jaguar).

 

There is ZERO thought in my mind that I won't get it. I fully expect them to come through with it. Worst case, it ships a month or two late, but I doubt that seriously. I think you can purchase it in good faith and expect to get a quality product back.

[mactari]

2 minutes ago, M-S said:

 I think some people are misunderstanding what this console actually is, it is going to be able to play most homebrew games, but it's not going to be able to play games that go beyond the limits of a standard 2600, these games usually have extra hardware inside of the cartridge that help the CPU with processing.

That's why I was asking about how the ARM carts work -- they obviously work with the real woodgrain, but not here.

 

How does conventional bankswitching work with a ROM dumper but the ARM version of [what I assume is still bankswitching] doesn't?

Edited August 22, 2023 by mactari

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Just now, mactari said:

How does bankswitching conventionally work with a ROM dumper but the ARM version doesn't?

Usually carts communicate with the 6507, RIOT and TIA chip via the cart port. However with ARM chips, most of the communication is solely internal to the ARM chip.

[donjn]

The issue for me is always:

 

1. Original hardware is best

2. Stella emulation on my PC

3. Everything else

 

Ive tried Atari Flashback, even recent ones several times. I have also tried Retron, they both use Stella and the issue is I notice that the movement is not as smooth because they are using Stella on very weak processors. Using Stella on my high end gaming machine is a much smoother experience.

 

I test it by firing up H.E.R.O. I move him back and forth, up and down. On original hardware and emulation on a high end PC it is as smooth as butter. Bought the recent Flashback Anniversary and he slightly jitters.

 

It needs to FPGA or Stella on a high end processor. Anything else does not cut it, at least for me.

Edited August 22, 2023 by donjn

[+cvga]

23 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

It won't work for any ARM carts. And going by the compatibility list, it doesn't even work for some original carts (like from Parker, M-Network and Tigervision). The "untested" holes in the list "coincidentally" fit to the same carts for which the dumper doesn't work on the R77. 

I hate to ask but is it possible that they are still working on the compatibility of the "untested" roms? When is this supposed to ship? I didn't see an actual release date.

[zzip]

5 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

Usually carts communicate with the 6507, RIOT and TIA chip via the cart port. However with ARM chips, most of the communication is solely internal to the ARM chip.

While the hardware may not be able the dump the ARM carts,  Stella can play the pre-dumped ARM-enhanced ROMs, correct?

 

Assuming Stella is used here,  if there was a way to sideload those ROMs onto the internal eMMC, they could work?

[82-T/A]

The new Atari 2600 uses the following processor: Rockchip RK3128 SoC

 

Here are the specifications for the processor: http://rockchip.wikidot.com/rk3128

And this is the datasheet (less exciting, more technical): https://rockchip.fr/RK3128 datasheet V1.2.pdf

 

 

If I'm not mistaken, many games were actually designed in stereo, but was never implemented due to the fact that the Atari 2600 was implemented as a mono-solution. When I looked at upgrading one of my Atari 2600 systems with the RCA connectors, it actually enabled stereo output. As I understand it, there's some 20 or so games that are actually in stereo. So you'd likely get that as well (depending on what the emulation software does).

 

I don't see anything else about it, but my guess is that it doesn't support the POKI chip, like in Ballblazer.

 

But here is the list of the games it supports: https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0609/3658/5381/files/Atari-2600Plus-Compatibility.pdf?v=1692667681

 

 

EDIT: Release date says it will ship in November.

Edited August 22, 2023 by 82-T/A

[leech]

2 hours ago, BillDMatt said:

The more I think about it, at that price, I'll still most likely get one,  been wanting to get into some 7800 games and I hate playing them on my Switch with through the Atari 50,  I like the original joysticks for these games.     I'll just  set it up side by side with my modded 2600, so when I want to play my Homebrews I'm all set.

The real question is; are they going to do some modern builds of the 7800 controller / gamepads as well?  Would love to get maybe the Proline, but with modern microswitches...

[donjn]

Sigh....the 5200 always gets left out.

The 5200 has so many of the Atari computer (400/800) library, its frustrating.