2600+ with Dragonfly 7800 cartridge?

[+MrZarniwoop]

Since the Dragonfly is not a typical flashcart/gamedrive, in that it doesn't do live loads of games from an on-screen menu driven by the 7800, can anyone validate if this works or fails in the 2600+?

 

For those unfamiliar, on the Dragonfly, you load up your 7800 ROM on the cartridge with on-cartridge buttons and an on-cartridge display in sort-of an electronic equivalent of the dip switches on the 10-in-1 cartridge. Only once that ROM is loaded on the cartridge do you turn the 7800 console on, and then it behaves like the original cartridge. That's why it's perhaps the most compatible 7800 flash cart, in that once the game is loaded, it should electronically be pretty much the same as the cartridge so it should be "dumpable."

 

But I can also imagine something about the 2600+ cartridge slot that doesn't quite behave the same as a real 7800 that the Dragonfly is counting on when the 2600+ dumps a 7800 ROM.

[+groundtrooper]

Until they actually start shipping the 2600+ units it's hard to say. I didn't hear of anyone taking a Dragonfly cart to PRGE to test with the demo units that they had on hand. You obviously are not gonna be using the power passthru function of the DF, just power to the DF and the 2600+ using it's own power. 

[Albert]

Sounds like it would work, but I don't have one to test.

 

 ..Al

[+-^CrossBow^-]

56 minutes ago, MrZarniwoop said:

Since the Dragonfly is not a typical flashcart/gamedrive, in that it doesn't do live loads of games from an on-screen menu driven by the 7800, can anyone validate if this works or fails in the 2600+?

 

For those unfamiliar, on the Dragonfly, you load up your 7800 ROM on the cartridge with on-cartridge buttons and an on-cartridge display in sort-of an electronic equivalent of the dip switches on the 10-in-1 cartridge. Only once that ROM is loaded on the cartridge do you turn the 7800 console on, and then it behaves like the original cartridge. That's why it's perhaps the most compatible 7800 flash cart, in that once the game is loaded, it should electronically be pretty much the same as the cartridge so it should be "dumpable."

 

But I can also imagine something about the 2600+ cartridge slot that doesn't quite behave the same as a real 7800 that the Dragonfly is counting on when the 2600+ dumps a 7800 ROM.

John Hancock in his video review earlier today, stated that the DF did NOT work with the 2600+. But I don't believe he gave any details on it beyond that.

 

[Albert]

Just now, -^CrossBow^- said:

John Hancock in his video review earlier today, stated that the DF did NOT work with the 2600+. But I don't believe he gave any details on it beyond that.

I wonder what game or games he tried to load on it. 

 

 ..Al

[+groundtrooper]

2 hours ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

John Hancock in his video review earlier today, stated that the DF did NOT work with the 2600+. But I don't believe he gave any details on it beyond that.

 

I watched his video earlier. He just stated that no multi-carts worked and listed off the Harmony, Concerto, and Dragonfly. But does that mean he actually tried the DF. 

I am tagging @swlovinist in this post to try and get verification. 

@swlovinist Did you try the Dragonfly Cart in your tests to see if it would load any 7800 games? (Asking for A LOT of friends) 😉

[+-^CrossBow^-]

2 hours ago, Albert said:

I wonder what game or games he tried to load on it. 

 

 ..Al

Again, he didn't go into any details. It would kinda surprise me if it didn't work because of how the DF works in that it does NOT use an onscreen menu through the system hardware. So yeah, I'm curious. If nothing else, I'm pretty confident an older Mateos cart will work on it since that is basically the same thing as multicart using a rotary switch knob vs dip switches to change between the games, but again, until I have one I can't test to know.

 

[+swlovinist]

After this discussion, I pulled out my DF cart and it indeed worked with Centipede.   I was going on several other posts that stated that it would not work, so I stand corrected.  I will post in my video as well.  

[+MrZarniwoop]

2 minutes ago, swlovinist said:

After this discussion, I pulled out my DF cart and it indeed worked with Centipede.

[envytomdead2]

52 minutes ago, swlovinist said:

After this discussion, I pulled out my DF cart and it indeed worked with Centipede.   I was going on several other posts that stated that it would not work, so I stand corrected.  I will post in my video as well.  

I know Rampage didn't work from the cart but does it work from the Dragonfly? Rampage works with the pro system emulator in RetroArch and I am wondering if it was something with the cart itself?

Edited November 16, 2023 by envytomdead2

[Albert]

9 minutes ago, envytomdead2 said:

I know Rampage didn't work from the cart but does it work from the Dragonfly? Rampage works with the pro system emulator in RetroArch and I am wondering if it was something with the cart itself?

Unless it's a bad Rampage cart, I can't fathom any reason why it would work on the Dragonfly and not a real cart...

 

 ..Al

[Giles N]

1 hour ago, swlovinist said:

After this discussion, I pulled out my DF cart and it indeed worked with Centipede.   I was going on several other posts that stated that it would not work, so I stand corrected.  I will post in my video as well.  

Perhaps try as many 7800 titles ((and stuff generally) to see how much you’ll get to work…?

 

I saw your review on YouTube btw.

Nice that there are people out there digging into the pros and cons as much as possible for Atari-related things.👍🏻

[+Mitch]

55 minutes ago, Albert said:

Unless it's a bad Rampage cart, I can't fathom any reason why it would work on the Dragonfly and not a real cart...

 

 ..Al

Probably because it uses a non-standard bank-switching type and is being detected wrong.

 

Mitch

[Albert]

6 minutes ago, Mitch said:

Probably because it uses a non-standard bank-switching type and is being detected wrong.

 

Mitch

If that's the case, it's not going to work on the Dragonfly, either. 

 

 ..Al

[envytomdead2]

9 hours ago, Albert said:

Unless it's a bad Rampage cart, I can't fathom any reason why it would work on the Dragonfly and not a real cart...

 

 ..Al

At least with the Retron 77, I found the cart dumper could be very finicky. Sometimes it could take many, many times to get the dump to work even when it was a clean cartridge. Or if the cart was even the slightest bit dirty it couldn't read it. 

[+sramirez2008]

12 hours ago, swlovinist said:

After this discussion, I pulled out my DF cart and it indeed worked with Centipede.

You just made a couple of carts very...very happy! Thanks for checking and @groundtrooper on behalf of A LOT of friends, thanks for tagging/posing the question. 🙂

[+-^CrossBow^-]

36 minutes ago, sramirez2008 said:

You just made a couple of carts very...very happy!

Again, I had suspected it and the Mateos would work so I'm glad to hear it does. Now will be the question of what the 2600+ will and will not be able to run through the DF. I'm sure all of us will be trying all of our ROMs through it once we have the 2600+ in hand.

 

Edited November 16, 2023 by -^CrossBow^-
Grammar

[+sramirez2008]

1 minute ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

I'm sure all of use will be trying all of our ROMs through it once more of us have the 2600+ in hand.

Oh yeah! I'm just happy to hear that it works, so at the very least, the entire OG library of games should now be available to us. One of the first ROMs I want to test will be my copy of DK PK.

[diamax]

I just saw a video on Facebook showing the 7800 multicart dragon fly cartridge is working on the atari 2600+

[+-^CrossBow^-]

25 minutes ago, diamax said:

I just saw a video on Facebook showing the 7800 multicart dragon fly cartridge is working on the atari 2600+

Yes, that was my video and hot swapping games by selecting them on the DF cart and then having it load them up will cause the 2600+ to black out and then reload the new game just like it does when you psychically hot swap cartridges which is nice. I haven't tested many 'brews on it, but what I have all fails due the games not existing as part of the lookup table it uses for Pro System. Even graphical hacks of actual original games fail to load up due to the checksum changes resulting from the changes in the game code.

 

Although unlike @swlovinist results, the rom version of NTSC Crossbow labeled for Joystick did load up and work just fine for me on the 2600+. I've not tried my actual CB cart yet but at least one version of the ROM for the game does work.

 

[gambler172]

The Dragonfly works with the released original 7800 games. However, most homebrews do not work. But this is better than nothing.

[+swlovinist]

On 11/21/2023 at 5:45 PM, -^CrossBow^- said:

Yes, that was my video and hot swapping games by selecting them on the DF cart and then having it load them up will cause the 2600+ to black out and then reload the new game just like it does when you psychically hot swap cartridges which is nice. I haven't tested many 'brews on it, but what I have all fails due the games not existing as part of the lookup table it uses for Pro System. Even graphical hacks of actual original games fail to load up due to the checksum changes resulting from the changes in the game code.

 

Although unlike @swlovinist results, the rom version of NTSC Crossbow labeled for Joystick did load up and work just fine for me on the 2600+. I've not tried my actual CB cart yet but at least one version of the ROM for the game does work.

 

Hmm I focused my 7800 testing on Tank Command and Rampage, the two untested carts on the list.  

[+-^CrossBow^-]

40 minutes ago, swlovinist said:

Hmm I focused my 7800 testing on Tank Command and Rampage, the two untested carts on the list.  

I confirmed with both my DF and my actual cartridge that Rampage just gives me a black screen after the Game Loading...

 

But Crossbow does work for me. Both through my DF cartridge and my actual Crossbow cartridge I was able to play a full game without any issues like what you saw. I think the thought here is that there could be different revisions of these games out there and as a result some work and some might not. I know for sure there are two revisions of Pole Position and Ballblazer as I have both of those in cartridge form, so it wouldn't surprise me if there are other slightly different revs of other 7800 games as well.

 

 

[Cartermw]

Is there any way of getting the Dragonfly to play 2600 ROMs?  

[Eagle]

Dragonfly doesn’t support 2600 roms. 

Edited November 23, 2023 by Eagle