Atari 2600+ Hardware

[chad5200]

1 hour ago, Blinky said:

1PA_1PB,  2PA_2PB are opposite of the A and B difficulty labels on the case.  Must have been confusing determining which is which.

That is correctly labeled on the circuit board.  They screwed up the labels on the case.

 

More information here:

 

[Blinky]

Ok I wrote a python script to dump carts and some instructions to make a 2600+ dumper.  It's available on my GitHub:

 

https://github.com/MrBlinky/Atari2600plus-dumper/

 

You can just hotswap carts and the dumps of supported carts are automatically saved to a folder, so convenient.

It's also good for comparing behaviour changes between 2600+ emulation and Stella emulation on a computer as the dump saved to a file is exactly the same as the one sent to the 2600+ emulator.

[+karri]

1 hour ago, Blinky said:

Ok I wrote a python script to dump carts and some instructions to make a 2600+ dumper.  It's available on my GitHub:

 

https://github.com/MrBlinky/Atari2600plus-dumper/

 

You can just hotswap carts and the dumps of supported carts are automatically saved to a folder, so convenient.

It's also good for comparing behaviour changes between 2600+ emulation and Stella emulation on a computer as the dump saved to a file is exactly the same as the one sent to the 2600+ emulator.

Thanks! A little more sophisticated than:

cat /dev/ttyUSB0 > cartdump

<Ctrl-C> when ready.

 

I always get a few extra control bytes plus the a78 header.

 

[Blinky]

Yes. Here's a gif recording (2.7MB) of me dumping Mr. Run and jump and then dump 8 games of the 10-in-1 cart and quick testing them. Changing the dip switches takes most of the time 😂

 

[Spanner]

It has 256 ram and I was wondering if I could get the Atari 800 Emulator working on it, I got it working on THEC64 Mini on PCUAE and that uses 256 ram but it would need to be able to read from a USB Stick, this has usb on it, I reconise the D+ and D- on the boards, like on the Capcom Home Arcade and THEC64, so you might be able to solder a USB port on it then add a USB hub to it.
This is about the RGL and Capcom Home Arcade machines at are made by Ben Jones and PLAION that made the Atari2600+ there is hardware pictures on there too of them. https://thec64community.online/thread/426/rgl-thec64
 

 

Edited November 25, 2023 by Spanner

[Blinky]

That board has two 'game pad' to usb chips and two USB cables.

 

For the 2600+ you don't need to solder. If supported by the firmware you could add a USB stick to the USB-C port.

 

[Blinky]

On 11/19/2023 at 8:27 PM, Blinky said:

Unfortunately it doesn't seem to have active buttons. So it ends there.

I have to correct myself on this. My testing was incorrect before.

 

Connecting the 2600+ with a USB-C cable to your PC, putting the B-W / Color switch in the B-W position, pressing down game reset  while powering on will put the 2600+ into 'Stella Adapter mode'.

 

So you can use original controllers hooked to the 2600+ as a USB controller to play games with Stella on your PC (Joystick port 2 must be configured in Stella to work)

 

 

 

 

 

[Blinky]

Lol, Today. I discovered that when the 2600+ is put into 'Stella adapter' mode, the rom dumper also works !

 

Updated my Python dumper script to optionally launch the Stella emulator on each rom dump.

You can now have the 2600+ experience but by using the Stella emulator on your computer

 

[tradyblix]

Most of the issues aren't really a problem for me. But it is going to give the naysayers a lot of fuel to say: this thing isn't worth it. 

 

The switches are wrong, the cart dumper is finicky and has incorrect settings that screw over international users, and it doesn't play stuff it should.

 

Especially when modern users have so many options. It's a shame really. 

Edited November 26, 2023 by tradyblix

[radd]

What about a mod to get just flash carts like Harmony/Concerto working? Then it retains its original functionality but you don't need to swap carts. I'm aware Dragonfly works but I don't see it being available anymore.

[tradyblix]

51 minutes ago, radd said:

What about a mod to get just flash carts like Harmony/Concerto working? Then it retains its original functionality but you don't need to swap carts. I'm aware Dragonfly works but I don't see it being available anymore.

Swapping carts and collecting them is part of the appeal of this device. Otherwise - just get a gamestation pro if you just want to play roms. Or play them on a computer. Or play them on a handheld. Right ?

[+bent_pin]

Wonder if the switches could be fixed in stella.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

17 minutes ago, bent_pin said:

Wonder if the switches could be fixed in stella.

For sure, but IMO they should be fixed in the firmware.

[+bent_pin]

32 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

For sure, but IMO they should be fixed in the firmware.

Good point, so long as they are fixable then they should not serve as a reason for others to hate on the platform.

 

Personally, I have faith that this wonderful community will come up with a much better software/firmware revision that will some most if not all of the issues.

[+mksmith]

Another fascinating topic to read - thanks everyone!

[famicommander]

1 hour ago, bent_pin said:

Good point, so long as they are fixable then they should not serve as a reason for others to hate on the platform.

Are you serious with this?

 

These issues are all things that should have been anticipated before the start, discovered during testing, and fixed before they ever asked for a single consumer dollar. 

 

The time to do beta testing is before the product comes out, not after it ships. And the people who fix it should be the ones who are selling it, not the ones who bought it.

Edited November 26, 2023 by famicommander

[Thomas Jentzsch]

10 minutes ago, famicommander said:

These issues are all things that should have been anticipated before the start, discovered during testing, and fixed before they ever asked for a single consumer dollar. 

 

The time to do beta testing is before the product comes out, not after it ships. And the people who fix it should be the ones who are selling it, not the ones who bought it.

Time to market.

[+bent_pin]

8 minutes ago, famicommander said:

Are you serious with this?

 

These issues are all things that should have been anticipated before the start, discovered during testing, and fixed before they ever asked for a single consumer dollar. 

 

The time to do beta testing is before the product comes out, not after it ships. And the people who fix it should be the ones who are selling it, not the ones who bought it.

Yup. I see this system being converted from a ROM dumper to a proper system eventually. As that's outside of the intended design, it will be up to the community to change it. As for a little mistake or a need for more ROM headers or whatever, that's why there is the ability to update.

[famicommander]

3 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

Time to market.

They shouldn't be taking products to market that aren't fully baked. If you don't have enough time to get your product to market in a finished state, delay it or hire more people to work on it. Don't sell people a product that doesn't do what you say it does, or does a horrible job of it, and then put the onus on them to fix it themselves.

Edited November 26, 2023 by famicommander

[+karri]

3 hours ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

Time to market.

The timing is perfect for Xmas. Plus the machine is enjoyable with the carts coming with it.

[Brad_from_the_80s]

It's working well enough that I and many others are super happy to have the 2600+ right now and not some time in the future.  Some things will get fixed, and some things people are just fantasizing about really.  Fundamentally it will and should do just what it is already doing, but a little better in some areas. 

 

I'm really not the least interested in cramming roms onto this device or making it run NES, Genesis, N64.  I'm also not concerned about flash carts myself but I understand why some people might want them to work.  Beyond that there are already a lot of other options for those use cases.  And people online bleating about why not fpga, as if it is some sort of perfect panacea.  I have an fpga 2600 core on an Analogue Pocket that definitely does not run everything and it never gets updated.  I realize the promise and the ideal of fpga solutions, but the reality is often just like the same old buggy/incomplete emulation by another name.  The 2600 emulation here is extremely high quality while the 7800 side is working fairly well for some uses and likely to improve.  I think it's reasonable to expect firmware updates and improvements over time if a product is broadly successful in the main/majority of cases to begin with.  At any rate it is consistently what tends to happen.

 

Maybe Atari would consider an enhanced version with fpga or QoL features in the future, but it would likely be built on the back of the success of this one.  I think interest is high and the response from people who actually have one is mostly positive, so I think this product will be a success for Atari.  But suppose it were a failure because people are trashing it or being overly-critical or whatever, than I don't know why anyone would expect them to make the non-trivial investments in a second iteration.

[Spanner]

PLAION did the same thing with the Capcom Home Arcade(I have one and a member of the its reddit) they released it and fixed its problems by using update, they are good at doing it and fixed the stuff on the CHA and even added extra features to it, I only got the Atari2600+ because I knew it was made by Ben Jones, I like all of his machines(Retro Games Ltd machines hardware).

Edited November 27, 2023 by Spanner

[Thomas Jentzsch]

6 minutes ago, Spanner said:

PLAION did the same thing with the Capcom Home Arcade(I have one and a member of the its reddit) they released it and fixed its problems by using update, they are good at doing it and fixed the stuff on the CHA.

That's my impression from working with Plaion too.

[Spanner]

12 hours ago, Brad_from_the_80s said:

It's working well enough that I and many others are super happy to have the 2600+ right now and not some time in the future.  Some things will get fixed, and some things people are just fantasizing about really.  Fundamentally it will and should do just what it is already doing, but a little better in some areas. 

 

I'm really not the least interested in cramming roms onto this device or making it run NES, Genesis, N64.  I'm also not concerned about flash carts myself but I understand why some people might want them to work.  Beyond that there are already a lot of other options for those use cases.  And people online bleating about why not fpga, as if it is some sort of perfect panacea.  I have an fpga 2600 core on an Analogue Pocket that definitely does not run everything and it never gets updated.  I realize the promise and the ideal of fpga solutions, but the reality is often just like the same old buggy/incomplete emulation by another name.  The 2600 emulation here is extremely high quality while the 7800 side is working fairly well for some uses and likely to improve.  I think it's reasonable to expect firmware updates and improvements over time if a product is broadly successful in the main/majority of cases to begin with.  At any rate it is consistently what tends to happen.

 

Maybe Atari would consider an enhanced version with fpga or QoL features in the future, but it would likely be built on the back of the success of this one.  I think interest is high and the response from people who actually have one is mostly positive, so I think this product will be a success for Atari.  But suppose it were a failure because people are trashing it or being overly-critical or whatever, than I don't know why anyone would expect them to make the non-trivial investments in a second iteration.

I agree, they use a emulator and ARM SoC because its the cheapest way of doing it, thats how they all do it now, if it was on a FPGA they would have to make a simulator of both the 2600 and 7800 machines and it would not be worth it, just look at how much the ZX Spectrum Next is because it uses a FPGA SoC, its £300, I do not think anyone would buy a Atari2600 for that price, making consoles with FPGA costs more and its easier just to use a ARM SoC and what's out there already, I do not care if it uses a emulator, if it does what it meant to do thats all that matters...
The only real differences in a emulator and a simulator is it a simulates the computer or console and can use its real ports, and if the real machine needs 9VAC like the C64 needs it then not all games will work, like on the C64 DTV, its so it knows if its running at 50Hz or 60Hz, some games use it for timing and how fast the game runs too, like Beach Head(that does not work on the C64 DTV, timing is used on the demo levels it shows automatically when you run Beach Head, it show a demo of each level on the screen, it crashes if you run it on the C64 DTV), it comes from the power brick 9v alternating currant, a emulator emulates everything it can so emulates the 9VAC in the C64 so emulates the 50Hz and 60Hz, a simulator can only copy/simulate what the machine can do so can not simulate the Hertz(PAL/NTSC) inside the machine.

And remember the Atari2600+ is a Per-Ordered machine so its not going to be perfect on release, it will get better in time..  same as THEC64, CHA, THEC64 took a few updates to get it to where it is now and its still been updated 5 years later and the Capcom Home Arcade too, I think that came out in 2019 because it uses some of THEC64 hardware inside it that come out at the same time.

Edited November 27, 2023 by Spanner

[Spanner]

1 hour ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

That's my impression from working with Plaion too.

Oh you work on the Stella Emulator code..
This is how it should be, if they work with the makes of the emulator then can make sure it works in the Atari2600+ properly or even add extra features that way too..
Retro Games Ltd should do it this way too, that why the emulators in all of there machines never get updated, only the carousel does and do not add any updates to make the emulator better.