Difficulty switches reversed

[Brad_from_the_80s]

I saw mention somewhere that the difficulty switches are reversed.  A is B and B is A.  If true, kind of a goofy thing to somehow miss in testing.

 

There are myriad ways to confirm, but I just tried them on Star Wars ESB.  Position A should be smaller landing pads and position B are larger.  But it is the exact opposite.

 

Something you might need to know on some games, and hopefully will be corrected with firmware, since the position labels are molded into the housing.

[+Philsan]

Exactly: 

A should be Advanced, B should be Beginners. An easy to fix issue with a firmware update.

[chad5200]

Dang. This first firmware update is going to be a doozy. 
 

[tradyblix]

Who was in QA for this thing lol. That should never have happened  

[tradyblix]

So wait, I have a question. Does this mean out of the box all games will play in the "more difficult mode" rather than the normal mode ? I usually never used the difficulty switches much, but I also know they were used for different things in some games other than difficulty, especially later on... 

 

And I think they're not used by 7800 games right ? Those all had difficulty on the menus

 

Edited November 22, 2023 by tradyblix
spelling

[Brad_from_the_80s]

1 hour ago, tradyblix said:

So wait, I have a question. Does this mean out of the box all games will play in the "more difficult mode" rather than the normal mode ? I usually never used the difficulty switches much, but I also know they were used for different things in some games other than difficulty, especially later on... 

 

And I think they're not used by 7800 games right ? Those all had difficulty on the menus

 

Out of the box the difficulty switches were set to the A position (on mine and everybody else's I'm guessing).  A is the more difficult setting for games that use difficulty switches (by convention, no hard and fast rule).  But since A is really B right now, or normal/easy mode, most people may not notice an issue.  Now if the switches had been coded to the correct orientation then yes, some games would be in more difficult mode.  If they do fix this they might want to ship future runs from factory in the B setting.

[Defender_2600]

1 hour ago, tradyblix said:

And I think they're not used by 7800 games right ? Those all had difficulty on the menus

 

 

[tradyblix]

2 minutes ago, Defender_2600 said:

 

 

Ah. Now this might explain why in emulation Beef Drop didn't have sound for me. Lol. 

[Trebor]

11 hours ago, Brad_from_the_80s said:

I saw mention somewhere that the difficulty switches are reversed.  A is B and B is A.  If true, kind of a goofy thing to somehow miss in testing.

 

There are myriad ways to confirm, but I just tried them on Star Wars ESB.  Position A should be smaller landing pads and position B are larger.  But it is the exact opposite.

 

Something you might need to know on some games, and hopefully will be corrected with firmware, since the position labels are molded into the housing.

Here's the deal with Difficulty Switches respecting the original console hardware:

 

For the 2600 - Left = A Position | Right = B Position

For the 7800 - Left = B Position | Right = A Position

 

Considering the physical hardware represents the 2600, the 2600+ should follow 2600 positioning behavior. 

 

Right now, it sounds like the behavior is actually favoring the 7800 orientation over the 2600.

 

Either way, just keep in mind whatever the current behavior is for one platform, it is the opposite for the other, regarding difficulty switch setting.

[tradyblix]

 

13 hours ago, Trebor said:

Here's the deal with Difficulty Switches respecting the original console hardware:

 

For the 2600 - Left = A Position | Right = B Position

For the 7800 - Left = B Position | Right = A Position

 

Considering the physical hardware represents the 2600, the 2600+ should follow 2600 positioning behavior. 

 

Right now, it sounds like the behavior is actually favoring the 7800 orientation over the 2600.

 

Either way, just keep in mind whatever the current behavior is for one platform, it is the opposite for the other, regarding difficulty switch setting.

I see. That I didn't know about or had forgotten. It just goes to show how much additional complexity is increased on a device just by adding support for another console

[Brad_from_the_80s]

It seems pretty evident to me that they should just honor the switch labels for both sub-systems.  But for 2600 especially.

[chad5200]

Just wanted to confirm that the difficulty switches are definitely REVERSED.  At least on Atari 2600 Asteroids.

 

Normally... A = Advanced and B = Beginner.  And in Asteroids, the UFO should only appear if you are in Advanced mode.  However, in the current 1.00 version, the UFO only appears if you are in Beginner mode.

 

(I always thought it was funny that you can make the UFO dynamically disappear when it is on the screen by switching to Beginner mode.)

 

Let's hope Atari fixes this in their first firmware update!

 

[chad5200]

Interesting...

 

It looks like Atari messed up the LABELING of the Difficulty Switches on the new 2600+.

 

Compare these two pictures which are both taken from above the systems.  Both of these are set to "B" (Beginner) difficulty in the actual games themselves.  Notice how the switches are physically in the same position (to the right).  So far, this is all good.

 

However, the physical label on the 2600+ is REVERSED.

 

On the original classic Atari 4-switch, they labeled all the stuff on the TOP of the system (positioned to be read from ABOVE).  On the new 2600+, they labeled everything on the BACK (positioned to be read from BEHIND) but they forgot to swap the DIFFICULTY A B when they flipped everything.

 

Result:  On the 2600+, the physical switches are positioned correctly but the labeling is reversed.

 

 

[Brad_from_the_80s]

Hmmm, seems you are right.  Looks like they just rotated that label molding around to the back.  Problem is it's going to be a lot easier to change in software than in the molding of already manufactured and sold units, lol.

[+LS650]

On 11/21/2023 at 7:22 PM, Brad_from_the_80s said:

If they do fix this they might want to ship future runs from factory in the B setting.

Or just tell users to read the included manual.  Oh, wait....

[+karri]

The best solution is to look at what is printed on the plastic.

 

Flipping the switches in Stella or ProSystem should not be too difficult. The main point is that the games should behave correctly on the 2600+ and work as written in the game manuals.

[chad5200]

14 minutes ago, karri said:

The best solution is to look at what is printed on the plastic.

 

Flipping the switches in Stella or ProSystem should not be too difficult. The main point is that the games should behave correctly on the 2600+ and work as written in the game manuals.

Totally agree.  Hopefully this is corrected in the first firmware update.

 

[chad5200]

More proof that they screwed up the molded labeling on the shell.

 

Look at the circuit board.  It is labeled correctly there:

 

 

 

[Brad_from_the_80s]

Haha, it just gets better and better.  It's an easy thing to live with, just... sloppy.  I think matching whatever ended up on the plastic molding, for both 2600 and 7800, is the right solution.  Who knows, maybe they'll correct the housing and this first run will be collectors items.

[tradyblix]

17 hours ago, chad5200 said:

Interesting...

 

It looks like Atari messed up the LABELING of the Difficulty Switches on the new 2600+.

 

Compare these two pictures which are both taken from above the systems.  Both of these are set to "B" (Beginner) difficulty in the actual games themselves.  Notice how the switches are physically in the same position (to the right).  So far, this is all good.

 

However, the physical label on the 2600+ is REVERSED.

 

On the original classic Atari 4-switch, they labeled all the stuff on the TOP of the system (positioned to be read from ABOVE).  On the new 2600+, they labeled everything on the BACK (positioned to be read from BEHIND) but they forgot to swap the DIFFICULTY A B when they flipped everything.

 

Result:  On the 2600+, the physical switches are positioned correctly but the labeling is reversed.

 

 

I'm all in favor of them changing the moulding and leaving this run as the "collectors items" lol. Not sure who is going to collect it or care, certainly not our kids

Edited November 25, 2023 by tradyblix

[Sean_1970]

I kept thinking that, but wasn’t sure since not all games support it. Very easy to see the difference with games that do obvious things (extra enemy in Amidar, Asteroids UFOs, etc.) but some games are more subtle. Personally I’d rather have had these machines have six switches on the front as I’m not tipping the machine to look at them every time, so whatever 😅

[+LS650]

I find when I'm playing my old carts, I need my laptop nearby for looking up the game instructions.

If I find fault with Atari's new releases, it's that no instructions are included with the games.  If I pay $30 for the new Berzerk, I should at least get a piece of paper telling me how to activate Evil Otto.

[Brad_from_the_80s]

1 hour ago, ls650 said:

I find when I'm playing my old carts, I need my laptop nearby for looking up the game instructions.

If I find fault with Atari's new releases, it's that no instructions are included with the games.  If I pay $30 for the new Berzerk, I should at least get a piece of paper telling me how to activate Evil Otto.

I hear you, I'm collating PDFs of old manuals on my iPad.

 

I don't know what to tell you for Berzerk, but this is about the closest that we got for game instructions, and there is nary a mention of Difficulty settings:

https://atari.com/pages/ten

https://atari.com/pages/four

[Brad_from_the_80s]

10 hours ago, Brad_from_the_80s said:

I hear you, I'm collating PDFs of old manuals on my iPad.

 

I don't know what to tell you for Berzerk, but this is about the closest that we got for game instructions, and there is nary a mention of Difficulty settings:

https://atari.com/pages/ten

https://atari.com/pages/four

And I figured out there's this, including Berzerk.  Maybe not adequate, but something:

 

https://atari.com/pages/atari-2600-vip

 

[+LS650]

54 minutes ago, Brad_from_the_80s said:

And I figured out there's this, including Berzerk.  Maybe not adequate, but something:

https://atari.com/pages/atari-2600-vip

I posted a table from the original manual in another thread, but you need to switch the setting from the default 1 to 2 or 3 to see Evil Otto come bouncing onto the screen like the arcade machine.