4-in-1 Paddle Cartridge incompatibility on original Atari 2600 console?

[Sceptre_JLRB]

Looking for a brand-new pair of paddle controllers to use on my original Atari 2600 console, I've just purchased the Atari 2600+ paddle set which includes the new 4-in-1 cartridge featuring Breakout + Canyon Bomber + Night Driver + Video Olympics, selectable via DIP switches.

 

When testing this cart on my original NTSC 4-switch Atari VCS from 1980, the first 3 games work flawlessly... But Video Olympics, after a few seconds of gameplay, starts showing graphical glitches such as double computer rectangle and double ball, and then all the screen becomes corrupted showing a sort of all game modes graphical mixture followed by distorted random sounds and finally screen freezing. I don't own the new Atari 2600+ console, so I have no way to test whether this could be due to a corrupted Video Olympics ROM on my 4-in-1 cart. However, I've tested the Video Olympics USA ROM loaded via Harmony Encore flashcart and the game works great, so the issue seems not to be caused by the console itself.

 

What do you think it could be happening? Has anybody tried the 4-in-1 Paddle cartridge on original systems and found any issue? Could it be that this cartridge was built with the new Atari 2600+ hardware in mind and now some old Atari 2600 models show issues when dealing with it? Maybe I broke the cart when using it for the first time with a non-allowed DIP switches configuration?

Edited November 26, 2023 by Sceptre_JLRB

[+LS650]

When you unseat the cart, power-off the console, reseat the cart, and power the console back on, the issue repeats?

[Sceptre_JLRB]

8 minutes ago, ls650 said:

When you unseat the cart, power-off the console, reseat the cart, and power the console back on, the issue repeats?

Yeah, absolutely. That was the very first I tried, including blowing the cart contacts, but no way. The problem is still present in the same way. 😞

[Gamemoose]

I should be getting mine on Monday. I'll let you know.

[Sceptre_JLRB]

1 hour ago, Gamemoose said:

I should be getting mine on Monday. I'll let you know.

That would be great. Thank you!

[Gamemoose]

I gave the 4-in-1 a shot tonight on my 4 Switch.  "Video Olympics" worked fine for me and my kids and I played different variations without issue.  But I will say I initially had an issue starting up "Breakout" straight out of the box.  I got a black screen but after a power down and cartridge re-insert, the game fired up.  That black screen problem didn't show up with the remaining games. 

 

The only couple other things I can think of before ruling out a potentially bad cart:

 

• Try moving the dip switches back and forth a few times.  It's silly but perhaps a switch isn't seating right?
• Clean the cart slot of the system?  Reading some of the other posts, maybe the new Atari carts are a little sensitive?

[Sceptre_JLRB]

46 minutes ago, Gamemoose said:

I gave the 4-in-1 a shot tonight on my 4 Switch.  "Video Olympics" worked fine for me and my kids and I played different variations without issue.  But I will say I initially had an issue starting up "Breakout" straight out of the box.  I got a black screen but after a power down and cartridge re-insert, the game fired up.  That black screen problem didn't show up with the remaining games. 

 

The only couple other things I can think of before ruling out a potentially bad cart:

 

• Try moving the dip switches back and forth a few times.  It's silly but perhaps a switch isn't seating right?
• Clean the cart slot of the system?  Reading some of the other posts, maybe the new Atari carts are a little sensitive?

Thank you very much for testing!

 

I tried moving the DIP switches repeatedly and readjusting the cart, but nothing changed. Sometimes the game lets me play a couple of minutes but eventually the glitches start appearing, ending up in total freezing. However, I managed to test the 4-in-1 cart on an Atari 2600 Jr. clone console which, despite being incompatible with paddles except for their fire button (maybe due to a lack of potentiometer-response elements on console PCB), allowed me to run each of the 4 games, included Video Olympics, with no issue. I was able to check the different game variations with no glitches, whereas on my original 4-switch Atari VCS this operation results in glitches+freezing.

 

So I think my 4-in-1 cart is OK and the problem could be my console. Maybe, it could be related with a 'basal jittering' all paddle controllers show when connected to this console (and perhaps with some dirty-picture issues) I also asked about on this thread:

 

 

[tradyblix]

On 11/27/2023 at 8:57 PM, Gamemoose said:

I gave the 4-in-1 a shot tonight on my 4 Switch.  "Video Olympics" worked fine for me and my kids and I played different variations without issue.  But I will say I initially had an issue starting up "Breakout" straight out of the box.  I got a black screen but after a power down and cartridge re-insert, the game fired up.  That black screen problem didn't show up with the remaining games. 

 

The only couple other things I can think of before ruling out a potentially bad cart:

 

• Try moving the dip switches back and forth a few times.  It's silly but perhaps a switch isn't seating right?
• Clean the cart slot of the system?  Reading some of the other posts, maybe the new Atari carts are a little sensitive?

Sometimes cleaning helps, sometimes reseating a really old game a few times helps. Maybe some kind of oxide build up on the board makes it read poorly. not sure. 

 

It's not just new games.

Edited November 29, 2023 by tradyblix

[Thomas Jentzsch]

If only one game shows problems, then its either the dip switches or bit rod. A faulty cart port would affect all 4 games.

[boggis the cat]

I picked up one of those units to get the paddle controller.  It worked OK on my PAL 2600, with wrong colours of course.  Travel range seemed quite limited, but was centred.

 

it is just a potentiometer and switch, so really should work with old hardware.