Atari 2600+ Beta Update 1.1

[Ben from Plaion]

Thanks to all here at Atari Age for feedback provided on the Atari 2600+.

 

We have a beta update to the Emulation and Dumper chip ready that I've been taking about for a while on the main 2600+ AA thread.

 

I've had lots of offers from people offering to test the update. Up until now its been tested internally with a limited amount of carts, I've sent it out to a few peers tonight who I know have got big collections. Its the breadth of cartridges out there that we internally just dont have easy access to - such a massive amount of carts with all their variations that need checking.

 

So if anyone here on AA wants to give the update a test with their own carts please post your interest in this thread and I will send the files and instructions to you over the next few days. You will need a Windows Laptop/PC to do the update, its not the most elegant process but should be all done in a few minutes.

 

Some details on the update;

 

2600 Changes

 

Dumper:

 

• Fix for Realsports boxing
• Enable Circus Convoy to boot (Also requires 1.1 Emulator update)
• Enable CBS Ram Plus cartridge to boot - Omega Race tested (booster grip not tested), Tunnel Runner and Mountain King not tested (Also requires 1.1 Emulator update)

 

Emulator:

 

• Change PAL colour palette to z26
• PAL / NTSC cartridge auto detect to display at appropiate 50 or 60hz
• Reversal of Difficulty Switches

 

7800 Changes

Dumper:

 

• Support for unknown cartridges (linear and bank switched)
• Removed clashing NTSC/PAL cartridge entries from known list (now handled as "unknown")
• Increased maximum cartridge size
• Increased dumper read timeout  (support larger cartridges)

 

Emulator:

 

• Fix for swapped controller buttons
• Pause support via Color/B&W switch (may behave inconsistently depending on cartridge)
• Significant updates to Pokey sound chip support
• Support for additional Pokey configurations (@4000, @800, @450, etc.)
• Yamaha YM2151 sound chip support
• Support for 7800 expansion module (XM)
• Updated palettes (contributed by Trebor @ AtariAge)
• Partial cartridge hash detection (compatibility with dumper)
• Cartridge probing for Pokey and YM sound chips (compatibility with dumper)
• Cartridge header database with entries from known carts 
• Improved cartridge header support
• Compatibility with larger bank switched cartridges
• Maria double buffered line RAM support
• Maria background color fix
• Maria color kill support
• Maria PAL display area fix 
• Overall improved cycle accuracy (including Maria)
• Added support for several new opcodes
• Z flag fix when in decimal mode
• Multiple memory map fixes
• RIOT interrupt mirror fix
• Force PAL mode controller escape sequence

 

What our intention is with this beta update is to receive feedback on whether all of the above works with your cartridges. Development is kind of swift and we will most likely be finding elements from testing that need tweaking, highly likely we'll be releasing further builds till we are satisfied the update can lose its beta status, then we will move onto a subsequent update to address matters that still need resolving still.

 

How to Update

Dumper:

 

With Power Switch off on the 2600+ connect the USB lead from the 2600+ to a Windows Laptop/PC. 

 

TV TYPE lever in B W

 

Hold down GAME SELECT lever and power on the 2600+, You should hear a windows connection jingle from your Laptop/PC

 

Open AtariDumper1.1.0.2.exe, You should see the status as Detected in green text

 

Press Download and it takes about 5 seconds to flash the dumper chip. The status then goes to red not detected and thats it the dumper chip is updated.

 

How to Update

Emulator Part 1:

 

The machine needs to add a driver to your Laptop/PC to talk to the 2600+. You only need to do this once.

 

With Power Switch off on the 2600+ connect the USB lead from the 2600+ to a Windows Laptop/PC. 

 

TV TYPE lever in COLOR

 

Hold down GAME RESET lever and power on the 2600+, You should hear a windows connection jingle from your Laptop/PC

 

Goto Device Manager on your PC and click on the Unknown Device.

 

Browse your PC and click on the DriverAssitant_v5.12 (unzipped) and press Open.

 

A confirmation message should pop up showing a successful driver update. 

 

Should take you no more then two minutes to do this.

 

Emulator Part 2:

 

Now for the actual emulator firmware update. 

 

With Power Switch off on the 2600+ connect the USB lead from the 2600+ to a Windows Laptop/PC. 

 

TV TYPE lever in COLOR

 

Hold down GAME RESET lever and power on the 2600+, You should hear a windows connection jingle from your Laptop/PC

 

Open up RKDevTool_Release_v2.74 folder (unzipped) and click on RKDevTool.exe.

 

You should see the application window open and a status message of 'Found one MASKROM device'.

 

Press the tab Upgrade Firmware.

 

Press the Firmware button.

 

Find Update-1225.img and press Open.

 

You should see the IMG prepped in the window. Press Upgrade.

 

The update uploads in about 30 seconds. The whole process should again take about 2 minutes.

 

And thats everything done. Time to plug your carts in! 

 

John Hancock has already provided a list of working 7800 homebrews, so unless you just want to play those games for fun I'm more interested in receiving feedback for games he didnt test and anything else of note.

 

Bear in mind this is a beta and the purpose of offering this out on Atari Age is because of the breadth of cartridges out there that we internally just dont have easy access to - such a massive amount of carts with all their variations. I'm confident that this update will please, but some things may not work still and others havent been looked at like video touch pad, driver controller support as well as 2600 homebrew, a few odd carts and that one tricky official release Pitfall II. But we will as soon as the 1.1 is locked.

 

Thanks Ben

AtariDumper1.1.0.2.exe update-1225.img DriverAssitant_v5.12.zip RKDevTool_Release_v2.74.zip

Edited January 1 by Ben from Plaion

[DEANJIMMY]

I would like to try V1.1🤗

 

I have a Windows laptop and all non working PAL 7800 carts plus some 7800 homebrews 🤙

I have 2600 PAL Enduro and Pole Position to test z26 and Mountain King CBS Ram plus...😊

[Ben from Plaion]

1 minute ago, DEANJIMMY said:

I would like to try V1.1🤗

 

I have a Windows laptop and all non working PAL 7800 carts plus some 7800 homebrews 🤙

I have 2600 PAL Enduro and Pole Position to test z26 and Mountain King CBS Ram plus...😊

Perfect candidate!

 

Get Mountain King in there first!

[+remowilliams]

Nice, I'll give it a shot.  I've got around 500 carts between the two systems.

 

Can firmware roll backwards on the system in case of issues?

[Atari_Warlord]

I’m interested in the beta test.

[Philsan]

I would like to test it.

Thanks to all people involved who have worked during holidays!

[Ben from Plaion]

2 minutes ago, remowilliams said:

Nice, I'll give it a shot.  I've got around 500 carts between the two systems.

 

Can firmware roll backwards on the system in case of issues?

Yup of course, I've got launch day files that can be rolled back to.

[Electric-Dreams]

I'm (very) interested! I have 126 PAL cartridges to test (only for the 2600, but from various publishers: Atari, Activision, Telegames, Imagic, CBS, Tigervision, Spectravision, ITT Games, Telesys, Sega, Salu, Sancho, Xonox...). I also have an Atari 2600 PAL Junior, a PAL light sixer, and an Atari 7800 PAL. (I also have a Retron 77 with the latest build), so I have the means to compare the behavior of the Atari 2600+ with the original PAL hardware hooked to a CRT.

[Mi1ez]

Holy moly!  This is great and addresses a few things I've been pointing out.  Thanks so much for addressing these things and letting the public beta test to shake things out before release!

 

Sadly, I won't be able to participate as I haven't had a computer running Windows (nor MacOS) in my household since 2003 and I don't intend to ever invite that monstrosity into my home.  That being said, I hope that the firmware upgrade won't require Windows too.  I'll be intensely upset if that turns out to be the case.  I'm puzzled as so why it would require Windows in the first place.

 

In any case, if you ever release a Linux based firmware flasher for the beta, I've got a few oddity games and a plurality of first and third party joystick/paddle/lightgun/etc controllers I could test out in the 2600 and 7800 catalog.

 

Thanks!

 

OH right!  ...And, like @remowilliams, I'm VERY interested to know if the firmware can be rolled back too.

Edited December 28, 2023 by Mi1ez

[desiv]

1 minute ago, Mi1ez said:

In any case, if you ever release a Linux based firmware flasher for the beta, I've got a few oddity games and a plurality of first and third party joystick/paddle/etc controllers I could test out in the 2600 and 7800 catalog.

WINE on Linux?
I've run several Windows only tools on that when required...

(Assuming it runs under that...)

[Electric-Dreams]

2 minutes ago, desiv said:

WINE on Linux?
I've run several Windows only tools on that when required...

(Assuming it runs under that...)

I was about to say that  

[Handy DG]

I would also be interested in testing the new firmware.  Thanks again for all of your hard work fixing these issues!

[chad5200]

I will gladly test this out.

 

Among my large collection I have Circus Convoy and RAM Plus cart Omega Race with booster grip and also one of those pesky white shelled Coleco carts that we found to not work on version 1.00

 

 

[infinite.pies]

It would be really useful if someone could try the update process on a Mac using maybe Parallels or Crossover?

 

That would help a lot of of us Mac people to see if the process is possible without trying to get access to a PC.

[Alarm]

I will also gladly test the beta firmware.  I have around 150 VCS/7800 carts, with a mixture of NTSC and PAL.

[Avenger75]

I'm interested to do the test. I have several PAL cartridges, POle position, Defender, Mrs PAcMan,Mine of Minos,.....   some homebrews like Lady Bug, Zarkstar, Circus convoy .... and also some 7800 PAL cartridges non working.

I have windows also.

Edited December 28, 2023 by Avenger75

[suspicious_milk]

Wine on linux is not the answer.  It rarely is.

 

Flatpak or shellscript would be ideal.   Google & other houses have been having firmware updates via web-browser; if you want to get fancy & 100% os agnostic.  

 

At a minimum, I'd think we should have an option for updating the 2600+ thru the VCS.

Edited December 28, 2023 by suspicious_milk
I can't spell

[atariman72]

I'd like to test out the beta too please Ben.

Got some PAL 7800 carts as well as 2600 titles like Pole Position and Battlezone.

 

Thanks 👍

[Loccy]

Count me in too, if you're still looking. Most of my cartridges are PAL, both 7800 and 2600 among them. As an interesting aspect, however, I have an ARM based Windows machine which I can try the updater on, which might be helpful to you. 

[Ben from Plaion]

Cripes I forgot to write a with thanks to message for the update.

 

Thanks to everyone at the factory that without which this product and continued support would not be possible, then the heroes of the update @raz0redand @RevEng - their speed with the 7800 emulation and dumper work was insane, it was a pleasure working with you. Special thanks also goes out to @Dr Karnov, @Albert, @Thomas Jentzsch and everyone else thats contributed. 

 

You know Thomas messaged me a while back and said you need to come on AA and answer questions. Best thing I ever did was heed his advice.

[desiv]

18 minutes ago, suspicious_milk said:

Wine on linux is not the answer.  It rarely is.

Yeah, I spent years as a Linux zealot too...  (lots and lots of years..  like SLS Linux years...) Know where you are coming from...

A web update would be ideal.  I don't disagree...
But I'm also practical, and if there was a way to do something with WINE, I'd do that...

But that's me...

[Electric-Dreams]

9 minutes ago, Ben from Plaion said:

You know Thomas messaged me a while back and said you need to come on AA and answer questions. Best thing I ever did was heed his advice.

Yes, fortunately, you did it! It takes courage to jump into the AA lion's den. Congratulations and ... thank you

[suspicious_milk]

11 minutes ago, desiv said:

Yeah, I spent years as a Linux zealot too...  (lots and lots of years..  like SLS Linux years...) Know where you are coming from...

A web update would be ideal.  I don't disagree...
But I'm also practical, and if there was a way to do something with WINE, I'd do that...

But that's me...

I'm a Linux user, not a zealot 😅

 

Everyone has different wants/needs & that's fine.

 

WINE is wonderful when used as intended with reasonable expectations.  It'd be pretty weird (and unprofessional) to have an app that's flashing hardware depend on it. I don't think we'll see that anyways.  It can be a good band-aid in desperate times though.

Edited December 29, 2023 by suspicious_milk

[desiv]

6 minutes ago, suspicious_milk said:

It'd be pretty weird (and unprofessional) to have an app that's flashing hardware depend on it.

Of course it would.  No one said otherwise. 
But it wouldn't be uncommon to have an app that is designed for Windows with no Linux or Mac version, but happens to also run in WINE.   

[TPR]

2 hours ago, Ben from Plaion said:

Thanks to all here at Atari Age for feedback provided on the Atari 2600+.

 

We have a beta update to the Emulation and Dumper chip ready that I've been taking about for a while on the main 2600+ AA thread.

 

I've had lots of offers from people offering to test the update. Up until now its been tested internally with a limited amount of carts, I've sent it out to a few peers tonight who I know have got big collections. Its the breadth of cartridges out there that we internally just dont have easy access to - such a massive amount of carts with all their variations that need checking.

 

So if anyone here on AA wants to give the update a test with their own carts please post your interest in this thread and I will send the files and instructions to you over the next few days. You will need a Windows Laptop/PC to do the update, its not the most elegant process but should be all done in a few minutes.

 

Some details on the update;

 

2600 Changes

 

Dumper:

 

• Fix for Realsports boxing
• Enable Circus Convoy to boot (Also requires 1.1 Emulator update)
• Enable CBS Ram Plus cartridge to boot - Omega Race tested (booster grip not tested), Tunnel Runner and Mountain King not tested (Also requires 1.1 Emulator update)

 

Emulator:

 

• Change PAL colour palette to z26
• PAL / NTSC cartridge auto detect to display at appropiate 50 or 60hz
• Reversal of Difficulty Switches

 

7800 Changes

Dumper:

 

• Support for unknown cartridges (linear and bank switched)
• Removed clashing NTSC/PAL cartridge entries from known list (now handled as "unknown")
• Increased maximum cartridge size
• Increased dumper read timeout  (support larger cartridges)

 

Emulator:

 

• Fix for swapped controller buttons
• Pause support via Color/B&W switch (may behave inconsistently depending on cartridge)
• Significant updates to Pokey sound chip support
• Support for additional Pokey configurations (@4000, @800, @450, etc.)
• Yamaha YM2151 sound chip support
• Support for 7800 expansion module (XM)
• Updated palettes (contributed by Trebor @ AtariAge)
• Partial cartridge hash detection (compatibility with dumper)
• Cartridge probing for Pokey and YM sound chips (compatibility with dumper)
• Cartridge header database with entries from known carts 
• Improved cartridge header support
• Compatibility with larger bank switched cartridges
• Maria double buffered line RAM support
• Maria background color fix
• Maria color kill support
• Maria PAL display area fix 
• Overall improved cycle accuracy (including Maria)
• Added support for several new opcodes
• Z flag fix when in decimal mode
• Multiple memory map fixes
• RIOT interrupt mirror fix
• Force PAL mode controller escape sequence

 

What our intention is with this beta update is to receive feedback on whether all of the above works with your cartridges. Development is kind of swift and we will most likely be finding elements from testing that need tweaking, highly likely we'll be releasing further builds till we are satisfied the update can lose its beta status, then we will move onto a subsequent update to address matters that still need resolving still.

 

Thanks Ben

Please add me to the list as well. As a moderator here and admin of the AA Facebook group I have hundreds of carts in my collection including most released homebrews. Thank you.