Atari 2600+ Beta Update 1.1

[bk2k]

13 minutes ago, RevEng said:

Thanks for the confirmation. The original klax proto had a race condition that caused it to crash on some 7800s. I'm thinking it's related to that.

Yes, I too can verify my 7800 KLAX (a resQsoft acrylic box version) is clean and is working fine on both of my 7800s - a '84 Atari Inc. RGB rainbow striped model with the exp. port, and a later Atari Corp. 7800 (no port) both NTSC. 

[+swlovinist]

18 minutes ago, SabertoothRetro said:

Mine Klax isn't loading on the 2600+. Works fine on my 7800. Just cleaned.

Mine works and confirmed with the update.   

[flaggskull]

Here are a few of my results after just a little testing.  

 

A.R.T.I. works for me, however, without music.  It does detect a POKEY chip when the game starts.  

 

My Popeye does not work.  I just get a black screen.  I see others claim it works or at least partially works.  Hmmm.

 

However, my 2600 Mountain King RAM PLUS game works great.  Seems like Omega Race is the only one not working due to the specialized controller.    

[+undefinedopcode]

Findings so far (about 50 carts tested):
 

7800 (NOW WORKING):
- Pole Position 2 - now playable due to button fix

7800 (NOT WORKING):
- Karateka - Unable to punch (prior to 1.1 single button seemed to block at least - don't have working 2 button stick right now)

 

2600 (NOT WORKING):
- Super Challenge Football (Mattel) - Black screen and noise after repeated cleaning
- Astroblast (Mattel) - Screen comes up, but cannot start game (seems frozen, tried both ports)
    - I have two copies of this title, behaviour is the same for both.
 

2600 HOMEBREW:
- Thrust+ Platinum (suddenly everything is purple - could this be to do with tv format / palette misdetection? - first level should be red, not purple)

[tradyblix]

33 minutes ago, swlovinist said:

Mine works and confirmed with the update.   

which version. there's 2 versions. 2600 and 7800. 

 

Also guys... you need a 2 button controller to play some 7800 games. Even if before it was "working" because the "main" button was the second button and that was first on 1.0. That's not a bug... 

Edited December 31, 2023 by tradyblix

[flaggskull]

4 hours ago, tradyblix said:

Update process worked for me successfully on a bootcamped Windows 11 that I bypassed Security (ie, Trusted Platform Modules) on via registry entries on a 2017 iMac

 

Frenzy works, so does Asteroids Deluxe. (No luck on "stella's stocking" - black screen, but it's a multi game cart so I expected as much).

 

My christmas is complete ! Gotta love the Stella 6.7 text. Eat that Retron 77 ! lol. 

 

Does anyone know if Penult is gonna work yet ? 

Penult still fails to load.  Without any sort of Atarivox/Savekey support, it would be impossible to save progress anyway.  

[Billiesan]

2600

-As others has said before Mountain King now works.

-Sega's Tac-Scan still has the same problem. It loads but cannot be started. Its a weird game where you need the paddles plugged into player two.

[flaggskull]

21 minutes ago, undefinedopcode said:

Findings so far (about 50 carts tested):
 

7800 (NOW WORKING):
- Pole Position 2 - now playable due to button fix

7800 (NOT WORKING):
- Karateka - Unable to punch (prior to 1.1 single button seemed to block at least - don't have working 2 button stick right now)

 

2600 (NOT WORKING):
- Super Challenge Football (Mattel) - Black screen and noise after repeated cleaning
- Astroblast (Mattel) - Screen comes up, but cannot start game (seems frozen, tried both ports)
    - I have two copies of this title, behaviour is the same for both.
 

2600 HOMEBREW:
- Thrust+ Platinum (suddenly everything is purple - could this be to do with tv format / palette misdetection? - first level should be red, not purple)

 

[flaggskull]

Astroblast works with the Paddle controllers but not the Joystick controller.  Start the game with the fire button on the paddle.  It is the only Atari game that I know of that can use either Joystick or Paddle and it somehow detects which is plugged in.  I think that must be the problem on the 2600+.  The game is WAY BETTER with the paddle anyway!  

 

 

 

Edited December 31, 2023 by flaggskull
Atari NOT Intellivision. LOL.

[captcapcom]

My Tests:

 

7800
Popeye - Boots up but Freezes at the Start of the game. Cannot Play

Rampage - Boots to a Yellow Screen full of garbage pixels, sound plays. 

Pac Man Collection - PERFECT
Frenzy - PERFECT
Baby Pac-Man - PERFECT
Double Dragon - Black Screen

2600

Zoo Keeper - Shows Colored Bars, does not play. 
 

[Albert]

9 minutes ago, flaggskull said:

2600 HOMEBREW:
- Thrust+ Platinum (suddenly everything is purple - could this be to do with tv format / palette misdetection? - first level should be red, not purple)

You have the game in PAL60 mode. This is controlled by the right difficulty switch. 
 

  ..Al

[+undefinedopcode]

7 minutes ago, flaggskull said:

Astroblast works with the Paddle controllers but not the Joystick controller.  Start the game with the fire button on the paddle.  It is the only Atari game that I know of that can use either Joystick or Paddle and it somehow detects which is plugged in.  I think that must be the problem on the 2600+.  The game is WAY BETTER with the paddle anyway!  

 

 

 

I'll have to dig out my paddles then  

[+undefinedopcode]

2 minutes ago, Albert said:

You have the game in PAL60 mode. This is controlled by the right difficulty switch. 
 

  ..Al

I was about to say I hadn't changed it, but realized this firmware fixes the reversal of the switches.  So it *was* the update but not a bug.  

[tradyblix]

42 minutes ago, Albert said:

You have the game in PAL60 mode. This is controlled by the right difficulty switch. 
 

  ..Al

Oh God....

[llaffer]

I didn't see anyone mention Pitfall II (2600).  Tomorrow, I'll update my system and give that a test.  Will report back.

[Mi1ez]

8 hours ago, Ben from Plaion said:

Hello all, 

 

Thanks for all the offers to try out the 1.1 beta software. More people have offered then I thought so probably best if I just provide the instructions and files here.

 

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 5.26 MB · 55 downloads update-1225.img 68.85 MB · 51 downloads DriverAssitant_v5.12.zip 9.4 MB · 50 downloads RKDevTool_Release_v2.74.zip 2.44 MB · 49 downloads

Happy to see it's getting out there but disappointed that I can't test out a bunch of controllers and games myself (joysticks, paddles, Atari trakball, lightgun, etc.).  This seems wayyyyy too risky for me to try running through WINE with all the multiple parts involved.  I still don't understand why a Windows based client could be written but couldn't compile one to Linux x86/64.  (I work with CICD and it boggles me when people compile something so simple as a flasher to ONLY one target, doubly boggling when it's Windows given its convoluted architecture and drivers.)  I say all this just to hope that the final release won't require Windows.  I wish I could just simply update it with a power+USB A split cable (the way I updated the Atgames Atari 50 version of the 2600) instead of having a dependency on any particular architecture.

 

Anyway, LET THE BUG HUNT BEGIN!  ...Also, yesssss... I have Bug Hunt for the XE. 

 

[thecavalry]

6 hours ago, Handy DG said:

Yes, please see the update to my original post.  The utility recognized the 2600+ when I moved it to a USB 2.0 port.  It did not recognize it when plugged into a USB 3.0 port.

Windows 10 machine here. I did not have issues using a USB 3.0 port to update.

[Mi1ez]

15 hours ago, undefinedopcode said:

Agree. If one is on Linux, the more pragmatic approach may be a windows virtual machine with USB pass-through. I seem to recall this was possible with software like virtual box. I wouldn't rely on WINE to run hardware flash tools.  

That does work (that's how I ended up getting my Cricut to work on my Linux laptop) but it requires installing a whole copy of windows in a VM and everything that implies.  Bleh.  I almost never use my Cricut because of that.  I just don't understand why the flash app couldn't just be provided for Linux and Mac to cover almost everyone who got the 2600+ when it's just a flasher tool and it's extremely easy to just support all three target architectures.

[thecavalry]

35 minutes ago, llaffer said:

I didn't see anyone mention Pitfall II (2600).  Tomorrow, I'll update my system and give that a test.  Will report back.

Pitfall II fails to load. It was mentioned in the footnotes for where Ben posted the update files that it is a tricky cart. For now, doesn't work.

 

But I can confirm that the Mega7800 has been working just fine with a 3 button genesis controller for both 2600 and 7800 games. (though i haven't had to use a second button on 7800)

Edited December 31, 2023 by thecavalry
Accuracy

[tradyblix]

32 minutes ago, llaffer said:

I didn't see anyone mention Pitfall II (2600).  Tomorrow, I'll update my system and give that a test.  Will report back.

That game is never going to work lol 

[tradyblix]

26 minutes ago, Mi1ez said:

Happy to see it's getting out there but disappointed that I can't test out a bunch of controllers and games myself (joysticks, paddles, Atari trakball, lightgun, etc.).  This seems wayyyyy too risky for me to try running through WINE with all the multiple parts involved.  I still don't understand why a Windows based client could be written but couldn't compile one to Linux x86/64.  (I work with CICD and it boggles me when people compile something so simple as a flasher to ONLY one target, doubly boggling when it's Windows given its convoluted architecture and drivers.)  I say all this just to hope that the final release won't require Windows.  I wish I could just simply update it with a power+USB A split cable (the way I updated the Atgames Atari 50 version of the 2600) instead of having a dependency on any particular architecture.

 

Anyway, LET THE BUG HUNT BEGIN!  ...Also, yesssss... I have Bug Hunt for the XE. 

 

Just run virtualization software, we're in 2023 2024... come on now... 

Edited December 31, 2023 by tradyblix

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Question to all testers: Some homebrews can be switched from NTSC (60 Hz) to PAL (50Hz). How does the new firmware handle this? Is the frequency changed on-the-fly? Or does stick to its startup settings?

 

Here is a short list from my head:

• Oystron (right difficulty)
• Jammed (right difficulty)
• Boulder Dash (right difficulty)
• ...?

Edited December 31, 2023 by Thomas Jentzsch

[AtariYMás009]

Please someone help me, I've done the update succesfuly and all the games run awesome, but in pacman PAL I can only see 2 ghosts on screen, how do I fix that?

[tmop69]

@Ben from Plaion I've just updated to V1.1. The procedure is really easy and quick (I've used a laptop with Windows 11).

 

Here is the first report of some quick tests:

- the new PAL palette is really better. Now Pole Position, Crackpots, etc. look ok;
- RealSports Boxing (PAL) is now working correctly;
- the following Coleco carts (PAL, black shell) are loaded and detected as PAL (@50Hz): Carnival, Mr.Do, Wizard of Wor and Pitufo (Pitufo is the Spanish cart for Smurf, Rescue in Gargamel's Castle. I do not know if differs from English version just for the label);
- other PAL games tested Midnight Magic, Q*Bert, Jr. Pac Man, River Raid, all recognised @50Hz.

 

Some notes:
- the output is still @720p, not FullHD. Is this correct? Wasn't supposed now to be in FullHD?
- in Mr.Do and in Q*Bert the sprites are sometimes disappearing @50Hz on my TV, while @60Hz they were fine. Not sure if it's related to my TV (it's an old Samsung  UE32C5100QW, there is no "game mode" setting). Can someone confirm if these two PAL games are working fine?
- I have now a noise with Pitfall NTSC (also reported https://forums.atariage.com/topic/358808-pitfall-noise/). Note that this is not an original cart, but a multicard I've made (brand new pcb and eprom). With the 1.0 it was working fine, without any noise.

 

[AtariYMás009]

7 minutes ago, tmop69 said:

 in Mr.Do and in Q*Bert the sprites are sometimes disappearing @50Hz on my TV, while @60Hz they were fine. Not sure if it's related to my TV (it's an old Samsung  UE32C5100QW, there is no "game mode" setting). Can someone confirm if these two PAL games are working fine?

 

Happens the same to me on all my TVs or monitors, I can't play pacman propperly 😭