My favorite undocumented Atari 2600+ feature

[e1will]

I happened to see this in the Hardware thread (great find, @Blinky) and tested it out. I'm having trouble getting it to work with the paddles so far, but it works great with the joystick.

 

On 11/25/2023 at 7:28 PM, Blinky said:

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)

 

I've got my laptop hooked up to the HDMI1 input of my monitor and the 2600+ hooked up to HDMI2, and the 2600+ powered by one of my laptop's USB ports, so it's a couple of quick button presses to switch from playing from a cartridge in the 2600+ to using the same joystick(s) to play a game via Stella if I want to run something I don't have a cartridge for, or the cartridge doesn't (yet) work on the 2600+.

 

 

 

[tradyblix]

Neat ! 

[Glorkbot]

That’s pretty cool! Will it allow you to use the video pad for Star Raiders?

Edited January 17 by Glorkbot

[Blinky]

21 hours ago, e1will said:

I'm having trouble getting it to work with the paddles so far

I haven't tested paddles yet, need to look for my original ones. I'm not sure how the paddles are handled I would think joysticks and paddles could be supported simultaneously as they use different inputs. I think I read somewhere there is some detection involved (can't remember or find where though)

 

16 hours ago, Glorkbot said:

Will it allow you to use the video pad for Star Raiders?

There hasn't been an update for the input controller MCU yet so it's still joysticks and paddles.

 

[r_chase]

Full disclosure, I got this from @remowilliams and he said that the 2600+ also uses a libretro core. I doubt anyone cares, but I feel like libretro and Atari are either partnering up or Atari just forked RetroArch for their consoles rather than just going with what libretro bases their stuff on (such as Stella). Not upset yet, but I'm currently having sneaking suspicions about libretro and Atari.

[RevEng]

The padfdles are there and working. Have a look with https://hardwaretester.com/gamepad/

 

 

[tradyblix]

10 hours ago, r_chase said:

Full disclosure, I got this from @remowilliams and he said that the 2600+ also uses a libretro core. I doubt anyone cares, but I feel like libretro and Atari are either partnering up or Atari just forked RetroArch for their consoles rather than just going with what libretro bases their stuff on (such as Stella). Not upset yet, but I'm currently having sneaking suspicions about libretro and Atari.

The 2600+ uses Stella 6.7 for 2600 games and some version of Prosystem for 7800 games. It says so on 1.1 bootscreen.