Atari 2600+ Black and White TV Type Issue

[vcs2600]

Hi All, 

 

anyone notice any issues with the Black and White TV Type setting for Yars Revenge, included in the 10 in 1 Cartridge shipped with the unit? I cannot get Yars revenge in black and white. 

 

I also cannot get black and white for Mr. Run and Jump 

 

thank you all in advance 

Edited January 20 by vcs2600
Added more clarity

[MysticSword]

Not all 2600 games have a black-and-white mode, and in some cases (depending on the game) the B&W mode might do a different function for a game.

[Brad_from_the_80s]

As far as I know, B&W really only works for games that support it.  Think mostly the earliest games from the late 70s when B&W TV's were still very common.  I don't know about Yars specifically, but it very well may not support B&W, and I'm guessing Mr. Run and Jump definitely does not.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Yup, Yars' Revenge has no B/W mode.

[Glorkbot]

You can always just set your tv itself to black & white. Most TVs should have a “grayscale” setting in the Accessibility menu.

[Sean_1970]

8 hours ago, Brad_from_the_80s said:

As far as I know, B&W really only works for games that support it.  Think mostly the earliest games from the late 70s when B&W TV's were still very common.  I don't know about Yars specifically, but it very well may not support B&W, and I'm guessing Mr. Run and Jump definitely does not.

Yeah if you read some of the manuals they will explicitly state that high-contrast colours have been used so the B&W switch isn’t used and the game should display fine on those TVs. Offhand I cannot remember which game manual I read this in, but I definitely saw this somewhere.

 

6 hours ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

Yup, Yars' Revenge has no B/W mode.

The manual suggests otherwise:

 

“TV TYPE SWITCH
Set this switch to COLOR if you have a color television set. Set it to B-W to play the game in black and white.”

[Glorkbot]

24 minutes ago, Sean_1970 said:

The manual suggests otherwise:

 

“TV TYPE SWITCH
Set this switch to COLOR if you have a color television set. Set it to B-W to play the game in black and white.”

The original manual mentions a B/W mode, but the manual for the 10-in-1 cart does not:

https://atari.com/pages/yarsrevenge

Edited January 20 by Glorkbot

[Sean_1970]

15 minutes ago, Glorkbot said:

The original manual mentions a B/W mode, but the manual for the 10-in-1 cart does not:

https://atari.com/pages/yarsrevenge

Interesting and a very fair point! I played on a b&w TV as kid (as I’ve said elsewhere, but I’m in “old man mode” so I’ll repeat) so I’m not really nostalgic for that and I’m enjoying colour 😁

[Thomas Jentzsch]

46 minutes ago, Sean_1970 said:

Yeah if you read some of the manuals they will explicitly state that high-contrast colours have been used so the B&W switch isn’t used and the game should display fine on those TVs. Offhand I cannot remember which game manual I read this in, but I definitely saw this somewhere.

 

The manual suggests otherwise:

 

“TV TYPE SWITCH
Set this switch to COLOR if you have a color television set. Set it to B-W to play the game in black and white.”

Looks like the manual is wrong. Not known ROM supports B&W.

[Glorkbot]

11 minutes ago, Sean_1970 said:

Interesting and a very fair point! I played on a b&w TV as kid (as I’ve said elsewhere, but I’m in “old man mode” so I’ll repeat) so I’m not really nostalgic for that and I’m enjoying colour 😁

I used to play on a black & white TV too. It's vaguely interesting to play the games that way now, but I also prefer the color. Even though I grew up on B/W playing in color is like ENHANCED NOSTALGIA.

[Brad_from_the_80s]

Half the point of Yar's was as a vehicle for the crazy multi-colored safety zone effect.  You can play it on a B&W set, but I don't know why it would have explicit support, especially releasing as late as 82.

 

The one use case I heard of was the B&W mode provided better contrast and easier on the eyes for Video Chess.

Edited January 20 by Brad_from_the_80s

[vcs2600]

I wasn’t sure if there was a defect in the unit 

[Video]

Not all games use b/w for a b/w color option. Its a dip switch that requires a game be programmed to make use of it, and it can be used for whatever. Some games like 007 use it as a pause switch. I believe moon patrol uses b/w to toggle music. Atari is a pretty "dumb" console, so the switches are usually programmed to do more or less the same thing from game to game, but really can be set by the programmer to do anything they like (or nothing at all)

 

I think Atari largely abandoned it around 81-82. Most 70's games did do b/w mode. Yars was an 82 title, I think. And as 2600+ will only work on HDMI on modern tv,I doubt anybody would make a b/w mode for any modern games.

 

I know if I programmed games for 2600, I'd make most of them use b/w to pause the game, with a slight delay before accepting commands again, it could even use the 7800 pause button probably.

Edited January 21 by Video

[boggis the cat]

On 1/21/2024 at 10:00 PM, Video said:

I know if I programmed games for 2600, I'd make most of them use b/w to pause the game, with a slight delay before accepting commands again, it could even use the 7800 pause button probably.

The 7800 ‘PAUSE’ is the 2600 ‘B/W-COLOR’ switch. It toggles on each press - so from COLOR to B/W, then B/W to COLOR etc.  Functionally the same.

[Dr Karnov]

On 1/20/2024 at 2:11 PM, Sean_1970 said:

Yeah if you read some of the manuals they will explicitly state that high-contrast colours have been used so the B&W switch isn’t used and the game should display fine on those TVs. Offhand I cannot remember which game manual I read this in, but I definitely saw this somewhere.

 

The manual suggests otherwise:

 

“TV TYPE SWITCH
Set this switch to COLOR if you have a color television set. Set it to B-W to play the game in black and white.”

One game that mentions B&W switch not being using in the manual due to the contrast is Marauder

[+splendidnut]

28 minutes ago, boggis the cat said:

The 7800 ‘PAUSE’ is the 2600 ‘B/W-COLOR’ switch. It toggles on each press - so from COLOR to B/W, then B/W to COLOR etc.  Functionally the same.

Yes they are the same switch.  But, the 7800 'Pause' button is not a filp-flop, it is a momentary switch.  Only while it is pressed down does it read as 'B/W'... once released, it reads as 'COLOR' again.

[vcs2600]

Ok cool. I dig out my old 2600 …took a while….and saw that YARS doesn’t goto black and white on the original unit. 
 

Sorry, my memory must be fading lol.