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Experimental 2600+ Firmware and Dumper


raz0red

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If you monitor the cartridge you'll see that the Atari 2600+ is continuously reading through the cart.  I strongly suspect if the current dump differs from the dump the emulator has then that is interpreted as a cartridge swap (maybe via a CRC?).  That's why I added a reset button on my multicart, so you could get the dip switches correct, then change the rom. 

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2 hours ago, karri said:

I have a multicart with a thumbwheel on the side for changing binaries. Just rotating the thumbwheel detects the cart change. So it must be polling the rom content periodically.

That awesome! How many binaries fit on the multicart?

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34 minutes ago, MrChickenz said:

That awesome! How many binaries fit on the multicart?

This multicart was intended for small 7800 games made by me and @gambler172. The cart fits 8 games. (Pay no attention to the cart decorations made by Walter)

 

 

Multicart.jpg

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27 minutes ago, MrChickenz said:

I remember seeing this in one of your posts! I didn’t know what it was at the time. That’s really cool!

We plan to actually release the cart. With wings and everything. The Easter game will be one of the 8 games on the cart.

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13 hours ago, DEANJIMMY said:

Hot swap is fine to do and the way I go since day two!

On day one I was a little bit disappointed about my new 2600+

With problematic carts you learn the sweet spot for a good dump while inserting them.

Some Activision carts did not work until pulling them a bit.

After inserting them quite often, they are a no brainers now.

Without hot swap the process to load a game is too long and I might have given up on Enduro, Pitfall and HERO...

 

The power switch is no real power switch anyway. 99% of the time hot swap loads your next game fine. When a game is not dumped right or supported yet, you can end up with a condition which needs a soft reset of the emulation by the power switch.

 

It happened to me once, that the joystick MCU got spoiled some how and no fire buttons did work. I had to unplug the USB cable to fix it. By that I've learned the power switch is rather a reset switch.

 

The manual sbould tell about hot swap is possile and it's the way to go.

It should tell you also to clean every cart before first play (as the 2600+ connector is less tight and fails to read dirty carts which worked on original HW)!

 

Cleaning and hot swap changed my mind about the 2600+ on 2nd day to the positive😊

That's fine if it works for you. Me personally, I don't hot swap. I play carts on my 2600+ and my original VCS.

So for me that seams like a bad habit, I could hot swap on my original Atari which is probably is a bad idea. 🤔😂

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12 minutes ago, shane857 said:

That's fine if it works for you. Me personally, I don't hot swap. I play carts on my 2600+ and my original VCS.

So for me that seams like a bad habit, I could hot swap on my original Atari which is probably is a bad idea. 🤔😂

I am a hot swapper, but this is my main concern, it is a bad habit if you switch between OG and Plus. 😬

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9 minutes ago, JetmanUK said:

I am a hot swapper, but this is my main concern, it is a bad habit if you switch between OG and Plus. 😬

Yes defo. I have almost done it a few times as both my 2600+ and the original are side by side. 😂

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@raz0red

 

I finally have some usable info for you regarding Zippy the Porcupine.  I managed to get the debug text to display by feeding the HDMI cable into a composite adapter.

 

ZippyIssue.thumb.jpg.d924b0e293a1a1b6b58ec7edb6b6c858.jpg

 

The game boots but there's no audio or video.  Based on the FPS, the performance is also pretty bad.  This is with firmware v1.1x-r2 and dumper v1.1.0.9.
 

Edited by KainXavier
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1 hour ago, KainXavier said:

The game boots but there's no audio or video.  Based on the FPS, the performance is also pretty bad. 

When a game doesn't load right, the FPS isn't a matter of emulator performance, but rather the 2600 rom not giving out proper sync signals. The target FPS and actual FPS values being displayed in the debug info match each other, so the emulator is actually keeping up just fine with the (broken) code.

 

Zippy is a 64k rom, and only 16k was dumped, so this is a problem with the current public dumper.

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On 3/21/2024 at 10:05 PM, JetmanUK said:

I am a hot swapper, but this is my main concern, it is a bad habit if you switch between OG and Plus. 😬

This concern has become true here. A few times I didn't pay attention to the power status of my old Atari and pulled out the cartridge while the Atari was still on. I was very lucky to see that it didn't cause any problems to my beloved 42 yo retro hardware. Perhaps my brain reacted to "no atari sign led" and thought my 4 switch woody might be off. 🫤

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I am currently on dumper 1.1.0.9 with this experimental firmware. Tried Keystone Kapers today and it worked about 1 in 20 or so tries.

I tried inserting the cart at different angles and the cart is clean. Tried it on my original Atari VCS and it worked every time.

Anybody else have these issues? Maybe the latest dumper has broken it somehow? 🤔

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4 minutes ago, shane857 said:

I am currently on dumper 1.1.0.9 with this experimental firmware. Tried Keystone Kapers today and it worked about 1 in 20 or so tries.

I tried inserting the cart at different angles and the cart is clean. Tried it on my original Atari VCS and it worked every time.

Anybody else have these issues? Maybe the latest dumper has broken it somehow? 🤔

I have Keystone Kapers and as it's an Activision cart it can be finicky, not as finicky as yours, but finicky... So I think it's the cart, it's Acti and their dodgy skinny boards. 

Edited by JetmanUK
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8 minutes ago, JetmanUK said:

I have Keystone Kapers and as it's an Activision cart it can be finicky, not as finicky as yours, but finicky... So I think it's the cart, it's Acti and their dodgy skinny boards. 

Maybe 🤔 Works every time on my original console thou...

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2 minutes ago, shane857 said:

Maybe 🤔 Works every time on my original console thou...

Yeah all my Acti carts work much better on my original hardware. Actually all carts work more reliably in that original slot, it's just a different connector. 

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1 minute ago, shane857 said:

An emulation thing. 👍

Well, I think it's more of a physical slot issue.

 

The original slot seems to give a tighter and more reliable 'grip' to the cart's PCB. Perhaps a larger surface area of the pins in the slot touches the contacts of the cart. We've seen lots of comments on these forums about games working more reliably on original hardware and some carts needing to be seated in a certain way, ot hitting a sweet spot. 

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2 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

Definitely not.

Maybe the current dumper then. Because My Atari 2600+ seriously struggles with this cart. And it is definitely not the cart.

Works Every time with original hardware. 👍

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4 minutes ago, JetmanUK said:

Well, I think it's more of a physical slot issue.

 

The original slot seems to give a tighter and more reliable 'grip' to the cart's PCB. Perhaps a larger surface area of the pins in the slot touches the contacts of the cart. We've seen lots of comments on these forums about games working more reliably on original hardware and some carts needing to be seated in a certain way, ot hitting a sweet spot. 

Seriously, I have tried all sweet spots. It's the 2600+ 👍

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8 minutes ago, shane857 said:

Seriously, I have tried all sweet spots. It's the 2600+ 👍

Yeah it is, it's slot, not it's software/firmware. I have NTSC and PAL copies of Keystone Kapers and they both work, but as with all Acti carts they may require a re-seat. 

Edited by JetmanUK
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4 minutes ago, JetmanUK said:

Yeah it is, it's slot, not it's software/firmware. I have NTSC and PAL copies of Keystone Kapers as they both work, but as with all Acti carts they may require a re-seat. 

Maybe Atari should have released two separate console revisions a 2600+ and a 7800+ then... less issues with carts fitting and working. 🤔

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