1 game worked out of 20...

[piggies_pinion]

Soooo.
Bought 2600+ from Amazon, full of nostalgic hope. 
Fl;ashed the fireware to the Beta 1.1
Plugged in and....
Well the good news is my old QuickShot still works! Yay!
Bad news is, out of the 20 games I have from my childhood only 1 worked: Commando Raid.
The rest either failed to load - I haven't in fairness cleaned any of them yet. OR loaded but then did nothing. Just sat there. 
Robot Tank made the noises like I was moving, but no moving.

Bitterly disappointed that I can't play Frostbite. Was my one true love as a 7 year old.

So do I send it back or try to struggle on? Advice would be lovely. 

[Thomas Jentzsch]

23 minutes ago, piggies_pinion said:

I haven't in fairness cleaned any of them yet.

In fairness, you know the solution.

[Bratwurst]

21 minutes ago, piggies_pinion said:

The rest either failed to load - I haven't in fairness cleaned any of them yet.

I would love to know what the return percentage was on purchases for the 2600+ because of client-side 'issues' like this. Those that do make their way back to retailer probably end up as e-waste.

[SparkleFork]

I always thought there should have been something in the quick guide to recommend cleaning old carts, as I had a load that didn't work before subjecting them to some lighter fluid and a q tip. 

[JetmanUK]

45 minutes ago, piggies_pinion said:

Soooo.
Bought 2600+ from Amazon, full of nostalgic hope. 
Fl;ashed the fireware to the Beta 1.1
Plugged in and....
Well the good news is my old QuickShot still works! Yay!
Bad news is, out of the 20 games I have from my childhood only 1 worked: Commando Raid.
The rest either failed to load - I haven't in fairness cleaned any of them yet. OR loaded but then did nothing. Just sat there. 
Robot Tank made the noises like I was moving, but no moving.

Bitterly disappointed that I can't play Frostbite. Was my one true love as a 7 year old.

So do I send it back or try to struggle on? Advice would be lovely. 

Get cleaning them, in my experience very few are actually dead... My experience has been less than 2% dead carts. Clean them and clean them again. Good luck! 

 

Oh and I'd skip straight to the experimental build, unless you've read it has issues with any of your carts, which I don't think there is. That plus the latest dumper and I think all these should work. 👍🏻🤞🏻

Edited March 13 by JetmanUK

[+LS650]

CLEAN THEM.

[SuperZapperRecharge]

3 hours ago, piggies_pinion said:

I haven't in fairness cleaned any of them yet. 

 

All those games should work with the original firmware but Robot Tank. Robot Tank works with new versions of the firmware.

Clean your cartridges. Take a Q tip and 90% or higher isopropyl alcohol and scrub those contacts. DioxIt works well too.

Activision carts, for me, are the worst, had to clean some 3-4 times before they worked on an original Atari.

 

Sit down on your couch, watch some streaming shows, and clean your carts. It feels therapeutic!

[Ben from Plaion]

All these cartridges should work fine, with a new dumper and beta firmware and a little clean.

 

Lets see if you can raise you 5% compatibility rate to as close to 100% as possible.

[Glorkbot]

Clean them, and then clean them again!

[2LTIME6100]

Almost all the games I bought on eBay as "worked" didn't work 😔

But I got all of these games to work through cleaning 😀

 

Try it, it will be worth it.

[MikeM_]

I’ve even had games that weren't working in my 7800 either come back to life after a thorough scrubbing. 
 

In total, I have only come across three carts that were actually dead, out of 210. And all three were super common and cheap to replace.
 

these are 40-50 year old electronics components. No matter how well you think you’ve kept them, they will need to be cleaned. 

[Microjak]

If at first you don’t succeed,

Clean them carts,now follow my lead…

Grab some q-tips and Isopro ,

Now your ready,good to go,

Clean them connectors till they shine,

Do it well and it should play fine,

If your game still fails to load,

Repeat these steps and……truth be told,

These games are old and so are we,

But worth the effort just wait and see!

 

[Spanner]

CLEAN them and you can try putting a bit of card under the cart to keep then straight in the slot if they move in the slot, mine does not always read the cart in the slot straight away so I put abit of card under it and it started to read the carts ok, the card I use is from a Kingston Micro SD Card, it has the right thinness.

Edited March 14 by Spanner

[piggies_pinion]

So... Yes. I get it. I should clean them. Good job it's bath night tonight...

Just an update though, of the cart that comes with the thing only Yars Revenge works. The rest load but are completely none responsive. 

So I'm guessing that's not a great sign.

 

[Lost Monkey]

For your latest response - check your controller connection at the port.   I found  that most of my old controllers do not work with mine, because the connection is just not snug enough.  They have a lot of "play" and are not making contact. 

 

 

[Ben from Plaion]

1 hour ago, piggies_pinion said:

So... Yes. I get it. I should clean them. Good job it's bath night tonight...

Just an update though, of the cart that comes with the thing only Yars Revenge works. The rest load but are completely none responsive. 

So I'm guessing that's not a great sign.

 

Doesnt sound right, are you pressing the Game Reset lever to start any of the games on the 10 in 1?

[boggis the cat]

On 3/15/2024 at 7:13 AM, Ben from Plaion said:

Doesnt sound right, are you pressing the Game Reset lever to start any of the games on the 10 in 1?

The pack-in cart didn’t initially work properly for me, power cycling the 2600+.  I tried it in an old 2600 and eventually got all the games to work on that system, then the cart worked in the 2600+.

 

I am unsure about the root cause.

[Sean_1970]

I’m still on 1.0 firmware and the only carts that didn’t work for me even after cleaning had known compatibility issues - haven’t encountered a duffer yet 🤞.

 

Make sure your controllers are fully seated in the ports and consult manuals: some games use the right-hand controller port, some use the B&W switch and difficulty switches in unconventional ways and most games start with the reset switch, but not all. That’s part of the fun really 😊

Edited March 17 by Sean_1970

[+LS650]

1 hour ago, boggis the cat said:

The pack-in cart didn’t initially work properly for me, power cycling the 2600+.  I tried it in an old 2600 and eventually got all the games to work on that system, then the cart worked in the 2600+.

I am unsure about the root cause.

Sounds like the 10-in-1 had some kind of residue on the contacts that was gumming up the cart slot, and eventually was scraped clean.

Perhaps it is the Plus slot that is dirty and that explains all the other carts not working.

[kjames_s_2000]

I don't have any real exotic carts, but all my atari branded carts from back in the day load fine on the plus.  I didn't even need to clean them, but I am starting to slowly cycle through spraying with CRC quick dry electronics cleaner and scrubbing them.  The only ones that have given me any issues are the Activision carts.  I'm amazed at the robustness of those 40 to 50 year old MOS technology ROMs.  I kind of wonder if the newer EPROMS will have the same life expectancy, but I am genuinely impressed with the atari cart technology from back in the day.

[Dr Karnov]

They do seem to built to last. I've had a failure rate of less than 2% and I've bought lots a weird and wonderful carts in all sorts of conditions. I even had a Turmoil cart that was smashed to smithereens in the post but the actual board worked fine.

 

By comparison, I've had 4 or 5 Evercade carts fail (out of about 30) and that system is only a few years old

[JetmanUK]

2 hours ago, Dr Karnov said:

They do seem to built to last. I've had a failure rate of less than 2% and I've bought lots a weird and wonderful carts in all sorts of conditions. I even had a Turmoil cart that was smashed to smithereens in the post but the actual board worked fine.

 

By comparison, I've had 4 or 5 Evercade carts fail (out of about 30) and that system is only a few years old

Ah the infamous Turmoil cart, a real work of art. 

 

I have an Evercade and have heard about a high amount of carts failures, thankfully I have not suffered any yet. Have you had them replaced? 

[Dr Karnov]

To be fair to Blaze, every single cart failure I've had has been replaced.

 

I do sometimes worry about the long term reliability of the other carts though, especially when they drift out of warranty 

[Sean_1970]

3 hours ago, Dr Karnov said:

They do seem to built to last. I've had a failure rate of less than 2% and I've bought lots a weird and wonderful carts in all sorts of conditions. I even had a Turmoil cart that was smashed to smithereens in the post but the actual board worked fine.

 

By comparison, I've had 4 or 5 Evercade carts fail (out of about 30) and that system is only a few years old

I haven’t had any fail, but I have some that one load from slot two on my VS which seems odd…

[Ben from Plaion]

11 hours ago, kjames_s_2000 said:

I don't have any real exotic carts, but all my atari branded carts from back in the day load fine on the plus.  I didn't even need to clean them, but I am starting to slowly cycle through spraying with CRC quick dry electronics cleaner and scrubbing them.  The only ones that have given me any issues are the Activision carts.  I'm amazed at the robustness of those 40 to 50 year old MOS technology ROMs.  I kind of wonder if the newer EPROMS will have the same life expectancy, but I am genuinely impressed with the atari cart technology from back in the day.

I tested hundreds and hundreds of original carts and came across very very few that were genuinly faulty. I think the faulty ones were always obsure third party / clones / pirated. Atari, Activision, Imagic, Tigervision etc I dont recall having a single failure and like you said some of these nearly 50 years old!. 

 

I kept saying to myself these carts may have not had electrical current flow through them for decades, may sound silly but I it felt good to give them life!