Striker667xbl Posted June 14 Share Posted June 14 (edited) So not sure who else would be interested in this... I recently received a bonus Ballblazer cart with a complete set order. The Bonus cart was missing the Pokey chip(thats why it was a bonus). I was wondering, givin the nature of 2600+ emulation, if the game would load up without the chip.. Surprisingly it works just like it would with the chips in it. So for those with Pokeyless Ballblazer sitting around, you have another copy that works on 2600+. Edited June 14 by Striker667xbl Fixed typo 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tradyblix Posted June 15 Share Posted June 15 Do you mean that there are carts without a pokey chip that play on the twenty six hundred plus with pokey sound anyway because of emulation ? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+-^CrossBow^- Posted June 15 Share Posted June 15 1 minute ago, tradyblix said: Do you mean that there are carts without a pokey chip that play on the twenty six hundred plus with pokey sound anyway because of emulation ? That is exactly what he means. Because the 2600+ is only a cart dumper, it doesn't actually see or use the POKEY on the cart at all. It just needs to know what game it is to load up the emulator to work off the main game code. And POKEY emulation is part of that so yeah I could see why this works. 2 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Video Posted June 15 Share Posted June 15 That's pretty cool to know. To bad it won't work on actual hardware (or maybe it does sans sound?) Ball blazer was a cart people often robbed the pokey from to use in other games, its kinda to bad imo as its a decent first person soccer style game with great speed and smooth scrolling, and even a decent selectable AI to go from easy to really hard. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tradyblix Posted June 15 Share Posted June 15 (edited) 20 minutes ago, Video said: That's pretty cool to know. To bad it won't work on actual hardware (or maybe it does sans sound?) Ball blazer was a cart people often robbed the pokey from to use in other games, its kinda to bad imo as its a decent first person soccer style game with great speed and smooth scrolling, and even a decent selectable AI to go from easy to really hard. Yeah, I love this game growing up even though it was during the period where I was having serious NES envy. I would always try to use that game. To show people that the seventy eight hundred wasn't an absolute steaming pile. I was only partially successful. And then there was karateka. Lol. If only I had some of the games I have for the seventeen hundred now, then. Edited June 15 by tradyblix 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Striker667xbl Posted June 15 Author Share Posted June 15 1 hour ago, tradyblix said: Do you mean that there are carts without a pokey chip that play on the twenty six hundred plus with pokey sound anyway because of emulation ? Yup. Exactly that. I thought maybe the Emulator would "look for" the Pokey and not work without detecting it.. but nope. Maybe this can save some of those robbed games from hitting the trash pile. I'll be using the robbed one in my plus. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trebor Posted June 15 Share Posted June 15 With Beef Drop (Value Edition), Froggie (without Pokey chip), and Donkey Kong XM, tested, all work on the 2600+ with full POKEY sound without a POKEY chip present on the respective cart PCB, it is no surprise that Ballblazer works with POKEY sound without the POKEY chip populated: 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Striker667xbl Posted June 15 Author Share Posted June 15 Yeah. It's the part that said "Froggie(Pokey detection)" that had me thinking the system was actively looking for a POKEY(or compatible). So happy to see the hard work on all this by passionate and brilliant minds. All this just makes me smile.. Such a great community working together on this. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+-^CrossBow^- Posted June 18 Share Posted June 18 On 6/14/2024 at 8:29 PM, Video said: That's pretty cool to know. To bad it won't work on actual hardware (or maybe it does sans sound?) Ball blazer was a cart people often robbed the pokey from to use in other games, its kinda to bad imo as its a decent first person soccer style game with great speed and smooth scrolling, and even a decent selectable AI to go from easy to really hard. Actually...yes it will work still on actual hardware but without any sound as you guessed. I have a revision of the game that is problematic on some 7800s that I use as part of a stability test of sorts. I removed the POKEY on it years ago to put into my Mateos cart. Anyway, the actual cartridge without the POKEY still loads up and plays the game on actual hardware just again, without any audio. I should also mention that while many BallBlazers have been used to strip their POKEY chips from them, I've had 2 Ballblazer carts with POKEYs that worked fine for audio use as they were on the actual game, but actually weren't working properly as replacements in the 5200 or 8-bit computers due to other internal issues with the chip. I suspect Atari was using defective POKEYs that still had good audio in them in some of the games. So that is something to be aware of... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Video Posted June 25 Share Posted June 25 Cool to know. Thanks. Yes, people often use pokey as a sound chip, but I guess forget its called pokey for "pots and keyboards" don't know if sound was intentional, or it just worked because of the analog nature of the chip, but people often act like sound was its only or intended purpose. I could see one being partially defective getting neutered and used as a sound chip only though. It still happens today, like a big flash chip being sold as smaller sizes, sometimes resulting in odd sizes like 379gig or whatever, or processors being sold as 3core when the die was a four core. Still interesting. Guess if you want a pokey for other projects you'll have to test them. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maztr_0n Posted June 26 Share Posted June 26 On 6/14/2024 at 6:46 PM, Striker667xbl said: So not sure who else would be interested in this... I recently received a bonus Ballblazer cart with a complete set order. The Bonus cart was missing the Pokey chip(thats why it was a bonus). I was wondering, givin the nature of 2600+ emulation, if the game would load up without the chip.. Surprisingly it works just like it would with the chips in it. So for those with Pokeyless Ballblazer sitting around, you have another copy that works on 2600+. that's a major advantage... i hope commando works nicely too. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CPUWIZ Posted June 26 Share Posted June 26 4 hours ago, Maztr_0n said: Be careful what you ask for, because in that case I, can probably ask corporate to get rid of some of you trouble makers. that's a major advantage... i hope commando works nicely too. It does. Too bad I threw away about 100 of those. 1 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DEANJIMMY Posted June 26 Share Posted June 26 1 hour ago, CPUWIZ said: It does. Too bad I threw away about 100 of those. Now those carts could be sold as "works on 2600+ only"😅 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CPUWIZ Posted June 26 Share Posted June 26 I still have a bunch of Ballblazer's, that I haven't had the time to "pluck". 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DEANJIMMY Posted June 26 Share Posted June 26 1 hour ago, CPUWIZ said: I still have a bunch of Ballblazer's, that I haven't had the time to "pluck". I was wondering where all the carts from Ebay have gone to... 😅 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maztr_0n Posted June 26 Share Posted June 26 12 hours ago, CPUWIZ said: It does. Too bad I threw away about 100 of those. my broke ass's heart broke hearing that... Seriously Ikari Warriors and Commando are like, top of my list to get... but i aint doin' 100$ for em... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zonie Posted June 28 Share Posted June 28 I wonder if the same can be said for the Concerto? Has anyone tried a concerto without the pokey on a 2600+? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+-^CrossBow^- Posted June 29 Share Posted June 29 3 hours ago, Zonie said: I wonder if the same can be said for the Concerto? Has anyone tried a concerto without the pokey on a 2600+? Concerto doesn't work on the 2600+ to the best of my knowledge? But if it did, then I don't see why it wouldn't work even with out a pokey since again the console is just seeing the game code that is present and the pokey sound if it was part of the game, would be played from the 2600+ since again...the pokey hardware is part of the emulation of the 2600+ console. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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