O'Shea is looking for someone to reverse engineer 7800

[Agent X]

I have 132 pages of  11 X 17 printouts of the whole MARIA (Rev D) chip and I've asked Atari, the answer is a firm NO on putting it into PD.

That doesn't make much sense to me. Why be so protective of 20 year old technology, but not 10 year old tech (Jaguar)?

 

I'd guess it's because the Jaguar decision was made by Hasbro, before Infogrames entered the picture.

[Curt Vendel]

The major issues are your can't reverse engineer technologies for profit as part of the Millenium Copyright Act, and Atari is actively enforcing the proprietary circuit design of the MARIA chip.

 

Is this also the case with the TIA?

 

 

 

Nope, I got permission from them and released the TIA about 2 years ago, didn't buy a set of the schematics from me?

 

Curt

[Curt Vendel]

I have 132 pages of  11 X 17 printouts of the whole MARIA (Rev D) chip and I've asked Atari, the answer is a firm NO on putting it into PD.

That doesn't make much sense to me. Why be so protective of 20 year old technology, but not 10 year old tech (Jaguar)?

 

I'd guess it's because the Jaguar decision was made by Hasbro, before Infogrames entered the picture.

 

Exactly....

 

 

Curt

[mos6507]

The major issues are your can't reverse engineer technologies for profit as part of the Millenium Copyright Act, and Atari is actively enforcing the proprietary circuit design of the MARIA chip.

 

Is this also the case with the TIA?

 

 

 

Nope, I got permission from them and released the TIA about 2 years ago, didn't buy a set of the schematics from me?

 

Curt

 

This is a complicated issue.

 

Hasn't the TIA patent expired anyway?

 

Personally I don't think any "permission" should be necessary to distribute technical documents of this vintage. It's not like these documents have been locked away in a corporate vault all these years. If everything had always been by the book you'd probably have a pretty small collection of memorobilia right now.

 

It's purely historical until someone decided to use it in a commercial project. In a commercial project you need to document clean-room reverse engineering (as most 2600 3rd parties did) in order to be free of liability. Of course, with the schematics and the know-how gained from them in heavy circulation that becomes difficult.

[eric_ruck]

How about just creating a version of A7800 that can run on an ARM or something like that? Essentially release something akin to a 7800 emulator on a GBA with a cart port.

 

Eric

[mos6507]

How about just creating a version of A7800 that can run on an ARM or something like that?  Essentially release something akin to a 7800 emulator on a GBA with a cart port.

 

Eric

 

The problem with a pure software emulation is a CPU fast enough to do it in software alone would probably suck batteries down too fast for a portable, or be too expensive.

 

This may be less of an issue as the march of technology goes forward (look at what the CPU is going to be in the PSP vs. the GBA). But it might not be quite there yet.

 

Software emulating arcade architectures like the one that runs Namco games like Pac Man takes considerably less hp, actually, vs. a 2600 emulator. I'm not sure how much power is required for a 7800 emulator that could only do 7800 games (i.e. Maria) but it might be just as difficult as emulating the 2600 since the 7800 is also a scanline-based system. It just doesn't necessarily do the mid-scanline tricks the way the 2600 does. So who knows...

 

Again, the GBA display is not suitable for Atari systems. Atari systems have 160x200 or 320x200 screens which do not scale perfectly to the GBA screen.

 

I would not be surprised, however, to see a volume of Anthology and Atari's 80-games thing for the PSP eventually. But obviously those would be closed systems and would probably not offer a way to download games so it wouldn't be a true portable 2600.

 

And as for running emulators on PDAs, the big problem there is controllers. The stupid D-pads they put on PDAs can't do diagonals and there is no standard way to hook up external controllers to PDAs.

[Atari Dogs]

I know I am coming in late, but I have two friends that will buy one, and if it is a good quality machine with all of the features I will buy one and maybe a spare.

Also, O'Sheas should sell two joysticks with the unit. I hate systems that have two joystick ports and have two player games but sell the units with only one controller. I buy a four port 5200 I want four joysticks!!!

Also, what is with O'Sheas 12 game minimum purchase? They would sell more games if you could buy one at a time. They could even increase the price. I do not need twelve 7800 games.

[rockman_x_2002]

Bought 3 games in the last four years. Each from ePay. But that's okay. They were cheap, boxed, sealed. Besides, at least I was able to get my hands on some good games I didn't own previously.

 

Okay, so they were Dark Chambers, Galaga, and DK Jr. I like 'em, though.

[rockman_x_2002]

Bought 3 games in the last four years.  Each from ePay.  But that's okay.  They were cheap, boxed, sealed.  Besides, at least I was able to get my hands on some good games I didn't own previously.

 

Okay, so they were Dark Chambers, Galaga, and DK Jr.  I like 'em, though.  

 

Gack! Wrong window! >_<

 

This goes over to "where do u guys buy all ur games?"

 

Sorry 'bout that.

[eric_ruck]

How about just creating a version of A7800 that can run on an ARM or something like that?  Essentially release something akin to a 7800 emulator on a GBA with a cart port.

 

The problem with a pure software emulation is a CPU fast enough to do it in software alone would probably suck batteries down too fast for a portable, or be too expensive.

 

I was thinking not exactly GBA but GBA-like hardware. If figure that an ARM system with a decent amount of memory designed to task could probably be built to emulate a 7800 with the costs not getting too out of site.

 

Eric