what is frying? could it be emulated?

[poker_plus]

Hmmm, thought I posted this last night. I guess I just previewed?

 

So I know `how` to fry (switch on and off) but what as these strange effects a manifestation of? My guess would be it's from the Atari RAM not being zeroed correctly at game start. It's strange how the effects aren't as random as one might think. Could this be emulated?

 

And for something completely different: Has anyone modified 2600 Gyruss to use the driving controller?

 

-EJ

[+Random Terrain]

Could this be emulated?

I hope not. I hate the whole idea of "frying." Never did it, never wanted to, and never will do it. Seems like emulating frying would encourage frying in real life. Better for someone to create a cheat system like MAME has.

[Room 34]

Frying rarely results in a useful "cheating" scenario. It's mostly for psychedelic effects.

 

What are you afraid of? C'mon... everybody's doing it!

[NovaXpress]

You can fry your 2600 without doing any damage as long as you have the touch. It's all about barely flicking that switch. I fried all my games to see what would happen.

[MattG/Snyper2099]

What a great idea! But, I don't think it's possible with emulation. You could probably replicate some of the effects it can cause, but since it happens through inconsistant interaction between the TIA, MPU and RAM in the 2600. Yet another reason to own a 2600! You can fry it! Not possible through emulation. (I'm not claiming this isn't possible. Please, no tar, no feathers.)

[Cootster]

I think z26 has routines that prevent it from occurring . . .

 

Frying worked on old versions of PCAE, though . . .

[Lemmi]

i only fried Space Invaders when i was a kid

 

its the only game i had that would give me an advantage

[128bytes]

As anyone who has eaten Baked Lays will attest, there is currently no way to emulate frying

 

Seriously, I would prefer that any emulator be as accurate as possible, but I would assume that with the correct set of routines that you could in fact emulate frying, as Cootster attests. I'm not the right person to ask, though, since frying my VCS was something I have never really wanted to do on purpose.

[+SpiceWare]

i only fried Space Invaders when i was a kid

 

its the only game i had that would give me an advantage

You don't have to fry the Atari to make double shot work. Just hold down RESET while turning on the power.

[Lemmi]

i only fried Space Invaders when i was a kid

 

its the only game i had that would give me an advantage

You don't have to fry the Atari to make double shot work. Just hold down RESET while turning on the power.

 

heh i was young, i didnt know that at the time and frying was cooler, but i let my friend down the street test them on his 2600 first

 

i used to fry my roberts sportsrama 8 pong machine, turn it on and start pushing all the game buttons down, a white screen and a huge black + sign that you could move around and a huge black dot that moved all over the screen that you cant hit

[+Random Terrain]

When did people learn they could do that? I don't think I ever heard about it until 1999 or 2000 or 2001. Somewhere in there.

[vb_master]

I've heard of frying, but how do you fry it?

[Lemmi]

I've heard of frying, but how do you fry it?

 

 

looky here

http://www.digitpress.com/faq/vcstrick.htm

[NovaXpress]

I discovered frying after Electronic Games printed the instructions for getting two shots in Space Invaders. I started frying everything, but it was rarely useful. An interesting one was Earthworld, which put all the items into one room for you to play with. That doubled the longevity of the game for me . . . to FOUR minutes.

[+Random Terrain]

I discovered frying after Electronic Games printed the instructions for getting two shots in Space Invaders.  I started frying everything, but it was rarely useful.

Maybe I did know about frying a long time ago because I remember reading something about Space Invaders too. I had a subscription to that magazine, so maybe that's where I read it. I forgot all about it until you mentioned it. One day I should look through my magazines and see if I can find it.

[Cap5750]

Isn't it odd how we look at all these tricks as just that...tricks? Nowadays if a game does something different like that, it's because it's a bug and people are mad about it.

 

Cap

[MattG/Snyper2099]

On a side note, the Atariage member Russ Perry was the one who first coined the term "frying" back in the day IIRC.

[Cootster]

As anyone who has eaten Baked Lays will attest, there is currently no way to emulate frying

 

Seriously, I would prefer that any emulator be as accurate as possible, but I would assume that with the correct set of routines that you could in fact emulate frying, as Cootster attests.  I'm not the right person to ask, though, since frying my VCS was something I have never really wanted to do on purpose.

 

Technically, a 100% accurate emu should be able to do so. But there are no 2600 emus that have a "system off, but program running" like say, every Genesis emu I've seen (some of which can be fried).

 

Z26 makes it impossible by not having such a state . . .

[The Eidolon]

I know se independently discovered "frying" carts on the 2600 back

when we had one (circa 1981), though we never had a special name

for it. Most games would do nothing or have one fairly consistent

result. I was able to get a wide variety of behavious out of Pitfall II

by frying it. Sometimes it seemed to damage the map memory,

so you could start on a baloon or see a seemingly random, inconsistent

map. This was one of the rarer results I got from frying that cart,

but also one of the most interesting ones I was able to find.

 

--The Eidolon

[rockman_x_2002]

I rememeber when my brother and I fried Pitfall II we never could get the "multiple location start" trick to work. But our results generally landed us in a position in that, when the game loaded, the screen scrolled downward (bobbing all the way), eventually looping back to the top screen. When you press reset the game resets but Harry is not show. Pop a direction, and the screen once more bobs its way downward through the map. Bats change between bat and balloon string sprites and the music played correctly but drums were offbeat (it wasn't the usual drum pattern but more of a steady tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap beat). Odd, useless, but nontheless amusing.

 

For those interested, I have been able to replicate this behavior on an Atari 7800 by loosely putting in the cart and tapping it slightly on the back and top. This sometimes can replicate the same trick.

[Mindfield]

I remember discovering frying quite by accident around about '82. Once I discovered it I tried it on all of my games, just to see what sort of results would occur on different games. Some of them resulted in wacky playable games; others in funky messed up screens. Some were useless. It was fun exploring, though.

 

I doubt it could be emulated. Frying is a result of a dip in power to TIA, which contains the Atari's memory, that lasts just long enough to partially scramble the contents of the memory, but not long enough to clear it altogether. Actually, I'm not entirely sure if it's the dip in power or the spike of its return that scrambles the memory -- but it doesn't really matter. I doubt you could duplicate that kind of physical reaction in software.

[Tsukasa]

......Has anyone modified 2600 Gyruss to use the driving controller?.....

 

I don't think so, Gyruss in the arcade didn't use a knob, it used a joystick.

Besides, the terrible controls are part of the challenge.....

[+Nathan Strum]

This has probably made the rounds before, but I thought it was relevant to the topic.

 

Atari 2600 frying as an art form.

 

The Frogger movie is pretty cool.

[slapdash]

On a side note, the Atariage member Russ Perry was the one who first coined the term "frying" back in the day IIRC.  

 

Heh, thanks for remembering! That's just what my brothers & I called it, but I mentioned it in the 2600 in the early days and the term stuck.