Little Flashback of Horrors

[COMTARI]

Picked up a Flashback 2 from Target a few days ago and tried it out last night...hopefully the one I got was a lemon. Has anyone else experienced a few of these problems with the unit? I connected it and checked Quadrun. Instead of a voice, there was only hissing. This must indicate it was a version A flashback. I liked the style of the unit, but right away I could tell that the joystick feel was not the same quailty as the original one. There was no rubber grip on the joystick handle. I played a few games with my son, who complained that he was having trouble with the movements of his controller. I switched the joysticks and sure enough, the controller was slow to respond to the left and right. One of the asteriods games contained too much screen flicker. When we played 3d tic-tac-toe...after every move one of us made...the screen would flip to the TV picture and then back to the game screen???. To finally top it all off, during the playing of Dodge "em... The joystick handle poped off. It didn't break, but just seperated from the base. Looking at the joystick base, there were two notches where the handle connected so it easily popped back on...but after a few more minutes of play, it would pop back off. I also noticed if you screw the handle counter-clockwise... it would unscrew from the base. I plan to take the unit back and exchange it, hopefully this was just a deffective unit. I was very excited about the release of the Flashback, I hope others are not expericing problems.

[ATARIeric]

Picked up a Flashback 2 from Target a few days ago and tried it out last night...hopefully the one I got was a lemon.

 

Becareful what you wish for

 

 

I havent had any of those problems except for the flicker on some games. The one that bothers me the most is asteroids deluxe as that is the 1 game I really would want to play often.

Edited November 11, 2005 by ATARIeric

[SomeGuyWithDSL]

I had the joystick problem you mentioned, if you were referring to the "retainer ring" around the rubber base popping off.

 

Took forever to get back on. I finally discovered that by inserting the tab on one side and pulling all the rubber up through the ring before clicking the other side got it to stay.

 

The A/V ground wire was also not soldered to anything in the FB2 Rev.A I purchased. My later Rev.B was assembled fine in addition to working better.

[HP Atari King of Michigan]

When we played 3d tic-tac-toe...after every move one of us made...the screen would flip to the TV picture and then back to the game screen???. 

963699[/snapback]

 

As far as 3-D Tic-Tac-Toe, don't worry. The original cartridge version also did this. So it isn't a glitch.

[maibock]

I also had the joystick problem and I have Rev B - The stick just popped off as you described, but nothing a bit of super-glue couldn't fix..

[HP Atari King of Michigan]

I also had the joystick problem and I have Rev B - The stick just popped off as you described, but nothing a bit of super-glue couldn't fix.. 

963724[/snapback]

Funny. I've never had that problem with the joysticks. However, the first time I bought the FB2, when I was playing it, the stick did start to unscrew while I was playing.

[tillenterprises]

When we played 3d tic-tac-toe...after every move one of us made...the screen would flip to the TV picture and then back to the game screen???. 

963699[/snapback]

 

As far as 3-D Tic-Tac-Toe, don't worry. The original cartridge version also did this. So it isn't a glitch.

963718[/snapback]

 

Yes, the computer does that to preserve processing power while it's "thinking" about it's next move. I know Checkers and I believe Chess does that too.

[Lord Helmet]

I havent had any of those problems except for the flicker on some games.  The one that bothers me the most is asteroids deluxe as that is the 1 game I really would want to play often.

963712[/snapback]

 

I know what you mean. I wish I knew more about how the display kernel works. I wonder if one of our esteemed programmers here @ AA will ever try and fix Asteroids Deluxe (and Space Duel too!)

[atwwong]

I havent had any of those problems except for the flicker on some games.  The one that bothers me the most is asteroids deluxe as that is the 1 game I really would want to play often.

963712[/snapback]

 

I know what you mean. I wish I knew more about how the display kernel works. I wonder if one of our esteemed programmers here @ AA will ever try and fix Asteroids Deluxe (and Space Duel too!)

963806[/snapback]

I believe Curt Vendel mentioned that they are working on fixing problems like that for the rev.c release.

 

Cheers,

Tony

[DEBRO]

I know what you mean. I wish I knew more about how the display kernel works. I wonder if one of our esteemed programmers here @ AA will ever try and fix Asteroids Deluxe (and Space Duel too!)

Is it the flicker in Asteroids Deluxe or the screen jumping that's the problem? To me it's the screen not being stable that's the problem. IMO Asteroids Deluxe flickers the same as Asteroids.

[Kokovec]

I also had the joystick problem and I have Rev B - The stick just popped off as you described, but nothing a bit of super-glue couldn't fix.. 

963724[/snapback]

Funny. I've never had that problem with the joysticks. However, the first time I bought the FB2, when I was playing it, the stick did start to unscrew while I was playing.

963727[/snapback]

 

The Rev A FB2 I purchased had no problems with the joysticks.

One of the joysticks that came with the Rev B version I purchased had a problem with ring popping off. I still; have not been able to fix it but will try some of the suggestions mentioned above.

[COMTARI]

I also had the joystick problem and I have Rev B - The stick just popped off as you described, but nothing a bit of super-glue couldn't fix.. 

963724[/snapback]

 

 

Still, you shouldn't have to bring out the super glue only after an hour of game playing and $30

[TheWriteDude]

When we played 3d tic-tac-toe...after every move one of us made...the screen would flip to the TV picture and then back to the game screen???. 

963699[/snapback]

 

As far as 3-D Tic-Tac-Toe, don't worry. The original cartridge version also did this. So it isn't a glitch.

963718[/snapback]

 

Yes, the computer does that to preserve processing power while it's "thinking" about it's next move. I know Checkers and I believe Chess does that too.

963763[/snapback]

 

In hindsight, you have to wonder if it might have been wiser for them not to include games like 3D Tic-Tac-Toe in the FB2. Even if there is nothing technically wrong about it, the glitches might make most people think they have a buggy unit and thus return it to the store for a refund. If most people like us -- those who love the classic 2600 and its games -- are not aware that this thing about 3D Tic-Tac-Toe is not a bug, then I wonder what others who aren't as knowledgeable about the classic 2600 think when they see these kind of glitches in the FB2.

[COMTARI]

I had the joystick problem you mentioned, if you were referring to the "retainer ring" around the rubber base popping off.

 

Took forever to get back on. I finally discovered that by inserting the tab on one side and pulling all the rubber up through the ring before clicking the other side got it to stay.

 

The A/V ground wire was also not soldered to anything in the FB2 Rev.A I purchased. My later Rev.B was assembled fine in addition to working better.

963717[/snapback]

 

It wasn't the ring, the whole shaft seperated. It didn't break, so you were able to reattach it, only to have it seperate again a few minutes later.

[supercat]

In hindsight, you have to wonder if it might have been wiser for them not to include games like 3D Tic-Tac-Toe in the FB2. Even if there is nothing technically wrong about it, the glitches might make most people think they have a buggy unit and thus return it to the store for a refund. If most people like us -- those who love the classic 2600 and its games -- are not aware that this thing about 3D Tic-Tac-Toe is not a bug, then I wonder what others who aren't as knowledgeable about the classic 2600 think when they see these kind of glitches in the FB2.

964121[/snapback]

 

Interesting point. Old television sets wouldn't have particularly minded the lack of horizontal sync when showing a screen with nothing particularly interesting on it. If the screen isn't black you might see retrace lines that would normally be blanked (making the result a bit uglier than showing a blank screen with proper retrace) but otherwise the set really wouldn't care. Interesting that Atari never used anything on the horizontal to show progress (the way the Supercharger loader does). Wouldn't help with auto-muting VCRs and television sets, but would have been a nice touch.

 

BTW, the Supercharger loader uses mirrored playfield mode to show its progress. I wonder if anyone ever did a "smooth" left-to-right progress indicator by using Score mode and the Ball?

Edited November 13, 2005 by supercat

[maibock]

I also had the joystick problem and I have Rev B - The stick just popped off as you described, but nothing a bit of super-glue couldn't fix.. 

963724[/snapback]

 

 

Still, you shouldn't have to bring out the super glue only after an hour of game playing and $30

963848[/snapback]

 

 

Agreed

[Lord Helmet]

I know what you mean. I wish I knew more about how the display kernel works. I wonder if one of our esteemed programmers here @ AA will ever try and fix Asteroids Deluxe (and Space Duel too!)

Is it the flicker in Asteroids Deluxe or the screen jumping that's the problem? To me it's the screen not being stable that's the problem. IMO Asteroids Deluxe flickers the same as Asteroids.

963818[/snapback]

 

It's the screen roll. I've played 2600 games for a looong time. I am no stranger to flicker, in fact, it doesn't bother me in the least bit. If the screen roll were fixed, I would be in heaven with these 2 games.