It's BAAACCCKKKK - The Atari 2600+ with a HDMI output?

What I really don't understand is why the collectors get upset...

This is why:

I didn't add info for the latest model (Atari 50th Flashback), but how many similar but not fully functional knockoffs do we need? The answer is, we don't need any of them. Tens of MILLIONS of VCS/2600 systems were produced. It's not at all difficult to find one, and with most of them, they still fully work. I've been restoring and selling them on the side for years. The differences between these so-called wanna-be (never, ever, gonna be) systems are the same with original arcade machines compared to 1Ups. That's why fans of the original hardware (or collectors, or purists, or whatever label you want to use to describe them) don't like them. Yes, the 2600+ has a cart port. So does the Retron77. So does the Flashback2 if you decide to add one. That doesn't make them any more compatible, because the same compatibility issues apply to all 3. Starting with the Flashback 8, most later models can be modified to add games. The Retron77 can be updated to use a newer version of the Stella emulator, but even then they're still limited by the hardware. And since the 2600+ doesn't feature a micro SD card slot, there's very likely no way to update its emulator, so the only people who are truly going to be upset with the 2600+ are those who buy one thinking they'll be able to update/improve it at some point.
 
I used to make them. To this day it's the best performing one that ever existed. (*) But I don't do it anymore.
I can show you how, but you'll have to build it. How are your construction skills? Can you do SMD soldering? Through hole?
If you want to write something up, I'd be glad to add it to my website.


I just watched the video. I don't know how much of it is due to the capture card used and how much is actually do to the CleanComp itself, but the image output is pretty lousy in the video...which is a surprise.
Agreed. There's a lot of black bleed off the left edges, especially off Pitfall Harry. Even his 2 legs look different, almost like it's the Decathlon character! Here's screenshots from his video. The last one is a screenshot from Stella showing what the original digital signal looks like
 

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Oops. Yeah, what VC said.

I just watched the video. I don't know how much of it is due to the capture card used and how much is actually do to the CleanComp itself, but the image output is pretty lousy in the video...which is a surprise. Early on it looked like he was going down the right path to get good video out. I'm disappointed to see that he abandoned his initial careful engineering approach to the design and resorted to using pots for tweaking the color after installation. "R-mysterious" is not a great value for a final design. :(

Now I'm back to wanting one to play with to see if it's really that bad in person.

Is there a big difference in picture quality/colors between s-video and just a standard composite?

Wish Tim was still making the rgb boards, that would be ideal for my setup..
 
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Is there a big difference in picture quality/colors between s-video and just a standard composite?

Wish Tim was still making the rgb boards, that would be ideal for my setup..
Yes, there is a huge difference if you do them right. But you have to do them right.

The most obvious improvement is that dot crawl goes away. But there are also improvements in pixel alignment between the chroma (color) and the luma (black and white) components. And the crosstalk between the 2 components is minimized so you don't get vertical stripes on solid colors.

Note that with NTSC you will never get a perfect picture. It's impossible due to the way chroma is encoded. There are certain color to color transitions that will always result in artifacts. A good 2600 example is the tree trunks on Pitfall 2. There will always be a vertical line on one edge that isn't trunk colored and isn't jungle colored. You can't get it 100% perfect because the NTSC chroma encoding won't allow it.
 
Wish I hadn't just taken my 2600 to work. Literally was poking around inside it yesterday evening. There's no monitor there, so I can't get screenshots.
 
Found a thread on Atariage where the creator of the CleanComp posted some screenshots back in March of both composite and S-Video outputs:


The screenshots both in that thread and on RetroSix's website aren't as bad as those from their YouTube video. A video from someone else noted some missing or incorrect sound f/x with Space Invaders and River Raid:

 
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Found a thread on Atariage where the creator of the CleanComp posted some screenshots back in March of both composite and S-Video outputs:


The screenshots both in that thread and on RetroSix's website aren't as bad as those from their YouTube video. A video from someone else (
) noted some missing or incorrect sound f/x with Space Invaders and River Raid.

Thanks Scott. Those are the captures that I remembered seeing but I couldn't find them searching with my phone. Much better. You can understand my surprise at the crap quality in the other video. Still want one.

I should dust off the CyberTech line again. But not until I've tested a UAV and a CleanComp. Maybe they've finally caught up and it's not worth my time.
If I do dust them off, I'll be sure to let you know. And I'll write up something for your website. Or at least make some raw info available to you. I'm not much of a writer. :p

Heh....I'm starting to sound like Mark now. Gotta work on that. :unsure::ROFLMAO:
 
HA! SUCCESS!

I found a 7800 with a quite old version of the CyberTech board installed. It's the CyberTech JR.

That's the one without user controls and with connectors onboard. Quite old. I little lower performing than the CT-PRO. I believe this is from 2008. Anyway, I tried to take photos to show composite vs. S-Video. For this, I intentionally used the high-resolution version of a Sony PVM monitor so that every flaw is visible. It's really unfogiving. And I turned off the lights to reduce the 60hz banding. That's why the images seeem washed out. The banding is still there, but minimal.

It's hard to get good images with a cell phone. Moire patterns and refresh lines kind of ruin it. But you can clearly see the difference between the 2. Look for the checkerboard pattern on the horizontal and vertical edges. That's a composite image. The S-video is much cleaner in that and other regards. Both still have some video artifacts at horizontal color changes. It's worse with this board than it was on the CT PRO and the unreleased one. But it's unavoidable on any add-on NTSC/PAL mod. You need to go to VGA (or generic RGB) outputs to make it really clean. My VGA card was still a video mod...using stock TIA outputs. But it was damned good. I think Tim's RGB mod was actually a TIA replacement. So not a true video add on. I never saw the output, but I'm sure it was just as good as my VGA card. Possibly better....because he had direct access to the internal faux-TIA registers whereas I used a stock 2600 with stock TIA chip.

Anyway, back to Composite vs. S-Video.
Here you can clearly see the difference in image quality. (open the images full screen for better results).
But even the composite image is better than most of the newer mods that are available.

CyberTech_JR_Composite.jpgCyberTech_JR_S-Video.jpg

CyberTech_JR_2600_AV_Mod_in_Atari_7800.jpg
 
I guess I am in the minority ... I really didn't much care for my 2600. It was what it was and it was always inferior to the arcade machines that I now collect. I owned a 2600 from about 1979 on (actually, my first was a Sears branded one) and I was... never... impressed with it. Even as a kid... I really was not impressed. When I got a ColecoVision I never looked back. I've tried playing 2600 games a few years back and they were as horrid as I remembered them. I truly was ALWAYS disappointed with 2600 ports of my favorite arcade games... always.

I have zero desire to re-visit that... when I have a garage full of the real thing that I always wanted the 2600 to be. Hell... the 5200 (sans the terrible joystick) was leaps and bounds better...
 
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I'd like to see how the graphics look on a HD device.

It's still 8 bit. Not like it's going to be suddenly incredibly better.
Its probably similar to the Analogue NT Mini Noir, Mega SG and Super NT consoles. And they look awesome with zero lag. It still looks like the old consoles 8/16 bit tech BUT it gets spit out to your HDMI TV/Monitor without it looking like crap somehow. Looks great to me. They play every original cartridge just fine so far that I've tested.

How they do it is I believe not a upscaler (due to lag) rather very very simple instantaneous line doubling passive pass through tech. Which looks flawless (IMO). I love it. So hopefully Atari did same build type as Analogue does, I mean why would they not ? Its what you do now.

I see they have the paddles ! A must, because Kaboom is the best ! I also like River Raid though too.
 
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Then why are you replying to this thread?
It's called a "discussion". Perhaps there are others who are like-minded? Perhaps not. Hence the reason I started the response with "Perhaps I am in the minority". Being that forums are all about "discussions" and "conversations", I figured I was well within the concept of a forum to do such a thing. Hell, being this forum's specific purpose revolves around the big boys (full size arcade machines) rather than home devices... I presented a point of view that lines right up with that specific concept. Do you disagree?

I didn't disparage anyone who DOES think the 2600 is the bee's knees... now did I?

But see, your response questioning why someone would actually present a slightly different side of a discussion has done nothing but create yet another fork in the road. Bravo. I'll spoiler this so as to not offend the sensibilities of some...
 
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It's cool, I have a pretty decent collection for the 2600/5200 and I love them.....I like seeing it for sale and seeing it get some love, a lot....but IMO you don't need any of it...plenty of originals out there...you don't need no mods....just get an old tv...that's the way...and you get one of the odd sizes we don't use in the hobby for tube swaps...those crt tvs need saving too. I wrestled with the idea of putting my Atari collections in my arcade with a couple of old tvs stacked(a tv for each console). Just like our arcade machines, these things are not meant to look right on anything but a crt... tv sizes other than 19 and 25 inch they need saving too.
 
@FrizzleFried you are definitely in the minority re: Atari 2600! But you still have a valid viewpoint and stated it well.

I had a similar situation, but opposite reaction. I love the 2600. Because it's all I had as a child. Arcades were inaccessible until I was 9 or 10 and could walk to a convenience store. But with no money, I could only watch even then. So home consoles were the only option. All my friends had a 2600. Enemies too. Cousins. Everybody. But I was probably the last kid to get one. (Except the one who had the Oddessey 2 and the other one who had an Intellivsion.) We finally got a 2600 sometime in maybe the fall of 1980. We got Asteroids and Space Invaders....the first killer app. YES! FINALLY! Videogames in the house!!!!!!! :D

When we went to the grocery store each Saturday, I would beg for quarters for the arcade games. I usually wouldn't get anything. Sometimes I would be given one quarter and told to make it last. (yeah....30 seconds and I was done.) But it was a rare treat. I could go and watch other people play while we were there. But I only watched for the most part. There were one or 2 pong consoles in town, and the Mattel handhelds of course. Then 2600s started showing up. By 1979 there were a lot of people who had them. Many of the early games sucked. Especially for 1 player. But the 2 player games were fun. And many of the later games were just plain amazing. We would have tournaments and battle royales (both Atari and outside in the dirt!) and Atari this and Atari that. Some of the games were great. Accurate arcade ports? Not so much. But they were fun and interesting. And they often did things that the arcades didn't. Zig zag bullets in Space Invaders? Invisible shields? Those were cool options. You could play with shields or hyperspace in Asteroids, your choice. Etc. Yeah, sure....they made all those variations to make the games more varied and interesting because they couldn't duplicate the arcade experience. But it worked for us. Especially for those of us who couldn't go to an arcade, or who didn't have money if we did go. The games were fun, they offered a (mostly) positive social experience, and they were pretty darned durable.

We skipped the C64 (no money) and Atari 8-bits (no money) and Colecovision (no money) and xxxxxxx (no money). So we only had a 2600 in the house until I think 1987 when my brother got an NES and I got a Color Computer 2 for Christmas. So we saw some great games come out for 2600 late in its life.

These days I like it mostly because it's so bare bones. It's a great challenge base for hardware and software development. Because basically nothing is done for you and there are preciously few resources to make use of. It's great for the engineers among us who appreciate elegance and efficiency and are looking for a challenge.
 
Yes, there is a huge difference if you do them right. But you have to do them right.

The most obvious improvement is that dot crawl goes away. But there are also improvements in pixel alignment between the chroma (color) and the luma (black and white) components. And the crosstalk between the 2 components is minimized so you don't get vertical stripes on solid colors.

Note that with NTSC you will never get a perfect picture. It's impossible due to the way chroma is encoded. There are certain color to color transitions that will always result in artifacts. A good 2600 example is the tree trunks on Pitfall 2. There will always be a vertical line on one edge that isn't trunk colored and isn't jungle colored. You can't get it 100% perfect because the NTSC chroma encoding won't allow it.

Video cameramen and engineers used to say that "NTSC" stood for "Never The Same Color."
 
The original Atari 2600 console is more than that, it represented a revolution in gaming and a unique time to be a kid.
Sure, consoles that followed had better graphics, but the 2600 is still the winner in my heart. And look at all the pretty boxes.

2600_art.jpg


As always, haters will always hate. Such a shame. I see comments of the 2600 on other non-gaming/non-arcade forums and they don't understand the appeal of these old games with the "blocky graphics". More evidence of "technology bias". For games, as most of us here on KLOV should agree, they can be low-res, 8bit and still be fun and challenging to play.

Don't listen to others. Make your own opinions.

That said, for a $100 investment, I would still claim an ORIGINAL 2600 w/ multi-cart is better than the new 2600+ (especially if it will not support homebrews etc).

422af631-77c1-4784-a745-b48bfb0a13a6_text.gif
 
The original Atari 2600 console is more than that, it represented a revolution in gaming and a unique time to be a kid.
Sure, consoles that followed had better graphics, but the 2600 is still the winner in my heart. And look at all the pretty boxes.

2600_art.jpg


As always, haters will always hate. Such a shame. I see comments of the 2600 on other non-gaming/non-arcade forums and they don't understand the appeal of these old games with the "blocky graphics". More evidence of "technology bias". For games, as most of us here on KLOV should agree, they can be low-res, 8bit and still be fun and challenging to play.

Don't listen to others. Make your own opinions.

That said, for a $100 investment, I would still claim an ORIGINAL 2600 w/ multi-cart is better than the new 2600+ (especially if it will not support homebrews etc).

View attachment 688826

I counted 36 of the cartridges in that graphic that I owned (and I guess I still do, buried in the back of a closet).
 
Video cameramen and engineers used to say that "NTSC" stood for "Never The Same Color."
Yes. Never Twice the Same Color. :ROFLMAO: But in this case, you have a short cable run with no RF reflections. So the signal "should" be pure.

The problem here is the transistions between colors. The chroma (color hue) is encoded as a phase shifted sine wave. If I change colors, the sine wave instantly shifts leaving a discontinuity. PAL and NTSC will both have the same problem.

Here's an example. For simplicity let's say the TV decodes the phase shift to color using the positive peaks. If I change from Color 1 to Color 8 there will be an artifact at the transition. In our simple example, that artifact decodes to a color between Color 10 and Color 11. The saturation is reduced, but it is there. It's unavoidable.
1693760540517.png
 
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