NEW QPokey - The Quad Pokey Replacement - for Atari Major Havoc - Shupac - Hot Rod Arcade

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QPokey - The Quad Pokey Replacement - for Atari Major Havoc - Shupac - Hot Rod Arcade

Excited to announce the release of this! Many props to Shupac for seeing this project through after lots of work over the last year. This is his brainchild and he's done a great job!

Not a moment too soon and possibly a moment too late… The new QPokey is an FPGA-based replacement for the unobtainable Atari Quad Pokey chip or the alternative of four POKEY chips plus a Quad POKEY Eliminator board. Original POKEYs are getting increasingly expensive and harder to find and, since the newest POKEYs are now 33 years old, the reliability of original chips becomes more problematic with each passing year.

The QPokey is guaranteed to work and sound just like an original Quad POKEY when plugged into a Major Havoc board. It is not yet guaranteed for use in Return of the Jedi, I Robot, or Firefox, but we hope to be able very shortly to confirm compatibility with those games. We do test each one in an original Major Havoc before making them available for purchase.

To purchase:
https://hotrodarcade.com/products/new-atari-quad-pokey-eliminator-replacement-board

Price includes free shipping to the lower 48.
 

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Amazing. I knew some peeps were working on a fpga pokey in 2010 and 7 years later a quad pokey is here.

Pretty cool Technology advances..
 
Thanks guys! It's been a long road for Shupac to see this come to life but it's awesome to finally get to share about it. We decided to not mention any work being done on it till it was done and available, vs the pre-order stuff or whatever, nothing wrong with that, just felt easier to deal with. Let me know if I can help with anything!
Chris
 
This is wonderful!

My MH Quad Pokey chip failed a few months back but I was fortunate enough to have 1 extra of these chips in my arsenal of parts that I've accumulated over the years, but that means I had to use it now (so no more extra).

It's GREAT to finally have a modern-day replacement now available! :D

Any idea when you will know if this will also work OK in I, Robot?

Jon
 
Jon,
Thank you so much! We should know something in I,Robot in the next week or so, Jedi too. I sent one to a collector friend who has those two games and is willing to test it for us. I had two of each of those games in the last year but sold them :/ Go figure, lol. We've got someone offering to test on Firefox as well.
I'll be posting as soon as I know outcomes on those.
And qudos to you on having a spare quad pokey chip! I've never seen one outside of being on a board it's needed for, thats just awesome!
Chris
 
This looks great. Really wish you'd mentioned it was coming a bit sooner. That said I'll probably buy one eventually as a backup.

Thanks man! We really just wanted to make sure it would be a good product before getting people's hopes up and that sort of thing, otherwise we would have, really wanted to share a long time ago, lol. Thanks for the support!
Chris
 
Any chance of making single POKEY repros? There's a definite market for that now too, due to all the hoarding.
 
Any chance of making single POKEY repros? There's a definite market for that now too, due to all the hoarding.

Certainly it's possible to make a single-core POKEY repro -- my QPokey, after all, is four individual POKEY cores crammed into a single FPGA with an extra layer of logic to route signals to and from each of the four cores. When I was working out the VHDL for the POKEY core, I was doing all my testing on a single-core prototype that I had plugged into a Centipede machine. It worked beautifully and sounded spot-on.

The hard part is making a single-core FPGA POKEY cost-effective. Believe me, I am trying very hard to shave down the parts and manufacturing costs as much as possible, because I'd love to make it happen.
 
certainly it's possible to make a single-core pokey repro -- my qpokey, after all, is four individual pokey cores crammed into a single fpga with an extra layer of logic to route signals to and from each of the four cores. When i was working out the vhdl for the pokey core, i was doing all my testing on a single-core prototype that i had plugged into a centipede machine. It worked beautifully and sounded spot-on.

The hard part is making a single-core fpga pokey cost-effective. Believe me, i am trying very hard to shave down the parts and manufacturing costs as much as possible, because i'd love to make it happen.

this.........
 
Picked up that extra quad POKEY many years back (15+) when I first got my Major Havoc that was a Space Duel conversion (since "upgraded" to a dedicated unit ;) ). The person who sold it to me had the extra Quad POKEY chip and I think just gave it to me with the sale if memory serves...I actually had no idea what it was at the time as my knowledge of the games was quite limited back then, but he said to save it so I did. Sure glad I listened to him!

Great to hear you're working on a single POKEY replacement also...this was to be my next question also :) .

I have about a dozen POKEYs left in my stash now...picked them up several years back when they were still going for about $6-7 each...those days are gone now certainly ;) . Certainly have had to use them here and there as I have a lot of Ataris...

I'll keep my fingers crossed that the cost can be brought down to a reasonable amount...these will definitely be needed by a lot of folks now and for the future...

Anyway, I'm sure you'll let us know when it's verified that your quad POKEY replacement will work in the other games that use them...I'll likely pick up at least one for my I, Robot...

Jon
 
Picked up that extra quad POKEY many years back (15+) when I first got my Major Havoc that was a Space Duel conversion (since "upgraded" to a dedicated unit ;) ). The person who sold it to me had the extra Quad POKEY chip and I think just gave it to me with the sale if memory serves...I actually had no idea what it was at the time as my knowledge of the games was quite limited back then, but he said to save it so I did. Sure glad I listened to him!

Great to hear you're working on a single POKEY replacement also...this was to be my next question also :) .

I have about a dozen POKEYs left in my stash now...picked them up several years back when they were still going for about $6-7 each...those days are gone now certainly ;) . Certainly have had to use them here and there as I have a lot of Ataris...

I'll keep my fingers crossed that the cost can be brought down to a reasonable amount...these will definitely be needed by a lot of folks now and for the future...

Anyway, I'm sure you'll let us know when it's verified that your quad POKEY replacement will work in the other games that use them...I'll likely pick up at least one for my I, Robot...

Jon

You definitely lucked out! That's a great story. I'm thinking I may pull my originals and put them to the side to stay with the games and add on these for actual use. But I'm weird like that, lol.
Will def let everyone know when we know the low down on the use with the other titles. :)
Thanks!
Chris
 
Very cool, and great work.

BUT...

I don't see the benefit at this time, largely because of price.

I mean, a QPE and (4) Pokeys is still under $100 - and that's given that the user doesn't already have a QPE or any Pokey's on-hand (most of us do). And since it has yet to be proven to be a true equivalent (in all applications), I don't see any reason someone would pay more than for original hardware.

I have a NOS QuadPokey, plenty of Pokey's and multiple QPE's - so I'll be sitting this one out. But I think if the price were closer to half, they'd sell like hotcakes. I understand that may not be possible with the parts cost to build them, and that's why I say it's not really a feasible product AT THIS TIME - Once Pokey prices double again (in another decade) it might be more realistic.

Right now, that's just too costly to be useful.
.

WANTED!!! : DECO Cassette System Cages/PCB's - Amplifone M48AAW00X Tubes - Robotron Cabaret - NeoSaveMasta - PuLiRuLa PCB - Sailor Moon PCB
 
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