Atari System 1 Multi

[Torin]

I have a question about controls. I have an 8-way Atari Logo joystick. Are the games playable with that stick? I mean specifically Indiana Jones, Road Runner and Peter Packrat? Thanks.

 

[iamjimmi]

It's not my project, so hope I'm not speaking out of turn....

You should be ok with IJ and PP but RR needs the Atari Hall Effect joystick.

 

[Digimon]

an PPR needs two buttons.

 

[GadgetFreak]

I have a question about controls.  I have an 8-way Atari Logo joystick.  Are the games playable with that stick?  I mean specifically Indiana Jones, Road Runner and Peter Packrat?  Thanks

I am intending to supply a windows program that will make the rom files for the multi. It will allow you to select whether to use the original or modified controls separately for each game. As I know lots of people have multiple control panels and only like to play with original controls.
In order to play all the games with one controller it has to be a Road Runner type stick as RR, RB & MM need the proportional aspect.
I have made up a simple board that allows you to use an Ultrastik 360 in the cab to play all the games.

I will get back onto this again shortly, it is basically ready to go but have been tied up with my adding more to my Slice IC tester.

 

[Torin]

I have a question about controls. I have an 8-way Atari Logo joystick. Are the games playable with that stick? I mean specifically Indiana Jones, Road Runner and Peter Packrat? Thanks

I am intending to supply a windows program that will make the rom files for the multi. It will allow you to select whether to use the original or modified controls separately for each game. As I know lots of people have multiple control panels and only like to play with original controls.
In order to play all the games with one controller it has to be a Road Runner type stick as RR, RB & MM need the proportional aspect.
I have made up a simple board that allows you to use an Ultrastik 360 in the cab to play all the games.

I will get back onto this again shortly, it is basically ready to go but have been tied up with my adding more to my Slice IC tester.

Thanks for the update. Very exciting. I think i will locate an Ultrastik 360 as the hall effects is very hard to find and expensive. I'm hoping you will provide the small board for the Ultrastik or schematics on how to build one. Thanks again!

 

[Rasputin]

Any ETA on this multikit? I do hope it comes out before one circuits pole position fpga as I waited so long for that I sold my pole position and that was 3 years ago!

 

[bonehead]

This is just around the corner guys!!!
My multi kit has been playing solid since I had it on test.
I will see how far off it is from release.
Definatly worth the wait so please wait a little longer.

Steve

 

[smf]

Thanks Colin, that made go back to the schematics again and look afresh at the carts. That's when I spotted a few extra TTL that I hadn't really paid much attention to before.
It seems that TTL, LSI & LSI Cart 2's do not have anything connected to the /INT3 (J1-31) pin on the edge connector which is how I think they are generating the mid screen scrolling.
Here is the schematic section from a Cart 3 PDF.

Is this something that needs to be documented in MAME?

I see in the code there is a flag on sprites that triggers interrupt 3, is that hardware only actually on road blasters?

 

[GadgetFreak]

The hardware exists on LSI Cart 3's as well due to the fact that Road Runner uses it as well. So Cart 3, 4 & cockpit boards have it.

Basically Road Runner uses the interrupt to multiplex the Sprites as they are used to provide another mountain layer in the upper part of the screen.
Road Blasters uses the interrupt to handle display shifting for the road as far as a I remember.

 

[smf]

Basically Road Runner uses the interrupt to multiplex the Sprites as they are used to provide another mountain layer in the upper part of the screen.
Road Blasters uses the interrupt to handle display shifting for the road as far as a I remember.

Thanks, I hacked that into MAME in case anyone falls foul of this again.

I couldn't find any documentation of which games run on which cart types and if there are any other differences between them, it would be nice to get that in MAME too at some point.

 

[funhouse]

Just stumbled upon this thread - Wow - amazing stuff GadgetFreak !

I'm only now starting to put together an Indiana Jones System and if this becomes available it would be great!

 

[GadgetFreak]

It will be available, I had been waiting until I could get a SLAGS option sorted out. So far they have defied being reproduced using a CPLD/FPGA. So I now have a working sub board that can plug into my cart and replace all 4 SLAGS chips with 30 TTL chips.

 

[Alpha1]

Nice!

I'm in for a multi when available

 

[kold666]

The hardware exists on LSI Cart 3's as well due to the fact that Road Runner uses it as well. So Cart 3, 4 & cockpit boards have it.

Basically Road Runner uses the interrupt to multiplex the Sprites as they are used to provide another mountain layer in the upper part of the screen.

Road Blasters uses the interrupt to handle display shifting for the road as far as a I remember.

The problem of the rolling vertical road layer was well known at Atari, they made even a bulletin for this problem.

I had the exact problem and I changed the 7905

http://arcarc.xmission.com/PDF_Arcade_Atari_Kee/Road_Blasters/Road_Blasters_TechTip_(10-13-1987).pdf

kold6662020-09-21 12:13:14

 

[Diversatech]

Here is a pic of the Ultrastik adjustment board, it allows you to adjust the full range and centre of both X & Y axis for upto 2 UltraStik 360's connected to a System 1 main board.

And this is a pic of the menu. It's just boring text but I wanted to fit it into the main board roms so I had to keep it small. Still, it does the job.

The important bit about this conversion is that no soldering is required and all the chips that are removed/replaced are socketed as standard. So it's very easy to remove the multi and revert the board to standard.

Originally I had the games setup using the original controls as my joystick panel can emulate the original controls but I figured this wasn't practical for the real world. I settled on the hall effect type stick as this is important for Road Runner's three speeds and obviously Marble Madness needs proportional control for marble speed. The only game that perhaps suffers a bit is Road Blasters but even this is still playable with the analogue stick.
Besides my interface board for joystick range you also have to rotate the UltraStik 360's pcb by 90 degrees to get the X/Y origin in the correct place.

Lastly, I would like to say that Peter Packrat is a much maligned game but is actually quite playable once you know the tricks.

Do you have the BOM for the adjustment board? Mainly I need to know the pots used. Thanks

 

[GadgetFreak]

Do you have the BOM for the adjustment board? Mainly I need to know the pots used. Thanks

The board only needs resistors and pots, all the values are on the silk screen oon the pcb, the pots are 5K.