Who's ready to hack the Atari 2600+?

[kjetil_f]

Should be doable to add some custom software and stuff on in, right?

 

[a_username_that_isnt_cool]

I'm ready to hack the atari 2600
Edit: Didn't notice the +

 

[esmith13]

My body (and 2600+) are ready!!
I'm wondering right now if there would be an advantage to soldering the missing mSD socket onto the board...
I heard you can get serial shell access via the USB-C power port but no one has figured out the login info yet.

 

[Jayro]

So it's basically a Rock Pi 4 inside?

 

[naxil]

mmm is a strange new hw... the console dump the cart and u after play it on emulator (on rock 256mb). probably u can add snes games to it probably... i see a review... and multiboot cart can't be played. the software dump the bootloader without the multi games inside....

 

[SylverReZ]

The RockChip RK328 is the same SoC found on the Evercade unsurprisingly. I bet those cartridges also contain SD NAND chips on there too.
@esmith13 Maybe this will give you some good ideas.

 

[esmith13]

The RockChip RK328 is the same SoC found on the Evercade unsurprisingly. I bet those cartridges also contain SD NAND chips on there too.
@esmith13 Maybe this will give you some good ideas.

Believe it or not, the Atari 2600+ multi-carts are made essentially just like the originals were in the 70's. They also work on original hardware, as do the controllers and paddles and vice-versa. Only the guts of the 2600+ itself are "modern", which is why it's still a glorified ROM dumper running Stella.
I give Atari props for the new cart design with the 4x2 dip allowing you to select between a max of 16 games.
Basically this new official cart format is very much like this:
https://www.pcbway.com/project/shareproject/ATARI_2600_MULTI_GAME_CARTRIDGE_PCB.html


...Unlike other things we've previously discussed