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Wilmington,NC

I wish I had the patience to build stuff like this. Great job!

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ad-hell-aide
analog monster wrote:

On another tangent, could i suggest you modify the blog post to inform people you dont need to butcher 2 controllers, as the thought of good controllers being damged makes me wince. You can buy female db9 to female db9 (rs232 serial) cables for £1.50 on ebay that you could cut in half. I think you would need to do the pin labelling for each side seperately as some pins will swap within the cable.

Ive opened my 2600 jr up and there is plenty of space inside for extra pcbs once you remove the metal shielding under the external plastic case-ive had no problems leaving this off permanently. There is also plenty of space for adding the extra jacks youll want for prosound and midi. I plan on wiring directly to the motherboard instead of splicing controllers and adding a power toggle for the teensy/arduino so i can power it off and use normal controllers for gaming still.


Good point! Added.

And yeah - I've done the same before re: soldering directly to the motherboard. Lot's of room, you're right. smile

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ad-hell-aide

I'm investigating ways of using only one controller port AND using the same interface PCB as GenMDM... it would be nice...

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I know you are a busy man doing all this work in your spare time, so no pressure.  But the previous post about using a single port and possibly the same pcb as genmdm has stopped me from building my own - for now.  I have a flash cart and prosounded 2600jr opened up and waiting for the next rev of modifications

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This is great. I have been following this project for quite some time. It is great to see the details finally published for others to try.

Last edited by pascal (Apr 2, 2013 3:52 pm)

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nashvegas

Is there a way to add an analog audio input to the teensy board for your new Channel 1 DAC Feature?

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nashvegas

Also I found the Gerbers, Schematics, and Assembly Instructions for the Pixels Past 4k PCB (originally distributed by Atariage).

I was looking at using BatchPCB to get a board printed for $10-$20 USD, but their system doesn't seem to like the current way the Gerber files are exported. Anyone have any idea how to get them in the format/configuration they are looking for?

As per BatchPCB:
-Export your Gerbers in RS-274X format, with NC Drill format.
-Archive the gerber files in a .zip or .tgz.
-For simplicity, do not include any extraneous images or files. This may result in your upload being rejected, or the design failing the DRC.
-We render images for your gerbers immediately, but the DRC is a bit delayed. The time to check each board varies but is usually about a minute.

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Now im not little scale, so i may stand corrected. But the key is in the letters DAC-or digital to analog converter. So in order to hear the sounds through the atari the signal must be digital first. The current public a26f stores a number of digital samples within the teensys code. A future version is said to allow custom samples, but this will still require some form of digital encoding first. I imagine this will be using a max4live patch.

In its current state, no you cannot add an audio input. I doubt you will be able to in the future either, as this will require something to encode analog signals into digital, for it then to be converted back to analog within the atari.

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nashvegas

I know nothing of Teensy board, however I did seem him note something about Teensy ADC in reply to yogi:

little-scale wrote:

Nah, it's the simplest thing possible

Teensy ADC --> Joystick ports --> 6502 --> TIA

I plan on diving into this Teensy stuff over the summer. Sorry if I am ignorant at the moment.

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No need to be sorry, i was just answering as i know seb is constantly busy. In theory yes the teensy has digital to analog converters built in so you can do it, but right now you would have to code it yourself, its not going to be as easy as just soldering a part in. Seb has provided the full code so if you wanted to you could add it yourself. But you do need to learn to walk before you can run. Get a teensy or arduino, some basic components like leds and pots and work your way through some tutorials.

Arduino has been around longer, and you can run arduino code on a teensy-you just need to be aware of the different pin layout. There are quite a few teensy projects but TBH youre more likely to find examples with arduino, its probably the most popular microcontroller out there. Their website is full of tutorials and they have a friendly active user forum. Im not saying buy an arduino instead of a teensy, im saying look for someone who has made for example an arduino sampler, study the code and apply it to your own project.

Most people starting out with microcontrollers will take someone elses examples and just modify the code/circuit to see what happens. It may seem a little daunting at first, but honestly it is alot easier than it seems and is really rewarding.

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Jelly Stone park, MD USA
pxscxl wrote:

Is there a way to add an analog audio input to the teensy board for your new Channel 1 DAC Feature?

AnalogMonster is correct, the Mega chip has built-in ADC channels that LittleScale demo-ed, 'streaming' audio through to the A2600; as opposed to playing stored samples. He did note that he intends to add this feature to an upcoming version update.

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ad-hell-aide

So, I tried to make a version that uses one controller port. Haven't got it to work yet. sad

At any rate, the next version will feature audio input --> TIA streaming (but hey keep in mind its only four bits) as well as editable custom waves.

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Not that I'm being impatient, I've just got a bit of spare time at the moment so I want to build some projects I've been looking forward to doing.  Just wondering if i build it as the design is now, will I have problems if/when you switch to one controller port?

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Hi seb, if I just add an opto to d7 will midi work or do I need to adjust the code in any way?

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Indiana

Sorry to resurrect this sucker, but I've started building one of these, and I was wondering if a new version of the firmware with all the neat extra features every actually got released?

From what I can tell the firmware is only available on the original posting, but maybe I'm looking in the wrong place? Any info would be appreciated!

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Indiana

double post

Last edited by Fudgers (Mar 16, 2014 6:39 am)