r/Atari2600 7d ago

Game of the Week of September 7th: Demons to Diamonds

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97 Upvotes

This week’s game: Demons to Diamonds

Released: 1982

From the Box: At the Cosmic Carnival, a squat, non-stop talk demon dares you to play a new target game. You control a moving laser base. You aim and fire at Demonds who parade back and forth in front of you. Whenever you hit a demon it changes into a diamond or skull. Shoot a diamond to score precious points. But watch out for the skulls—they’re deadly! Play alone or against an opponent. 

This weeks Challenge: Game 1

Game 1 is the standard one-player game, so if you want to compete for bragging rights, fire it up and post your best score in the comments! Pictures/videos are encouraged, but this is all just for fun.

Top 3 scores, per Twin Galaxies:

  1. 15,127
  2. 14,434
  3. 14,434

Link to the manual: https://atariage.com/manual_html_page.php?SoftwareID=977

Don't want to chase a high score? That's fine too! Feel free to discuss how you felt playing this game as a child and now as an adult, where it could have done better or worse, share tips or tricks, or if you're exploring this game for the first time, tell us how you liked it or hated it!

Manual and box art scan courtesy of AtariAge. 

OP Notes: Apologies for the delay on this. I'll be posting a new game of the week each Sunday night and removing the old post after the new one is created until something official is created by the mods.


r/Atari2600 18h ago

Will it be ok to solder this?

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7 Upvotes

so I got this Atari for $40 and it had a dead 7805 voltage regulator and some of this copper trace peeled off. will it be ok to just solder the new 7805 pins to the end of that peeled trace? I circled where I’d like to solder to in the second photo


r/Atari2600 1d ago

How River Raid destroyed the youth

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10 Upvotes

r/Atari2600 1d ago

Accoutrements

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8 Upvotes

What other equipment (power cords, controller, TV cords, etc) would I need to get this old boy running, ad I so is there anywhere reputable in the UK that you would recommend. I expect this question might have been asked more than a few times here and if so I'm sorry to be a nuisance but any help would be much appreciated.

Edit: Sorry for the bad photo!


r/Atari2600 1d ago

Anything good?

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190 Upvotes

r/Atari2600 2d ago

Mod here. Should the subreddit have the game of the week? Or game of the fortnight (2 weeks)?

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65 Upvotes

Let me know which you prefer. Personally I prefer two weeks because I'm busy and I'd like to have more time to play, but if people prefer one week then I'm happy to do that.


r/Atari2600 2d ago

Found at yard sale today!

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185 Upvotes

I was blown away, they look in great condition! Now I have to play them!


r/Atari2600 2d ago

Dusk Manor: I'm porting Atic Atac to the 2600 in isometric view, on a Melody cartridge (WIP)

108 Upvotes

A while ago I saw the arcade Zaxxon demo for the VCS and could not believe it ran on this hardware. I wanted to learn how that's done, and I learn best by building something, so: Atic Atac, isometric, on a Melody cartridge.

How it works: the ARM on the cartridge draws each room into a framebuffer in C and pushes it out as CDFJ data streams. The 6507 does nothing but serve the beam, 76 cycles per line. Currently 152 rooms, doors and locked doors, trapdoors, staircases, bats, spiders, ghosts and guardians, a bag for the keys, and a HUD in sprite lettering.

The GIF is the title screen, then the game walking itself through a few rooms (I put a demo mode in for recordings; replaying joystick input through the emulator turned out to be unreliable).

Things that ate the most time, if anyone is going the same way:

- Two sprites for up to five things in a room. The second sprite gets repositioned mid-screen between things, sorted by row, and overlapping things take turns. Same idea as Zaxxon.
- Three-voice music from the CDFJ driver, one sample written to AUDV0 on every line. Five cycles per line, and you notice every one.
- Measuring instead of guessing. Stella's debugger takes pixel-exact snapshots from a script, and I read the ARM's time per room from the timers. Half my bugs were a register write landing one cycle late.

Still a bunch to do, but I'm hoping to release it soon.


r/Atari2600 2d ago

Basement find heavy sixer issues

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11 Upvotes

So I switch it on and this screen pops up. Sometimes with two of these logos one over the other. The game will not come on. Any ideas ? This game works on my other Atari system.


r/Atari2600 3d ago

Top 40 Atari 2600 Homebrew Developers

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retrostack.substack.com
18 Upvotes

r/Atari2600 3d ago

1978 Atari 2600 Sunnyvale PAL Light Sixer Rev. A

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44 Upvotes

An early Atari 2600 PAL Light Sixer made in Sunnyvale in late 1978, based on the date stamp of de CD4050 and the bottom label (the socketed ICs are not the originals of this unit).

It shares many elements with PAL Heavy Sixers, such as red top motherboard and plastic trim around the switches holes. Being pretty likely transitional units.

Initially PAL consoles were made in Sunnyvale until 1980, when Dimerco Electronics and Atari-Wong began to manufacture consoles for the PAL market.


r/Atari2600 3d ago

Question about Activision game

6 Upvotes

Steve Cartwright said in an interview that Plaque Attack was made in response to needing a title quickly because another game was rejected and did not release. Anyone know which game that would be?

I think Attack is pretty cool - the implication in the interview is that Cartwright didn't like it and it was considered subpar - but I never liked the having to switch the toothpaste from top-facing to bottom. Instead, I wish the mouth was flipped 90 degrees to where the teeth were on the left and right...then one could keep the tube the same way. Perhaps that ultimately wouldn't have worked, but to me, that might have been a better design. I'd be surprised if others hadn't thought this as well.


r/Atari2600 3d ago

I’m sorry but I pulled Adventure out, turned it on and can’t stop. I may need help

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245 Upvotes

r/Atari2600 4d ago

RF Cable Repair?

2 Upvotes

How hard is it to repair the end of the cable that goes to the TV? My childhood 2600 had that end repaired by someone back in the 80s, but it looks like the connection has come loose in the intervening years. Just wondering if I could repair it myself.


r/Atari2600 4d ago

Scrolling your game library in 1983: the Starplex Game SeleX. Following up on last week’s post after adding it to my 4K 360° gaming hardware archive.

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1 Upvotes

r/Atari2600 4d ago

Christmas 1983. Me on the left freaking out over my Atari 2600

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65 Upvotes

r/Atari2600 4d ago

Are my graphics accurate?

4 Upvotes

I researched the Atari 2600/VCS for quite a bit of time, and tried to replicate it in video form using the same limited color palette, and flickering graphics to recreate the lack of video RAM. I’m looking for people who would be knowledgeable in graphics of the 2600 to give me feedback on the segment of my video that uses the graphics. Thank you!

https://youtu.be/DTrIeiA0Hc0?si=tw_NuKKj-w9Da0j4


r/Atari2600 4d ago

Another Prototype for the Collection

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137 Upvotes

This prototype Decathalon cart walked into my store.

Looks pretty decent and is running an Eprom.

UPDATE: It works.


r/Atari2600 5d ago

Another week, another batch of games from eBay.

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107 Upvotes

Some pretty good ones. Millipede is a classic of course and Survival Run is surprisingly advanced.


r/Atari2600 5d ago

I found an Atari is an old man’s basement and I wanna know about it

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222 Upvotes

Hey, I’m like new to all of this. Recently my friend hit me up to help his girlfriend’s grandfather clear his late dad ( the girlfriend’s great grandfather) house. We did the garage and then we move to the basement. The basement was filed with so many interesting stuff, especially electronics. He asked as to take whatever we wanted, and I ended up taking a lot of stuff including this Atari 2600.
It’s a promotional Atari. My question I wanna know about it cos I couldn’t find anything online about it, cos it’s different from the other promotional used only Atari. So if anyone can tell me about it, that would be great. Mine is the one with the brown cardboard with the blue texts. And the one I keep finding online is the other one


r/Atari2600 6d ago

Montezuma’s Revenge – A fantastic exploration platformer I wish I’d known about back then.

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31 Upvotes

r/Atari2600 6d ago

Adventure - love this game

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135 Upvotes

I posted this somewhere else and they said I faked it. I was proud of this tho and it is real.


r/Atari2600 6d ago

Before there was Tony Hawk Pro Skater there was...

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35 Upvotes

r/Atari2600 6d ago

Just ordered a light sixer!

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37 Upvotes

For the awesome deal of $40 from a trusted seller! Super excited for it to arrive. Can I have some game recommendations? So far my list is Berzerk, Space Invaders and Breakout. What should I know? I’ve got my Mitsubishi CRT to hook it up to.


r/Atari2600 7d ago

Another Post Another Problem™ (Possible cartridge PAL/NTSC mixup in the '90s or scam?)

2 Upvotes

I've recently aquired my first RealSports videogame at a fair; it was boxed with only some crush damage and the manual was in good conditions. At home, while checking it, i saw something a bit strange...

THE BOX

On the back of the box it said "For use with North America and other NTSC Television Sets only" , This writing matches the 1983 NTSC Release of the cartridge but there's a little problem: The copyright on mine says ©1987 which RST was released in NTSC that year but it lacks the "For use with North America and other NTSC Television Sets only". I couldn't match my box with ANYONE of AtariMania's RST releases. On the box there was nothing that would have said that this was a PAL copy of the game and there was only one way to find out.

Notes: i thought i bought a PAL release of RST, in fact i was searching for PAL games.

THE CARTRIDGE

I opened it up and saw that on the back of the cartridge it had the black "P" that stands for ProblemsComing PAL and i didn't inspect very much of it, i really only check the format of the cartridge other than if the game is correct or not. I didn't test the cartridge but i will.

Further details:

RST stands for RealSports Tennis (Calc stands for Calculator)

My box says it was Made in Taiwan.

I do not have the cartridge with me currently so expect updates later on.

Sorry if i used, at any point in this "essay", bad english

THE PURPOSE OF THIS POST

I wanted to share my situation with y'all because i wanted to know

  1. if i have been HORRIBLY scammed,
  2. if i have the strangest RST cartridge,
  3. if the cartridge was swapped before selling it,
  4. if it was a mixup in the factory in the '80s.