> I think a portable 2600 could be made with all the
> good games in it and still be cheaper than a gameboy
> color, and with long battery life.
Quick question on that statement: because the 2600
chips are simpler than the Game Boy, would it take
longer for an equivalent charge to be depleted? Or,
because the chip set is older (read that: less
effiecient than modern designs), would it drain it
faster?
> LCD resolution wouldn't have to be greater than
> 160x200 since that's the effective resolution of the
> sprites, so there wouldn't be the same loss in
> clarity that you might see on the Nomad running
> Genesis games.
That reminds me (I could be wrong, red pencil where
necessary): I seem to recall, back when the NES was
the big kid on the block, a company called "Color
Dreams" that claimed to have a special chip that made
the NES pump out more on-screen colors at once than
the hardware could alone. How, exactly, is this
possible (if you don't know, you don't have to
answer), and if possible, did anyone try it with the
2600?
> thing you'd have to worry about is how fast the LCD
> refreshes due to the games that feature flicker.
Does LCD run at a slower rate than a regular TV, NTSC
or PAL? I'm wondering if the TV tuner for the Game
Gear (one of the systems I don't have just yet) just
translated the signal, or if it, say, cut the frame
rate in half to accomodate the unit. It had an LCD
screen also, I think (I say that because I'm not aware
of any alternatives to LCD screens, but for all I
know, there could be others out there).
> I think this would be a pretty cool unit if it:
>
> a) still had a way to plug in cartridges (flip a lid
> or something)
Absolutely. Having every game hardwired is nice, but
with new ones being developed and published by Best,
Songbird, and our own band of Merry Men, that slot
would be a must. Especially if you ever get the okay
to make "Save Mary." BTW, does anyone know how the
game is supposed to control?
> c) had 2 mini DIN ports with an adapter to plug in
> regular controllers to bypass the on-board (let's
say
> single) joypad.
Those DIN ports would come in handy for plugging in a
keyboard controller for games like "Star Raiders." It
wouldn't take much to make a switch to go between the
joypad and a port so you could plug in paddles, right?
As a two player machine, though, that might be
trickier. I remember EGM wrote about an adapter in
the works for the Game Gear (which never was released,
I don't think) that would let you plug a regular SMS
control pad in the game link port so two people could
play the SMS games with the Master Gear converter. I
thought, good idea, but how will two people see the
screen?
> d) could run in NTSC or PAL mode
Amen to that. Now, who was selling that copy of Klax
again....
> e) had a way to halt the 6507 while holding a full
> image in framebuffer memory for true hardware pause.
Well, if they were making a custom chip to shrink
everything down to a smaller size, I imagine that
would be possible. Maybe something like the pause
that occurs in the PCAE when you hit F1.
> f) Hacked some of the games so you could store high
> scores in internal battery backed SRAM or EEPROM.
My game.com does that. I wonder if such a thing could
work on the principal of my CD player on my Windows
machine. Supposedly, the computer reads part of the
disc, and that data becomes an identifier so that,
when the same disc is inserted, it knows what disc it
is, what tracks, what order, etc.
If it could store high scores, do you think it could
also hold your place in the game so you can pick up
and play later?
> g) Had the equivalent of a 64K Supercharger on board
> with an audio jack so you could load games of any
> size from the PC, any banking scheme, and store
> them in SRAM/EEPROM with a selection menu.
Good idea, but if this thing is expensive enough,
won't that push it through the roof? How expensive is
it to make a Supercharger? Or are you blue skying
like for reducing everything to a smaller, more
efficient chip for the 2600 hardware?
> h) headphone jack
Totally.
> i) 2 small internal speakers for the dual channel
> audio
Is that necessary? I mean, assuming this is a
hand-held unit, you won't really be able to hear the
stereo effect because the speakers would be too close
together. Or would they be?
> Even cooler would be if they came up with a color
> 2600 GAME WATCH. Now that I'd pay a good $100 for.
> Talk about a conversation piece.
I'd rather have one of those watches that controls the
TV and VCR. Maybe I could set it to mimick the
infrared controls on those wireless Genesis
controllers.
I would love to buy something like that, too, but I
could never play it. I get too wrapped up in the
games and I'm worried I'd break the buttons. Trust
me, I went through a score of official Atari joysticks
before I wised up and taught myself control. That,
and bought a Pointmaster.
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