Retro Video Gamer

Looks like some folks in Germany have been making mods of retro consoles to allow for stereo surround sound!  Mods have been made for the Atari consoles (2600, 7800, and 5200), Atari home computers, and Coleco Vision with a mod for the Intellivision on it's way. Here is a description that has been posted about the mods:

For the 2nd game consoles 3 and Generation offered surround and stereo reconstruction called audio mods. Why just for this generation of game consoles? The first generation has no sound output and thus is ultimately no real sound experience significantly, all subsequent generations have already stereo from the factory on or put within the games on too many different sources of noise and constant background music, so the sound enhancement no longer so clearly falls into the weight . Ultimately, it is a bill that needs to Kosten-/Nutzen make any retro fan with itself. The audio mod adds value to the existing mono signal and change it from the sound volume, sound range and frequency response. As a result, the tone sounds fuller and more voluminous, it sounds like in the arcade. Retro feeling its best! This video demonstrates on the basis of Atari 2600jr the audio output of such a conversion. The console used has to activate on the back of a switch to the sound processor as desired. This conversion is available both as an internal board as well as an external device which easily switch between the audio output of the console and the audio input is plugged into the TV. conclusion, if knew the game room and a fan of retro consoles and hardware is in this conversion does not come by.Even boring games so far seem to be interesting and make you want more. Thus excludes so many old console or home computer again with the latest technology appliances. There is no special software required. Conversion is for many other devices such as Coleco Vision, Intellivision, Commodore and Atari 8-bit computer series, Atari 7800 and 5200 available. Priced he is hardly conventional video mods, it is often installed at a small cost on the same board.

More info will be posted here:  www.retro-modding.de (//http).  Here is a video showing what was accomplished with the 2600:

[align=center:10ukf2i6]Atari 2600 PAL Audio Prozessor Mod (Demonstration) (//http)[/align:10ukf2i6]

WOW! This is amazing 

I can't believe how good Defender II sounds especially!

Agreed!  When I heard that I couldn't believe I was listening to a 2600 game!

the website retro-modding.de will be online next year. It offers technical background information for console and homecomputer mods. Including B2B and B2C information (for example WEEE and legal information for modders, where to order etc.).

The stereo/surround mod is known as "Audio Mod". It is part of a PCB including an AV-Mod as well. but there is also a standalone PCB for older mods. Currently only complete console are offered at ebay and hopefully in the future by dedicated shops in each country. If someone in your country is willing to exclusively offer consoles with that mod leave me a message.

Consoles with built in Audio mod allow to switch off the mod by it's channel-select switch. So you'll get old audio output if disabled. Connecting the modded console to a surround hifi system increases the experience, several customers were still blown away by the audio experience ;-). Nevertheless no external surround system is required for the mod, a standard TV with two audio channels is sufficient to get the new experience.

If you want to buy such a system get in contact. I will also do customer specific mods including pause mod, power led and other goodies, it is less expensive getting the whole package ;-). Cost is very low and depend on the console. Currently supported devices: Atari 2600 (any flavour), Atari 7800, Atari XEGS, Coleco Vision, Intellivision (will be released on january).

Coming soon: RGB Mod and USB Mod for input devices.

Final Coleco Vision mod including Stereo Surround Sound output and an AV/Composite mod has been completed.
Check out retro-modding.de for more background info and available mods for your beloved retro system. Site will be online soon. Watch out for upcoming coleco audio mod demo video on youtube.

What an awesome idea, sounds amazing..

Coleco demo video uploaded on youtube. Search for "coleco audio mod"

Simply brilliant.

Coleco Vision PAL Audio Prozessor Mod (Demonstration) (//http)

Agreed!

Thanks. Currently in last phase of intellivision stereo surround mod testing. So new video will be released next days.

Are you doing all this on your own?

Well it will be available soon for all people interested in. Currently in discussion with some companies who may offer it on different sales channels. So i have more time for new development work...

Intellivision Demo video uploaded... it sounds great. The external voice box is supported, too. the voice output within "Spartians" now provides the feeling to be within a cylon base star ;-)

The following systems are now fully supported for Stereo/Surround (each of them have their own demo video on youtube)

- Atari 2600jr, Woodgrain, Darth Vader
- Atari 7800
- Atari XEGS
- Coleco Vision
- Intellivision

In the effort to make it perfect I currently prepare a small series of about 25-50 Atari 2600 machines with special paintings offered as "Stormtrooper" (white) and "Droid" (red/blue) edition. an audio amp with internal speakers is in discussion, so you hear sound from the device AND from TV set - in stereo/surround of course.  Which may increase the sound experience to it's best. Additional mods: blue/red power led in the power switch, pause key on the back.

the painting looks great and will be based on a darth vader console.

be prepared to see some offers on local dealers/ebay within next months.

Nice work fella..

ok I dropped the internal loudspeakers for the Stormtrooper and Droid edition. It costs a lot of efforts to get the loudspeakers integrated as the Darth Vader suffers from having the right holes in the chassis. So offering that for 6-Switch Woodgrains is the better choice.

But instead you will get a pause function which can be activated via (unmodified) Joysticks. On the back is a switch with the following positions: Pause, Disable, Joystick enable. Pause halts the CPU until you siwtch to Disable again. If Joystick Mode is enabled and you push both buttons on the joystick it halts the console. Pushing it again continues gameplay. I will finally use the same circuit as for Coleco Vision which allows to pause if you hit the reset button, additional hit continue the game and pushing the button for a while resets the console. No additional drills, no search on the back during gameplay.....

Due to the long list of collector orders I'll bet there will be an Atari 2600jr Droid series as well ;-)

Is the site up and running yet and have you had many orders?

Quote from: "zapiy"Is the site up and running yet and have you had many orders?

I'm currently working on the PCB of the Intellivision AV Mod after fixing the quality issues of previous mods, next are the PCB's for the new pause circuit boards. I'm also planning to redesign all mods to follow a modular concept. Smaller PCB's are hooked via one bus interface so it's easier to produce and to reduce stock and options available (so you have one module with Stereo/Surround, one for AV, one for RGB, one for pause etc and if customer order I simple hook them together via standard connector. 

The website mainpages are complete but the single mod descriptions and technical information requires to be transferred into the right layout. Hopefully I'm able to complete that within the next weeks.

There are ongoing contract discussions with resellers so if these mods are available for the public and not for collectors only (as there are many orders) depends on the outcome. If there is green light I'm able to start production within a week as all parts are in stock and final design considerations and questions are answered (like refurbished silver switches with colored top according to the edition etc.).

I'm the only one able to offer that kind of mods so my experience is even the "haters" of these mods buy them silently by wife or 2nd ebay account as done before. If I ask them why they bash me for that officially and buy them silently they only answer they are still "collectors". That's why I started to reject selling to those people anyway.

Modular is defintely the way to go if you can get that to work easily enough..

sure a small common backplane on top of each module handles requires signals, some signals are shared between the modules. Using a standard connector with about 10 pins on both sides of each modul allow to connect them easily. Important is only the size but as I use dual layer PCB's for complex one it is quite easy to implement. Each module has about 2 inch by 1-2 inches in size.

Pause mod tested, instead of using a large number of components to get it running I decided to use a MCU for about $1 which saves tons of resistors, logic and timer IC's. And the good news is it simplifies the PCB and makes it very very small. So it is able to switch video AND audio off (to activate tv screensaver), switches the LED color to show pause mode activation and total cost is about $5. I'm able to use it for Coleco as well with a small firmware change. On Atari it activates it by holding both joystick buttons for about 2 seconds.

Another idea is for Coleco to use the keyboard like Intellvision do. By pushing two  buttons at the same time on the numeric input field the pause will be activated. I will test, this simplifies it on Coleco as well because there is no need anymore to modify the reset button nor adding additional switches simple hook to the joystick circuit lines.

I've also started to modify one of my woodgrains for internal stereo loudspeakers. The loudspeakers fits perfectly into the existing locations. It has also a silver cartridge slot and the switches on top are completely refurbished shining in silver again. Together with the backlight power led in yellow it looks great. Sound is awesome because you have now a small surround sound experience like the gamecube do (with my stereo surround sound board of course). Together with the above pause mod the best retro gaming experience ever (ok my RGB mod is still missing....)

Cool about the  internal stereo speakers!  Wasn't that an original idea Atari had for the console?

Quote from: "TrekMD"Cool about the  internal stereo speakers!  Wasn't that an original idea Atari had for the console?

Yes the first version had it until they used the tv loudspeaker.

Quote from: "retromod"

Quote from: "TrekMD"Cool about the  internal stereo speakers!  Wasn't that an original idea Atari had for the console?

Yes the first version had it until they used the tv loudspeaker.

 

Meanwhile a user posted in atariage some pictures of a stereo/surround mod. This console is one of the red one delivered from me to a friend of him. I've told his friend that this mod itself is not from me only the circuit is mine (not the pcb either). But it seems atariage users blamed me again for the design despite this information. The circuit protection was identified as "Burn" (funny isn't it). No one word about sound quality pure pictures and some not so nice wordings. As another user posted private data i will assign my lawyer soon as I must protect my family from such "crazy" people ignoring facts and posting lies. Some atariage members are motivated like retrofan to post the link across the internet, luckily he is a german  guy so under german law.

I also sent an e-mail to atariage owner and editors telling them that posting personal information is not according to law and guide lines of the site itself. Weird no moderator has delete it, not to mention the 4-letter words and names I got. Law seems to be different for some people...special on the atariage platform. Interesting that nearly any posting from newbies are lead to agressive and negative influenced feedback. There was someone asking for a programmer and it was bashed for that.... 

Attached pictures of pcb's I made... completely different to the one posted.

That sounds like a mess.  Hopefully things can be resolved.

Quote from: "TrekMD"That sounds like a mess.  Hopefully things can be resolved.

thanks I hope, too. It seems some people act under anonymous protection of nicknames and believe the internet is without any rules or laws. There seems no limit to blame people also some kind of helpless regarding their own members. 

Thanks to mr oldretroschool for his 4-letter wordings and attitude which allows me now to set atariage on  the blacklist for all companies which are part of our system (about 2000 customers around the world including many big usa companies with several hundred or thousend employees). This blocking is active until the added url containing the abuse content is deleted for a while. As in correlation with the conducts we all love and normally sign.   

I visited local police department today to get the address of these people blaming me all the time with lies. As this is under law and a serious thread cfinally people involved agreed to remove the posts and to correct the content on atariage.

Atariage seems to be the nucleus for the origin which is explainable as most members have their business relations on the platform so that kind of mods may risk their business, only a guess. They also spotted about this forum here and seems to believe atariage is THE forum for whatever in the world.... well lets wait and see what happens 

As many people asked for:

Q: How is the Stereo Signal created if the console delivers only mono?
A: I pick up the mono signal, run it through an analog-digital unit and then using clever algorithm to move and manipulate the tone to different channels and finally you have the impression of stereo and surround. It is Microchip based so able to use always the latest firmware. Previous attempts with dedicated audioprocessors were not good enough and flexible.

Q: is it true Stereo/Surround?
A: no it can't be as the console is not designed for but it improves sound to a level you never heard before. there are many people which tells me it is not a problem to design a similar solution... well people have tried it and some specialist from Abbuc told me they failed a while ago. There were many approaches - I reviewed them one by one as my first approach was also in the same direction with the same bad result. There are better solution out there but the price is 10 times higher instead of a few bucks. So even if people steal my design it can't be copied as the firmware can't be extracted from the MCU. Same for my new pause mod which offers far more features and technology than any other solution.

Q: where can I get this mod?
A: soon on several retailers or if you win an auction on ebay. there are also selected (german) modders who bought a license. this should also ensure quality and always latest version including low prices as the final PCB's are manufactured in china.

Q: what are the future plannings?
A: There will be a larger quantity of the "Droid Edition" in red, blue, green housing the latest and greatest version of the audio and video mods together with the Atari 2600 Woodgrain Special Edition delivering a far superior audio experience by a modified version of the mod and internal loudspeakers. This mod will have additional logic to track the player position and output sound from the left or right side depending on that position. A first prototype PCB is currently in production and requires testing.

After that I plan another edition with nice coloring containing the (long awaited) RGB mod together with an improved audio mod. For that I may switch to SMD production which reduces the costs significantly.

My stock is full of refurbished Atari Homecomputers (bleeched with my own process, backlighted keyboards) waiting for this combined PCB, too. So together with an OSD (on screen display menu) I plan to revive the Atari Homecomputer scene delivering the best audio and video experience for Atari devices. As regulation department restricts the possibilities without certification and registration I must ensure I'm on the legal "side" all the time so can't implement additional goodies.

As someone took over my account and stole some information about the surround sound mod (I'll guess it was another modder offering at ebay) I must put some pressure on my new Surround Sound V2.0 mod including the new object tracking technology. This allow real surround sound as it tracks the objects on screen and alter the sound depending on the object position. First device fitted with that new technology will be the Atari 2600 Woodgrain Special Edition housing 2 loudspeakers and latest pause mod (joystick driven).

Wow, sounds impressive since you're doing this for the 2600!

well the technology behind is quite easy to port to other systems (as I done before for coleco, 7800, intellivision). The pcb for the new surround sound module is currently in prototyp production. 5x4 cm size fitted with one MCU. I currently try to reduce the cost by replacing the audio amplifiers with single chips instead of using passive components. This morning I found a chip which may be the right candidate. This saves room on the PCB and lower the costs.

Goal is to have a real stereo surround solution in a small form factor by mid of next month most likely with some kind of bus system so it is easy to assemble and to combine functionality (for example using one MCU for all components instead of different one).

And as usual I'll dream about the next gen of "Special Editions" using Atari 2600Jr. As I have some broken Intellivisions in stock I'll think about white versions as well may be with RGB..... ;-). Repair of these console is quite expensive, I found a source for the GFX (about 25 Eur) and audio chip (10 Eur) but with shipping cost it is equal to an intellivision console fully assembled with games on ebay.

Improved firmware for the Intellivision Stereo/Surround Mod, now it offers a better stereo experience out of the box.

I found a great article about sound effects and plan to adapt an audiophonic algorithm to my stereo/surround mod. That means if it work as planned you'll get an impressive audio output for each console.

Here is a great sample for such an effect:
http://gprime.net/flash.php/soundimmersion (//http)

If it works as planned all retro consoles will be at the same sound level than the new xbox one, which is currently the only one offering audiophonic output.

Well, that was cool to listen to.  Definitely immersive!

Today I tested the first implementation and it sounds great. Not a big jump on Atari 2600 as sound is a little bit "thin" during game play of most modules. So I expect more on Coleco Vision and Atari XEGS systems. But it is definitely worth to add to the existing mod as it also implement a sound wall for normal audio mode (currently only the left speaker is working if stereo is switched off)

Price tag is very low due to MCU approach and a few additional parts. More an overall Mod update 
First implementation most likely in the Atari 2600 Woodgrain Special Edition or Atari 7800 Druid Edition.

After successful testing of the new 3D audio feature I completed the circuit drawing yesterday. I also ordered newer smaller components (50% smaller) and will redesign the Atari 2600 PCB within the next days.

there will be a combined Composite/Stereo/3D Audio/Joystick Pause Mod PCB which excluded Woodgrain and Darth Vader specific needs for the video system. The required logic for that type of console is on another adapter PCB which is hooked on top of the TIA. So in future there is one PCB for Atari 2600 for all models, which lowers production costs and simplifies the modding process in common. I also moved functions to existing MCU so this reduces parts. Currently there are 4 small processors on the board in favour of a big one (switching to FPGA seems to be the next logical step to get more speed on one monolith approach). Size of board will be most likely stay the same (as Darth vader and Woodgrain logic is replaced by pause and 3d Audio
)

I look forward to the Coleco Vision version and the finalization of the Intellivision mod (which is currently in improvement stage to ensure it works with all kind of monitors). The redesign of the Atari 7800 made a big progress, too. I'll try to get some additional noise reducation logic on the board for a "final" audio mod.

successfully tested the new Stereo/Surround with noise reduction and 3d Audio. There is no better Audio currently! Together with the AV mod you'll get the best AV picture and best audio available on Atari, Coleco and Intellivision.

A good old friend visited me these days and he confirmed he never heard a better sound or saw a better picture on the Atari 2600 consoles. he was also shocked that my AV Atari 7800 output looks much better than his S-Video output bought from an "expert" a while ago and fitted with all kind of additional chips to get a better picture. After he saw the Atari 7800 Druid prototyp he was very excited to buy one as soon as it is available. But he doesn't want my personal sign on top..... time to re-think friendship 

interesting to read my forecast for upcoming mods and technical relevant details.

Finally the time filtered out the wrong decisions made. An universal, cheap AV-mod on top of the TIA is reality. With the current offerings in ebay there is no soldering required anymore inside of the console. So my assumptions were right here.

The all-in-one mods were not really a big success as one fault on the board or failing component renders the whole PCB unusable. So instead of cost reduction it finally increased them. So my current mods only combines the most common one which then have a lower price tag of course. the current seller is the AV+ and Stereo/Surround board for example which seems to be the standard specially for Atari fans.

3D audio was finally the right step but increased the cost and complexity/size of the PCB. So it is dropped in favour of the upcoming Real Surround mod. the technology behind 3D audio will be finally used on other consoles already having stereo implemented.

(https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xap1/v/t1.0-9/10177454_1539136992966745_8350655704761770857_n.png?oh=34e6e34076cb957b415780f265756959&oe=54BE7596&__gda__=1421975983_bf30b6385404f05a0b51e42679a07b3c)

I've optimized the stereo surround mod and it now allows to fine tune it's output. So implementing a switch to select mono/stereo/stereo+surround is now possible. It has a noice reduction implemented and the firmware was optimized giving a better sound experience. Due to the changes an update of older mod's is not possible.

The RealSurround efffect currently in development (the player location is calculated and used to alter the sound output) requires some changes in the overall design so this is a good time to optimize the firmware as well and prepare it for future use on better MCU's (as it will be combined with the video part).

It seems that all the development efforts finally result in one board driven by one MCU for video, audio and additional features like OSD (for setup) and pause (moving that feature into existing MCU would reduce the costs, too).

I also noticed that my youtube videos are still outdated and only showing the first incarnation of the mod. Simple Stereo and the new design is not reflected, too. Seems I must add that task to my schedule as well.

(https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/v/t1.0-9/10418430_1554595864754191_6550001122152960214_n.jpg?oh=b2e6947a51c3f6133ac66d9db333e55f&oe=54D8E172&__gda__=1423742488_1dfb3452677db83d5fafeb893f310463)

This is a console offered regulary on ebay. The clou is the switch on the left side on the bottom of the console allowing to select mono or stereo or stereo+surround on demand. The console itself is modded to use a 5V power supply (e.g. USB if required). Heating is lowered, components lives longer and this also prevents accidently damage in some cases (due to a design flaw you might destroy your custom chips if not properly handled).

The function keys and cartridge slot is silver as well, offering a valuable handling. A hidden power LED is included as well. An exclusive CX40 joystick is already included: metal switches inside, silver design outside.

last but not least it offers the best composite picture as it has an AV Plus mod.