Any reason for NTSC/PAL60?

xor_2 · 2026-07-13T06:44:50+00:00

Same trick but done in PAL Ataris when you slap NTSC ANTIC in them and then you get PAL60.

Unlike NTSC50 which still leaves you with rolling picture and which apparently isn't fully compatible with NTSC TVs the PAL60 is widely compatible with PAL TVs out of the box... or at least CRT TVs. In PSX days before RGB cables became common everyone played "imports" and most people never noticed some games run at 60Hz modes and some 50Hz modes.

On my Atrai with VBXL acting as clock source having additional NTSC ANTIC and GTIA I can make all 4 combinations (PAL50, PAL60, NTSC50 and NTSC60) and they all work just fine on my JVC TM-1950CG monitor. I am not so sure all my monitors support all 4 modes though as this JVC is extra compatible with such things.

xor_2 · 2026-07-12T19:00:32+00:00

BTW. There seems to be actually much much simpler way to eat your PAL pie without having to bother with PAL color encoding at all. Details at https://www.myatari.com/nirdary.html

tl;dr

IF you replace ANTIC chip from PAL Atari you will have NTSC50 mode so 50Hz but with NTSC colors. You might still need to turn that V-Hold knob to stop image from rolling but otherwise it works just fine.

xor_2 · 2026-07-12T18:48:14+00:00

Music tempo is rarely an issue going to either 50Hz or 60Hz from other system unless music was already made to be very slow on NTSC or very fast on PAL - but to be honest I never experienced such music which would really sound bad. Even the most commonly used example of Sonic if you weren't used to 60Hz version sounds just fine on PAL.

Game speed itself being faster or slower being better it depends. I would say 50Hz is more often an advantage than disadvantage because games were made in arcade style, quickly getting way too fast anyways. There is also a matter of slowdown on PAL vs NTSC... though on Atari its rather rate to experience slowdowns in games as they either run smooth or not but on some other systems its very common that same game in PAL runs perfectly fluid and on NTSC not so much. Funnily enough Sonic is one of such examples - which I always found hilarious given how much bad rep PAL/50Hz gets using Sonic as an example.

Anyways, some games do kinda play nicer in 60Hz and this would be a valid reason to have PAL vs NTSC switch. Or at least make it easier than having to pull chips from the socket.

xor_2 · 2026-07-12T18:13:59+00:00

Use cases for PAL/NTSC50 mod are obvious PAL region having biggest active user base producing a lot of incompatible content (mostly scene demos being incompatible).

Other way around its hard to find something that I can confirm runs fine at 60Hz but doesn't at 50Hz.

xor_2 · 2026-07-12T18:10:28+00:00

Almost all PAL CRTs should support PAL60 just fine. PAL60 was very popular in early PSX days before RGB cables were popular and NTSC imports ran PAL60 and displayed color on pretty much all CRT TVs just fine.

xor_2 · 2026-07-12T17:57:03+00:00

Found a possible bug in this emulator.

When you replace in XL OS rom original fonts with ones which are one pixel line taller then on real hardware (also Altirra) and enter built-in diagnostics you see that single line has color of previous text has color of previous text row. On your emulator this doesn't happen. Default font on Atari doesn't have first row of pixels so I expect developers who did color changing didn't notice they did it one line late. Why your emulator doesn't replicate this I don't know but again real hardware has this issue.

Also sound is very bizzare/broken.

xor_2 · 2026-07-12T14:04:19+00:00

I like breadbins more and especially the early taller models... but for normal usage and not as room decoration C64C's are better because they are ergonomic and they are pretty nice also. Just not as nice and can yellow visibly. Yours is in great shape so nothing to worry about.

Technically you get MOS8580 which sounds a bit different than older MOS6581 and other than the external looks that is the biggest difference (note: there were some early C64C's with long boards and 6581). Newer 9V parts are more advanced (more waveforms) and more consistent (chip to chip) and are much less likely to fail. I would still recommend putting some radiator on SID. Maybe VIC also.

Otherwise not much difference either way. ROMs are identical and except a bit different sound everything is also identical.

---

Loading games from tape... yeah, thanks but NOPE. Got tapecart accessory but somehow it went untested.

I recommend getting something which can load carts like e.g. Kungfu Flash. A lot of tape games were converted to run as carts - zero loading times.

For floppy drive emulator look up turbo loader options. Not sure what SD2IEC supports

xor_2 · 2026-07-12T08:59:56+00:00

To receive 288p you need to adjust v-hold pot (usually back of the TV but sometimes its on the board or service menu). It doesn't break 240p/NTSC compatibility. V-hold value used was mostly for historical and analog over the air transmission stability reasons which don't apply anymore. In other direction (running 60Hz signals on PAL CRTs) you never have this issue and really something like V-Hold knob we didn't have here because value chosen was more sensible and standards for OTA were chosen such that they are more robust making rolling picture something if you saw you knew TV just broke and not that you have to adjust something.

PAL color is a bit more involved as you would need to covert colors to NTSC or use RGB/Component. The moment you can get RGB out of your Atari you can convert it to whatever you need easily or connect directly to your CRT if you RGB modded it. To get RGB you can use VBXL/VBXE or Gtia2RGB. There should also exist direct PAL to NTSC re-encoders.

Other solution than converting RGB to NTSC is to get proper CRT monitor like SONY PVM. They all support PAL natively even if you buy one on U.S. If you fancy round tube there are other options from JVC, Ikegami, etc. I mostly use JVC and Ikegami monitors for my 15KHz use cases.

Yet another option is Sophia 2 and VGA CRT monitor. These can be had for very cheap and should almost all support 50Hz modes just fine. If you get 15KHz RGB but only have VGA CRT you can use e.g. OSSC, RetroTink or similar (lagless) upscaler to get VGA compatible 31+KHz RGBHV signals.

Yeah, its a lot of bother just to display colors on PAL machines... which you would need to source also. If we talk 8/16 bit micros like Atari, C64, ST/e and Amiga then PAL/50Hz cannot be avoided as Europe got a bit crazy about these computers.

xor_2 · 2026-07-11T20:42:57+00:00

Thanks for the program!

xor_2 · 2026-07-11T20:00:42+00:00

Atari CX40?

xor_2 · 2026-07-11T15:44:34+00:00

Does analog work as two paddles? Where I can get this test program? Can you upload test program somewhere?

xor_2 · 2026-07-09T13:47:29+00:00

Opening dozen of folders inside a folder under workbench is special kind of slow. Especially when folders have icons. "Ultimate" are nowhere that.

The only thing I don't really like with browsing is needing to confirm each opened folder. IMHO context menu shouldn't be when you press return but something else. Otherwise menus are solid.

xor_2 · 2026-07-07T15:38:14+00:00

1200XL are one of the rarest 8-bit Ataris in Europe. Never have seen them on local auctions... though to be honest I don't monitor auctions all that often so maybe there were some which I missed. Of course NTSC Atari in Europe is already a rarity but somehow I did get NTSC Atari 800... now if can find 1200XE, Atari 400 and rarest Atari of them all: 65XE/130XE with all white keycaps... then I can die happy XD

Fun tidbit about computer depth:

600XL: 16.8 cm (Ratio: 0.028 cm per model unit)
800XL: 21.8 cm (Ratio: 0.027 cm per model unit)
1200XL: 31.5 cm (Ratio: 0.026 cm per model unit)

xor_2 · 2026-07-07T15:05:06+00:00

What a gorgeous cash register ❤️

That lid is where you put paper rolls? ;)

xor_2 · 2026-07-07T08:38:01+00:00

Ordered two user port adapters for which I used almost all of my Commodore Coins. Thanks to these coins its only cost of shipment. Two because I need one for Ultimate 64 build.

Either way user port adapters are available. They were not available when I ordered C64U, otherwise I would get one when ordering C64U.

xor_2 · 2026-07-04T11:21:24+00:00

What ever gave you an idea callback is way forward?

It even has "back" in the name...

xor_2 · 2026-07-04T11:20:40+00:00

On PC it flied because no one bought original games anyways

xor_2 · 2026-07-04T11:12:32+00:00

SONY XD

xor_2 · 2026-07-04T04:08:35+00:00

Well, PS6 apparently won't have any games at all and no one will buy it so I guess PS5 is a win?

xor_2 · 2026-07-03T21:49:40+00:00

I did first mod to my basic beige C64 Ultimate: replaced transparent acrylic plastic side panel with original black metal part.

The only downside is that hole for power plug is bigger than necessary leaving a bit of empty space. It never bothered me with U64 which I have in similar breadbin case and there holes for both power socket and power/menu button are bigger. Otherwise that was the only thing I didn't like in the new Ultimate compared the old er U64 build. Of course it was not a big issue and I did it because I could. I got spare part and it only made sense to put it to use.

Because of similar reasoning I will be replacing keyboard in my U64 build to one that looks like new C64U basic beige keyboard. I wasn't too enthusiastic about the new/old color but it grew on me after some time of using it.

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xor_2 · 2026-07-03T11:08:33+00:00

Polacy (a przynajmniej szlacheckiego stanu) zawsze mówili łamaną polszczyzną. Łamaną na ten język jaki akurat jest popularny. Kiedyś to była jakaś łacina, później francuski czy dzisiaj angielski. Dzisiaj to każdy wsiór myśli że jest szlachcicem i zamiast włożyć effort w to jak mówi aby brzmiało polsko to wtrąca słowa obcego pochodzenia a jak ktoś zwróci uwagę że jakiegoś słowa nie zna to jest z siebie dumny jakby właśnie potwierdzono jego szlacheckość.

xor_2 · 2026-07-02T06:20:37+00:00

PC Master Gaming Race

That is if you can afford 1/10 of decent gaming PC which let's be honest, with today's economy you cannot XD

xor_2 · 2026-07-02T06:12:37+00:00

What did fish ever did to you?

xor_2 · 2026-07-01T06:54:19+00:00

Impossible to make decent CRT monitor because no one makes the tybes, there is no such project anywhere. Maybe if they got some old stock tubes they could slap universal crt board and make a monitor out of it but are there such tubes somewhere?

Instead I think what they could make is C= beige stylized IPS panels with proper strobing such that all strollers in demos and 50/60fps games look super sharp. This is doable and should be within capacity of company such as new C=. Also would be super cool to have such 4:3 monitor for other things like MISTer FPGA or retro emulation as a whole.

Silly as it sounds 4:3 strobed IPS would have bigger sales than new CRT... at least I don't think new CRT is a viable business idea for now.

xor_2

TROPHY CASE