Atari 600xl - Another retro game night hack
Last minute notice of my hack - and something a little different.
I'll be adding a Raspberry Pi 4 to an Atari 600xl with Retro Pie. The keyboard will be reverse engineered and an Arduino Micro Pro will be used to emulate a USB keyboard HID device. The original joystick ports will be emulated as USB game controllers with another Arduino Micro Pro. This will be a lot of fun and hopefully get some pole position going tonight
I grew up with an Atari 600xl along side my Apple ][, Fairchild channel F, NES, Coleco, Intellivision, Atari 2600, C64, etc... I believe this hack completes my retro consoles that I grew up with. So far I've hacked all of these consoles with Pi's and Arduinos over the last year. My collection is pretty awesome - I don't complain on cold or rainy days! Lots to do staying inside!!
Source code for the arduino firmware can be found here: https://github.com/DJSures/Atari_600XL
Let's take a look at my current hacked retro console library... The Atari 600xl will make a fantastic addition!
Here's the final version:
I did take the keyboard apart and cleaned the mylar with alcohol. I was able to get trace 13 working but not 14. Now it gives the "d" key with all of the characters except "d". The "d" key doesn't do anything. I'm guessing that the trace may be broken where it folds over. I visually examined it but could'nt see anything obvious. I did see a replacement mylar online or an entire keyboard assembly. The entire keyboard is about $15 more than the mylar.
I may start working on the wireless mouse while I try to decide what else to do with the keyboard.
I'm still working every other week, so start back on Wednesday. I'm an OR Rn. The closest I come to a robot is our Divinci surgical robot.
I finally got the keyboard working. I think I was tightening the screws too much. I have most of the parts to put the mouse together.
I may try to do the other project and get my old Atari joystick to work with the PC. I noticed the Arduino code mentions either a Micro Pro "or Teensy". I have a Teensy 2.0. Would that work. I tried copying the code into Arduino IDE and it wouldn't compile. It didn't work when I tried it under the Micro either. Any idea what I'm doing wrong?