Atari Dragster World Record Part 1: Building the Hardware
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- Опубліковано 5 вер 2024
- The oldest video game record left standing is for the Atari 2600 game Dragster, the first third party game ever and first title released by Activision. A modern speedster, whose done tests with emulation and spreadsheets, claims the recorded score of 5.51 seconds is not possible, the best possible score is 5.57 seconds. Ben does not care about records, he’s using it an excuse to build a RAM analyzer to make decisions on how best to play the game.
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While Ben does not care about records, he’s interested in using this as an excuse to build a RAM analyzer for the Atari 2600, analyzing the BUS with newer hardware. This external device will see when the CPU writes to the RAM and make a copy of the data to put in a memory array that can be read by a microcontroller. If they can get the RAM copier working, they can later have a microcontroller take a look at the RAM and make decisions on how best to play the game.
Ben rigs up some test equipment using some microchip PIC tail cards and some TI B0108 voltage receivers. This has an 8-bit BUS on either side to allow you to put two different voltages on it, in this case 5 volts and 3.3 volts, and does automatic conversions for you. He tests to make sure that the BUS transceiver properly converts 5 volts into 3.3 volts. He plugs the card into a PIC Development board. This allows him to do 8-bit read/write operations on the PIC32. To scan the Atari’s memory he’ll send bytes to it. The 8-bit data bus will come in as soon as he adds the address BUS and act as a clone of the RAM so that it can monitor what the Atari is thinking. By having a copy of the RAM, the MCU can make decisions on how best to play the game.
Ben does a voltage test with an IC tester clip. Ben has a wired up a PIC tail connector for the PIC32 MZ. He’s got some logic that does an address decode. Basically, it only sends a pulse when they are addressing the RAM. He runs the data and the address line through these 3.3 volt to 5 volt transceivers so they can knock down the voltage to 3.3 volts for the PIC32 so the PIC32 can read it without damaging itself.
Because they are using a 6502 CPU they’ll have to make adjustments to compensate for INCrement and DECrement. The data is not due to the possibility of having a double write immediately in the RAM by doing an INCrement or DECrement command. Ben takes a look at a 6502 CPU timing sheet and analyzes the INCrement and DECrement instructions that caused a double write to the RAM. He then adds circuitry to accommodate for that and counts a certain number of periods before setting a flag to tell him that the address or data is valid. This creates a rising edge triggering an interrupt on the PIC32 allowing it to load the valid data. Using external circuitry allows them to analyze the waveforms coming off to the CPU and figure out the best time to send the data to the PIC.
All of Todd's records are fake. He had an inside man at TG who would put in fake scores for him
he was a refree at tg, so he put in his own scores also.
@@gregli9821 but "only one time"
I don't find this boring. This has to be one of the most interesting projects he's done in a while. I'm really looking forward to the conclusion....
If 5.51 is (again) proven to be impossible, I hope that Twin Galaxies remove Todd Rogers record.
Let’s be honest a 7 can be easily mistaken for a 1
@@kingkrispy5289 not in the font used on the atari 2600
Ben Heck building a TAS-bot with real hardware is one of the coolest things on UA-cam
TASbot is already real hardware.
praise be to TASbot.
ben heck is going to bust that liar.
If you're not using it, can I get the shell for that 2600. Mine is a little broken at the cartridge slot
Todd Fraudgers
norweeg nice profile pic
Nice to see more Yes fans out here
Todd's claims to the record are fragile. He insists on his lies so much, he's quite close to the edge of insanity. All he has to back up his claims are time and a word. I'm glad that all the drama paid off, though, and now people are going for the one true record for this game.
I like the name Fraud Rodgers more :p
Literally 60% of the video is the world "Flip-flop" haha
Flop-flip. Tock-tick. Dong-ding. Pong ping. Kong King. Top Tip. Hop-Hip.
Flip-flops make modern electronics go. They are one of the most important digital circuits and fundamentally what is used to store state and sequence operations in pretty much everything.
I think you guys are not hearing them correctly, there is a horse stable out back cause Ben likes horses, and what you are hearing are the horses walking around, "clip-clop".
That's because your inner beach bum is calling to you. Embrace the flip flops of your people
Fun fact: when they say flip-flop, they are referring to Todd's dong and not any logic levels.
I can't follow this at all except for on the most basic level but I just wanted to say that I appreciate how you show your failures and mistakes instead of just showing everything you did right.
Guinness World Records says no, officially. He has had his record stripped and is Barred from all Guinness competition's now.
Wow, I feel dumb. This guy is incredibly intelligent. This is my first time watching and I'm impressed
Fun fact: I took a drink every time something was said I didn't understand...I was pretty much wasted by the time they said "regrettable acting".
Top 10 Videos Taken Moments Before Disaster
Very nice. I've been following the "Dragster Debate" for a while now, and think Twin Galaxies FINALLY is doing something right and having this be fully investigated. Frankly, what little reputation the company now has lies fully on this outcome. If it turns out that yeah, the record they've been backing up and defending like it's their religion is a bunch of crap, then how can you trust anything they claim? As far as i'm concerned, if it wasn't documented via photograph/video/stream, it didn't actually happened.
Those guys are a bunch of lying cheaters. lol at the guy who beat his donkey Kong world record on camera and even in person and they said it wasn’t legit. But weeks later the twin galaxies douch bag posts a video that cuts out and cuts back in with a bullshit higher score. Twin galaxy cheaters.
I used to work at TG in the early 2000s. When I worked there, we required strict full video documentation of the record attempt right from power-on of the console. Todd's records were grandfathered in from old magazine submissions that didn't require such proof at all. I and others challenged the legitimacy of these more controversial unproven records, but the 'old guard' as I called it accused me of being a jealous hater and would defend him no matter how much evidence I put forth.
I wonder if the "Silicon lottery" would influence such a score. It's a small enough time to make me think it would matter if it was indeed a factor...
I guess I forgot that detail then... It's been a while since I seen the video...
Clearly photoshopped because.....?
Gonna be a lot more views incoming now that Twin Galaxies has disqualified Todd Rogers.
I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about but I'm also emotionally invested halfway in. Good work.
My favorite Ben Heck Show episodes are the ones where I am following decently well (logic stuff, etc) but dang, I'm still a little blown away at the analysis.
Why not use an fpga instead of trying to finagle it with an mcu? You can easily write a UART circuit so you don't have to bit bang, and timing becomes so much easier; even if a custom clock divider won't work, many FPGAs come with customizable PLLs.
Activision used to give out patches for getting high scores on their games. I had one for Chopper Command. Ben could have helped me get all the patches. Too bad the Internets didn't exist.
"It's more fun with real hardware", that's what she said! xD
Galbi 3000 knew I’d find this
Some of this went over my head but I'm looking forward to the conclusion.
Ben, I am watching this and hearing you talk about how you are going to grab the ram data with your diagrams and all that, it is blowing my mind. You make it sound so easy...
keep up the good work!
Roxette never went away. Their 10th studio album was released last year. They've faded from the U.S. market but are going strong in Sweden.
They did have a several year long hiatus, though, as singer Marie Fredriksson had a brain tumor and nobody knew if they'd ever come back. Sucks but I'm glad she's okay considering the circumstances.
And David Hasselhoff is still huge in Japan.. lol ;)
You guys breaking these up into multi parters is just irritating. This is such a fun idea but by the time you will post the last part I will have just forgotten about it and just not watch.
Then wait until the final part isout and watch them all? Simple.
I was following until he said "let's get started!" This is neat. I didn't follow all of it but i was cool the way they used the scope and showed what they were looking for. Still didn't follow all of it. I will be honest. Having the episodes back to back would probably be appropriate for this one.
You lost me after 1:17. Could you repeat that first part again?
This is great. I think that one thing that might have made it make more sense earlier on would be to show what the game looked like at the beginning of the video. It wasn't until almost the end of the video that we saw what Atari Dragster is and how this project fits into validating the record.
A voice controlled button mod for an oscilloscope sounds like a good future episode to me...
I understood the bit where you took the screws out of the Atari. Still enjoyed watching, very interesting.
This is awesome. Glad Twin Galaxies is finally checking this. Ben is the perfect person to investigate this.
Twin galaxies isn’t checking into this, they’re defending Todd the best they can. Go watch Apollo legends video about this subject.
@ben heck why don't you build a voice activated switch with a Arduino and a mic programme to switch to pause or stop the oscilloscope and while your at it commands for resuming, should be fairly simple.
Looking forward to the outcome! Thank you for taking this task Ben!! We really needed a great innovator to get this done, and we have just that!
I remember I had a crazy fast time at this game and the trick was to shift all your gears at once after the start.
I like how when Ben really gets on a roll talking about logic gates, he _really_ sounds like that Longmont Potion Castle skit about the Omni-Prong.
My complements to Ben for figuring out how to approach the memory reader and narrating it, and to the editor for making it graspable (though I had to stop and rewind several times). I really dug this!
Great episode! I've written my own Atari 2600 emulator for fun (the 2600 was my first console). Might be worth noting that the 2600 used a 6507 chip, almost identical to the 6502 (same instruction set) but I think the address bus was only 13 bits? Also I agree about the 2407/2408 Dell monitors, I have 2 here and they are superb, loads of inputs and PIP support.
32 microseconds... not that fast at all..... 21st Century Problems.... lol
I lasted 32 microseconds and my girlfriend slapped me
justin rivera lol
That's only 31khz.. which IS slow.. plus, that's technically 20th century hardware so.. ;)
Would it "Bog down the system" if there were two frame perfect inputs, one for each controller?
What if the crystal in his machine was slightly out of spec and suffered from crystal drift or jitter? Or consciously modded his machines in that way by removing the two caps...
Did he do the alleged runs in front of an audience with his own machine?
We should revisit this and see if we can mod a 1979 model to alter the frequency of the cpu.
R.I.P Todd Rogers!! Finally the fraud has been kicked out of the record books.
how do you know todgers didn't score 5.51?
were you there?
Why didn'y you use a propeller?
Rejoice, the record is no longer valid.
Shouldn't we all talk about the awesomeness of that Duck Tales t-shirt??
I have listened to my heart and yes, I think Roxette should definitely come back.
Impressive hoops... but it would've been so much easier on an XMOS or FPGA. Somewhat surprised to see a parallel register converted to a one hot shift register when Johnson counters are easily available too (and, for that matter, shift registers).
Ben! I feel like you're the only person that can accomplish this task I have for you! have you heard of a digital film canister? its the idea of putting a digital sensor, battery and storage all in the space that analog film would (you would be surprised by how much space is available.) There are existing kickstarters, but none of them seem promising. please help! this could be an amazing product!
What tech are you going to use to measure the human element though?
he's going for the *minimum possible* time to finish the game.
Yeah minimum possible time for a computer. But computers can't accurately emulate the human element so how do we know it's the true minimum. A human may be able to achieve lower.
How do you think they will simulate coffee stains?
Zelnoth that's kinda the point, actually. If a computer that can time itself perfectly can't achieve it (i.e. it's impossible within the game engine to do so) then how could a human? The point here is to ask the question *is it possible under any circumstance*. As mentioned (vaugely) at the beginning, someone went through the code and figured out how the game calculates things based off of your input. After a lot of calculations, he came to the conclusion that, computer or human, it was impossible to obtain the 5.51 time. It's been shown on an emulator, but now they want to prove it with real hardware, in case there's some inaccuracies in the emulation. In the end, it's less about the human element at this point and more of a question of whether the game's code and the hardware itself in some manner enable the result that is claimed.
Mmmh. As already mentioned, the human element is irrelevant.
We don't care what a human can do, we care what the absolute fastest possible time is.
If it's less than the supposed record, we can presume the record might be valid.
If it's outright impossible to get to the time the record states, then it's probably fake.
The human element is unpredictable, but it can only serve to make things slower than the fastest result, not faster.
So if you can deduce the fastest time that the game allows, that's all you need to know.
This is amazing, I could watch videos on the hardware/specs/magic around old consoles and games all day. It's fascinating.
I feel a fair amount of this would be a bit easier with an FPGA. But I'm also biased because I do quite a bit of digital design and synthesis.
didnt Darbian tie the WR?
he tied 5.57, which is the simulated best possible time, its also the best time done on real hardware.
digidev yes. The WR is 5.57
Could the PIC32 DMA not assist in letting the PIC32 know when valid data is for the PMP? The PMP transfer can be setup to happen with a "DMA trigger".
This was freaking AMAZING! Love the low-level work, super interesting.
Another way to approach the problem would be to use a machine learning algorithm and hook it up to the Atari making it play the game and attempt to achieve the fastest speed possible. You did mention you could do something similar using the PIC to analyze the RAM and take steps towards minimizing the time it took. It would be interesting to look at both approaches.
This channel takes my geek side to a whole new level - love it!! 🤓
Didn't Roxette release a new album just last year?
The human element dou...
Hey Ben, do you have any recommendations for a logic-circuit simulator (possibly even free software)? As a computer science student I'm in desperate need of one, but every software we've tried (LTSpice, logicly, digital works) was either horrible to use or it's simulation was not what would happen when building up the circuit.
Anyone catch that innuendo joke at the end? She said its more fun with real hardware." 😆
Yes, Roxette should come back.
Ben Heck : that's a no brainer
Me:
I bet Todd regrets showing up to this now lol
That's the BenHeckShow I love.
Todd will be remove and repair with ben hecks as a true record holder
4:40 check for signal
Good episode, so what happens if this analysis proves the world record was impossible? Does the record get annulled?
Wiiiioooohw. When the bits and bytes go around - flips or flops, you know there is something wrong - your brain logic stops. This is the most heavy mind blowing and detailed inside episode of Ben's show, for sure. Like it, but wow man, to understand it all, it is a game on itself. Tingeling-tingeling-tingeling, pieuw, bum (halt), the sound of my personal computer. Smart people at the show, appreciate it, wish I could do this.
Drinking game: every time Ben says "Flip-Flop" take a shot.
The 2600jr was common because of the much-hyped "under fifty bucks" price point, since it was the version working-class kids could play while their middle-class friends were NESing it up. In my collecting days, I owned two 2600jr consoles, and never owned the full-sized one from the 1980s.
The power jack for the 2600jr is a 1/8-inch headphone jack. I used it to run the machine off a 9-volt battery for under a minute, at which point the picture lost color, and then the game crashed.
Karl Jobst sent me here!
I've always wondered what the best time possible was for dragster. I loved this simple game!
I come here for the gaming-centric projects... and don't necessarily stay for all the other engineering stuff but it's starting to grow on me. I don't understand everything but it's still sometimes interesting. Ben reminds me of my older brother which might be helping to keep my attention when he explains things, heh
would this count as a TAS- speedrun? if they can get a faster time than 5.51????
Really your opinion of high scores ultimately makes you objective towards the final results Ben, unlike your SNES VS Genesis video. ^_^ A pedantic subject matter but I'm curious about the results, I often question how valid some of these scores are. Very detailed log of the method of measurement but it has to be to prove that the final test is definitive.
Are you just never doing a part 2?
I think Todd Rogers has got to Ben Heck.
Id love to come up with a perfect tune on my favourite drag racing game.
I don't really understand any of this, I just want to know if the world record was faked. Guess I'll have to wait until the next part.
It is fake - somebody has done the work and went through the actual game-code and then went through all possible combinations you could perform - it isn't possible.
Damn, it goes deeper than I thought.
CrAzYgIrL And thats what she said.
Edgy. Although I guess I am a she and I said it
Kurt Angerdinger that’s not how it works... the code actually defines how fast the game can be run (using pipelining/threading) and there are also specific algorithms which regulate the maximum speedup in this game e.g.
You think the console is quite rare, but that jumper you're wearing must be rarer. I'd like to see you tear that down! :)
I never have any idea what the hell ben is talking about but its always interesting regardless
This is a good thing. While I’m sure there will be those who won’t accept any kind or amount of conclusive evidence if it runs counter to their current belief, we are starting to see some truly independent “from scratch” research. I will watch with eyes and mind open, and ask that everyone else do the same....
People at my job think I'm really smart with my MS Excel jujitsu skills, but watching you Ben makes my brain boil lol. I'd love to learn more about this stuff.
solid episode, guys. loved it! keep it coming!
Any one else here concerned about Ben's safety? What if he proves that the time isn't possible and the guy takes him hostage??? I can't wait for part two.
Roxette had some good jams.
he is not using a anti ESD wristband and that puts me on edge
Did they even answer?
Damn, this was like a Kevtris video with editing. Interesting stuff.
I'm not English and I'm not good at electronics so basically most of the time I'm not understanding a word but it's still really cool
A Teensy would have been nice to see used in this project. Few hobbyists seem to use PIC's.
Come on, it’s been like 30 years, CLEARLY all our cartridges have just suffered bitflips that have caused the game to be corrupted into a still playable, totally functional version of the game that doesn’t let you start in second gear!
Not like anyone has ROM dumps of the game from when it was made or anything.
I love how everyone he talks to looks at him like "wtf are you even on about?"
This is excellent! Thank you for doing this.
Roxsette still perform i found out by being a little bit dangerous and listening to my hard as it must have been love much i liked this band.
I got a 5.49 once. So I'm actually the world record holder.
Yes he did, he just said he did.
Sorry, I just got a 5.47 now I'm actually the world record holder.
woah congratulations dude! thats good as
Wauw... I just read it on the Internet... so it must be true.
You all are missing that atari refreshes time every 0.03, since when 5.51-0.03=5.49? or 5.51-0.06=5.47?
This is amazing!
I know I'm late to the party but I found out about this from watching some older Karl content and hearing about Todd Todgers (as he wrote on the legal documents once) and --
Element14 has done an amazing work! Creating a whole hardware Tool Assist to create perfect runs, then inviting Todd himself to expalin how he did the WR---
I mean I don't care he couldn't do it, the whole process is super interesting
Doesn’t roxette sadly have cancer?
I have no idea what you guys are talking about most of the time but I love seeing the end results of your projects, I think I may have a crush on Karen now as well, she can come round and weld up my old ambulance anyday! ;)
Roxette only broke up last year not sure they'll be getting back together anytime soon due to ill health. (and yes, I realise it was a "comedy" question but i'm old enough to remember the 80's too!)
Every time he says flip flop, drink!
Next project: Voice activated External Trigger for oscilloscopes! (Maybe just a loud noise?)
Font: American Captain. Graphic designers see it everywhere.