There is something odd about the Atari 2600+.
It may be nothing at all, but then again, who knows right?

It all started yesterday on AtariAge.com where the 1.1 firmware for The Atari 2600+ was being tested.

You can find it here: 1.1 Atari 2600+ firmware

I followed the instructions on the page to update the firmware, but in the step where it says the USB device will show-up as “unknown device” in Windows 11 Device Manager, I instead saw this:

“Evercade Firmware Download Device”?

Weird eh?

My first thought was that the Evercade might use the same Rockchip SOC that the 2600+ uses. Since I’ve updated the firmware on my Evercade with the same Windows 11 computer in the past, it might have simply recognized it as the same device.

According to this post on AtariAge.com, The Atari 2600+ uses the Rockchip 3128 SOC.

Wikipedia says the Evercade uses an ARM-CORTEX-A7, but doesn’t specify the model number. however, on closer inspection, the Rockchip 3128 is also an ARM -CORTEX-A7. (Datasheet)

So that’s it right? They use the same SOC. End of story.

But then I recalled that Blaze Entertainment announced that they were dropping all their Atari titles just after the 2600+ was announced:
Evercade Atari Cartridges to be Withdrawn at End of the Year – (fusionrgamer.com)

At the time this just seemed like a way for Blaze to soft-exit titles that maybe were not selling well.

But maybe there is more to the story?

I then went and checked the Plaion Web Site searching for Evercade and I found this: (I had to translate from German to English to read it)

“The Evercade EXP retro handheld console is now available” – PLAION Press Server

So Plaion who makes the 2600+ for Atari (which shows-up as an Evercade when connected via USB to a Windows PC) just happens to also have a relationship of some kind with Blaze, the company that makes Evercade?

This brought a few questions to mind:

Did Plaion develop the Atari cart dumper software for Blaze?
Did Blaze think the Atari cart-dumper support was proprietary?
Did Plaion use Evercade tech in the 2600+, making Blaze angry enough to completely drop Atari support?

This could all just be simple coincidences, but I still find it all so very interesting…