Ball Knob mod 7800 controllers *Service Discontinued*

[+Yurkie]

bump

[+Yurkie]

bump

[cOLeCoHiTMan]

weekend bump from a satisfied customer!

[AtariBrian]

I have looked at one of these in person and they are top notch... I am getting one very soon. He is a perfectionist down to every little thought out detail. I have seen a few other mods and not to knock anyones work but they just dont quite compare. Very neat and clean work, even on the inside. And the ball knob controllers to me are great...a must have. Well worth every penny to send your systems to him. Not to mention what he does with the Colecovision! More of a review once i get mine modded

Edited July 7, 2012 by AtariBrian

[+Yurkie]

This puts the whole wrong colors in Commando to rest. All it was is that "tint" adjustment to TV needed to be made. Here are 3 Commando carts and a screenshot of each taken emailed and uploaded untouched from my iphone. Pac-Man Collection by Pacmanplus taken after Commando pictures to show that tint adjustment didn't adversely affect color in other games. My apologies to customers or potentional customers for any confusions I caused.

[gorfcadet]

Yurkie, your work looks outstanding and I will be hitting you up for a Coleco mod this fall. (my school's next payday is mid September) The fact that you agonized over someone's absurd nitpick is just a testament to how seriously you take your work. You'll be getting my money in the near future. Now how much for one of those Commandos? ?

[AtariBrian]

Yurkie, your work looks outstanding and I will be hitting you up for a Coleco mod this fall. (my school's next payday is mid September) The fact that you agonized over someone's absurd nitpick is just a testament to how seriously you take your work. You'll be getting my money in the near future. Now how much for one of those Commandos?

that middle one is spoken for

[+Yurkie]

Yurkie, your work looks outstanding and I will be hitting you up for a Coleco mod this fall. (my school's next payday is mid September) The fact that you agonized over someone's absurd nitpick is just a testament to how seriously you take your work. You'll be getting my money in the near future. Now how much for one of those Commandos?

 

All 3 are spoken for. One is on loan from BennyBingo and the other is on loan from Ataribrian, the 3rd was just purchased by me thanks to AtariAge member CRV.

[gorfcadet]

Drats! Foiled again! My goal of one day having enough Commando carts to swim in like Scrooge McDuck remains a pipe dream.

 

 

[AtariBrian]

playing my commando on a stock 7800 and all i had to do was adjust the hue down just a few and ... perfect colors.

[+davidcalgary29]

Snipped from the CV thread:

OK, I finally found my copy of Commando for the 7800 and played it for about 1/2 an hour this afternoon on my Yurkie-modded system. Verdict: Commando has an ugly colour pallete.

 

I popped in Super Skateboardin' to make sure that I hadn't overlooked some problem -- nothing but crisp, clean colours. I think that that other reported problem with Commando was a problem with the game cartridge.

[+Yurkie]

I have one more Atari 7800 system that is modded and for sale. Controllers have ball knobs. I will still offer the mod service for the 7800, but I will not be selling any more 7800 systems.

[+Yurkie]

All my extra 7800 systems are sold. If you would like to send your console or controllers for modding send me a PM.

[Trebor]

I am the very lucky purchaser of the last extra 7800 modified system. Knowing the quality of Yurkie's other work...

http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/172279-colecovision-hardware-and-mod-special-99-last-day-updated-tues-731/

...and being an extremely happy customer with my fully modified ColecoVision purchase, I highly recommend you get your existing standard ColecoVision and 7800 systems to Yurkie for modification. He does excellent work.

 

I'll update to this thread once I receive my 7800 system and have a chance to hook it up and play. I have no doubt it will be as spectacular as the ColecoVision systems he modifies.

[Trebor]

I have received and tried out my fully modified Yurkie 7800 system. First and foremost, Yurkie does excellent, professional work. The system, controllers, power supply and AV cable was all very well packaged, neat and clean.

 

I have already posted my opinion of the modified joysticks here:

http://www.atariage....b/#entry2571139

 

Having that already covered, moving on to the console…

 

The composite output looks very good. My recommendation, btw, for anyone using an old-school console on a modern flat panel TV is to turn down sharpness all the way. Your video results will vary depending on how well your particular TV (model) handles performing up-conversion of the low resolution as well as overall handling of the analog signal being sent under Composite. The televisions I viewed on were two different Insignia’s. Just to demonstrate how much the TV you are using impacts your results, one Insignia performed noticeably better (22”) than the other (24”) visually. I’m looking forward to also trying the console on my Panasonic Plasma (50”) and Panasonic LCD (32”). I believe I will yield even better results with those units.

 

I did have the same Commando coloring issues as seen earlier in this thread. My televisions Tint/Hue color is perfect for all other consoles. Additionally, I experience the same exact results with a fully modified 7800 system from Best Electronics.

 

Having hoped it was a simple color pot issue, I did open my Yurkie 7800 console up, and again the work was very professional and meticulous. Everything was super clean and neat. Nonetheless, like the Best Electronics modified system tweaking the color pot (Top one near the cart port) ever so slightly did help, but you have to be careful and delicate-slow with tuning as it is super sensitive. The slightest adjustment turn makes a substantial difference. I used Commando, Pac-Man collection and B*n-Q as color standards, especially focusing on the following:

 

Commando – Greens and Browns of the field

Pac-Man Collection – Color of Inky

B*n-Q - Color of Coily.

 

Those three serve as a very good balance-adjustment as Coily should be purple, Inky should be a turquoise, and by now everyone knows there should be both a brown dirt and green field present in Commando.

 

To achieve the three desired effects, the color pot tweak needs to be very exact and specific in its positioning.

 

My results were the same as what I experienced regarding the Best Electronics modified system, perfect Commando colors results in a too green Inky. Keeping Inky turquoise in Pac-Man leaves a brown-green instead of an all brown area in the places it should be just brown in Commando. Coiley with both slight tweaks keeps a purplish color for each one, so there’s not a deal maker or decider there.

 

For the record, let me emphasize that Commando is the only “problem” child here regarding colors that I have seen. I believe it is more a problem with the game color palette choices displayed on modern TV’s. I may revisit this with the two other systems I have unmodified RF-only, but really it is not a big deal. As others, including Yurkie noted, you adjust the TV hue and Commando looks fine.

 

As a very minor but additional side note, I find it interesting the original MESS 7800 palette (Which I believe is based on the work of Dan Boris – if not exactly from him) had Inky with the too green hue as well, which would match one of the color pot settings tried and mentioned earlier, making Commando’s ‘browns’ look proper. So, I am wondering if perhaps there are many 7800 out there that will provide only either accurate Inky or accurate Commando colors.

 

Anyhow, the video is very good overall, and I am very pleased with it. Unlike the Best Electronics modified system, sound from Yurkie’s modification is awesome and very loud and clear. POKEY Commando music was nice and clear as well as crisp. I was blown away at how great the console sounded. I never recalled a 7800 sounding so clean, crisp, and clear.

 

The changed BIOS works beautifully, no delay/Atari start-up logo just straight to the game. I forgot about the built-in Asteroids until I did not insert my Karateka cartridge properly and Asteroids popped-up. I was like, “What the hell, I thought I inserted Karateka?” Then I remembered the BIOS change feature of including Asteroids and soon after found my cartridge not inserted properly.

 

The cut-off switch…Odd or should I state interestingly enough, an unintended discovery…with the 2600 switch cut-off enabled, it caused B*nQ to not play properly. You get passed the title screen a game starts, but once you appear at the top, you receive some garbled graphics to the upper left of B*nQ and the game freezes. So for now, 2600 cut-off switch remains off….Again, not a big deal and found this little discovery more interesting and raised my curiosity factor as to the cause and reason more than anything else.

 

The Blue-LED – Gorgeous. Honestly, makes the system appear more “futuristic” for a lack of a better description. I like the blue worlds better than the red. Absolutely love this modification.

 

Not much else to write at this time….

 

SUMMARY: You want a solid, professionally modified system by someone who does meticulous work, Yurkie’s your guy. The fully modified 7800 system is well worth the purchase. All modifications are very neat and non-intrusive. The new audio/video port is where the old RF was located and has been mounted and epoxied perfectly on the inside. Ditto with the ‘2600’ switch which resides where the channel switch was mounted. The composite video looks very good, and the sound is simply excellent. The BIOS change is a very welcomed and sweet modification, a slight time saver, and always provides you a game (Asteroids) to play even with no carts. Blue powered-on LED is gorgeous. The ball top joystick provides a considerable and respectable improvement over the original shaft design making the joystick more comfortable and arcade like during gameplay.

 

Any doubts, forget them and get your consoles and controllers to Yurkie…Well worth the cost and recommended.

Edited August 3, 2012 by Trebor

[RedRaider]

Trebor,

 

Thanks for taking the time to post up your observations and thoughts.

[Trebor]

Trebor,

 

Thanks for taking the time to post up your observations and thoughts.

 

You're welcome. As a few additional notes:

 

1. I did try an original RF output 7800 and did not have problems with Commando or any other game's colors with Tint/Hue left at default/center. BTW, the brown field in Commando is also the same palette color used in the bottom soil level in Dig Dug.

 

2. Regardless of the above, other discoveries I found: Changing the hue/tint setting for Composite output had little to no effect for other consoles that were either modded for Composite (I.E. Atari 2600 & ColecoVision), or already had that output (I.E. Original NES, Genesis, and SNES). At least that was my experience with the LED's I was using (Insignia's).

 

In other words, tuning the Hue/Tint control setting for the 7800 (Which seems to have a great impact) and allow for better palette colors (Specifically brown(s)), made little to no difference for other consoles (Atari 2600, ColecoVision, NES, SNES, Genesis).

 

3. Another impacting factor is color temperature. Many modern flat panel displays have three settings: Cool/Normal/Warm. Depending on your television and setting, colors can also be greatly influenced by them.

 

 

 

Morale of the story is if NTSC jokingly means Never The Same Color; using an analog outputting NTSC game system on a modern display can even be more complicated and color changing as there are even more options and possibilities involved – Evidently especially respecting the Atari 7800.

 

I still need to try the 7800 consoles (RF and Composite mod) on my Panasonic 32" LCD and 50" Plasma.

 

As a final mention again, the Best Electronics console – which uses a different method for achieving Composite than Yurkie’s modified system, had the same exact issue with the palette color brown and the same color pot tuning effects were experienced on the same displays

 

Keeping Commando’s grass green and Pac-Man Collection’s Inky turquoise will *really* make you fine tune that color pot to be exact…lol…The wrong setting makes the grass bluish (too much to the left or counterclockwise) or Inky greenish (too much to the right or clockwise). You really have to nail just the right spot for green ‘Commando’ grass and a turquoise ‘Pac-Man Collection’ Inky. Note: Original (retail) Ms. Pac-Man is not a gauge to use as that Inky is way too light blue allowing for inaccurate or ‘false sense of fine tuning’.

 

Lastly, the Best Electronics modded 7800 has a complete Expansion port, while the console from Yurkie did not - so if you have an expansion port or a system without, it is not a factor. My results and experience are showing this to be an issue with 7800 Composite modded systems in general dependent on the display and its settings and nothing wrong with Yurkie’s modified video installation.

 

Here's two video clips - unrelated to Yurkie's mod - from an actual NTSC console:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3rOkRdnBLU - Commando 7800

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTpy9INpwB0 - Dig Dug 7800

 

Notice the Greenish-Brown areas that "should be" just brown for Commando, and the first level bottom soil level the same greenish-brown color.

 

Conclusively again, Yurkie's work is Stellar and once more of course is recommended.

 

Edit to add video clips from another 7800 Atari system,.

Edited August 6, 2012 by Trebor

[+Yurkie]

Thanks fot the compliments and information Trebor.

[cOLeCoHiTMan]

BUMP... mine should be there for Yurkie surgery ... He can rebuild it. He has the technology. He can make him better than he was. Better...stronger...faster.

[+Yurkie]

bump

[+Yurkie]

bump

[LidLikesIntellivision]

I bought a modded AV Atari 7800 with new bios and ball knob controllers from Yurkie and it was simply awesome.

AV image perfect.

Instalation perfect.

It's great to have an updated bios without Atari logo every time you switch on the console. And you can play Asteroids when there's no cart! Pefect!

Controllers are great! If you want play the prosystem with american controls you must try these!

 

And, of course, packaging great (indeed I received the parcel in Brazil in perfect condition), communication great too!

Thanks Yurkie!

[+Yurkie]

Bump

[+Yurkie]

bump.

[cOLeCoHiTMan]

Took me 2 transactions.. first I only wanted modded controllers... then when I got those I wanted the whole system!

Got my modded system FINALLY after a massive screwup by Canada Post..... and LOVE IT!

Now I can suck at Asteroids immediately without a cartridge...

And FYI.. my Commando looks great!

 

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

Got both a YurkieVision and a YurTari now!