2600 or 7800?

[mulligan]

I'm going to get an Atari console. Should I get a 2600 or 7800?

[atari70s]

id say a 2600 more games for it but if you get an early 84 7800 which works on all atari 2600games (not all work on latter 7800's ) if you get a 7800 that works on all games then go for the 7800 but odds are you wont its very tough to get so i would say go for a 2600 they are cheap easy to repair and can be more fun

[liquid_sky]

Go for a 7800. Reverse compatability qith 99% of the 2600 games, and a rather nice collection of 7800 software is out there too. Its the best of both worlds in one box

[Albert]

I'd personally rather have a 7800 system if you could only have one as it's nice being able to run both 2600 and 7800 games. There are only a few games that don't run on the newer (and most common) 7800 consoles. There is a larger number of 7800 games that won't run on the 2600 (all of them!) Of course, you'd absolutely want to get some Atari 2600 joysticks to play 2600 games with, since the 7800 controllers are terrible in my opinion.

 

One bad thing about the 7800 is it uses a proprietary power connector, so 7800 power supplies are a little harder to come by. Also, a 7800 with a working power supply will probably be more expensive than a 2600.

 

Either way you can't go wrong.

 

..Al

[Marco(2)]

"There can only be one!!!"

 

... and it's the 2600

 

You won't miss a thing not being able to play 7800 games (if you want to play good graphics games, try a modern console). You'd never want to miss playing games on the one and only "King of Classic Consoles" though - the true videogaming experience!

 

Yes, it's that simple

 

Cheers,

 

Marco

[mulligan]

Thanks. I think I'll go with a 2600 from Ebay. I want to know how I can connect it to a modern TV. My TV has a cable plug and A/V ports on the front. It doesn't have two two terminals that are in older tvs.

[Osbo]

I have an Atari Jr 2600 and one 7800 (the controllers sucks!) and the graphics are wayyyyy better in the 7800 than in the 2600 (I'm talking about 2600 games) and the 7800 games are AWESOME, try Centipede for example, or Pole Position 2. Also the 7800 plays (so far) all my 2600 games!

One question guys... I just brouth a 2600 woodgrain, and it comes with a SuperChager... I guess my question it's kinda stupid, but will the supercharger works with no problem in my 7800, right?

Thanks!@!@!

 

OsBo

[Alex]

quote:

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Originally posted by mulligan:

Thanks. I think I'll go with a 2600 from Ebay. I want to know how I can connect it to a modern TV. My TV has a cable plug and A/V ports on the front. It doesn't have two two terminals that are in older tvs.

---

 

Check our How To page. You just need a little $2-$3 converter from Radio Shack and you can connect it to your cable jack.

[Ze_ro]

There's something about the six big silver switches that makes the 2600 so much more retro I don't actually have a 7800, but I'm not too concerned about getting one. The 2600 is much easier to find, and can be found for much better prices (I have three of them, and each of them was $4). Plus, 2600 cartridges are so common that you can trip over them in the streets.

 

Of course, if you have an opportunity to get a cheap 7800, go for it. Personally, I plan on getting both.

 

--Zero

[mulligan]

thanks. I realized that i have a few of those converters already.

[Nukey Shay]

Osbo--

The Supercharger will only work with an original '84 model 7800 motherboard (the ones that Atari shelved). Here's a faq that lists five different 7800's, and only the earliest one accepts it (search for supercharger on the page). http://www.icwhen.com/faqs/faq_2600.html

I wouldn't chance it unless I was absolutely positive that it was an early model (and even then I probably wouldn't)...as using a Supercharger on a newer model can ruin it. Just use it with your woody (just not in front of the children! j/k).

 

[ 07-29-2001: Message edited by: Nukey Shay ]

[Ze_ro]

quote:

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Originally posted by mulligan:

thanks. I realized that i have a few of those converters already.

---

 

Make sure you get one with a manual switch rather than the automatic ones... older systems such as the Atari don't send out a strong enough signal to trigger the switch... I found this out the hard way:

 

A few years back, my ColecoVision "broke down". My dad got a new one from a friend of this (this was after the Nintendo, so it wasn't a huge deal)... eventually, he convinced me to give him the ColecoVision so my stepmother's grandchild could play it (by then I had a Jaguar, and I didn't mind). Of course, I regretted this decision after a while, but remembered the "broken" CV. I opened it up and tried monkeying with it to try and get it working, but nothing would budge. Eventually, I saw mentioned somewhere that the Atari only works with manual switches, and I realized that all this time I had been trying to use the CV with the auto switch that I got with my Jaguar... it had never really been broken after all! Unfortunately, in my attempts to "fix" the CV, I screwed up something or other, and the system doesn't work properly (It's sometimes playable... but there are more problems that I care to mention)

 

Naturally, I haven't seen any working CV's in the thrift stores since...

 

--Zero

[cloudmann]

I've got both a 2600 and the older 7800. I never liked the RF modulators on any system, as I thought it was crap, so I rewired both systems to have s-video/composite video out and two RCA outputs for sound. On my 2600 (Jr) this was a very quick easy soldering job. Mounting the 2 RCA jacks and the S-video jack actually took longer than bypassing the RF Mod. did. This eliminates alot of noise and static that pos up in the picture and in audio. Modding the 2600 took about 30 minutes and cost me about $7. Now I can hook it up to my TV with an svideo cable or to any standard RCA video input with a $4 adapter. I think this is worth it, because I can actually hook this up to my switchbox I use to selct gaming systems, though I only use my 7800 since this model actually plays all the 2600's games. The 7800 took a bit longer (2 hours) and cost about $12, but the image quality is much sharper and the colors are more vibrant. There are FAQs all over the interternet on how to do this.