vcsrocks

The 2600 cart has two ground pins (12 and 24). Some systems use this to detect if a cart is inserted (and this may well be the case here) but it may be worth trying to swap one of these...

Hi all. Happy new year! For the past ten years or so, I have been fixing Atari consoles and often I install AV mods as part of the process. At the beginning I was using a simple amplifier as many projects on the internet do, but I was not very happy with the video quality, so I quickly moved to the digital buffer approach. As I convert a far number of consoles every year, from time to time I will run out of PCBs and, instead of just re-ordering the same design, I try to improve it and make it easier to install, better video and audio quality, etc... Around 2018 I joined my AV design with my game pause mod: Here are some examples of my previous mods: The last PCB on the right is the one I used until mid last year. There were a few things I liked about it: It had AV and pause integrated, so it was easier to install than two separate mods There was no need to modify the console case for the AV cable The pause was controlled by the COLOR switch, so no extra switch installation The pause could be completely deactivated and the COLOR button could be used to switch the game to BW It could be mounted directly on top of the TIA and the labels on the pins made it easier to know which pins to connect for NTSC and PAL consoles. The connections were made straight down which avoided making wrong connections As it was time to order PCBs again, I started working on a new design to include some features I collected on my wish list: An easier way to configure the board for NTSC or PAL. On the last board I made, a resistor network for this, which meant I needed to decide if I wanted it to be used for NTSC or PAL as I built the mod and it was not possible to change it afterwards Gemini support. As the Gemini has a different TIA, I had to reroute the connections manually, which made the installation much more complicated and error prone An LED indicator for the pause state Better connections for the AV cable A better solution for the audio and video chaos while the game is paused. The old board had addressed a lot of the problem, but that was a lot of room for improvement So I came up with the design above which has a single jumper to configure PAL, NTSC and Genesis and the legends next to the pins show which TIA pins should be connected for each console type. This makes it easier to install the mod and also change the console type after the board was build. The other features are also included: 2600Mod_en.mov This is how it looks like installed in a Gemini: So far I have converted a couple of dozens of PAL, NTSC and Gemini consoles with this new mod and I am quite happy with the result. This time I ordered a larger number of PCBs though, so if anyone would like get one of these mods, I will soon put them on eBay for 29€, or you can pm me here. Cheers.

Didn't know that. Now I HAVE to check which ones I have ?

Very cool! I can't stop playing it!! Thanks for sharing. Grande abraco!

Good job!

I guess the question is... when can we play it

It probably landed on the bin by now, but before replacing the chips which can take time, the TIA can be tested by checking if the game reacts to reset/select/joystick with changes in the pattern shown on the TV (or even the audio if that is working). If the changes are timewise consistent with what you get on the working unity, the program is running properly and the problem in indeed likely to be the TIA. If it doesn't though, you may want to check the cart edge connector soldering and metal connectors. I had a console where the problem was one of the data lines and the image on the TV was very similar.

Read that this morning on the BBC app. Very much like a video game indeed.

Also, you may want to try a more descriptive title. Tags also help attract the right attention to your post.

I took a slightly more generic approach to my dev board and put a prototyping area on it: The signal headers are similar to yours, and help if I have to use a quick jumper here and there. I also included an inverter for CE and a connection for low voltage step down module if I am working with anything lower than 5V (marked as LV above and step down module below) With copper tape is also very easy to run multiple pads with the same signal or power in one go. I had a whole bunch made in 2020 to keep the price low, so I am sticking to this design, but maybe you can use some of the ideas also on yours.

amazing!

Very cool and thanks for sharing!

Is there a manual/schematics to guide the assembly? The PCB seem to use different components from the original JR.

Really cool!!

I have a TV/monitor in my workshop that takes forever and a minute to actually sync with a 2600 JR. Everything else works fine with it. For a while I thought the problem was with the console, but at the end the TV just did not like the signal coming out of it. This should be very easy to test: just turn on the console and, even without video, get a game started. Not just inserted but the actual game-play started. You can check how to do this with the image on first, but usually it involves pressing the joystick button or select on the console. Once the image appears, if the game is playing, the console was likely running fine all along. There may still be a problem with the RF circuit, but that should be easier to figure out.