BigO

What are those glued on with?

If you're referring to the person I was working with to develop the custom inlay strip, I'm not intending to say anything bad about the person in question, just relating the story of how I came to be in need. That may have been a poor choice on my part. Otherwise, my experience with that person has been 100% positive. To be clear, I'm far more concerned about the individual's well-being than I am about losing the parts. I have no inklings that any sort of intentional misdeed has taken place.

I'm looking for the top half of a CX52 controller. I really just need the plastic shell. [EDIT]: remove background story

Cool. Never heard of it. I have to admit that I was a bit hesitant to click into this topic for fear of it being a homebrew game discussion.

True enough, as long as no steps/pulses are ever missed being read from the encoder. The software itself would have to track the absolute position as the typical two bit incremental encoder has no such absolute position capability. When you restrict the encoder's motion to a finite range (vs. continuous rotation), one missed state change from the encoder would create a mismatch between the calculated/assumed position and the physical/actual position of the pedal. One way to combat that issue would be to use an encoder with a zero pulse to reset the sync to a known position. This could be implemented as a switch at zero/no throttle position. Either scheme would require another bit of input in some form or other. Rather than a full blown rotary encoder, one might consider a form of absolute position encoding with the same two bits of resolution. This would give the throttle pedal four distinct output patterns: one for idle and three more e.g. low, medium, high positions. Not ideal, but better than an on/off throttle. This type of arrangement could be polled at will as you would only have to detect current state rather than change of state. This could be implemented with mechanical switches of some flavor. In this configuration, if you go with three bits you get eight distinct pedal positions.

It's a boatload of information. Way too much probably. But somewhere in here you can likely find what you're looking for. http://atariage.com/forums/forum/50-atari-2600-programming/ There's a Stella TIA programming reference that may have the details you want from a technical perspective: https://atarihq.com/danb/files/stella.pdf

I never had a Channel F as a kid and didn't know anyone who did. I bought one as an adult because I recognized the games from my memories of "TV POWWW". I used to watch it after school on channel 2 out of Oakland.

It could be that it was rewired to be used with some device that only supported one analog controller input on a port and the perpetrator disconnected the other wires to prevent interference with the function of the other pins. It might not have even been a game console. It's not much of a stretch for me to imagine doing something like that myself. By "uses the same color scheme", do you mean that you verified the mapping of each color of wire by checking its continuity to the pin(socket) on the connector, and that the color mapping matched the working set exactly? There's no guarantee of consistency from one controller to the next. Having said that, I didn't spot anything obvious in your description of the wiring that would cause a direct short. Though, I don't know what would happen if the software configured a pin to output a 0 and then 5v was applied to that pin. I'm assuming that if you have an ohmmeter that you used to trace out the wire color mapping. If so, you will probably also have already verified that there are no shorts between any two pins of the connector. If all that is true then it seems like the next obvious step would be to rewire it to match the working set.

There's no reason the +5v would connect to a button. I would guess that the problem set was rewired to work with some other device. I would completely disconnect the wires from the pots and buttons and test the wiring as suggested, then wire it back correctly.

Your mention of concerns about current prompts me to mention that I have a TL866 that I bought primarily to test TTL logic chips. I was having trouble with one particular type of logic reading as faulty when manual testing proved otherwise. I ended up running one pin through a buffer chip between the TL866 and the chip under test and the problem went away. Other types of chip tested fine using that same pin. I can't remember exact details about which types did and didn't have a problem. I theorize that the transistor driving that TL866 pin is out of spec, but haven't bothered to try to replace it yet. Maybe you have something similar going on?

Other than dealing with the twitichiness of those zebra connectors in general, it's really not a complex job to remove and replace the LCD in a Microvision. I've swapped them around to put a known good one into an unknown unit to troubleshoot the unknown unit. I remember it being a lot more difficult to properly orient the cartridge connector piece during reassembly than anything else. On the subject of the zebra connectors: because it's what I had on hand, I've used Deoxit and a chamois swab to successfully clean the metal and rubber contacts when parts of the LCD matrix weren't working.

1, maybe 2. Removing and reinstalling the LCD is pretty easy.

One could program a microcontroller to output the quadrature encoded signals. As a side trip while learning to read quadrature signals from a trackball controller, I have used a PIC microcontroller to build an adapter to allow playing Indy 500 on the 2600 with a joystick. It was a horrible, horrible game play experience, but it worked. Varying the output pulse rate based on some variable input would not be a huge deal. A pot for the variable input is certainly reasonable. Probably an existing analog pedal setup could be indirectly used to drive this input. If all 3 wires from the pot are used, a simple voltage divider feeding an analog input on the microcontroller would suffice. If only 2 wires from the pot are implemented or the chosen microcontroller doesn't have analog inputs , you can use the cheap and cheesy A/D conversion method employed on the Atari 2600. Connect a capacitor to a digital input, discharge then charge the cap through a potentiometer until the attached digital input reads a logic 1 state. Count the time it takes to charge to that state and you have a reasonable approximation of the pot position. I've also done that with a low end PIC microcontroller for a different vintage gaming project.

^^ What he said ^^.

His user name is Albert. If you're using the full interface on a computer, just click the messenger (open envelope icon) toward the upper right when you're in the Forums pages. Then select Compose New. Then type "Albert" in the Recipient's Name field.

In my experience, it would be unusual for Albert not to respond. Are you able to send/receive PM's to/from anyone else successfully? Have you tried the store contact from another browser or machine?

Scott was patient while we worked to make a deal, when I delayed the process rounding up shipping materials and when I went to radio silence during a family emergency. Paid in a timely manner. Good experience all the way around.

Pretty much any pinball machine that I was near if I happened to have a quarter. Didn't add up to much as I rarely had a quarter.

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Strat-O-Gems Deluxe Space Rocks Chunkout

Store > Categories > Atari 2600 See where it says "Custom Atari 2600 Cartridge"? Click there for information.

With some very stubborn 2600 cartridges, I've had success with a piece of Scotch-Brite pad held in a hemostat and Deoxit Gold. Scotch-Brite is abrasive and I certainly wouldn't recommend it as a daily practice, but when it's down to trying abrasives or throwing away the cartridge, I try the abrasive.

I agree completely with your aversion to sending that stuff to a recycler. If you really don't want to keep the stuff, there may be people here who would take them off your hands for the cost of shipping. Are you aware of this thread?: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/174200-spreading-the-love-with-free-games-and-more-edicion-cinco/