Lendorien

Double post. Whoops.

What if power wasn't getting from the power port to the switchboard at all? I didn't have the connector seated all the way when I plugged it in. Stupid on my part I know, so the power might have gone into the mainboard entirely and not been transferred to the switchboard at all. Fried something on the motherboard maybe. Blech. I feel pretty foolish. I'll pick one up tomorrow and send you a message and we'll see what we can do. With any luck it's a simple problem. I'm handy enough with a soldering iron that I can take care of the more simple things. Thank you for the help!

You sure you connected the right pins, and on the right chip? Those two pins are simply the buffer for the controller's fire button. The absolute worst you could have done would be to damage the TIA chip, and you'd have to have had a pretty good static charge to do that. Unless you connected the two pins at the lower _left_ which could have killed something. These are the pins you connected, correct? (circled) Now the console doesn't work at all? Does it just display a black screen, or does the power switch do nothing? I seriously doubt that you killed the cartridge. That would be a real feat. I once tried purposely to kill the ROM in Pac-Man, it's quite hard to do. Try cleaning the connector and trying it in a known good Atari. I'm sorry you damaged your console - I should probably have drawn pictures, and not relied on text to explain these sorts of things. I really should put together an "Atari repair faq", with pictures and pinouts. -Ian Don't get heartbroken over it. I have two more and like I said, I bought this one for 5 bucks at goodwill. In any case, I must have done something on my own because it stopped working before I even got to your connector trick. I suspect that I didn't have the cable that runs from the motherboard to the switch board seated all the way and caused a short circuit. I know it's getting power because the heat sink heats up. But yes, when I switch it on, nothing happens. I suppose I probably fried something. I don't have a multitester, but it's probably a resistor or something if I were to guess. As for the Phoenix cart, I'm pretty sure it's fried. I tried both my vader and my heavy sixer and cleaned the contacts. No dice. It must have gotten quite a jold. Maybe it erased the eprom? Is that even possible?

Heh. I followed instructions. Checked the soldering, then took the thing apart and attempted to run it to do your second suggestion. I must have caused a short or something. I think I fried it somehow as now it doesn't work at all. At least it was only 5 dollars. The bad part is that I made the mistake of having my cart int he slot when I plugged it in... and I think I fried my copy of Pheonix as it no longer works on my main unit. That makes me very sad. If I ever do anything like this again, I'm using Pacman. Damn.

I have to say that what you have there is pretty cool. I'd find a way to wrape all those wires so they don't get caught on anything. Like Mirage, I'd love to see a how to on this. Does it auto switch or do you have to do it manually?

Well, I took a look. A good suggestion. But it seems to be solidly soldered on there. No play.

Yeah, I was a little surprised too, given it was the Waukesha store. I dropped a 5 disc cd-changer there the other day, complete with remote, manual and RCA connector. I taped the bag to the dang thing so that whoever bought it would get everything. That goodwill is terrible about keeping power cords and the like with things. I also got a sega genesis controller with an extension cable attached. I'm thrilled. It'll let me play Atari without moving the dang thing off its shelf.

So, just picked up a light sixer at goodwill. Even had the power supply and it's in perfect cosmetic shape. 5 bucks. For my Goodwill that's a good deal. In any case, I took it home, the left controller port seems to have a bad connection or something. The joystick works fine but the fire button doesn't work. I have a vader I use for playing and my controllers work fine on that one, so I know it's the unit that has the issue. I'm somewhat technically proficient so can do minor repairs if needed. Anyone have any suggestions?

Indeed. It's nice to see younger folks taking an interest in classic gaming. Not enough appreciate how great these games are. This video really turned my stomach...they sound like they're 12 years old and have probably never played an Atari game in their life. I love how the consoles stood up to the punishment though! Hate to say it, but I got a heavy sixer and a woody 4 switcher on ebay for about 30 bucks. And a vader for 5 at goodwill. They aren't that hard to find really.

Hmmm. I wonder how hard it would have been to fix the yamaha issue. Could have been something as simple as a broken circuit. Too bad about the 800. That would have made me sad too!

Was at a thrift shop today. Someone was walking out with a NES power pad and the game card with SM1/ Duck Hunt and Track and Field on it as I came in. On the bright side, I did find a gamecube game worth 40 bucks I'm going to sell on Amazon. Got it for 4.

Saw that tecmo yesterday. Was tempted to get it, but meh. I don't play football games. Why would I play that one? Never been to the New Berlin goodwill. It any good? No, not really. I mean, it was average, nothing special. A little dirtier and less organized than most even. I actually find a lot more stuff up north and far west than I ever do in Milwaukee. I haven't had a lot of luck in the Milwaukee area ones. I hope I at least hit the store with the CV stuff! Those are the only Goodwills I know of in the area, and frankly, I don't hit them that often anymore due to what I just said. Yeah, it was the one out on Main in Waukesha. Used to frequent the store up in Fond du Lac when I lived in the area. That was a great store. I don't think I ever saw any game systems there though. I did net some good PC software though. Once found original in box copies of King's Quest 2 and 3. Sold them on E-bay for about 30 bucks each. I think. It was a while ago. My knowledge of PC gaming has actually gotten me a few hundred dollars that way. Oshkosh by comparison was always pretty lame.

Not to derail the thread, but I'd love to hear the story of that find.

Saw that tecmo yesterday. Was tempted to get it, but meh. I don't play football games. Why would I play that one? Never been to the New Berlin goodwill. It any good?

I've gotten a few things from lost and founds over the years at various places I've worked. Never anything quite as nice as a DS tho. I did buy a HP media PC worth 300 dollars off a guy for 10 bucks about 2 months ago. He was recycling it as my place of work, and when I saw what it was, I offered him the cash in my wallet for it. Since it was busted (his words) he took the money. Got it home and there was nothing wrong with it except that the CPU fan was so clogged with dust that it didn't even move any more. Needless to say, a vacuum solved that issue and I got a 300 dollar media pc out of it. Sold it to a coworker too. Man folks were jealous about that one. Yep, that would be them. It's nearly impossible to find them now because they were ordered to be destroyed. They have these lame-o jobs that Walmart sells that bounce and totally ruin the fun of it. I mean, hey, the threat of death and an ominous THOOK in the ground is the way to go. Really, though, they're totally fine, the reason people got hurt was because they were acting like idiots with them and trying to catch them in their mouths and such. They were banned in the late 80's after a couple kids were killed by them. Consumer protection gone overboard. I'm sure more kids have died by drowning in kiddie pools than by Jart impalings. Are we banning kiddie pools? Nope. I actually did play Jarts once in the early 90's some friends had a set. We were supervised when we played as it should have been.

Oh no. I don't have a Colecovision. I don't remember what was there either. About 8 or 9 games were on the shelf, but they were asking 2 bucks a piece. I wasn't about to spend 20 bucks on games for a system I don't have. Heh. That particular goodwill gets a lot of game stuff. It's in a wealthy suburb. But, they have this lousy tendancy to label every attachment with a price. Controllers, power supplies, etc. It means that people buy stuff piecemeal. It sucks. Yeah, most of the Goodwills around here are like that. Depending on what games they were, I'd like to get those. I'll probably have to make the rounds again Monday or Tuesday to see if I can find them. I just made the rounds on Thursday. $2 each isn't bad at all for most CV games. Better than the way they usually price the Pac-Mans and Combats at $3 each, and of course half the time put the sticker right on the label. I'm pretty sure I know the one you're talking about. Oh, one from around my parts... We're stomping on the same grounds eh? I'd ask where you go to find stuff, but who wants competition, right? Not that I'm a serious collector, cause I'm not. I get games to play them. Yeah, it's the one in the city to the west of us. I was just there this afternoon, so they'll likely still be there if you went now.

(I suppose a baby and/or its effects might be termed a "motherload", but otherwise I think the term you're looking for is "mother lode" ) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_lode Fixed... Mr. Smartypants.

Oh no. I don't have a Colecovision. I don't remember what was there either. About 8 or 9 games were on the shelf, but they were asking 2 bucks a piece. I wasn't about to spend 20 bucks on games for a system I don't have. Heh. That particular goodwill gets a lot of game stuff. It's in a wealthy suburb. But, they have this lousy tendancy to label every attachment with a price. Controllers, power supplies, etc. It means that people buy stuff piecemeal. It sucks.

I can't imagine that Kaboom would be much fun on the SNES. It didn't have anything like the paddle controller did it? That's half of what made the game workable. Well ok, there was the mouse, but... eh.

So, We've got the thrift finds thread... how about a near miss thread. Anyone have and tales of woe over near misses? Like finding some rare cart in a store and not having the cash for it, or seeing some other guy walking out with the mother lode and you were only 5 minutes too late to get it yourself. Etc. I had one today. Colecovision. Loads of games at a Goodwill here in WI. And I found the paddles sitting on a shelf somewhere away from the electronics section. But the console itself was nowhere to be seen. Either they hadn't put it out yet or someone else got it. Naturally, this wasn't a significant near miss, but it might be interesting to hear other people's stories. I'm sure some of our more serious collectors have some stories like this that are far more heartbreaking. So share! And oh... ebay doesn't count.

Snazy! Really snazy!

The Wii desperately needs more quality games, so if EA is going to be putting big titles on it, it'll only help the platform. The glut of crappy 3rd party games is really the Wii's biggest downside.

Man.... Where do you people find this stuff. Great score though!

Hmmm. Most of mine are PC games. I got rid of many of them because they weren't important to me or they weren't valuable at the time. I had FF7 for pc for a while. That's pretty rare to find in the box complete. Also had Bridge Commander, which is hard to find. Also had a few pretty rare Infocom games and early versions of a couple of Sierra's King's Quest games. Nothing too exciting though.

Hah. I always loved Super RC Pro Am. Sure it's a simple game, but I wasted so many hours ont hat game. It's one of the few Gameboy games I actually still play. That and Tetris.