Mef

Just got my Stargate cart today and gave it a two-hour run. It's great! It's so good, even my wife liked it* (with me supporting her with bombs and inviso). To be honest, I never liked the Defender formula. It was always "oh, yet another game with this shitty flip-around movement" and I've passed on all of them but Chopper Command, which I've only played to get to the badge score. Man, I hated those ridiculous splitting projectiles! I also tried the first Defender for Atari, not to miss the "classic", but on top of this control scheme it was also pretty poorly made. This however is different. The flawless presentation, fast action and the strategic element when to use one of the special abilities is just pure win. I love it so much I'm determined to make myself some kind of controller for this game alone (would be handy for Radar Lock too). By any means, get this game if you haven't already. If a long-time enemy of Defender recommends it, think of how the real fan would react! * My wife does have a weak spot for River Raid, Enduro, Missile Command and Video Olympics, but I haven't seen her so excited about a freshly tried title yet! P.S. The cart I got is a PAL grey label with copyright date '85 and regular (non-cursive) font on the end-label. Strange that there are so many small variations.

Nice game! Still lacks some kind of a proper end sequence (perhaps fade to red and return to menu screen?), but other thank that it's a very solid effort. One thing that bugs me tho, is that the titular Ninja looks too much like a plain stickfigure. You've set up some pretty harsh limitations with 8x8 monochrome, but here's 2 of my attempts to remake the 3 sprite frames ( top row - jump, middle row - freefall, bottom row - clinging to the wall). If you like these, then by all means, feel free to use them. The one on the left would look particularily good if you could have the topmost pixels' row in red, to simulate a bandana!

Heh, just noticed a small error in the schematic... You're going to be ok if you go by the signal names, but the pin numbers for Luma 2, Luma 1 and Luma 0 are reversed on this pic, compared to the TIA pinout picture. Just remember that Lum 0 is the one that you're going to put the most resistance on, when combining them into 1 signal via a resistor ladder (in other words, Lum 0 is the least significant bit and Lum 2 is the most significant bit of the overall luminance signal). The schematic should read: Luma 2 - pin 6, Luma 1 - pin 5 and Luma 0 - pin 7.

There's 2 main differences between PAL and NTSC TIA in regard to this mod - first, the Luma 0, Luma 1, and Luma 2 lines aren't all located on the same pins, and secondly - PAL version only offers Mono sound. If you're going for a premade AV mod board, you only have to remember about different pinout, to tap the right signals. If you're going to do the whole mod yourself, here's a nice tried schematic for you: Source article here. Scroll down to: "The Transistor Amplifier Method (second attempt)".

Btw, your nick sounds slavic and the use of word "cinch" gives me a hint about Europe. Please note that PAL TIA (display chip) has different pinout, so be careful to pick up PAL schematics for your mod.

If you have any TV or monitor that can take S-video, go for that instead. Composite will never come close, and since you're already determined to mod your console, then why take the half-arsed way out.

Are you plugging any cartridge in? In simple terms, Atari 2600 doesn't have any "operating system" nor BIOS, it "boots" from cartridges. You will only get black screen (or vertical stripes) when there's no game inserted into the unit.

The way your putting this sounds as if no comparison would be within proper context. And this is something "we" haven't established. If that suits you, we can settle to simply differ in opinion on what the correct point of reference is, but there's no need to patronize my viewpoint. If the flicker was really introduced purposely, then all the worse for me and all the reviewers throughout those 30+ years, who've been touching on the "flickerfest" as one of the points to rate this game low. I for one, don't care that much for imperfect porting of sprites, palette, sound effects or level design. It's the eye-straining flicker that kills the game for me, completely.

This is exactly why I've carefully taken another 1982' 4k game based on the same basic gameplay formula for this comparison. I have also explicitly stated that the game is unbearable shit thanks to the excessive flicker, completely disregarding the cash-in on the name, etc. I acknowledge the argument about technical difference (vs Alien) caused by additional constraint (reserved resources for 2nd player), but it doesn't change the fact that the game has miserably failed to deliver. Whether it was bad timing (ROM-size wise), bad marketing/design decision to push for 2-player mode at too high a cost, none of those matter to the end consumer. A handfull of specialists who can apprecieate the coding is just a drop in the bitter sea of 7 millions of more-or-less dissapointed people who bought this back in the days. Summing up, in my humble opinion: the game is shit, personally unplayable, and also deserves to be called shit by anyone, without extra reasoning - just looking at it blink is enough. You are free to agree or not, but I'm pretty confident I've given you a solid backing to my evaluation.

I stand corrected. It's so much worth it to have a not-really-two-player-at-all at the cost of lowest quality sound and gfx with otherwise miserable gameplay. I guess they just had to make people take turns in that torture, not to expose them for too long at a time.

No amount of nostalgia can cover up that Pac Man for Atari 2600 was a horrible piece of shit. Take Alien for example. It manages to do the pills almost right, has overall smooth and clean gfx, good sound effects and even manages to squezze in "bonus levels" into the same 4k and released on the same year. There's no saving grace, none. Even if Pac Man wouldn't have to meet all the "known Arcade conversion" expectiations, I still can't play that abomination to this day, because of the eye-murdering flicker. I mean c'mon, there are games that have flicker issues of varying magnitude, but in here you can count - one ghost, two ghosts, three ghosts... as they're alternatingly being drawn on the screen! It feels so broken I hardly believe anyone can actually put up with this shit. As a kid, I'd rather play my other game till next christmas, after throwing a friendly brick thru the window of the shop it was bought at.

Solaris?

Aren't these the ones with joystick-style base? Suction cups at the bottom? I saw them mentioned in the sticked thread about Atari items manufactured in Brazil. That's some start for you. If it was me, I'd hold on to them, might actually be very nice for some games. The price I'm guessing would be cheap in Brazil, quite a bit more outside (shipping...), but nothing really really spectacular. Like getting the Atari 7800 pads which were exclusive to Europe.

Everything is easy, once you get some experience. To be honest, this doesn't require much skill, provided you can follow instructions and don't assume it's some kind of a voodoo. These times it's so much easier as you don't even need the ability to read simple schematics or recognize parts. An illustrated/video tutorial can guide you thru everything. There's one thing however the tutorial won't do for you - soldering. So either get someone with a bit of experience to do it for you, or start practicing right away. Proper tools make a whole lot of a difference. If you really want to get into it and will have other uses for soldering, then start off by getting a simple "soldering station" or a soldering iron with temperature regulation plus the special sponge to wipe off extra solder and oxidation deposit from the soldering iron, a tube of solder with resin core, some flux (dissolving a bit of resin in pure alcohol works too). If you can cleanly solder a couple wires, resistors, or a DIP socket (good cheap materials for the training) to a universal perforated board, without "cold" or overheated, burnt joints, then you're good to go. There's a lot of tutorials available on the web, just a matter of motivation. Either way, good luck. Don't hesitate to ask anything. Btw, is it PAL out NTSC?

This is a great read. Reminds me of my C64 days when I used a cart with machine language Monitor to manually search for PETSCII strings or sprite data in the games. Ah, these were the times, no internet, no documentation to be had, only trial and error, haha.

PAL version here. Speaker slots facing backwards, Chanel select (A-B) switch present. Now restored and S-video modded. Model No. sticker: MANUFACTURED BY ATARI WONG IN HONG KONG MODEL NO. CX-2600 P S.N. 549201017 Just in case such documentation would help anyone, here's some more details: Motherboard: ATARI INNOVATIVE LEISURE logo, green solder-mask on both sides C012283 REV B © 1978 Switches' board: Plain ATARI logo, yellow board, green solder-mask on the bottom side C01273 ©77 REV B Top of the case: TOP CONSOLE K C010307 REV - A Switches' cover case part: CAV. H C010308 REV. C (In small writing around the switch opening) Bottom of the case: C011925- P Top of the shielding box: C010313-D T10 Bottom of the shielding box: C012715-B Paper taped on top of the shielding box: 99 39900269 (unsure, hardly readable) RIOT: (Synertec logo) 8107 C010750-C3 CPU: C010745-12 R6507-15 8117 (Rockwell logo) TIA: AMI 8108AE0 C02871 C011903 KOREA I find it funny how the chips are over a year older than me. It's not 77, sure, but still nice to have them around. One day when my daughter grows up I'll tell her that the console we've been playing is actually older than her daddy, haha.

Simply check which batch of the carts has the "P" written on the labels, designating PAL versions. It's usually on the top of the cart, for example: WARLORDS™ P, but may also be a part of the catalogue number in some cases, like: CX26xxP or there might be a small square sticker or a stamped-on P somewhere. If the carts that came with the console are PAL, then you've bought NTSC carts later on. If none of the ones that came with the console had the "P for PAL" marks, then it's the other way around. Check the sticker on the console too, some people go as far as saying that there wasn't such thing as PAL Heavy Sixer, I'm no expert, but I think that even if these exist, they would be very-very rare (judging by how VCS came to Europe a bit later, so most likely these wouldn't be from the very first production runs). The black&white picture issue is down to TV, really. Most newer ones are multisystem and have no trouble displaying the "wrong" system, only the colour palette would be weird. For example, I got an NTSC ROM of "Name this Game"/"Octopus" and run it on a PAL console. My LED TV is ok with that and gives me funky colours, a clear sign of switched palette, but my Commodore 1084S monitor is PAL-only and displays B&W picture (there is colour for a brief moment after console power up, but then it loses the sync of the colour carrier frequency or something and almost instantly switches to monochrome). Anyway, if you still haven't it figured out by yourself, post some pictures of the cart labels and the VCS model name/serial number sticker.

Just before the New Year, I got my very first Sixer. So far, I've only owned 2 Juniors (older 84' Short Rainbow and newer 91' Long Rainbow), a Junior-like clone and a Vader-style clone, but never even saw a "Woody" with my own eyes before. This one came from a local auction site, at the price of $22 with P&P included. I knew it's going to need some work, because it was being sold as "TV can't detect it" (and it wasn't the original owner, but a re-seller who specialises in grabbing retro stuff from a german flea market - so typical in Poland, we just never had any market for consoles till 90's), but hey! it was the only way for me to get one below $60-100 in here. When it's arrived, it was dirty on the outside and literally full of filth inside. It didn't have any of the original 6 screws, but instead some random 3 to just barely hold it all in one piece. The reason for it not working quickly became apparent... some idiot has replaced the original cable with an antenna one, breaking off the plastic tab in the opening for the cable, to be able to push the bigger plug thru. And sice the antenna plug is bigger than the RCA-type socket on the switchboard, he's squashed it with pliers or something, to hold it in place. Of course it has broken loose, and since the cable was a total shit anyway, I've temporarily replaced it with one of mine to test the picture. But the TV still didn't detect anything... I touched the volage regulator and it was cold - sure sign of nothing going thru. Fortunately it didn't require any detective work, as I've quickly found a broken solder joint on the power adapter socket. Cleaned it up and secured with huge blobs of solder. In the meantime, the case took a bath. I've cleaned the black residue (oxidation) on the switches with CIF cleaning cream and a dense sponge, worked quite well. Everything was ready for the final test. Then came a nasty surprise. I plugged in the first cart around - Outlaw and... the second cowboy kept firing contantly. At first I panicked that it's a dead TIA and I will have to either desolder it from the younger Junior, or simply take it out of the socket on the older one, but I didn't want to sacrifice that one! Luckily, the Sixers differ a bit and it wasn't a TIA issue, but damaged hexbuffer chip (4050), as described in this topic . For starters, I bridged the pins 6 and 7 to see if that helps, and it worked like a charm. Since I'm just learning how to solder/desolder, I couldn't pass on the opportunity and decided to put in a socketed replacement. I've managed to find a perfect match (CD4050BCN) in my usual electronics store. Since I've already tampered with the motherboard, why not install a small inductor-bypass mod so that I don't run into trouble trying certain games. Now that the VCS was in perfect working order, it was time for S-vide mod. I did identical one on my older Junior and it was very happy with it, no need to disable the modulator, no cut traces, no soldering components to the motherboard like some crap AV mods. Just a wire-ribbon going from TIA socket to the mod board. Later secured it with hot-glue, before closing the metal box. I already had a bunch of RCA sockets attached to pieces of wire, from my attempts with the Junior, to quickly test if everything works ok.: Not to drill thru the metal, I've let the ribbon out using the opening meant for trimpot access, and closed the box. At the top of the picture, you can see the large blobs of solder that hold the power socket I mentioned earlier. All that was left was finding a nice spot for the mod board to sit at and secure it in place with hot-glue. The cable going outside is detachable (using a standard 2.54mm raster "gold-pin" connector), so that I can replace it with another one, or a bunch of standard sockets installed at the back of the console without touching the mod board itself. Right now, I'm using a cable that splits into 4 RCA jacks, to connect to my Commodore 1084S monitor. Having all the bits inside, it was the time to close the case, but the foam dust-protector discs were missing. I cut out my own from a piece of 2mm PVC craft foam. They were a bitt too large, so I needed to snip off the excess on the sides, so that they don't collide with the "support pillars" where the case screws go. Good that I chose to cut square openings in them, so that they won't turn sideways! I've put in new (sheet metal) screws and voila! The unit plays great and I've stress-tested it for hours now. Doesn't glitch, likes all carts, works perfectly with joys, paddles and driving controllers. Definately worth all the effort, considering the initial price. Last step will be repainting the decorative orange strip around the switches' panel, I'll post the results here once done. Comments and questions more than welcome.

Cheers. I did some more digging in the meantime and found a close-up pic of the original foam discs. For my replacements, I used a 2mm black PVC foam (it was called Crea Soft), should be easy to find in hobby/craft stores if anyone else's looking for those.

Recently got my first Sixer (Light, but the lid looks like from a Heavy, there's also a couple discrepancies here and there, but I'll post in relevant topic once I get the time to document it all). It was in a really bad shape and wore multiple signs of amateur tinkering. Lacking all of the original case screws and those circular black pads that protect the switches from dust. What are these actually made of? I've heard people call them felt pads, but in Best Electronics catalogue I've read that these are foam pads. Also, did anyone here replace these with homemade ones? If so, what kind of material works the best, any suggestions? P.S. The "rou" in title was supposed to be "round" and was added at the last moment, didn't notice I ran out of available characters.

I just got a real bootleg Decathlon myself, not a HES release. Just wanted to share, since it feels like it belongs to this topic. The label looked just like the dark-blue Activision one, with all the text present, but it didn't have the typical "Activision-rot" issue and was actually printed on different material. It wasn't just a half-glossy paper, but was covered with an ultra-thin plastic film (ripped off on the pic below). On the back, it looked almost like HES carts I have, but it didn't have this plate where the logo should sit (just plain surface) and had cutouts at the very bottom, just like 32-in-1 (cheaper to make, as the prongs for opening the cart port are not from a separate bit of plastic, but kinda "cut out" from the back side of the case). Now the real treat was inside: It's an EPROM cart and under the label, there was a series of openings for switches used in some bootleg multicarts! Sadly, it refuses to work with 2 of 3 of my systems, and there isn't even any consistency in that. It won't work on 81' Light Sixer, neither on 91' Long Rainbow Jr, but does work on 84' Short Rainbow Jr (dates based on chips' production dates, not board revisions). I thought it might be a problem with cart connector, but even removed from the casing it just gives me black screen on those 2, no matter how many times I reposition it within the slot. Shame, might have been a good donor board for F8 multicart, but I'm not sure if it'll work at all. If anyone wants close-ups of the board for analysis, just let me know, I've scrapped the case as it was cracked when I got it, anyway.

Necrobumping, but this is the first thread that came up when I was desperately asking Google for constant fire on 2nd joy port. Thanks AA for this topic, just got my first Sixer, which happened to have this fault (after some work to get it running in the first place, but oh well) and the solution worked perfectly. Whew, already thought I'd have to ripp a TIA from one of my Juniors, and all it took was a tiny piece of wire!

No worries. See attached - it's an emulated image of a PAL Mangia' ROM with NTSC palette (as if using PAL cart on NTSC unit). The easiest difference to spot is not the background (tint may be off on the TV), but how blue turns green and green becomes pink on the clothes (and the other way round, pink curtains are green, etc.). Anyway - your copy is for sure NTSC.

Aww, I was sure I managed to edit it before your reply... Didn't need to go into so much detail, but maybe someone will make use of it.

Shite, if it connects A and B both to ground, it'll also connect A and B together via the GND leg on the encoder itself. So in this particular case there might be trouble. Good catch!