I'm making them for myself, my thumbs kept falling off during rapid fire scene and I have only one controller with built in rapid fire, a Hot Stuff joystick but I don't like the fixed timing. I want variable timing and a few options so I whipped a proof of concept:
as seen in Eagle
The connectors are soldered directly onto PCB, not the 90 degree angled connector so it's thinner by a bit. The board measures about .95 inches by 1.15 inches and is powered by ATTiny10 the smallest Arduino compatible chip (the largest available chip is a 6 pin package that is about half a grain of rice, and also comes in even smaller UDFN package
Variable resistor for range from 2 fire per second to 30 fire per second (any higher and it'd be faster than screen frame!) No mod at all, just plug inline from 2600's controller port and should work with Sega controllers as well (sorry, not for 7800 games with 7800 controller, as that'd require different wiring)
2 switches, one to turn on and off the rapid fire anytime, and one for hands-free firing so you don't need to hold the button (whether rapid fire is used or not).
Ps if you're wondering why ATTiny10 instead of a classic 555 timer, the cost and power consumption are why. Digikey has ATTiny10 at 30 cents each. 555 timer starts at 37 cents each and would require 2 more parts (another resistor and a capacitor) so the final cost would have gone up a bit. And under normal operation ATTiny uses only about 30uA or roughly 1/1000th of what 555 normally draws. So that's a major perk for those with modded portable 2600 system running battery!
This is still early in stage, I am still waiting on parts to finish up other projects I've started.