7800fan

Nice but I don't really like the A, B, C, and D button. I'm making one with 3x4 keypad and 3 separate colored buttons. Plus why does that paddle controller look like it's been circumcised? There should be 2 analog paddles to one plug.

LOL would rather have 5200 smaller and still working. I am not even sure I can do it, there's shit ton of parts in between about 28 chips to connect and I only got free Eagle version that allows at most 100mm x 80mm PCB, and that 4 big chips plus BIOS chip would cover most of that space.

Or a custom made Masterplay clone with your favorite controller for those 80% of the games that seems to play best with digital controllers.

I hope you made those RAM socketed, if you soldered the RAM and you had to resolder, you risk more damage to the fragile traces. When I did my mod, I used my meter and tested from the top of the chip's pins so I could both verify the connection is good and to find bad trace or just bad socket connection. All of the address lines are the same but data lines are separate. A lot of probing but saved me the trouble later on when I found a couple broken connections.

That top LED is about the same place that Intv 3 has red power LED.

Sega did reuse most of the Saturn 3D controller in their Dreamcast console.

Might as well remove the knob anyway. Wouldn't want a random friend to play your Lynx and complain the knob isn't working.

Black and white parts used the same mold, they are interchangeable. Either the seller knew this and is trying to milk sucker buyers, or the seller found it at Goodwill and assumed it was a rare variation and not some 2 minutes hack job.

Commando for 7800 vs NES shows the difference very well. 7800 has better looking helicopter at the start and no noticeable flicker or slowdown while NES version has what looks like a badly done one-bladed helicopter and a whole lot of flickering and slowdown when the screen gets crowded. For NES games made pre-MMC chip, 7800 tended to do far better easily. When Nintendo introduced MMC, it helped the game improve on graphic quality and complexation. I doubt anything on 7800 can compete with MMC3 or MMC5 chips. Had Atari stayed longer, they may have introduced an advanced custom bankswitching chip to compete with later NES games but Atari was really struggling against both NES and SMS at the time, not to mention those awful pro controller. Not comfortable and somewhat awkward, its only benefit is it is left and right hand friendly while NES and SMS pad could only be used one way.

Always socketed so all you'd need is a little screwdriver if you don't have IC extractor tool. The hardest part is the RF shield, you got to twist about 40 tabs and straighten those out then gently pry apart both top and bottom RF shield to remove them. I do suggest keeping them when you put the 5200 back together, I always got fuzzy picture without the shield. Don't have to twist all of the tab, just a couple on opposite corners to keep it together and leave it at that. BIOS mod has nothing to do with VCS adapter. That is an entirely different mod to change one pin on 5200 connector and feed video out to the RF circuit without interference with regular 5200 carts. It is a bit complex and you will not be able to use the modded console and AV mod together. IMO just get a stand along 2600 Jr and skip the adapter mod. 4 ports with a * in serial number is already VCS compatible, later production run before Atari went 2 ports.

Building a custom 5200 controller, waiting for the parts to show up. It will be a Masterplay clone with built in keypad and top 3 button and work with SMS and genesis controllers. I can't play Pitfall 2 with the POS analog controller so I need digital hack.

Ah too bad. Merlin is a fun little game to play even though it predated Gameboy. I think I have 2 with battery cover and 1 without hiding somewhere. Can't have too many spares since it's not easy to fix.

When was that CMOS battery last replaced? If it's old, just pop it out and tell someone to get a new one. Old one can start to leak after it's been completely drained.

I see you are hiding Merlin under those black or white box.

The only reason to swap BIOS is to get 3 games to work on most 2 ports console. A few very early 2 ports seems to have 4 port BIOS. The change was to add PAL support but broke 3 games: Pitfall!, Mountain King, and K-Razy Shootout. No PAL game was ever made so it was a pointless upgrade. If any of the 3 games work on your 5200, you don't need to change BIOS. I checked, COnsole5 has the chip upgrade for $6 plus shipping.

Wow... what a mess. If I was the seller, I would have agreed to cancel request, there are bad buyer who would open false SNAD claim if they can't get the listing canceled, not worth the hassle. And as a buyer, I'll eat it if I buy it by mistake. I can always resell if I don't want it.

If Atari followed Sega and released portable console like Genesis, we'd have Jaguar Cub edition.

Me four! Have VB, been waiting to play Space Invaders but the actual game costs more than a working VB and flash cart.

Ah Starflight. Fun game to play. Basically a rare sci-fi RPG where you command a ship, explore space, gather materials, and find out what's going on with stars blowing up. Nearly all RPG games are fantasy themed, not sci-fi. Faery Tale shouldn't be played on C64, it's shit. Like 2 girls 1 cup shit. Personally Amiga version is best with Genesis a good tradeoff if you don't have Amiga computer and/or can't get emulation working. I play em now and then on my PSP with Genesis emulator. Large world and easy to get lost without map but also easy to solve if you been through it completely.

Sega CD also came out about the same time as PC Engine CD. THere wasn't as many games for Sega CD compared to PCE CD but they did get a few like Lunar and Cosmic Fantasy. It seems Sega CD got the shaft. Sega was kind of pushing too much hardware out to allow for good games. Sega CD, then 32X, then Saturn, and finally Dreamcast in a span of a few years. Playstation probably had the best of USA RPG games if you don't want to go with imports, mods, or something.

I prefer computer version over console version mostly because back in the day, ROM was expensive and games often had to be cut down and tweaked to fit limited space. Floppy disks were cheap so often there's no limit to how big an RPG can be for PC. Later when hard drive became standard and cheap, a decent RPG that needed 500+MB of space wasn't unusual but console games were still mostly limited. It wasn't until oh about Playstation era that CD was practical and cheap format for making large games with. Another thing: Ultima 5 for NES tried to use Ultima 6 graphics but the game overall sucked a lot. Some computer RPG do not port well to console without keyboard. So pretty much anything from 80s are best on computers.

Super Mario 64. Shortest 120 stars with fewest button A.

5200 may be big but I think original xbox is still the champ in the weight category. I remember seeing a picture of Xbox console on that NASA mobile shuttle launch platform.

One has both 75 and 300 ohms input from antenna, and other has only 75 ohms input. The front plate was designed a bit different to remove the opening for the absent screws terminals, and different colored label. As far as I can tell, internally a 75-300 ohms baulin and 2 screws posts are the only thing missing. Any reason for 2 different designs? Maybe to save 10 cents per switch box when Atari removed the 300 ohms input?

Did you call eBay about that user? Multiple address and refuses to confirm, and also excessive negs could indicate history of scamming sellers.