MaximRecoil

Well that's the thing; a useful scenario can be imagined for most cases of over-engineering, which is why it is only "wasteful" from a certain perspective, i.e., wasteful most of the time, because that's what over-engineered means, i.e., exceeding normal requirements. With regard to the 3/8" plastic on the heavy sixer, there are instances where it is useful. For example, this is one of my light sixers: It was like that when I got it a few years ago, and is the reason I got it so cheaply. I have no idea how it happened, but it is a pretty safe bet that it wouldn't have broken there had it been a heavy sixer, due to the plastic being 3 times thicker. So in that particular instance, it wouldn't have been wasteful, because it would have prevented breakage.

Mine didn't, fortunately, so I got to play my Atari 2600 on the 25" RCA color console TV in the living room (and later, my 7800 and NES). My cousin Mike however, wasn't so fortunate. He had to play his ColecoVision (and later, his NES) on his 12" B&W TV in his room. One time, after he got his NES in 1986, we tried to see if we could get away with hooking it up to his 27" color console TV in his living room (we had rented Ghosts 'n Goblins), and it looked awesome (it was my first time seeing the NES in color). But then his step-father wandered into the room and put an end to it, proclaiming that it would "ruin the color" on the TV. I heard that claim from a lot of adults when I was a kid, and none of them had any technical knowledge of the situation whatsoever. Yes, static images can result in "burn-in", AKA: "screen burn" eventually, but static images from any video source can do this, not just from video games. I've never seen a TV with screen burn from a console, though I have seen them with screen burn from the scrolling information bar at the bottom of the screen on news channels. Monitors in arcade machines on location are particularly susceptible to it, because they are left on all day, every day, with the exact same game running. It is very unlikely that anyone would ever do the same thing with a console.

The one in the thread I linked to has a high gloss on the front plastic; did you look at the pictures full size? I bet you could see your reflection in there. I don't know if the plastic is naturally that shiny beneath the woodgrain or if he polished it. In any event, the plastic can be polished to whatever level of shine you want (for example, by progressing up to about 6,000 grit wet sanding, followed by Novus). Plastic that is manufactured black beats black paint. The only reason to use paint would be to change the color or to add an effect like metal flake. If you just want black, well, it's already black and you could make it like a mirror with some elbow grease, and it won't be subject to chipping/flaking or looking like a coating instead of an inherent color like paint.

Of course it is over-engineering; i.e., it is way stronger than it needs to be for normal usage. It would be like making passenger car body panels out of 1/4" thick steel plate, or framing an ordinary house with 8" x 8" oak lumber. All cases of "over-engineering" can be considered "wasteful" from a certain perspective, since their full capabilities will go to waste most of the time, by definition. Another question: are these both .22 uF, 100v capacitors? One is clearly marked "0.22" and also has the voltage clearly marked, while the other has "224" in it (which means .22 uF), but no voltage marked. In my light sixers, there is only 1 of these green "chiclet" capacitors, and they are marked: 224K 100V

This has been done before: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/183074-vader-h6-my-evening-project/ You don't need any custom paint; the orange paint on the bezel comes off rather easily with rubbing alcohol, and the woodgrain also comes off with rubbing alcohol, but it takes a lot longer (see post #6 in that thread). As for the logo and text you want on the front, have someone with a vinyl cutting plotter (such as a sign shop) make you some out of "chrome" looking adhesive-backed vinyl, along the lines of this stuff. Ask for 3M brand if its available; their stuff is the best. You'll want vector drawings of the Atari logo and "Heavy Vader" text which can be fed directly into the plotter.

I know this thread is several months old, but if you haven't solved the problem already, you should try your Atari (which is not a heavy sixer by the way, it is a light sixer) on a standard CRT TV. Newer digital TVs like you have aren't always compatible with the Atari's RF signal (sometimes they don't even have analog tuners at all).

It isn't under much stress, even without that big resistor in parallel with it. It only has to deal with 9 volts and a couple hundred mA. That's why it is a case of over-engineering, because that regulator would last a very long time even without that resistor. A common modification to old Mopars is to replace the stock electromechanical voltage regulator feeding the gauges (which has a tendency to stick closed, allowing constant full voltage through, and quickly frying the tiny nichrome wire in the gauges, rendering them dead) with a 7805 regulator (sometimes the 1.5 amp version of it instead of the 1 amp version used in an Atari 2600). A heat sink and a small electrolytic capacitor (e.g., 10uF) is used with it (to help protect against voltage spikes), but there is no resistor to share the load, so it has to deal with the up to 14.4 volts from the alternator. It is also subject to the temperature extremes and vibration typical of a car environment. People have been doing that modification for at least 15 or 20 years, and I haven't heard of anyone having the 7805 fail in this application yet. I had that modification in my '69 Charger for a few years without issue, but I recently replaced it with something better which a company had specifically designed for the application (link). Well, they are better in the sense of performance characteristics (fast gauge response and such), but since those have been reported to fail by plenty of people, I wouldn't say they are better than a 7805 from a durability perspective. My favorite bit of over-engineering in the heavy sixer is the 3/8" thick plastic in the bottom half of the case. That's almost comically over-engineered. That's 6 times thicker than the plastic used for the case of the e.g., NES, and 3 times thicker than the plastic used for the Atari light sixer and 4 switch models. As for reverse voltage protection, how is it even possible to apply reverse voltage with the OEM power supply and an unmodified Atari?

I'd rather see someone create an accurate CAD file of the top and bottom halves of a heavy sixer, so they could be CNC machined out of a block of aluminum. Imagine an Atari 2600 that you could jump up and down on without even putting a dent in it, and which would make an actual heavy sixer seem like a lightweight in comparison. Then it could be powder-coated black with a texture similar to the original plastic texture, like so: I've always thought that the design of the 2600, especially the heavy sixer, made it look like a piece of industrial equipment, like you might find in a factory somewhere, and making it out of metal would enhance that effect. It looks right at home beside an old Metcal for example (note the similar ribbing, angular lines, and utilitarian appearance), which was used in countless PCB factories, including the one I worked at: The Metcal has a powder-coated aluminum case with ribbing on the front and heatsink fins on the back, and a plastic cover on top. It is 4.5" x 4.5" x 8.625" and weighs 7.25 lbs. (compared to about 4.5 lbs. for the physically larger heavy sixer). Another thing that the Metcal and the heavy sixer have in common is: they both have RF output and heavy RF shielding inside. The 2600's RF output carries a video and audio signal of course, while the Metcal's RF output is used to heat the tip cartridge to ~700 degrees F in under 10 seconds. It does so through a standard F connector like you'll find on the back of your TV, which is connected to the handpiece via a very flexible, heat-resistant (silicone-based insulation) coaxial cable. And look at the color of the letters in the Metcal logo; very similar to colors used for the text on the Atari's switch panel. I wonder if the designer of the Metcal (which came out in the late 1980s) had the 2600 in mind, perhaps subconsciously.

The run-of-the-mill front-loader has the best composite video output I've ever seen from a game console (the SNES's composite video is about as good). The composite video from my Sega Genesis, Sega Dreamcast, and Sony Playstation isn't nearly as good. This person, who designed an S-video modification for the Atari 7800, agrees (though he qualifies his statement with "8-bit"; I make no such qualification, as I've seen nothing better, regardless of "bitness"): I doubt highly that the Retro Duo or any other clone has composite video as good as the front-loader NES.

How did it go from 256 video games to 16 video games?

I don't plan to. As I said, I think that part is a good idea; a nice little example of the over-engineering that went into the early, American-made 2600s.

Okay, so that resistor could completely fail (or be removed) and it wouldn't make a difference at all with regard to the Atari functioning properly. It does seem like a good idea though, to make life easier for the 5v regulator. I guess it got ditched as an unnecessary expense. So the 1 after the slash means 1 watt?

Not many are known to exist. In fact, if I remember right, many people considered them to be an urban legend for a long time, until solid proof of at least one of them surfaced several years ago. I think they're interesting, but from my perspective, they have no advantage over my common-as-dirt front-loader NES (which works perfectly, first time, every time, because I've properly cleaned the relevant contacts). Plus, I think the top loader is ugly, and its diminutive size makes it look ridiculous with a giant NES cartridge sticking out of the top. On top of that, I have no nostalgia for the top loader whatsoever. They didn't even exist until 1993 when I was 18, whereas I first played the front loader NES in 1986 when I was 11.

The top-loader's vertical lines do suck, and being limited to RF-only sucks as well. However, had you bought one new for $50, if you called Nintendo back then and complained about the lines they would have had you send it in and they would have sent you one back with an AV multiport like the AV Famicom, SNES, N64, etc. has, like so: And then it would be $50 well-spent.

In the upper right hand corner where I brightened the image. It looks like a giant resistor. None of my 3 light sixers have it. What is it, what's it for, and does it ever go bad?

You wouldn't use a handheld joystick in a helicopter either. The "joystick" in a helicopter is securely mounted, which is a totally different thing. From best to worst (IMO): 1. Arcade joystick securely mounted in the control panel of a ~300 lb. arcade machine 2. Arcade joystick mounted in a relatively heavy, large, stable box which you can set in your lap or on a table 3. Gamepad 4. Handheld joystick

Exactly. The base of a handheld joystick shifts in your hand as you use it, because it is only supported by one hand, working against the leverage of working the joystick shaft, which is a lever. A gamepad is supported by both hands and working the D-pad doesn't apply any leverage to the base. They put the D-pad correct side, i.e., the side that the joystick is normally on in arcade machines. How many can you name? And of those that you can name, how many were major hits? The first "blockbuster" arcade game which used joystick control was Space Invaders, and its joystick (or two buttons in the case of the U.S. Midway upright cabinet) was on the left. You have that backwards. Joysticks on the right in arcade games is the exception; I can't even think of one major arcade game that originally had its joystick on the right. Joysticks on the right are commonly referred to as "wrong-handed" in the arcade collecting community, and they generally only exist in bad conversions (which means the operator did it, not the manufacturer of the video game), and usually on the second-player side (due to an operator unwisely thinking it would look good to mirror the player 1 controls). The typical arcade layouts are as follows: 1 joystick, no buttons: joystick in the center of the control panel 1 joystick, one button or more: joystick on the left, buttons on the right 2 joysticks, no buttons (e.g., Robotron, Smash T.V.): joystick for character movement is on the left, joystick for firing is on the right 1 trackball, no buttons: trackball in the center of the control panel 1 trackball, one button or more: trackball on the right, buttons on the left (trackballs require far more dexterity than a joystick; they are like using a mouse) Some games, like Ikari Warriors, did have wired-in-parallel buttons on both sides of the joystick, but that was far from typical. The typical layout for joystick/buttons games has always been joystick on the left, buttons on the right.

Sears Tele-Games Video Arcade isn't a clone, it is the real thing made by Atari. The Coleco Gemini is definitely a clone though.

I bought this dog of a game new in 1985 (when I was 10 years old) at Kmart for 99 cents. I was hoodwinked by the large box and free controller inside, into thinking it would be a good game. I should have bought Berzerk or Yar's Revenge instead, like my older brother suggested (they were all the same price). For what it's worth, I don't remember it having any comic book.

Thanks for the explanation. I wonder if Asteroids also causes problems with the XRGB-mini like Warlords does.

No, you can't dye black any other color, assuming "vinyl dye" is a true dye. If it has characteristics of paint (i.e., coating rather than just penetrating), then you might be able to.

Yes, and he said Warlords has the same problem, yet Warlords is perfectly stable on the same TV, so that changes things. And this doesn't look like any sync issue I've ever seen; the picture isn't rolling; it is shifting ever so slightly (about 1/16") up and then immediately back down, and it repeats that every couple/few seconds. Also, why is the splash screen perfectly stable? Here's a video:

Warlords came in the mail today, and its picture is perfectly stable on my main TV, so I don't know what's going on with Asteroids. Weren't there two versions of Asteroids, one with the "©1981, Atari Inc." splash screen and one without? Mine has the splash screen. I wonder if the version without the splash screen would be any different. Oddly enough, the picture is perfectly stable on that splash screen; it doesn't start jumping until it goes into "attract mode", and continues to jump when you are playing the game.

Yes, but asking his question over there in addition to here will greatly increase his chances of finding a solution.

I could use a shelf or something for my loose arcade boards. I don't have a ton of them; about 10 or so which are not installed in a cabinet, but they are currently just leaning up against the wall with a cloth over them to keep the dust off.