shear_xear

Hi. I’m not sure exactly, but three in a row somewhere between four and nine. I’m thinking it was pins four, five, and six, but not positive.

Hi everyone. I have an Atari 7800 board that was in my pile that needs repair, and it won’t load 2600 carts. I swapped out the TIA, and it was loading Frogger only (which I know is a little different from most 2600 carts, and will load when others won’t), and it loaded several games, but I noticed that the a few legs were bent and not in the socket, and after fixing that it again wouldn’t load the carts. Does anyone have a guess as to what to look at? I tried several working TIA and still nothing. Is there anything else that I could look at? All 7800 games load normally. Thanks!

It looks like either the chroma or luma pin on the s-video jack was being grounded. I did check through the composite, so I must have not adjusted the pot enough to give color at that time. Thanks!

Hi everyone. I have installed the UAV mod kit on many 2600’s in the past, but this time I am getting no color. Perfect image in black and white, and the color switch is working (b&w “changes” when switched). The color pot alters the image slightly as well, so I don’t believe that is the problem. I have tried lifting pin six as well even though color saturation isn’t the issue. The board was producing color before the install, and I am connecting to the pins of the 10440 in the bottom of the board as I always have before. I swapped in a second UAV pcb which gave the same result, and even tried another working 2600 board which only gave black and white as well. The PCBs look fine (I’m not seeing any missing components). Anyone ever encounter this before? I am wondering if somehow it’s a bad batch of UAVs at this point, but I’ve never had a single bad pcb up until now. Thanks!

Hi everyone! So I used to install the old simple composite mod on 2600’s, and had a bunch of Jr models that has some artifacts on the picture after the mod was installed. I’d like to restore the boards back to their factory state, but can't find schematics for the board to find what parts I need to buy in order to do this. Does anyone know what these parts are? They are r17 and r56 as well as c33 and q4. Any help would be great. Thanks!

So replacing the 74LS32 helped fixed the static that I was getting from the 7800 games and then swapping in a new TIA fixed the 2600 graphical glitch that I was seeing. This board must have been seen some action as I had to swap out all four switches to get it up and running in the first place. Thanks for the help!

Forgot to post these…

Hi everyone. I have an Atari 7800 that is giving me some weird static when 7800 games are loaded (and distorted image with 2600 games). The RF gave me static as well, but generally that seemed to be a bad RF modulator in the past, and an AV mod cleared that up, but this time it has persisted. The console has been recapped, and the power regulator has been replaced. Has anyone ever seen this before with a 7800? Thanks!!

Hi, everyone. I am getting strange interference on the screen when I power on two Atari VCS heavy sixer model consoles. The system works fine until the switch board is touching (or gets near) the RF shield of the main board. I have replaced the two 4.7 uf caps, the 2200 uf cap, the power regulator, and two of the chicklet caps. The picture quality is excellent when the console is no assembled, but once the board gets near that shield the console gives a scrambled image (almost static) for every game but Frogger (and I think Carnival). When the power switch is about eighty percent to the “on” position sometimes the console powers on with a mostly clear image. Does anyone have a clue what could be causing this to happen? Thanks!

Hi everyone. I picked up a Magnavox Odyssey 2 console recently, and it works great other than one major problem. The joysticks on work when moving up. No other directions work, nor does the button. I swapped out one controller with a known working controller and have the same issue. I also swapped out the two socketed ICs just to be sure, and got the same results. Any ideas as to what to look for to resolve this? Thanks!!

Hi everyone. I just completed modding a four controller port Atari 5200 with the power mod as well as a UAV mod and now some third party games won’t load. Is there a known issue with the power mod making some games no longer load on the four port 5200’s? I can’t imagine this being the fault of the 5200, but I suppose anything is possible. Any help would be great. Thanks!

It is definitely possible that you passed that along. I have early 1984 copy write version of Pole Position, and I never saw the flicker with that version.

It doesn’t have anything to do with the mod, as I noticed the flicker (although greatly diminished) through the RF on one board. I never figured out what was causing the flickering, but it only seemed to happen on the early boards with the expansion port. My guess is that they resolved the issue with a board revision, or with a revision of the game.

Yeah, the boot rainbow isn’t bad at all, nothing like the ColecoVision’s long wait at startup. I suppose having Asteroids boot up when there is no cart at least lets you know the console is functioning correctly rather than the black, etc. you get otherwise. At least it is pretty easy overall to add. Thanks!

Okay. Thanks for helping clear all that up. I think that some PAL games are cheaper than the NTSC versions (I bought a PAL Mean 18 for $20 when the NTSC was $40), so maybe people want to try games on real hardware without some of the cost? Either way, I appreciate the info!

Okay. It seems like Best is overselling the abilities of the upgraded chip a little in their description then. It implies that more PAL games that would not normally play would work with the upgrade. Here is what they say: “This Atari Euro 7800 upgrade chip will also allow you to play more of the Atari 7800 PAL Games that will not normally / properly run on the NTSC / US version Atari 7800 consoles. Some Atari 7800 PAL Games require a PAL 7800 MARIA chip and will not run on a US 7800 motherboard modified with the Best 7800 OS EURO upgrade.” Are there games that normally load, but display incorrectly and this allows those games to work? Thanks!

I then question what the point of the kit is. Skipping the bios screen to have Asteroids autoload is okay, but not really needed. Best says in their description that some 7800 games will require a PAL Maria chip to function correctly, but it also says that all 2600 games will load. Only a couple of the eight or so PAL 2600 games I tried (on a Harmony cart) worked correctly without the same offset image displaced. Is their description just meaning that the local region 2600 games will all load correctly, for example Robot Tanks or Activision Decathlon that have issues with some boards? Has anyone ever created a list of 7800 PAL games (or vice versa) that do load correctly with the upgrade? Again, thanks a lot!

Hi everyone! So I went ahead and installed one of Best’s OS BIOS upgrade PAL/NTSC mod kits, and while NTSC games load perfectly, as does Asteroids when it autoloads, the PAL cart I have (Meltdown) loads, but the screen is about an inch and a half or two inches too low on the screen. The 2600 game Asterix I loaded on my Harmony cart does the same. This is all being output through composite via the UAV mod, but it did the same when I was using the original RF. Anyone ever do this mod and get good results? Thanks!

Thanks!

Hi everyone, I have a question about the Emerson Arcadia 2001 left controller. The one I have works great, moving in all directions perfectly, but when I’m not pushing the joystick in any direction the character on screen automatically moves to the right. Is this supposed to happen? I would think not, but with it being such an early console sometimes I wonder what they were thinking. Thanks!!

Awesome. Thanks a lot!

Thanks, but I found these no problem. The ones that I am looking for are closer to comic book bag material. Thanks!

Hi everyone! I have been searching for these soft plastic sleeves for Atari game carts. They have an adhesive seal and are of a similar material to the soft baseball card protectors. I have received several games I’ve purchased online with these, but can’t seem to find the source. Any idea where they can be found? Thanks!!

I think it’s the cartridges themselves. I can’t imagine Atari doing more than just sticking a new label on the retail version of Pole Position II. Everything else worked as it should, including a couple homebrews. No issues whatsoever.

Ok, so is there an actual difference between the white label pack in version of Pole Position II and the retail version with the picture of the cars? I tested several new games, and none exhibited the flickering problem I had with Pole Position II and Ballblazer. I think the problem is with these specific game cartridges.