Keatah

I'll really try to hit the pics and ID the parts and type of contaminant, by Thursday night.

Some of that is battery leakage. And believe it or not, some of that is adhesive used to tack down parts. There's flux left over from mfg. There might not be any electrolytic cap leakage - hard to say with 100% certainty - despite it looking like a mess there. I bet that crap came from elsewhere. And the Green caps don't leak. Maybe in the next day or two I can outline what I think is what and post the marked pics back. Meantime: In any case - I've repaired far far worse than this. Much worse. Is this cleanable and repairable with basic tools and chemicals? I'd say yes. The variable pot may need to be replaced - depends how it cleans up and ohms out. I think the carbon resistance trace will be eroded or not connected to the pins that solder to the board. That's the semi-U shaped bit of circuitboard material sandwiched between metal pieces, like a clutch on a car. It's about 1.4cm in height. It's right next to the square transformer. I'm counting on the wax sealer/filler/potting material to have protected the variable inductor coil (the square silver thing with a red screw). The green chicklet mylar caps appear to have been glued together with adhesive - and are now split apart and contaminated.. There's some glue on the IC. There's more contamination here than what I believe would come out of the blue electrolytic cap. The solder side looks alright and contaminant free. And I even think some of that "gunk" is lube grease from the rotary switch. And a no brainer, the battery contact will need attention, replating or resoldering, whatever. We'll just have to address each component one by one. This is *THE* fun and joy of repairing and restoring classic gaming equipment.

I don't either. And while my opinion on the matter of chopping and modding existing cabs is dynamic and ebbs & flows.. I continue to lean more toward do whatever the hell you want! That is correct. Back in the day I got to interview for a technician's job and was appalled and dismayed at what went on in the back room. It was like a torture chamber for electronic games. The things and techniques that were done to force the games to perform was just sickening. Today it doesn't bother me anymore. And in fact if you come across an arcade cabinet, and want to modify it, I'll encourage any conversion to modern electronics with a proper mame install. That's what mame was made for. To preserve the game and replace older electronics.

I hate it when the RF modulator gets broken because of piss poor instructions. Totally not professional - telling a customer to bend and break things.

Too many cartridges is never not a good thing!

First order of business is to clean all the acid and corrosion. And replace the capacitors - a good idea anyway because of age. Then clean up other components. But be sure and photograph the corrosion before starting so we know what leaked where.

Plain'ol mame + frontend isn't for everyone anymore. Mame programming has gotten sloppy and front ends aren't getting any better either. None of this should be frustrating, if it is then you need to find something that isn't.

I'm pretty certain any and all my Apple II material will go to the landfill when I'm gone. After several false starts I'm back to the beginning - with no way to ensure it gets properly handled. Not that it matters or anything, just saying. As far as cars go. I am interested in the ones I grew up with, or more importantly present-day models. Those and the ones that speak to me on emotional levels. And I can tell you that I have ZERO interest in ones that are outside of my prime and time. To me they're scrap metal. The best I'll give you is the hope someone else takes an interest. I might look at a '57 Chevy or a Packard or Doosenburg with curiosity because of interest in engineering and fabrication methods of the time. And the fact that these were actual usable cars. Otherwise it's all the same, 4-wheels and a motor. On the other hand, there are always newcomers to the scene. And they will lust after our wares but for different reasons.

If you're referring to that coupled with Stella VCS emulator, then the Paddle emulation has been defective for a long long time now.

This is one super-easy power tip everyone can do!

I'm quite happy not to get engulfed by that gaseous anomaly we call "the cloud". But I wouldn't want to give up the filing system on modern rigs. The ability to get at any tidbit of information and associate it with another, pictures, text, millions of files.. The ability to view and work with 20 billion filetypes. Wish I had it back in the day!

We should. And there needs to be some sort of guideline. What and how.

The arrangement of colors in #04 is just mmmmmnn-mmmmm smaacckk tssss.

That's why I'm getting closer and closer to just keeping my core Apple material, the stuff I had as a kid and all through my 20's. Because after that much of it was from ebay and other trades and has much less sentimental value. In some cases, none. Let's all man-up, we're hoarders. We just justify it differently or downplay it. We are non-traditional because we don't hoard papers and wrappers and stuff like that. A number of years ago I unloaded all my AT&T 286 and 386 Xenix machines. 10 bucks a pop, nib, cib. Just wanted them gone. Felt good because I didn't have to "mentally" care for them even though I never opened them up. All that survives of that stint are a couple of brochures, and that's enough to bring back imaginary memories of me doing cool things with them.

The only logical reasons I can think of is they had second thoughts that some of it may have real world value. Maybe it took time to sink in. But time to do whatever it is they're doing is generally the #1 reason to offload things instantly by whatever method gets it done. What surprised me was how little was packed into the SUV. Unless it's one of those sporty types or crossover jobbers. Alternatively a trailer could have been rented to temporarily increase hauling capacity. Things could have been strapped to the roof..

They don't because it's time consuming and they believe they'll need to know a lot about the item in question. A lot of tech info in the case of this type of material. And of course lack of interest. It's easy to understand. A lot of this stuff is junk, fodder, crap-in-the-way, just "stuff" to people that are not into it. I did the same thing, with the same attitude, when I purged all my non-Apple material. I couldn't wait till it was gone. The wife couldn't wait till it was gone. We had other bigger plans in mind. Freeing up the garages in one fell swoop was more practical than putting price stickers on everything and parting it out. We just wanted it gone. First came the dumpster and some giveaways. A few select "I suspect it's worth a lot" high-dollar items went to ebay. But the bulk of it, the individual computers, printers, drives, add-on cards, monitors, consoles, manuals, and all that, all that, was given minimal attention and disposed of as expeditiously as possible. Sounds tragic, but it is the way of the world.

Ahh yes the ago old problem of packing a big screen in a small housing. The industry will continue to vibrate around screen sizes until a variable size screen is invented.

If people are told that bells and whistles are required for success, then that's the way it will be.

I prefer to keep a small vacation house there in the form of a nice Apple II collection along with some periphery other 70's and 80's electronics. It's also humbling, to think that a state-of-the-art HDD back then would be completely filled by 1 high-quality MP3 or a single .JPG from a DSLR. The closest you'll get is using a classic computer as a controller to activate a real mp3 player. The software player on the Apple II doesn't really count because it makes use of the lowest bit-rate, plays in mono, requires pre-processing, and still sounds like crap.

It also would be useful to see what kinds of voltages are on both sets of pins in the ports. And also their resistances when the unit is turned off. A basic DMM will be required. I'd be looking for comparisons between the left and right ports. Whatever the values may be, they should be the same for both. Such is the nature of step-by-step troubleshooting. Barring specific knowledge of "this symptom = that problem" things just have to be worked through. If anyone has seen this exact situation before, then great! We can get right to cause and do a fix now.

That the controllers cause a problem on the right port, but not the left port, tells me there is a problem inside the console. There is little or no difference in how the ports are wired up in the console, they both go to the TIA and RIOT. There are some resistors and capacitors, too, in parallel with the ports, which could be causing an issue. The right controller port has an additional capacitor in some models, connected to pin 8 of RIOT (pin 1 of the controller socket). Whether this makes a difference with non-standard controllers I have no idea. I think we should test both ports with original controllers. Preferably Joysticks and Paddles. Not forgetting paddles 3 & 4 on the right port. This means something like Warlords or Video Olympics will be needed to verify all 4 paddles. A good visual inspection to ensure that nothing is shorting against shielding, and that there are no cracked solder joints in the area, also needs to be done. Then move on to 3rd party and non-standard controllers.. If any chips are going to be replaced it'll likely be TIA or RIO, but that has yet to be determined.

Maybe, maybe not, I don't recall. But that would be irrelevant according to the OP. He says it happens as soon as the plug is inserted into port just enough to make contact. I would assume as that's happening, the controller is sitting on the table with no buttons being pressed.