RamrodHare

I put the jacks in the back like that too, but I'm with Osgeld when it comes to working on other people's stuff. The cheap $10 mod works fine in the 7800, if you have minor soldering experience. Drilling the holes for the jacks is the hard part. These old cases can be brittle. There are different mod boards out there and while the picture quality is fine with the cheap mod, it's still probably worth the extra cash to get a better one. The UAV board is the one most people like and it's not that expensive. Remember, shipping a console both ways isn't cheap, so you might want to look for a modded console for sale. Just my opinion.

I apologize. Your post on not having a Harmony Cart and never buying anything from Best Electronics followed mine. I listed the Harmony Cart and rebuilding joysticks using the new parts from Best Electronics. I felt your post was directed at me for mentioning those things, as if I were somehow pressuring him into buying them.. I'm sorry for the misunderstanding.

No one said he "NEEDED" anything. We've all just been giving our opinions. There hasn't been any peer pressure. "IF" he were interested in something, wouldn't it be better if he had some information before he made a purchase? I'm not sure why you felt the urge to make other people's opinions seem invalid.

Welcome! You'll find almost everything you want to know in the forums here. Most of us do have extra carts we're willing to send to new homes, so always check the marketplace before heading to eBay. You can make a "Wanted" thread with stuff you are looking for too. Everyone has different opinions when it comes to , well, everything. Here's mine. If I were going to point you toward some "Must Have" items, it would of course be the Harmony Encore at #1. #2- a set of CX-40 Joysticks, rebuilt (new inner handles and boots), with the Best Electronics Gold Lifetime PCBs. #3- a savekey or Atarivox, if you are going to be playing many Homebrews. I rebuilt a set of CX-40s and they are the only Joysticks I use now. The Tac-2 and Competition Pro joysticks are also at the top of most people's lists, along with custom arcade style controls. The number of different joysticks for the 2600 is crazy. Some are cheap and easy to find, others aren't. Building a nice Arcade style controller will give you the ability to make it your own, in fit and function. That might be better in the long run, since trying out different joysticks can be expensive and time consuming. Just read as much as you can on the forums and don't be afraid to ask questions, even if you think it's a dumb question, it's worth asking. This is a great community to be a part of.

I think everyone agrees, Best's website sucks. Brad has almost everything you could ever need and he even goes the extra mile having new replacement parts made. His customer service is fast and friendly too. I'm not a fan of the "You must order a certain amount" deal. Most of the time, I either only need something cheap or it's all I can afford. When places say I have to spend a certain amount, they usually lose my business for good. In some case though, I can't do that. When it comes to Atari parts, there aren't tons of options out there. As for the screws you need, there may be some trial and error, since I also know of at least two variations. I'd get the length and thread pitch from DrVenkman, and use that as a starting point. Go ahead and take the shell to the hardware store with you, that way you can test the thread pitch to be sure you get the right ones the first time. Considering how brittle the consoles are, I'd make sure it was right to avoid breaking anything. I had one of my 7800 shells break while trying to take a screw out, even after doing the "turning the other way" trick. My Jr had broken tabs in the front when I got it and as far as I could tell, it had never even been apart.

I'd take Osgeld's advice. Socketed chips are super simple to swap out. All you do is carefully pull out the old chip and plug in the new one. It's about as simple as changing a lightbulb.. Also, you won't find a better deal than that on a TIA!

I've gotten so used to having my 42 inch connected to my laptop, that anything smaller just feels wrong. If my big CRTs were more accessible, I would use them. The issue is, I can only afford to have air conditioning in one room, my bedroom. I spend most most of my time here. If I'm hanging out with my Father at his house, it's the same situation. I gave him my 47 inch TV and he only uses an air conditioner in the front/living room, so none of the CRTs are in a room that's comfortable, at either house, until late fall or early winter. I use the 4:3 setting on both tvs. Stretching the picture would look horrible. I do have a cheap 13 inch CRT, but I just don't like it. Maybe it would grow on me if I were forced to use it... EDIT: I just realized I'm just rewording what I wrote earlier in the thread.

I use my savekey all the time. There are a decent amount of homebrews that use it, but I have a few favorites I keep going back to. Having the savekey is what probably kept me interested in some of the games. I like being able to go back and try to beat my high score. I love the look of the savekey too. I feel like it's something Tom Baker would have pulled out of his pocket on Doctor Who. Tom Baker's voice, "Have a Jelly Baby.. Oh, wait, that's my savekey." I did one small modification to mine. I found with the bright blue LED, I would often be looking at the savekey, instead of the TV. I took a small 1x1 mm square of aluminum tape and placed it on clear plastic, directly over the LED. Now the entire thing has a nice blue glow, but it's not as distracting. I also have a padded case I repurposed for my Harmony Cart and I cut out a bit of the foam to make a little compartment for my savekey. Now both items are kept safe when I'm not using them.

Awesome! I played this for almost 2 hours today! I really had a blast with it. Thanks Nukey!

You know, it hasn't been that long ago that I got mine. However, I honestly can't remember what it was shipped in. I want to say it was a bubble wrap envelope, but it could have been a small box. I'm leaning toward it being a bubble wrap envelope. Maybe someone else has a better memory than me.

I'm having the same problem as Stephen. The picture is fine until you hit one of the things that isn't a dot, then the maze goes black.

It sounds like the joysticks you have are CX-10s, from the heavy sixer. A photo would be helpful. I had to read what yhou wrote twice before I was sure I knew what you meant. Not trying to be rude, but if you would use punctuation at the end of each sentence, it would be a lot easier to decipher what you're saying. Also, CAPITAL letters at the beginning of a sentence would be nice.

I second this. There are quite a few others on the forums who are more than qualified to do the repairs, if he isn't able to right now. Just make sure they have a good reputation before shipping your system to them.

I mainly play on either a 42 or a 47 inch LCD/LED TV. The main thing to remember when using a big TV is that distance matters. The bigger the screen, the farther away you should be. I have 3 CRTS, ranging in size from 32 inch to 13 inch, but I rarely use them. I try to stay at least 10 feet away from the 47 inch tv, if possible. I don't have room to get that far away from the 42 and I can tell a difference in my scores. I tried playing on the 13 inch CRT a few times and I just didn't like it.

I appreciate the efforts of everyone who has tried to help.

That's cool, but we were looking for the NTSC version.

Not to derail the discussion, but I found an almost mint condition Atari Pro-Line Trak-ball in the box, before I joined AtariAge. It was while I was working at the local comic/collectables store. I found it in the back room while sorting through some stuff and asked if I could take it, since I was working for store credit. I got it home and just did a quick google search for 2600 trackball games and just read the first thing I came to, which said there were no games made for the 2600 that used the trackball. I took it back the next day and traded it for some joysticks and a few games. It sold for $60 soon after it was put on the shelf. Now I'm wishing I still had it.

This looks awesome. I'll be keeping an eye on it too.

On the local news here, their catchphrase is, "Getting the facts right". Is there a way to get the "FACTS" wrong? If it's a FACT, it has to be right. If it was wrong, it wouldn't be a FACT.

I'm not an expert, but with the age of the labels, I don't think a hair dryer would work, since the adhesive has been dried out for a LONG time. Steam might do the trick, but I've never tried it. Usually when it comes to something this old, you either have labels that just fall off or ones that won't even budge. There are a couple of guys on the forums who make replacement labels that are as good or better than the originals also there's the Atari 2600 label maker online, which lets you design and print your own. I'd try steam, but there's a good chance you'll end up needing a replacement label. IF it does come off intact, I recommend using stick glue, like youngsters use at school. It works well to fix peeling labels on vintage toys while not damaging the plastic or leaving a mess if you ever need to replace it. So It should work just as well on this.

I play on actual hardware, with the Harmony Cart, but I have Stella on my laptop.

I don't have have the brains to fix it, so I'm more than happy to wait until someone smart comes along or Nukey has time to to work on it. ​

I barely see him. If you hadn't circled him, it would have took me a minute to find him. Mine doesn't look like that. Is this the hacked version, posted above? If not, give it a try. I think changing the diver to black is the best solution, but I'm not able to do it.

That's news to me. I had no idea Nukey Shay was Kurt. I guess I wasn't looking in the right place. Thanks for the info.

I had one of those when I was a kid. It had belonged to my Uncle. By the time I got it, he had done some "repairs" on one of the controls using a slot car throttle. It worked, but it wasn't perfect. I was too young at the time to know anything about it, so I just played it until it quit working and then packed it away in the closet. I didn't really think much about it for years. My house burnt down in 2000 and I lost everything. I know enough about electronics now that I could easily have repaired it. I've looked for one on eBay a few times, but when they did turn up, they were out of my price range.