DominiRican05

I won one of Doubledown's CV auctions on eBay a few months ago, and have not been disappointed. It is definitely worth every penny, although I've never owned an original CV before, he does good work. The system does arrive looking sparkling new, making you feel like a first time owner. Plus the A/V jacks are so professionally installed you would've thought they were always there. The image quality is also awesome, the images are clear and the colors very vibrant for such an old system. Worth every penny, and I look forward to getting my power switch replaced pretty soon. :-)

I'm going to get a 2600 that's going to be AV modded (eventually) and I wanted to know is there any substantial difference between the various 4-switch and 6-switch 2600 models. I know that the Sunnyvale Heavy Sixer is a collectors item (so I wouldn't dare get that modded), but what about the others? Are there pros and cons associated with the different models?

I agree. Although in the late 90s I did get a 7800 because I wanted the graphic superiority and the possibility of an expanded library. Recently though, when I got back into collecting, my 7800 didn;t work, so I just dusted off the 2600 and hooked it back up. After palyign both on emulators, I find that I like the 2600 games a lot better, a lot of them are more playable and addicting. The 7800 had a lot of duds. Also, I agree that that it's rather easy to be amazed by the 2600 just because it can do so many things you'd never expect it too (my reaction when first playing Pitfall II). Also, I like the sheer simplicity of it, every time I flick one of the levers up I feel that I'm stepping back in time. And who can't love the quintessential joystick with the one button. I did get a Colecovision a while back but despite the graphics superiority, I don't play it nearly as much as my 2600. :-)

I've tried everything to no avail, I think my 2600 may need some repair or at least a thorough cleaning.

I have a woodgrain 4-switch, I'm not sure if the RF cable is soldered or not, I'll have to look into it. That's a good idea, the cable is showing a few signs of wear, it's very tough and hard to unbend in certain spots, and I noticed some of it starting to wear off.

Is the Colecovision 2600 Expansion Module a good back up for the 2600? Does it give any problems, and does it play all 2600 games (or most at least)?

Good question, I get worried even when I'm blasting my AC, thinking that it may have negative effects on the 2600.

I was thinking about this as well, since it's only become very noticeable with Fall Down. I had never really noticed it before, and Fall Down is the first homebrew that I've purchased. In a game like Jr. Pac Man for instance I don't have any problems at all, I did notice it slightly with Pitfall! but nothing to the degree with Fall Down where the intrusion becomes a distraction. In addition to all of the great ideas that have been presented so far, such as adjusting the RF cable, shielding it, or getting an adaptor, would an A/V mod also be a good alternative?

I think that may be part of the problem, the RF cable is very long and right now it's looping all over the place touching over the power supply cable, the DirecTV cables, and the Colecovision cables as well. So I might need to do some re arranging. Also, I think the ferrite core might be useful in this endeavor to shield the RF.

Ditch the switchbox and get one of these Coaxial (F-Type) to Female RCA Adapter. 903577[/snapback] Hey, not bad for the price! Can't go wrong for 3 bucks, plus I'm reading all the rave reviews. Of course the only downfall would be that I can't have my satellite and 2600 hooked up at the same time like I do on the switchbox, but it'll be worth it for the better image quality. I was also thinking of an AV mod at some point.

My TV is pretty old, and the switchbox is about a year old, I got it from Radio Shack not too long ago. I do have my DirecTV hooked up to the switchbox. I'm going to try switching the channels, although I've been using channel 3. And my 2600 has never been cleaned. Also for what it's worth my 2600 had been in storage for several years until I digged it up a year ago and got back into the scene.

I recently purchased a copy of Fall Down (excellent game by the way), and I've noticed some really poor image quality on my 2600. Although the figures and the platforms look sharp, the backgrounds look incredibly fuzzy and sometimes I even see shadows of the figures on the screen. I tried a different game, Pitfall, and I noticed the same thing but not to the same extent. I hadn't noticed this before, is something wrong with my 2600 or is it the fuzzy image quality attributed to RF? Thanks!

Cool. This might be a dumb question, but what's the best way to clean the connectors on the cartridges? Also, my 2600 is stored right next to my tv for daily gameplay.

I've recently gotten into 2600 collecting and I have the same 2600 that my sister owned when she was a kid. After being a member of Atari Age for a while, I've grown more sensitive to maintaining my console and games in optimum condition. I'm curious is there any periodic sort of cleaning that I should do to the console? I usually just dust the console on the outside that's about it. I was wondering if there was more that needed to be done, any sort of cleaning of the cartridge slot? Thanks!

Thanks for the list of games, I'll be sure to check them out, starting with the homebrews since I'm itching to try the new games and see what new developers are doing with the 2600. I hope I didn't give the wrong impression when I said that I believed the 2600 was very capable of making background music, I just meant that it could be done, I know not to the extent of what was capable in later consoles of course, but something could've been done. Smurfs is good at using background music, albeit very loudly, even altering depending on the stage (like the spider scene). Also as was noted ET did a recognizable rendition of the theme song (one of the few redeeming qualities in the game). I did listen to the title screen for Thrust+ Platinum, Paul Slocum does excellent work!

Makes sense. :-) I'd like to learn more about this POKEY chip, it was also used in some 7800 games too, right? Is there any sort of documentation on it that I could read up on? Thanks!

One of my pet peeves with the 2600 is the lack of music in most games. Why was this? I know the 2600's sound capabilities were limited, but it was still very capable, especially after playing games like Dig Dug, Bobby's Going Home, and Smurfs. I know Pitfall II had extensive music as well but if I'm correct that was due to some special chip inside the game itself? So, I'm wondering which other 2600 games had background music? Also, are there any homebrews with background music out there? I know that Go Fish! has music.

Something like this? Super Mario Bros 2 on CV/MSX hardware. Click on the screen with your mouse. Use the arrow keys, jump with the spacebar. 894613[/snapback] YES! Something very much like this. I'm amazed at how good the graphics look, and I could tell the difference in the scrolling between this and Super Mario Bros on the NES. Although I'm not too familiar with the MSX, I know enough to know that it and the Colecovision are similar in hardware (or exactly the same). So, I don't doubt this could be possible, although I know it won't happen since Mario Bros is a huge liscense and whoever takes on such a task would get into deep trouble with Nintendo. But it is just a dream game. I would like to see a similar style game made for the CV, it needs a platformer that's more advanced than Smurfs. Any ideas on what other game could fit the bill? Thanks for sharing. 894740[/snapback] Man my big dream is seeing Super Mario Bros on the Colecovision. Here's my take on what the two virsion of the box, cart and manual would looked like. 894749[/snapback] Nice work! I've always wondered if the CV could handle Super Mario Bros, but due to the copyright issues, we'll probably never know. Still, I'm really excited about the new CV titles that are in the works.

Something like this? Super Mario Bros 2 on CV/MSX hardware. Click on the screen with your mouse. Use the arrow keys, jump with the spacebar. 894613[/snapback] YES! Something very much like this. I'm amazed at how good the graphics look, and I could tell the difference in the scrolling between this and Super Mario Bros on the NES. Although I'm not too familiar with the MSX, I know enough to know that it and the Colecovision are similar in hardware (or exactly the same). So, I don't doubt this could be possible, although I know it won't happen since Mario Bros is a huge liscense and whoever takes on such a task would get into deep trouble with Nintendo. But it is just a dream game. I would like to see a similar style game made for the CV, it needs a platformer that's more advanced than Smurfs. Any ideas on what other game could fit the bill? Thanks for sharing.

I just checked out the info on Spectar, and although I've never played the games, it looks awesome from the screenshots. I'd also like to see a sophisticated side-scrolling platformer on the CV. Something along the lines of Smurfs more advanced, meaning that instead of just merely avoiding bad guys, you actually get to retaliate like in Super Mario Bros. Although I know that the CV isn't known for it's sidescrolling, so I don't know how smooth such a game would turn out. Maybe a Smurfs 2?

Just curious, which games would you really like to see on the CV? I'm really impressed with what I've seen with the system so far, and I'd like to see how much the system is really capable of. I would really like to see the arcade Mario Bros. on the CV.

I just want to help the community... 892303[/snapback] I've been talking with Keilbaca, and his mod has been greatly received by many members of the board. I hope to be the next customer.

Wow very impressive

Atari2600.com did contact me and they said that as of right now they have no firm plans of offering the Cybertech S-Video card anytime in the near future.