griff3125

They look great, love the fold out flaps to keep the cables connected. Maybe add a flap/cut like that for the front joystick ports, possible divided by 2 so it's not awkward with only one stick connected. I've got the original 800 cover which is basically rendered unusable with the connections, I really like what you've done.

You're right, I did not see that, must have been an issue with people yanking the carts back then, interesting. I'm assuming these would work out of the box as a standard xl? Any additional hardware in these things? More memory or a 1400 motherboard? (it's a delusional long shot but I can dream).

Four of these guys just popped up on eBay(US). Just curious if it's a standard 1200xl? Or were the roms replaced to lock it down to something other? I found a video on youtube, show's what it is but they don't talk about the hardware... Any value in these (apart from being a beautiful 1200xl) ?

It was an Apple II with a "Chess Master" fake cover, the chess game was a real apple app and the voice was John's Carpenter's then wife, Adrienne Barbeau.

It's a pretty easy machine to disassemble, I'll bet if you look at the power supply board on the printed circuit side, you'll find some cold solder joints, it's easy to clean and re-solder them. Possibly on the main board as well, maybe around the SIO port. If it's behaving erratically with the old drop test, this seems like a likely culprit.

There's always this odd monstrosity, I've yet to click the buy button, anybody try it? https://www.amazon.com/Hyperkin-Premium-Gamepad-not-machine-specific/dp/B08227NQ3Z/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=hyperkin+atari+controller&qid=1588717790&sr=8-1

So sorry to hear that, he was a lucky man to have a friend like you near to him.

YES, grab it! With all the extras it's absolutely worth it!

Yeah, the older model needs a propitiatory cable that costs $40 to even update the firmware, so $4.99 is really quite fair. The original model does have S-Video in, but with the Pro released, I'd absolutely go for that, probably will at some point.

No, it was a free upgrade for a month or so, then they started charging $4.99. But the unit was still usable before the upgrade, so really, no complaints. I can't tell you how many horrible analog to hdmi devices I'd tried from Amazon before finding the Retrotink, and at the low cost of the Retrotink and new firmware, I'd never look at anything else.

I did update, sent if off to Castlemania Games when they were doing it for free, it's $4.99 now which is still a fantastic deal. The main issues were graphical glitches and most of all, syncing issues, on reset I'd constantly have to hit the input switch on the Retrotink to get it to find the signal again, very annoying. All fixed now, even if you unplug the power from the retrotink, it'll remember whatever you last had it on. I'd check the audio but I'm on a different monitor (asus) with no built-in speakers so it's impossible for me to verify the audio, but it sounded fine with when I was at my friends house and others say the audio pass through issues were addressed. Hope this helps.

Thanks Stuarts, yeah, I did the firmware update a few months back, made a huge difference. So nice to not worry about the settings anymore, and much better overall. Cheers. p.s. for anybody thinking of getting the Retrotink 2x original or pro - it's an amazing product, works flawlessly with everything and getting the newer firmware solved all the issues, I highly - highly recommend it. I can't edit the original post, so just wanted to add this.

Did you do the latest firmware update for the original 2x? It resolved the reset/syncing issues as it now remembers the settings and addressed some other issues as well. You can do it yourself if you've got the odd cables about or just send it out to Castlemania games, they do it for a very low cost.

Just snagged a 1200xl this week....

Thanks so much for the replies, saved me going nuts!