Steve Guidi

That's the sign of the Van Buren Boys, a notorious street gang of New York 😉

Mine is a long rainbow, NTCS, purchased in Toronto Canada. Made in Taiwain, serial AT870132652, and references Atari Corporation. Interesting information? The plastic spikes that unlock the cartridge's dust shield broke of within months of purchase (1980-something), but I think that happens to everyone's sooner or later

Yes! In my opinion, this is caused by there being no haptic/tactile feedback when you move the controller so you're naturally inclined to press a bit hard. Also, the contacts in the controller that register input when moving the joystick often crack and/or shift, further compounding the issue -- you end up pressing harder because you're not seeing any response. I published a tear-down video where I demo how the problem manifests itself and noted some solutions: installing/soldering push buttons with tactile feedback and replacing the board with a modern one that has surface-mount tactile switches pre-installed. I think using one of these products is probably the easiest way to improve the controller -- though I've never tested one personally (I modified mine by installing push-buttons on the internal board).

I recently added a composite mod to my 2600 Jr. and discovered that I had lost all of the original since the last time I had opened up the case. I went to the hardware store with the case in hand and started threading various sizes (from small to large) until I was satisfied that they would hold and not break the standoffs. I'm using a 1/2" #6 screw with a pan-head (flat on bottom, curved on top). Not sure of the thread type, but I think my case was rethreaded by using the new screws; I have experienced no issues from doing that. My only regret is not buying the Phillips version of these -- flat head screws are a nuisance to deal with.

+1 for this suggestion. I tried two composite mods to my 2600 and settled with the following. https://www.instructables.com/id/ATARI-2600-Video-Composite-mod/ This requires the removal of a transistor and some resistors, then installing a small board with replacement components. I found that this produced a better signal/colors than my first attempt, which involved installing a jumper and tapping into certain pins/traces to get the video and audio signals: https://www.atariage.com/howto/composite.html. Also, I'll add that both my LG and Sharp TVs have composite inputs with the Sharp unit allow composite via the component input jacks. Best to check your manual to be certain, but I suspect that most reasonably new TVs will do the same as suggested by the other users in the thread. + 1 for this suggestion too! I have one of these units and use it with my 2600 when hooked up to my computer monitor and/or video capture (neither of those have composite inputs). Video quality is fine for the 2600 but some of my colleagues complained about it when using systems that produce more detailed graphics (i.e. Nintendo Game Cube and Commodore Computers). I did some testing on this converter by hooking the composite output of point-and-shoot camera to it, and noticed that it crops the image (4MP) when compared to the composite converter that is built into my TVs. Finally, I'll add that the converter uses requires between 200-250mA of current, so you can totally run it from a USB battery for several hours if needed. It also detects PAL signals and attempts to convert them accordingly.