Banquo

I'm not an expert but it sounds like it could possibly be a bad RIOT chip.

I don't know if anyone really did that back in the day, but now there are lots of popular recipe sites online so I guess it finally came true.

I loved Pac-Man on the 2600 when I was a kid. Yeah I knew it didn't look or sound like the arcade version but I didn't expect it to. It was fun, that's all I cared about. I enjoyed E.T. also and I still don't think it deserves the hate it gets. There are so many far worse games on the 2600, some absolutely terrible, so it always makes me wonder why these two get singled out.

Sounds like the same issue with my first light sixer, the second controller port was always firing. Turned out to be a bad hex buffer chip.

I had a Colecovision so no, but my cousin did have a 2600 that I played a lot. He didn't have Adventure though. I finally got it for the first time just a few years ago.

Here's a picture of both of them; the first with the openings cut on the front of the grill fins and the second one cut from the back side. The grill openings on the second one are smaller and a bit harder to see. Something else about the second one I don't remember seeing before is the coating over the switch text. I guess they were trying to clear coat them with something to protect the lettering but it looks awful to me.

I'm surprised to hear about so many TVs with no coax input. How do people hook up their antennas or even basic cable? Do these TVs not have tuners and channel buttons either? Anyway I was imprssed at how well my old 2600 looked on my HDTV, not that I use it with it. I still prefer my CRT for classic systems. I guess with how horrible the SNES and Genesis look on HDTVs I was sort of expecting the Atari to not even work at all. I guess those solid colors and giant blocky graphics upscale really well though.

I recently noticed that there is a difference in the speaker openings on some 2600s. On some the openings are cut towards the front and are very noticeable, while on others they are cut from the back, that is if you look at the console from the front you cannot see any openings at all. You have to turn the console around backwards to see them. I'm guessing it was an aesthetic change and that the ones cut from the back just looked better, but then why even bother changing them at all since no model ever had speakers and the openings were later completely removed anyway. I've read lots of discussions about the speaker openings and their history but I don't think I've ever seen anyone mention the direction of the openings. Just had me curious.

Thanks, just wanted to make sure they were ok and not end up frying the console someday if they failed.

I have two Atari 2600 AC adapters here which are rated to output 9v DC, however they are both going quite a bit over that. CO10472 14.6 V C016353 15.2 V I know the 7805 regulator can handle even more than that but that's just more heat, I'm curious why these adapters are putting out way higher than 9 volts, are they going bad or is this just how they were? Should I replace them with a modern 9v power supply? I want my 2600 to live a long and happy life.

Got my very first heavy sixer today (wow they really are heavy!) so I figured I'd post the serial here. The switchboard has the green and white ribbon cable and the board is C010462 Rev 5. The top shell however does not have the beveled switch holes and is almost identical to the one on my light sixer, including the Atari logo and trademark symbol on the front. NTSC, serial# 43519N

Luckily I did have some .01uF caps and I think it did improve things even more, and you're right it is definitely not a placebo affect. There's is a big improvement and it seems to have gotten rid of 99% of the static at least with the fire button. I'm getting static from the joystick as well so I may try adding a cap to it. I saw you also mentioned getting static from the switches on your 4-switch model; mine were really bad. Bands of static all the way across the screen when I used them and they felt really rough, almost sticking sometimes. I actually desoldered and removed all four of them and took them apart. The little contact springs were almost black with tarnish and there was something sticky in them, maybe some kind of spray cleaner someone used once. I soaked them in hot water and then rinsed with alcohol and got rid of the sticky stuff, then polished the contacts until they were shiny. When I put them back together they worked really smooth and the static issue was greatly improved, but not cleared up completely. The momentary switches still produce some "sparkles" on the screen. I'm wondering if the old capacitors in the console might be causing some of the issues and if recapping it may solve some of them. My light sixer has never has had any noticeable interference problems, not even with my Tac-2. Seems like later console revisions would make things better instead of worse, but I suppose there was a lot of cost cutting involved as well. Maybe getting rid of all that heavy shielding for one thing. Anyway I'll keep working with it and see how it goes, thanks for all the informative posts!

Yeah it is just a random one I pulled from a parts bin to see if anything improved, but I will look for a .1uf tomorrow and try using it instead.

I found this thread because I was having the same problem with my Tac-2 and 4-switch 2600. I thought your capacitor idea was interesting but I wondered if maybe it would be easier and better to put the cap inside the joystick itself instead of modding the console, so I found a small cap and temporarily placed it across the contacts for the left fire button. Maybe it's just a placebo but it seems to have had an effect, the sparkling and interference is almost completely gone now. It couldn't be that simple could it?

I recently got a 4-switch woody and it needed work so I decided to refurbish it. The switches operated very rough and produced a lot of static so I took them all out and disassembled them. Nearly 40 years of tarnish had left the contacts almost black. I cleaned out the gunk, polished all the contacts until they shined and reassembled them. Unfortunately I discovered the game select switch no longer works. I took it back apart again, put it back together and this time decided to test it before soldering it. Worked fine, so I soldered all the pins and now it's not working at all. I'm really getting tired of taking it out since all I have is a solder sucker and it's kind of tedious. What could I have done wrong? I checked it with my continuity meter and the switch seems to be working, then I took both the start and select switches out and swapped them. Still can't select a game, but the switches are fine. Could I have killed one of the chips, maybe zapped it with static? Edit: It's fixed! It wasn't working because I'm dumb. There are contacts on both sides of the board, but I was only soldering them from the bottom and it wasn't flowing all the way through. Once I flipped it over and soldered the other side it started working perfectly. Oh well, I'm learning at least, lol. Anyway the switches operate smooth as silk now and no static at all when using them. I think I may solder some jumper wires to ground all the switch cases since the original foil strip was all torn up.

I finally found an old advertisement that confirms it is indeed an Atari joystick adapter with auto fire. (If anyone is interested it's on ebay now). I thought about buying myself a CoCo to use it with since I have always wanted one but I'm trying to declutter so the last thing I need is more computers, lol.

I seem to have a dead copy of Berzerk. Out of all the 2600 cartridges I've ever owned think this is the first one I've ever seen that doesn't work. I've cleaned the contacts until they are nice and shiny, but still all I get is a solid black screen. I'm guessing the rom is fried? It's not worth much anyway since some kid wrote his name all over the label, but I was just curious if anyone has had carts die before.

I'm afraid I already threw them out. The plastic ring at the bottom of the shaft that pressed on the contacts is what was all broken up. The plastic was very brittle, age I guess.

I don't have any Tandy computers to test them with but from looking inside I would guess they probably work fine unless those chips were bad.

It was the first computer I ever used, my grade school had these in the library. We mostly did quizzes on them but occasionally they let us play Space Invaders. I'll never forget the big orange button. I would love to have one of my own but I've got no place to put it and I've got enough computers stashed away as it is. That was an awesome deal someone got though. For drive rails I always use white lithium grease.

I bought a pair of these last week and they arrived today. I was really looking forward to trying them out but as soon as I took them out of the box they sounded like maracas, full of broken plastic. I love buying supposedly good stuff and getting trash in the mail. The contact points at the bottom of the shafts are all broken to pieces, looks like a really flimsy and cheap design. I tried a spare CX-40 shaft I had but it doesn't fit. Shame because they feel comfortable but I wouldn't buy one again, very poor quality. I'll stay with joysticks like the TAC-2 from now on.

You may be right, it does seem like it might have been a kit. I opened one of them up and the board says Made in USA 1983 on the bottom. Here's the top of the board:

I recently came across two of these and I can find no information at all about them online except for a single mention in an old Coco magazine. I don't know what they are for and wondered if anyone here has heard of them. Anyone know what they are and if they are worth anything? They have a DIN connector to plug into a Color Computer joystick port I think, a potentiometer on the top (it says Burst Speed), and an Atari style joystick connector on the side. The only thing I can think of is maybe some kind of auto fire adapter? I really have no idea.

AV 444082 432 NTSC

Yes, I checked the switch and it is working fine. The disc spins up and it tries to read it for a while but gives up. The new laser seemed to work great for the first few minutes and then stopped reading completely so I'm afraid something may have burned it out, maybe the power is set too high on it or something.