display oddity on left side of screen

[kingdufus]

Finally, after 26 years, I have an Atari! Back in the day my best friend had the 2600, and I got the Odyssey2 (say no more).

I recently rescued a 6 switch and an all black 2600 from the trash (along with 15 games, joysticks, paddles and instructions!). I've been cleaning them and they seem to work fine, except for a display issue on the all black one. When I insert both my phoenix carts, some thin lines appear on the left side of the screen (away from the actual edge of the screen). They appear to be lined up with the bird sprites, and they actually move down when a sprite moves down. This happens with both carts. See photo.

I tried a bunch of other carts and they all are fine, except for one which has the same issue but not as obvious (sorry, I can't remember which one).

I know that some games have the "comb" on the left side of the screen. Is this glitch part of that, or something else?

Also, when I insert the phoenix carts into the 6 switch, these glitches are less noticible because they are colored a very dark blue.

Thanks for your help!

[+Propane13]

The "comb" is known as an HMOVE line.

It is an artifact with most 2600 games, that happens whenever a sprite is repositioned horizontally on the screen.

So, everything is normal.

 

Most later games tried very hard to remove these lines (such as Activision) since they are ugly.

Throw any Activision game into your machine.

The comb isn't there, but I'll bet you never noticed the full solid black line that takes out the 8-most left pixels of your screen.

That's how they mask it.

 

So, you're safe.

 

And, welcome to the forums.

 

-John

[Christophero Sly]

Try turning down the brightness of your TV. That usually clears up this phenomenon. It's been my experience that the Vader model 2600's output an video signal that is brighter than the standard (Woody) models.

Edited September 8, 2008 by Christophero Sly

[kingdufus]

Thanks for the info! I'm glad my Vader is healthy. Next step: cleaning the jittery paddles.

[+SpiceWare]

nice in-depth instructions can be found here