heavy sixer

[Sgt.Pepper1983]

Does the heavy sixer read games any differently than the light sixer does? I just got mine today and when I started playing everything was a lot harder. Is this normal?

[AtariLeaf]

Is your difficulty switch on "a" or "b"?

[The Shawn]

Maybe you have the Uber Rare Heavy Sixer that they only gave out to Atari programmers to test their own games with. Atari figured that since the same individual wrote the game that they should have no problem finishing through on the secret uber difficilty setting that they installed on the special "Tester atari's"

 

Hope it helps.

 

Shawn

[Dauber]

In terms of play, the only thing I could never get a heavy sixer to do was fry.

[Ian Primus]

It could also be that the difficulty switch on that particular Atari doesn't work. Quick test, plug in Space Invaders. Flipping the difficulty switch should make the laser base wide on the hard setting, and narrower on the easy setting. If it's stuck on "hard", check the solder connections on the back of the switch.

 

-Ian

[BigO]

Outside of the difficulty switches mentioned, one 2600 console making the game harder to play than another console is pretty well beyond the realm of possibility short of some very serious hardware modification.

 

Due to the way the video signal timing is essentially embedded in the game code itself, even something as simple as running the system at a faster clock rate would result in output that couldn't be displayed by the television. Though, I reckon that would technically make it more difficult to play.

Edited May 5, 2009 by BigO

[Benzman66]

Could also be the RIOT chip. I had the same situation once before, and found out flipping the difficulty switches made no change to the size of the launchers with Space Invaders as Ian mentioned. I had checked all points of solder, no problems at all, then swapped the chip, and all was fine.

[Sgt.Pepper1983]

I didn't think about the difficulty switch until after I posted this. That's what it was.

[BigO]

Good. Easy solutions are always the best.

[liveinabin]

On the Heavy Sixer, Chuck Norris is ALWAYS player 2.