Dumb mistake cost me games. Hope someone does not do the same

[Greendude]

Dumb mistake cost me games. Hope someone does not do the same. I threw away around 30 carts not knowing you have to press the reset button to start them since some started with the press of the controller button I thought the carts had gone bad since some are 40 years old. Noone told me about this until I decided to return some carts. By then I was sure I was done with carts but the seller told me to restart the games and they started right up. Hope someone doesn't make the same ediotic mistake. I peobably lost $40 or more in the process too.

[+Random Terrain]

Dumb mistake cost me games. Hope someone does not do the same. I threw away around 30 carts not knowing you have to press the reset button to start them since some started with the press of the controller button I thought the carts had gone bad since some are 40 years old. No one told me about this until I decided to return some carts. By then I was sure I was done with carts but the seller told me to restart the games and they started right up. Hope someone doesn't make the same idiotic mistake. I probably lost $40 or more in the process too.

Related link:

 

archive.org/details/Atari_2600_Owners_Manual_1982_Atari_AU_rev_1/page/n3

[Flojomojo]

This is going to be increasingly common as people who never had the originals (or their documentation) get into older stuff. We have standard interfaces and onscreen tutorials nowadays, but it wasn't always that way.

[Love Cowboy]

Wow. I just assumed this guy had to be a troll. Never occurred to me that anyone who didn't grow up with a 2600 would have no idea about the game reset button being the standard start button for the console.

 

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[Supergun]

A close friend of mine has a connection at his local city dump site. And he pretty much gets first dibs on anything electronic that arrives there. Hes gotten all kinds of thrown out because it was broken stuff that worked fine. Just recently, he got a huge lcd television that worked perfectly, but had a bad remote.

 

This is a very common thing, unfortunately.

[fiddlepaddle]

I hate throwing things away, so it's really weird to me that so many people these days don't even try very hard to figure out what's wrong when something does not work right.

 

At a minimum, when something's broken, first thing I do is start pushing all the buttons, off/on a few times, wiggle the cords, check for unknown battery, fuse, or breaker compartments, swap power packs, and even "smack it on the side" solutions.

 

Then there's cleaning contacts, and as a last resort, I start removing screws to see what I can learn. Sometimes I even get things back together in working order.

 

And I always know more the next time.

[+save2600]

You know there's been people throughout the years that thought their VCS Wizard of Wor was "broken". And why doesn't my Omega Race game work?

[Love Cowboy]

You know there's been people throughout the years that thought their VCS Wizard of Wor was "broken". And why doesn't my Omega Race game work?

LOL Wizard of Wor is a good one. Second player controller for one player games??

 

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[+RichG1972]

You know there's been people throughout the years that thought their VCS Wizard of Wor was "broken". And why doesn't my Omega Race game work?

Yeah Dad made that mistake with the Data Age game Bermuda Triangle, the ship can shoot soon as you turn the game ON and move back and forth while standing still but won't FLY until you press reset. He thought the Atari was busted lol, now I am the owner of that Atari console since he left it to me in his will.

[+KaeruYojimbo]

Somewhat related - A friend and her 8 year old son were over, saw the 2600 and wanted to play a few games. He was completely flabbergasted that he had to turn the console off to switch games.

[+Swami]

I hate throwing things away, so it's really weird to me that so many people these days don't even try very hard to figure out what's wrong when something does not work right.

 

At a minimum, when something's broken, first thing I do is start pushing all the buttons, off/on a few times, wiggle the cords, check for unknown battery, fuse, or breaker compartments, swap power packs, and even "smack it on the side" solutions.

 

Then there's cleaning contacts, and as a last resort, I start removing screws to see what I can learn. Sometimes I even get things back together in working order.

 

And I always know more the next time.

The plastic kills the prudence.