The Original Odyssey (ITL200) problem

[jatari87]

Hello all, I posted this inquiry over at the O2/Videopac board, but figured it wouldn't hurt to check here:

I got myself a beautiful system recently (Run1), but, unfortunately, before I noodled around, the only thing I could get was a sliver of video compressed at the bottom of the screen and kind of shifted (when I used Cartridge 1). When I pressed the reset buttons, I actually saw something that looked like a ball move through the compressed area. Also, there were markings that were clearly the paddles and the center line.

Unbelieveably, when I popped the top and adjusted the cartridge in its slot along with some of the other "pots(?)" with my screwdriver, I was able to get a screen that had a large center line and the two paddle dots, but it seemed super magnified, and I could never get the "ball" to appear.

On one of the other cartridges, I got a dot I could move around a bit (which could have been the game I guess! LOL).

BUT, all this was fairly short lived, and by the end of my testing I was left mostly with the compressed video image that was noticeably shifted (i.e. smeared like)- and at best I could get that repeated over and over again throughout the whole screen.

I can maybe get some photos out on this soon, but any thoughts? Similar situations that were conquered? Words of encouragement? Bearings of bad news (i.e. something important is fried)? Info. on someone who may be able to help solve?

Sorry ran out of time posting. But any thoughts/info. will help and be appreciated.

It would be a shame for this to reside in the hopeless pile of my collection, because it is otherwise quite stellar in appearance. And, I can't just display items (They MUST work!).

Thanks for any thoughts/help.

[ubersaurus]

My first step would be to try and reseat all the daughterboards and maybe swap out the capacitors.

[jatari87]

First of all. Thank you very much for your response. I did wiggle the daughterboards a bit tonight. But, since I sensed I saw a "ball?" moving and definite paddles, I decided to stay pretty basic for the time being & just kept messing with all the little pots under the lid. And...Well ... Voila!!! I'm never 100% certain about what I'm saying with any of this stuff, but I'm using the word "pot" and hope I'm right. There's definitely still more work to be done on this, but my wife's up grinding her teeth cause she needs me fresh tomorrow. So, I better pack things up. I've tried to photo the pot that was the magic knob that brought the "vert hold" (or whatever it is) into focus in case it helps anybody in the future. Thanks again for the help & ideas on fixing/making this better in the future.