Intellivision II - RF cable

[Atari2008]

Hey everyone, I got an Intellivision II recently but it doesn't have the RF cable to hook it up to the TV. I do have other retro game systems but for all of them I'd have to open them up and take the RF cable out from the inside if I wanted to swap it into the Inty II. I've ordered a replacement cable that's compatible with the Inty II on eBay which should arrive later this week.

 

I was wondering, if I wanted to connect the system to the TV in the meantime, is there a more common type of cable I can use? 

[+intvsteve]

Some approaches work well for when you've still got an RF-capable TV with a coaxial input:

1. Just grab an old composite video cable and pick one of the three colors (red, white, or yellow). Or even an old fancy S-Video that has 3 connectors (the S-video and red and white for Audio)... or an old Component video cable... Anything with the 'RCA banana' plug style. As long as you plug the same color (e.g. yellow) in at both ends, you're good! These usually work.
2. If you have a coaxial input on the TV, grab a cable as above, and use one of these -=OR=-
3. Grab a coaxial cable and an F-Type to RCA male adapter like one of these

You can often find 10-packs of these pretty cheaply. I lose mine or leave them connected to things and forget so you'd be surprised how useful having a few extras around can be.

 

Back when Fry's Electronics wasn't a desolate wasteland, and Radio Shack stores hadn't all turned into Starbucks or Sprint stores, you'd practically trip over these things. Now I guess it's up to a 24 hour wait from Amazon.

 

[mr_me]

While any AV cable will work, an RF shielded cable will give a better signal.  You can even use a cable tv RG6 or RG59 cable.  They plug directly into the TV but would need a simple F/rca adapter to connect to the Intellivision as intvsteve suggested.

[Atari2008]

4 hours ago, intvsteve said:

Some approaches work well for when you've still got an RF-capable TV with a coaxial input:

1. Just grab an old composite video cable and pick one of the three colors (red, white, or yellow). Or even an old fancy S-Video that has 3 connectors (the S-video and red and white for Audio)... or an old Component video cable... Anything with the 'RCA banana' plug style. As long as you plug the same color (e.g. yellow) in at both ends, you're good! These usually work.
2. If you have a coaxial input on the TV, grab a cable as above, and use one of these -=OR=-
3. Grab a coaxial cable and an F-Type to RCA male adapter like one of these

You can often find 10-packs of these pretty cheaply. I lose mine or leave them connected to things and forget so you'd be surprised how useful having a few extras around can be.

 

Back when Fry's Electronics wasn't a desolate wasteland, and Radio Shack stores hadn't all turned into Starbucks or Sprint stores, you'd practically trip over these things. Now I guess it's up to a 24 hour wait from Amazon.

 

Thank you for these thorough suggestions! Those coaxial adapters come in super handy! I have a few and similarly I leave them connected to things then forget I did so lollll.

 

Sweet! I do have composite cables, so I tried as you suggested. I get an image yayyyyy but it looks pretty bad, I'm guessing it's due to the fact that it's a cheap composite cable from the dollar store, so likely not much shielding in it. I'm getting a proper RF cable that should arrive later this week, so this should hold me over for now. 

 

I do miss Radio Shack at times like these.

 

Many thanks!

[+nurmix]

 
Back when Fry's Electronics wasn't a desolate wasteland, and Radio Shack stores hadn't all turned into Starbucks or Sprint stores, you'd practically trip over these things. Now I guess it's up to a 24 hour wait from Amazon. [emoji14]
 

Yeah, my local Fry’s is now about 75% empty shelves, 25% product. No one there will offer an explanation, although it seems pretty obvious they won’t be around much longer. They were my go to store for both my gaming/electronics repair projects, as well as computer components for my IT business. Now it’s Amazon, Newegg, eBay etc - which is likely the reason they are going down in the first place.





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[+intvsteve]

6 minutes ago, nurmix said:

Yeah, my local Fry’s is now about 75% empty shelves, 25% product. No one there will offer an explanation, although it seems pretty obvious they won’t be around much longer. They were my go to store for both my gaming/electronics repair projects, as well as computer components for my IT business. Now it’s Amazon, Newegg, eBay etc - which is likely the reason they are going down in the first place.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

Yeah, it's truly sad. I still get their daily emails for deals, though! Son the Eldest had ordered me a nice birthday present to upgrade one of the pieces of equipment at INTV Funhouse Labs, and after two months had to have the credit card company refund him. Fry's couldn't tell whether or not they even had the item that he'd paid for, if it had shipped, where they thought they's shipped from, etc. etc.

 

Fond memories of deciding one day over lunch ... "Hey, it's time to build a new PC!" and then stop at Fry's on the way home from work, grab a shopping cart, and walk out with RAM, CPU, motherboard, the works for a fresh new build. Oh, and a bag of candy to boot!

 

All the one-off stuff you could *look at* -- and most of the people there actually knew something.

 

I still see familiar faces there -- they've got some strong loyalty it seems both from employees to the company and vice-versa.

[+Lathe26]

1 hour ago, nurmix said:

 

Yeah, my local Fry’s is now about 75% empty shelves, 25% product. No one there will offer an explanation, although it seems pretty obvious they won’t be around much longer. They were my go to store for both my gaming/electronics repair projects, as well as computer components for my IT business. Now it’s Amazon, Newegg, eBay etc - which is likely the reason they are going down in the first place.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

 

For those who've never been to a Fry's Electronics store, think of it like Best Buy but even bigger with more variety, more computer and electronics parts, and more odd-ball stuff.

 

The Fry's near Seattle, WA opened back in 2003.  Unlikely the rest of Fry's which have a theme (ex: Hawaiian, Golf, etc), this particular store was theme-less.  That said, the first few years, it was awesome.  Sometimes I'd go there to buy.  Other times I'd go there to just wander and look at the cool weird stuff (ex: USB controlled Nerf missile launcher).

 

However, after the economic crash of 2008, it never quite recovered.  They still had a great selection of computer parts, TVs, appliances, and etc... but all the cool stuff left.  Part of the fun was gone.  I kept going back expecting to see them to return to what they were, especially after the economy recovered.  They never did.  Each trip resulted in further disappointment as they had less and less stuff; computer parts scaled back, unable to find basic cables even when they had more complex ones, etc.  I started going only once a year or less.  I'd walk in hoping to buy something and walk out with literally nothing.

 

Now, the stores are a desert.  Suppliers stock the shelves based on commission (i.e. supplier not paid until the items sell) rather than the store buying the items and taking a risk.  This alone is a terrible sign for the company.  I considered traveling down to Fry's a week ago, but YouTube is now filled with videos like this one so I didn't bother going: