Mockduck Posted March 9, 2020 Share Posted March 9, 2020 Someone who is less familiar with Atari recently posted on the AtariAge Facebook page to ask if the Atlantis II weight test was legit or Internet rumor. I figured a quick Google search would give me an easy answer (and I assumed it was nonsense), but surprisingly I did some digging without result. Since the Google search turned up AA threads from 2011 or so I figured it might be time to update this for 2020. Anyone know? Rumor being based largely on a widely-circulated YouTube video that the Atlantis II cart doesn't weigh the same as an Atlantis cart. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Supergun Posted March 11, 2020 Share Posted March 11, 2020 Atlantis II uses a mask rom, same as regular Atlantis. So their weights are identical. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Moss Posted March 11, 2020 Share Posted March 11, 2020 On 3/9/2020 at 4:05 PM, Mockduck said: Rumor being based largely on a widely-circulated YouTube video that the Atlantis II cart doesn't weigh the same as an Atlantis cart. I can't imagine what would possess some to want to weigh their carts. Probably some obscure conversation like... Does this cart have bankswitching?... Yes... How can I tell?... Well it must weigh more due to the extra IC... OK, that makes sense. When an extra IC must add next to nothing to the overall weight and such a small discrepancy could be accounted for by manufacturing tolerance in the amount of plastic in the shell, and/or by rounding errors and measurement tolerance inherent in the scales. Even where are cart is place on the scales (i.e. near the outside as opposed to the middle) could potentially make a gram of difference. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Supergun Posted March 11, 2020 Share Posted March 11, 2020 Well, yes, most of what your saying is true. Slight variances will always be present from cart to cart. But an eprom does weigh “noticeably” more then a mask rom. No scale is even needed; you can actually feel the heavier weight with your bare hands. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+pboland Posted March 11, 2020 Share Posted March 11, 2020 10 hours ago, Stephen Moss said: I can't imagine what would possess some to want to weigh their carts. This idea is most likely from the NES collectors camp. Back in the day some carts were heavier than other because it used a pin converter board inside the cart to make a Famicom game work on an NES. So the way you would get one of these converters was to find a noticeably heavier cart version of say "Hogan's Alley". Rip the cart apart and you now have an adapter to play Famicom carts on your NES. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bah Posted March 16, 2020 Share Posted March 16, 2020 Counterfeits often use eproms. They have a quartz window and ceramic housings. In other words I would strongly suspect a heavier cart is a fake and it you find a window on the chip, ding dong its wrong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+-^CrossBow^- Posted March 18, 2020 Share Posted March 18, 2020 If the Atlantis 2 carts due weigh less for some reason, then the only thing I can think of for why...would be if the small RF shielding isn't be used on these A2 carts? Then again, I'm not sure I've ever seen the inside of an Imagic game to even know if they used the RF shields like Atari did? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
masschamber Posted March 18, 2020 Share Posted March 18, 2020 I think the best way to address most atlantis 2 questions is the same way you address headlines that end in question marks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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