Interesting dead 5200

[ToastyCostanza]

So I ran across something interesting last night. I have a 2 port 5200 that never worked for the last 5 years. I got it off ebay and ran through everything to get it to work but all I got was a green screen no matter what chips I replaced or what I cleaned. All I concluded was some of the ram chips get hotter than others but besides that I moved on and bought a working 4 port.

 

Yesterday I found a VCS adapter in the wild for $20 and it ended up being a stock 2 port compatible only version, so just for the laughs I stuck it in my dead 2 port and then BAM! It's working...

 

The 2 port still does not play regular 5200 games, or do anything else but for some reason it works with the VCS adapter.

 

This has inspired me to join this forum and see what you guys have to say about it, in what circumstance will a 2 port work with the VCS adapter but nothing else? My idea is the 2 port is partially dead but works enough to pass through the VCS's signal to my TV but I don't know what exactly is broken about it. Any help would be appreciated, Thanks!

[+-^CrossBow^-]

The VCS adapter is basically a full 2600 in a box and really only uses the power and some of the data paths from the cartridge port to borrow the 5200's RF video. So it doesn't actually surprise me that this is happening as none of the actual 5200 logic is needed to run the VCS adapter.