Heavy Sixer Production and Venture reloaded

[christo930]

I was playing on one of my 2600s (an Atari branded heavy sixer) yesterday and it was a bit snowy. So I opened it up to clean the channel select switch and it had a piece of paper in it with a date stamp of August of 1981. 

 

I thought they had cost-cut the heavy sixer way before that.  It's heavy because there is giant block in the middle of the board and so, presumably was a lot more to manufacture than a light sixer or 4 switch.

 

Does anyone know when they stopped producing the heavy sixer?  It's got a made in Taiwan sticker on it, so it's not a California model.  This is 4 years into the production.

 

Did the light sixer exist in August of 81?  My parents bought me an Atari in like Jan of 82 and I am about 90% sure it was a 4 switch (it broke in the late 80s) and  I am near certain it was not a heavy sixer.  Even though it was purchased in Jan or Feb of 1982, it was probably made around the same time as this heavy sixer.  Were they just using up parts inventory or am I losing my mind or something?

 

 

Also, does anyone know if Venture Reloaded is a melody cart game?  I thought it was just a hack of a ROM and nothing special in that sense, but I can't get it to work on my Harmony cart (for some reason, my various Ataris all have very strange behavior with harmony cart and melody games. Some will play some of them and some will play others of them, but none of my Ataris can play all of the games.)  Will it run on a cuttle cart?  I would just "try it" but my hard disk crashed and I am stuck using this linux live distro and I have no idea how to do the conversion from bin to wav file.  It's a live distro with no persistence.

[RetroB1977]

My light sixer was made on March 31st '81 and in Taiwan...

Edited January 14, 2022 by RetroB1977

[fiddlepaddle]

There are many 2600s with mixed parts, including light/heavy cases. I went to lots of yard sales and flea markets in the Sunnyvale area in the 80's and 90's and saw probably hundreds, maybe thousands of "refurbished" marked systems, which were patched up from returned equipment with mix and match components to make a complete system for resale.

[alex_79]

12 hours ago, christo930 said:

It's heavy because there is giant block in the middle of the board...

Are you sure that you actually have an Heavy Sixer?

 

There were minor changes to molds, components, and boards throughout the entire production of every 2600 model, but what really differentiate the Heavy Sixer from the Light Sixer is the case.

The Heavy sixer is "heavy" because of the much ticker plastic of the bottom half of the case.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pictures are from atarimuseum.de.

 

[christo930]

On 1/15/2022 at 4:21 AM, alex_79 said:

Are you sure that you actually have an Heavy Sixer?

 

There were minor changes to molds, components, and boards throughout the entire production of every 2600 model, but what really differentiate the Heavy Sixer from the Light Sixer is the case.

The Heavy sixer is "heavy" because of the much ticker plastic of the bottom half of the case.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pictures are from atarimuseum.de.

 

Actually, no, I don't.  I'm not sure at all now.  I thought the heavy sixer was the one with the giant aluminum block around all the electronics and not just the heavier plastic.  I've never even noticed the difference.  I'll have to look at it again.  I have a different machine in front of me, only it's telegames badged, but it the sticker above the jacks at the back.  It is very heavy besides. But going by your pictures, it's a light sixer.  But I could have sworn there are six switch machines without the aluminum block (IIRC, they have a much thinner sheet metal inside for shielding).  I just assumed the heavy ones were, well, heavy.

 

 

Also, the one in front of me has one of the switches broken off.  Do you know of a source?  I doubt I can ever get a color match.

[alex_79]

12 hours ago, christo930 said:

But I could have sworn there are six switch machines without the aluminum block (IIRC, they have a much thinner sheet metal inside for shielding).  I just assumed the heavy ones were, well, heavy.

Only 4 switch and jr models have a sheet metal  shielding, while all 6 switch  have the heavy cast aluminum one.

So all sixers are heavy, but the Heavy sixer is heavier! ?

 

The plastic of the bottom half of the shell is about 3mm - 1/8" tick on the L6, and about 9.5mm - 3/8" o the H6. This adds about 550 gr - 1.2 pounds to the total weight of the unit.

See also this thread.

 

12 hours ago, christo930 said:

Also, the one in front of me has one of the switches broken off.  Do you know of a source?  I doubt I can ever get a color match.

New old stock switches can be purchased  from Best Electronics, ad sometimes they also pop up on ebay.
Or they can be scavenged from a dead unit. Old switches can be restored by opening them , cleaning ad re-tensioning the spring contacts and polishing the aluminum handles.
I'd try opening a thread in the "wanted" section of the Marketplace forum. People who do console repairs might  have some  spares available.

 

[christo930]

12 hours ago, alex_79 said:

Only 4 switch and jr models have a sheet metal  shielding, while all 6 switch  have the heavy cast aluminum one.

So all sixers are heavy, but the Heavy sixer is heavier! ?

 

The plastic of the bottom half of the shell is about 3mm - 1/8" tick on the L6, and about 9.5mm - 3/8" o the H6. This adds about 550 gr - 1.2 pounds to the total weight of the unit.

See also this thread.

 

New old stock switches can be purchased  from Best Electronics, ad sometimes they also pop up on ebay.
Or they can be scavenged from a dead unit. Old switches can be restored by opening them , cleaning ad re-tensioning the spring contacts and polishing the aluminum handles.
I'd try opening a thread in the "wanted" section of the Marketplace forum. People who do console repairs might  have some  spares available.

 

Thanks. I much appreciate it.  Now I'll have to go through all my Ataris and see if I actually own a true "heavy sixer"