Hi, I just took and made an adapter so I could use an Atari 2600 power supply instead of the 7800-power supply, and it still works great to this day. Don't remember where I foraged the female end from, but soldered it to the board, then used hot glue to keep it in place.
Excellent work on this. Great work root causing this. I suspected the same things as you did at first, so don't feel bad that you took a wrong turn, as I would have done the same. You did get there and that is what counts.
Great video! Thanks for letting us accompany you on your troubleshooting journey. Don’t worry about “assuming” the easiest stuff to fix works - it happens to the best of us AND we would have never got to watch this if you hadn’t.
Everyone tinkering with retro hardware tells you to give it a thorough visual inspection first. And noone does it. Me included. Reading a board and inspecting connectors often gives you a first clue on what is going on with a system.
Well that took an unexpected turn! So obvious after the fact 😂 Still a lot of useful info in the run up to the facepalm moment. Lovely journey, great video.
I wonder if someone who didn't know what they were doing had bent those pins inwards, trying to improve the connection with the cartridges by increasing the pressure on the contacts. This is the kind of thing that would work well on a ZX81 RAM pack, Spectrum joystick interface or similar, when the socket's on the external device.
I wonder if the 36-pin connector could be replaced by a normal size connector sitting on top of a couple of 36-pin female headers, or a long enough line of chip sockets? Would be janky, but might work. The edge connectors can be ordered with long pins, but you're probably a victim of the middle-suppliers who don't stock them. If you could order direct from TE/Amphenol/Conglomerate, you could probably find exactly what you want. Though a connector that already comes with keys installed would likely require a minimum order.
The cartridge port.. which was the first thing I said, but I thought its was going to be the dirt in it which would stop it selecting properly. Just goes to show you that visual inspection is key.
This solve reminded me of the Occam's razor lesson we were taught in tech school. Look for the simple solutions first. Glad you got it figured out, though. I know you pulled your hair for a little while. Was wondering if you can try reading the 2600 roms in the mini pro? If they are indeed the problem and not some other physical problem. I was thinking maybe you could repurpose a cart and make a multicart? there are several on PCBway. I'm lazy and bought an unocart. You could do that, but I know how you like to make it and tweak it to add improvements.
Yeah I think the ROMs in the 2600 carts are dead. I opened them up and three of them only contain a mask ROM, and the fourth has extra logic (I assume for bank switching). The problem is even if I wanted to replace the ROMs, there is not enough room in the cart to fit a 24 to 28 pin adaptor. Also Atari used an active high signal for the chip select, where as EPROMs use an active low, so I'd need to put in an inverter gate as well. I'll have a look at multicart options, see what is out there
1st 7800 is newer the date codes on chips are 1990 while the second is 1989. To read in the programmer you should be able to turn off "pin detect" checkbox option to read the fixed rom. The fixed ROM won't have a program pin for a start so it will fail detection. The 2600 cartridges probably have logic in them to allow bank switching to get around rom address limit similar to the C64 the jelly bean logic may have died causing the cartridge to draw a lot of current.
I tried turning off pin detect off camera but it still refused to read. Going to take another look at it soon. As for the 2600 carts, one of them has a logic IC inside but all of them seem to have faulty mask ROMs
So to make a note on the Activision carts... the 7800 "collar" is tighter than on the 2600, and the Activision cart shells are actually larger than the 2600 cart shells, which means they don't fit inside the collar well and don't make good contact. My 7800 I actually deliberately cracked two opposite corners of the collar to help Activision carts fit.
It's weird that whole stack of 2600 carts is bad. Back when I was collecting of the 250+ 2600 carts I had only 1 ever died on me, Atari's "Surround". Overall, they're fairly bomb-proof. Did you try them again after you sorted out the cartridge port pins? One of the few 2600 games I recall being incompatible with the 7800 was Activision's "Robot Tank" so I don't think that's the issue.
Yeah tried them again after sorting the cart port pins. Also gave the cartridges a good clean but still no go. I think they all must have come with one of the 2600s I bought from fleabay. My guess is the seller knew they were faulty and threw them in as 'untested'
i'm proud of you for sticking it all the way through instead of smashing it with a hammer and drop kicking it as suggested in the repair flow.
This is REAL TROUBLESHOOTING. Thank you , mate.
High quality content from a guy who knows what he's doing. I'm not exactly a "retro geek" but his channel still amazes me. Keep it up please.
Gotta love the final step in that flowchart.
Visih has been very generous to you lately! 😄👍
Hi, I just took and made an adapter so I could use an Atari 2600 power supply instead of the 7800-power supply, and it still works great to this day. Don't remember where I foraged the female end from, but soldered it to the board, then used hot glue to keep it in place.
Excellent work on this. Great work root causing this. I suspected the same things as you did at first, so don't feel bad that you took a wrong turn, as I would have done the same. You did get there and that is what counts.
Great video! Thanks for letting us accompany you on your troubleshooting journey. Don’t worry about “assuming” the easiest stuff to fix works - it happens to the best of us AND we would have never got to watch this if you hadn’t.
Very cool never got to have Atari 7800 just had 2600 as a kid 😊😊
There is always a lesson to learn from every fix even if it is frustrating as all hell
That was interesting. I would never have suspected the edge connector pins. Great diagnostics.
Everyone tinkering with retro hardware tells you to give it a thorough visual inspection first. And noone does it. Me included.
Reading a board and inspecting connectors often gives you a first clue on what is going on with a system.
Well that took an unexpected turn!
So obvious after the fact 😂
Still a lot of useful info in the run up to the facepalm moment.
Lovely journey, great video.
It's all about the journey, at least that's what I kept saying to myself in this one
I definitely could feel your pain when you recognised that it's just the port.
Good video! 👍
Amazing problem solving skills, Mark. You are a genius! Great video, I loved it.
Thanks. Although genius might be a stretch 😄
I wonder if someone who didn't know what they were doing had bent those pins inwards, trying to improve the connection with the cartridges by increasing the pressure on the contacts. This is the kind of thing that would work well on a ZX81 RAM pack, Spectrum joystick interface or similar, when the socket's on the external device.
What a trip... I felt your pain... lol. Glad you got it working
I wonder if the 36-pin connector could be replaced by a normal size connector sitting on top of a couple of 36-pin female headers, or a long enough line of chip sockets? Would be janky, but might work.
The edge connectors can be ordered with long pins, but you're probably a victim of the middle-suppliers who don't stock them. If you could order direct from TE/Amphenol/Conglomerate, you could probably find exactly what you want. Though a connector that already comes with keys installed would likely require a minimum order.
Well i know where im sending my consoles for repair...adrians digital basement 😂 im kidding...he doesn't work on consoles 🤣 I subscribed.
i never knew the 7800 had asteroids built in. I had one for years as a kid!
Only on the PAL versions, NTSC did not have asteroids built in
The cartridge port.. which was the first thing I said, but I thought its was going to be the dirt in it which would stop it selecting properly. Just goes to show you that visual inspection is key.
This solve reminded me of the Occam's razor lesson we were taught in tech school. Look for the simple solutions first. Glad you got it figured out, though. I know you pulled your hair for a little while. Was wondering if you can try reading the 2600 roms in the mini pro? If they are indeed the problem and not some other physical problem. I was thinking maybe you could repurpose a cart and make a multicart? there are several on PCBway. I'm lazy and bought an unocart. You could do that, but I know how you like to make it and tweak it to add improvements.
Yeah I think the ROMs in the 2600 carts are dead. I opened them up and three of them only contain a mask ROM, and the fourth has extra logic (I assume for bank switching). The problem is even if I wanted to replace the ROMs, there is not enough room in the cart to fit a 24 to 28 pin adaptor. Also Atari used an active high signal for the chip select, where as EPROMs use an active low, so I'd need to put in an inverter gate as well.
I'll have a look at multicart options, see what is out there
1st 7800 is newer the date codes on chips are 1990 while the second is 1989.
To read in the programmer you should be able to turn off "pin detect" checkbox option to read the fixed rom. The fixed ROM won't have a program pin for a start so it will fail detection.
The 2600 cartridges probably have logic in them to allow bank switching to get around rom address limit similar to the C64 the jelly bean logic may have died causing the cartridge to draw a lot of current.
I tried turning off pin detect off camera but it still refused to read. Going to take another look at it soon.
As for the 2600 carts, one of them has a logic IC inside but all of them seem to have faulty mask ROMs
So to make a note on the Activision carts... the 7800 "collar" is tighter than on the 2600, and the Activision cart shells are actually larger than the 2600 cart shells, which means they don't fit inside the collar well and don't make good contact. My 7800 I actually deliberately cracked two opposite corners of the collar to help Activision carts fit.
I was yelling at the computer for you to take off the cover of the cartage port from the beginning ( that is where I would have started).....
I'm not sure how, but I figured out what the issue was at the very beginning. I'm not going to say what it was here, though.
Search for wire wrap connectors
It's weird that whole stack of 2600 carts is bad. Back when I was collecting of the 250+ 2600 carts I had only 1 ever died on me, Atari's "Surround". Overall, they're fairly bomb-proof. Did you try them again after you sorted out the cartridge port pins? One of the few 2600 games I recall being incompatible with the 7800 was Activision's "Robot Tank" so I don't think that's the issue.
Yeah tried them again after sorting the cart port pins. Also gave the cartridges a good clean but still no go. I think they all must have come with one of the 2600s I bought from fleabay. My guess is the seller knew they were faulty and threw them in as 'untested'
@@TheRetroChannel Well that's a shame! I guess with a bit of cleaning they make for decent shelf art if nothing else.
Ballblazer is running fast 🧐
Could just be the PAL version running faster than the NTSC version. I'm not familiar enough with ballblazer to know for sure
@@TheRetroChannel Ahh that's probably it and what!? Ballblazer is one of the best games ever for the Atari 8 bit!