827 replies to this topic

[Longhorn Engineer]

mimo, on Wed Mar 25, 2009 10:53 AM, said:

Longhorn Engineer, on Fri Mar 20, 2009 6:17 AM, said:

Tempy, on Thu Mar 19, 2009 1:14 PM, said:

Any update on PAL compatibility?

Haven't heard from mimo yet. I just received a PAL board from HARMIK so soon?

Oh and orders for the 2600 are open again. I will be updating my website everyday from now on. Even if I haven't built anything I will post something. There is a RSS feed for my website.

maybe even sooner than my PAL 7800 *runs*

Well PAL 2600 is next up. Then the 7800 mod will be finished in both NTSC and PAL formats.

[98PaceCar]

I just finished up installing one of these kits in a light sixer I had laying around. The picture quality is amazing, but it seems to periodically switch to black and white and back to color. I don't think it's related to the mod, but I wasn't quite sure. Is there something specific I should check on this? Thinking about replacing the B/W Color switch, but if I don't have to I don't want to!

Any suggestions will be much appreciated!

[Longhorn Engineer]

98PaceCar, on Wed Apr 8, 2009 12:15 PM, said:

I just finished up installing one of these kits in a light sixer I had laying around. The picture quality is amazing, but it seems to periodically switch to black and white and back to color. I don't think it's related to the mod, but I wasn't quite sure. Is there something specific I should check on this? Thinking about replacing the B/W Color switch, but if I don't have to I don't want to!

Any suggestions will be much appreciated!

Sounds like your pin 9 wire is loose or your B&W switch is flipping out.

[98PaceCar]

Longhorn Engineer, on Wed Apr 8, 2009 3:30 PM, said:

Sounds like your pin 9 wire is loose or your B&W switch is flipping out.

I assume pin 9 on the TIA connection side? I'll tear it back apart and see tonight. Thanks!

[Longhorn Engineer]

98PaceCar, on Wed Apr 8, 2009 3:16 PM, said:

Longhorn Engineer, on Wed Apr 8, 2009 3:30 PM, said:

Sounds like your pin 9 wire is loose or your B&W switch is flipping out.

I assume pin 9 on the TIA connection side? I'll tear it back apart and see tonight. Thanks!

Yes sir.

Oh and sorry about the lack of updates fellas. Test week is hell week! Should be able to start testing that PAL 2600 board tho....

Edited by Longhorn Engineer, Wed Apr 8, 2009 6:38 PM.

[SpiceWare]

I was checking out Ben Heck's C= 64 laptop(drool!) and noticed he put up an entry about your AV mod.

[Fangorn81]

Oh sweet! he really loved it too! Nice work!

[Ian Primus]

Well, I finally got around to building the Longhorn mod last night. I had great success with it, the picture looks really good, however the vertical band problem is somewhat noticeable. I'm getting the slightest amount of color bleed as well. This was testing on an old Sony CRT video monitor. These problems could have been created by my minor deviation from the design, however.

I should have taken pictures, but it was late by the time I got it working. I built mine from scratch, using a small Radio Shack perf board. I had to make a couple of the odd value resistors as well (9.1k, 2k). I did use the TI 74..CD4050, however. Also, I couldn't find a 47pf cap so I threw a 51pf in there, and I left out the FM6400's filter cap (10uf). I built mine only for composite video, so I didn't put the 75ohm resistors on the chroma or luma lines. I also skipped the stereo sound, coupling the audio output to the TIA pins 12/13 through a .1uf cap. My 4 switch Atari's board is somewhat different than the one that was used in the install guide, however. I ended up just soldering everything directly to the TIA.

Soldering that stupid little FM6400 to perf board is a royal pain. I ended up using an 8 pin DIP socket on the board, so it would be easier to hook things up to it, then soldering the tiny surface mount chip to a 4x4 square of perf board with header pins on it, and plugged it into the socket.

But, all in all, it works really nicely. Thanks for the great design!

-Ian

[Fangorn81]

I got my mod in the mail yesterday, and almost have the whole thing installed, but I have run into a weird problem. I am modding a socketed 4-Switch console, but it is different than the on in the tutorial...

Look at the resistors on the far left in this picture, specifically the one you are supposed to remove and solder the brown wire to:



That resistor is not there on my board. there aren't even holes where one COULD be there (the red oval). Instead I have a resistor just above that spot in the empty space on the top row (the red square). Is that where I should connect the brown wire? If not I guess it will be trial and error.

Can anyone tell e if that could be dangerous for my hardware?

Edited by Fangorn81, Fri Apr 17, 2009 11:42 AM.

[Ian Primus]

Fangorn81, on Fri Apr 17, 2009 1:40 PM, said:

I got my mod in the mail yesterday, and almost have the whole thing installed, but I have run into a weird problem. I am modding a socketed 4-Switch console, but it is different than the on in the tutorial...

That sounds like the Atari I just modified. I wound up just soldering everything to the TIA, rather than bothering to trace out where everything went on this board. I just bent out pin 6 of the TIA and soldered the brown wire to it instead of removing any resistors.

-Ian

[Fangorn81]

Awesome thanks, I'll try it when I get home!

[Longhorn Engineer]

Fangorn81, on Fri Apr 17, 2009 12:25 PM, said:

Awesome thanks, I'll try it when I get home!

Let me know if you have any problems. Glad it worked out for yah Ian Primus!

[Fangorn81]

That didn't work. All I am getting is a black screen w/ no sound. RCA is the same.

If I hook up the old single RCA cable I am getting a black and white image and a hum from the speakers. Maybe that's a clue as to exactly what is connected to the wrong place?


Maybe I could do it all straight off the chip also...I'll try it.

Edited by Fangorn81, Fri Apr 17, 2009 4:21 PM.

[Fangorn81]

Ok, I moved everything directly to the pins on the TIA. I am still getting nothing.

And, now if I hook up the old single RCA it just flips to a black screen...



waitttt a second, i just thought of something.

But, feel free to shoot me ideas in the meantime!

Edited by Fangorn81, Fri Apr 17, 2009 5:09 PM.

[Fangorn81]

OK.

Almost there. I think some of my connections on the chip are a little less than solid, but I got it running.

I do get a kind of slow rolling color variation that travels across the screen, and it could use a boost to the brightness.

I'll touch it up and see what we get.

[Fangorn81]

UPDATE:

I have all the wires running directly to the TIA chip. Everything is fine - with Parker Brothers titles. But, only Parker Brothers, and even then only about 80% of the time. I had been using Frogger to test it this whole time which I finally got to play. And it wasn't until I went to put in Pitfall to make sure all the colors looked good that I realized:

Every other game I try gives me nothing but a black screen...I don't quite get it. unless there is some slight variance in resistance due to where I have everything attached, and the Parker Brothers games aren't affected by it as much.

Does anyone have any ideas? I am more than happy to move any of my connections to some other place, they just weren't working in the places marked on the diagram...(at least I had them where I THINK they should have been)

Edited by Fangorn81, Fri Apr 17, 2009 10:20 PM.

[ckrtech]

I finally got around to soldering up this thing for the first time since getting it a few months back.

This is the best this VCS has ever looked, and I have had the unit since ~1983. I installed the 8bitdomain mod, had to repair it (no color in S-Video) and then was still unsatisfied due to the intense level of vertical bars and super-saturated color. It seemed to have the same trouble on a friend's LCD TV that it had on my CRT RPTV.

I actually have the same layout as Fangorn81. I ended up soldering everything (save the 5V and GND) directly to the TIA. I didn't remove any resistors. I believe the first words out of my mouth (with a lengthy pause between the two) were "HOLY........COW."

Excellent work, L.E. All that is left to do is do the drill work and repair the cold solderfest that is my temporary S-Video wire-up.

[toymailman]

I am looking at getting this S-Video mod as well. I am thinking of the 4-switch version. I have several revisions of Atari motherboards, Rev 12, 14, 16 and 17 to choose from. I assume the later ones are better in that they have more tweaks that Atari put in them as well?

[Ransom]

I finally got time this evening to install the video mod in my light sixer. The result? Astoundingly good output. Beats the heck out of the other mod I have. Everything is crisp and clear, and unlike my other mod: 1) the s-video output is in color on my LCD (instead of only on CRTs), and 2) no games have the missing pixels problem (where I'd get every other pixel in some games, particularly the demons in Demon Attack).

Yay!

The only fly in my ointment is the vertical black line I see next to many objects, but particularly stationary objects. It's especially noticeable in Adventure, with a vertical black line drawn next to each wall. Is this to be expected?

Otherwise, the mod is wonderful, and as I said, a huge step up for me. Yippee!

[ckrtech]

Anyone have any case repair/strengthening advice? My case was already brittle from general wear and tear over the years, and it didn't take to a drill too well. Low (variable) speed or not, it just has one too many cracks to even try to salvage it.

I could do some gluing, but if connections are going to be pushed and pulled into the back part, I don't see it lasting. I wouldn't mind doing some sort of mounting plate of a thicker plastic for the A/V outputs and just gluing it to the case.

Open to suggestions, links, etc.

[Longhorn Engineer]

ckrtech, on Sun Apr 19, 2009 11:43 PM, said:

Anyone have any case repair/strengthening advice? My case was already brittle from general wear and tear over the years, and it didn't take to a drill too well. Low (variable) speed or not, it just has one too many cracks to even try to salvage it.

I could do some gluing, but if connections are going to be pushed and pulled into the back part, I don't see it lasting. I wouldn't mind doing some sort of mounting plate of a thicker plastic for the A/V outputs and just gluing it to the case.

Open to suggestions, links, etc.

Try super gluing it, installing the connections, and then epoxying the insides for strength. Forstner Bits seem to be the best bet in drilling holes in the brittle Atari plastics. Your local harbor freight has a set for cheap.

[Ransom]

Here's what I was talking about before with my light sixer with the video mod. First, a picture of the blue maze, which has that sort of drop shadow effect now:



Also notice how dim the white key appears in the picture above. Same goes for the white castle. Here's a picture of the white key in the gold castle:



Pretty much anything that's a light or pastel color comes out very dim, no matter the game. And the problem persists whether the console is connected to an LCD or CRT TV.

Is there anything I can do about these problems?

Edited by Ransom, Mon Apr 20, 2009 10:48 AM.

[Longhorn Engineer]

For the light colors I would try tweaking your color settings on your TV a bit. For the black line? I don't really know I will pop in Adventure when I get home and see if I can get the same thing. This was a kit you bought from me correct Ransom?

[Ransom]

Longhorn Engineer, on Mon Apr 20, 2009 12:33 PM, said:

For the light colors I would try tweaking your color settings on your TV a bit. For the black line? I don't really know I will pop in Adventure when I get home and see if I can get the same thing. This was a kit you bought from me correct Ransom?

Sorry, I should have mentioned that. It was indeed a completed kit I bought from you -- with the s-video cable rather than the jacks. Just received it last week.

I've messed with the color settings quite a bit, on both the Samsung LCD and my Sony Trinitron CRT. Neither solved the light color problem. And of course the color pot on the console hasn't helped either.

Basically, the early-ish Atari games that used pastel colors tend to be hard to see. So, for example, Player 1 in Air-Sea Battle is very difficult to make out. But the later releases, with bolder colors, look great.

[ckrtech]

Longhorn Engineer, on Mon Apr 20, 2009 1:43 AM, said:

Try super gluing it, installing the connections, and then epoxying the insides for strength. Forstner Bits seem to be the best bet in drilling holes in the brittle Atari plastics. Your local harbor freight has a set for cheap.

Any suggestions for rebuilding (or rather replacing) the back wall? While mine is still intact, there are several chunks that are missing from it. Basically a small chunk of plastic between two of the drilled holes has fallen out. It *almost* looks salvageable with some superglue and....some sort of plastic filler (do they make a "liquid plastic?" Ha. In addition to all of this, I would have to mask it over in order to somehow keep it looking nice.

But really...there is still drilling to be done, and I am just shaking my head. That large hole (1/2" I think) for S-Video is just not going to happen.