14 replies to this topic

[Emehr]

So I picked up a Flashback 2 at a garage sale this past weekend for $5. One of the sticks was broken and the other stick was a genuine CX-40 from the day. Anyway, the thing is pretty dusty and there's evidence of corrosion on the cart pins so I think, "Hey, this would be a suitable candidate for a mod!". Sure, I have two FB2's at home that I've had since they sold them in stores, and while I had taken one apart I never had the heart to take the solder gun to it. Now's my chance!

So I take the little guy home, clean him up, and plug him in to make sure it works. Yep. Okay, now I get down to business. I have an IDE cable I could use but from the pics I've seen of other mods it looks very unwieldy. I have this spool of super thin single strand stuff that I wanted to try instead just to see if it'd work.

I hardwired the J3 connection (as opposed to putting a switch there) because I wanted to make sure I had all of the cart pins correct before getting too crazy. After getting everything in place, I plugged it in and voila! Space Jockey running on the FB2!

Anyway, I whipped up a visual cheat sheet (a VCS, if you will ) that shows what needs to hook up to what that may be helpful to anyone that wants to mod their Revision C FB2. I'm pretty sure this is a Revision C. If not, I'm sure someone will correct me. And if anyone wants to check my work I gladly welcome it. I didn't want to make a graphic such as this without doing the mod myself. And now that I finally have (after, what four or so years? ), well, here it is. But first, a pic of my mod in action. This was before I added the toggle to switch between built-in games and cart and before I desoldered everything to make the graphic. My next project for this is a bit more ambitious...

Attached Thumbnails

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[atwwong]

Nice work and thanks for sharing the pics!

[awace]

atwwong, on Mon May 17, 2010 9:18 PM, said:

Nice work and thanks for sharing the pics!

the cart switch has to unhook gnd from c select line select a10 equivilant bank select pin from built in memmory and the other one needs to be hooked up so you essentally replace jumper and remove one to switch between the modes to external cart this is why i think it took a week for me to figure out how to use both sides on the color/bwhite dual double throw double pole it has two 3 pin connections on the switch so i had to scratch all the solder mask from the original toasted 2600 board i used to steal its case ...
if i remember correctly anyway ill remove cover since i used ide cable not wire wrap wire like you did cause i knew this question would come up and i dont like to repair something I forgot where they go!.. Ill look now

[awace]

Cool only two cover screws its weird i have a half one type cover the top has ch3 switch and a/b and joy holes but the bottom has joy holes and power holes too!!! i forgot about hat ..
I take back what I originally said its just one pin gets unhooked in one selection then the other gets hooked in same selection
crap back to looking where wires actually go!! The bottom has a hole for A B channel select I cleaned the stickers off but there is a mold marking melted in saying 451 on the bottom outside cavity!.
so in one mode one jumper gets grounded and in the other one gets 5v or something like that i forget yea i think the built in memory gets 5v and the cart gets pin 6 connected cause i see interference when cart in I could be totally wrong . but i know when its up in the cart mode it connects on the left top side of the double pole color/bw switch and the bottom right 3 pins on the original 2600 slide switch connects something when the other right top unconnects built in memmory wire when in cart mode but i forget I know they dont have common wire though thats what leads me to think the built in memory needs 5v cause most of those memory sticks are 5v. or mabie its 3.3v but my cap is still on power switch just unhooks pcb from 5v regulator so the power pack has LOAD all the time and wont burn up so i have to unhook funpack power pack wall wart to make it reset remember to start a built in game 1st before FLASHing back to cart slot to FLASH youre games to youre hearts content ALso sometimes you get the this area intentonaly left blank also power on holding reset momentary wilst holding select momentary at same time then power on for test menu then 1972 up 1 down 9 times up seven and down 2 for paddle cart menu on built in to test youre wipers on youre paddle pots.

[awace]

I
Apologize for my rantie posts..
Good luck on youre mod I hope you pick an interesting case REMEMBER wire wrap wire snaps easily thats why we replace one by one w ribbon cable !.
Its a Royal pain in the butt but its worth it.
Its the fact that the original 2600 switches have a missing slip differntal between the dual poles witch makes flashing super fun.
REMEMBER FLASHING between built in and external cart could damage both the cartridge or the built in memmory I dont flash the power button only modes..
DO NOT FLASH A ORIGINAL 2600 because this is bad sparks are nasty E S D type things...

Edited by awace, Wed May 19, 2010 1:08 AM.

[Emehr]

Okay, being completely incapable of leaving well-enough alone, I rescanned the board at a higher resolution and cleaned up the graphic a bit, adding a few more bits of info here and there (see first post). If anybody sees anything that's amiss, please let me know and I'll fix it. Or if you'd like to see anything added, let me know and I'll see what I can do. I'm more of a graphics person. My electronics background is very rudimentary.


EDIT: whoops, the graphic should read "+9VDC", not "+5VDC". Update attached to first post...

[Curt Vendel]

Emehr--



Nice work dude.

Curt

[Emehr]

Curt Vendel, on Fri May 21, 2010 5:42 PM, said:

Emehr--



Nice work dude.

Curt

Thanks, Curt!

I'm kinda itchin' to do the other Revision boards now but a) I don't have any of the others (just Rev C's) and b) I'm not sure if there's much interest. The FB2's have been out for a while so most people that have wanted to do mods have probably already done them by now.

I'm curious about any other tricks that may be exploited with the board. There are a lot of solder pads that haven't been explored and there's still the Michele/Gizmo pin-out graphic floating around. I'll probably poke around some more and see what I can see. If I find anything cool I'll update the graphic.

[Curt Vendel]

Well,

I'll give you a hint... there is a soft reset on the system to exit a game and go back to the menu without powering off



Curt

Emehr, on Sat May 22, 2010 2:34 PM, said:

Curt Vendel, on Fri May 21, 2010 5:42 PM, said:

Emehr--



Nice work dude.

Curt

Thanks, Curt!

I'm kinda itchin' to do the other Revision boards now but a) I don't have any of the others (just Rev C's) and b) I'm not sure if there's much interest. The FB2's have been out for a while so most people that have wanted to do mods have probably already done them by now.

I'm curious about any other tricks that may be exploited with the board. There are a lot of solder pads that haven't been explored and there's still the Michele/Gizmo pin-out graphic floating around. I'll probably poke around some more and see what I can see. If I find anything cool I'll update the graphic.

[Havok69]

Curt Vendel, on Sun May 23, 2010 5:27 PM, said:

Well,

I'll give you a hint... there is a soft reset on the system to exit a game and go back to the menu without powering off

Nice - that should have been a button on the production unit!

[Joecl93]

Emehr, on Mon May 17, 2010 8:45 PM, said:

So I picked up a Flashback 2 at a garage sale this past weekend for $5. One of the sticks was broken and the other stick was a genuine CX-40 from the day. Anyway, the thing is pretty dusty and there's evidence of corrosion on the cart pins so I think, "Hey, this would be a suitable candidate for a mod!". Sure, I have two FB2's at home that I've had since they sold them in stores, and while I had taken one apart I never had the heart to take the solder gun to it. Now's my chance!

So I take the little guy home, clean him up, and plug him in to make sure it works. Yep. Okay, now I get down to business. I have an IDE cable I could use but from the pics I've seen of other mods it looks very unwieldy. I have this spool of super thin single strand stuff that I wanted to try instead just to see if it'd work.

I hardwired the J3 connection (as opposed to putting a switch there) because I wanted to make sure I had all of the cart pins correct before getting too crazy. After getting everything in place, I plugged it in and voila! Space Jockey running on the FB2!

Anyway, I whipped up a visual cheat sheet (a VCS, if you will ) that shows what needs to hook up to what that may be helpful to anyone that wants to mod their Revision C FB2. I'm pretty sure this is a Revision C. If not, I'm sure someone will correct me. And if anyone wants to check my work I gladly welcome it. I didn't want to make a graphic such as this without doing the mod myself. And now that I finally have (after, what four or so years? ), well, here it is. But first, a pic of my mod in action. This was before I added the toggle to switch between built-in games and cart and before I desoldered everything to make the graphic. My next project for this is a bit more ambitious...

That is very good, btw this cheat sheet will work on the Atari flashback 2+.

[EricDeLee]

This is a GREAT visual...
Very nicely done

[Emehr]

EricDeLee, on Fri Feb 11, 2011 9:46 PM, said:

This is a GREAT visual...
Very nicely done

Thanks a lot!

[MRB2011]

Sorry if my question seems stupid, but I am new to all this. Is it possible to change the Difficulty buttons into switches? Would SPST switches work? Thanks!

[pimpmaul69]

MRB2011, on Wed Jun 29, 2011 7:19 AM, said:

Sorry if my question seems stupid, but I am new to all this. Is it possible to change the Difficulty buttons into switches? Would SPST switches work? Thanks!

yes

Edited by pimpmaul69, Sun Dec 4, 2011 12:07 AM.