4 replies to this topic

[boxpressed]

I recently received a nice, working 7800 off eBay. The only unusual thing was what seemed to be damage to the underside of the shell. After poking around on AA, I read that some shells had an expansion port removed at the factory, leaving a "blemish." Is this what the blemish looks like, and if so, where would it place my 7800 in the production run? Thanks in advance!

[Almost Rice]

That looks more like a major scuff than the blemish. the blemish looks like the a hole in mold that was filled in.

[boxpressed]

Ah, I see. Such a weird mark, but at least you don't notice it with normal use.

[Atari Joe]

No, that is not the blemish. That system has been damaged in some way.

The "7800 blemish" is much more faint than that. It's where the expansion port used to be, and is a result of Atari "patching" the metal in the dies used to mould the plastic, instead of having new (costly) dies created. If you have a blemish system, and you know where the expansion port is supposed to be, you can look at it and clearly make out a faint "stain" where the texture in the plastic looks just slightly different. It's not something that anybody would have been likely to notice without knowing where to look and what it was. Certainly there weren't a bunch of kids back in the late 80s thinking they had a skuffed up or broken system. It's just a light blemish from the remnants of a broken promise.

[AtariLeaf]

Looks like someone took a portable sander or something like that to the thing.