Light "sixer" seems heavier than vader

[Zeus]

I recently bought my first six-switcher. I was expecting the light sixer but hoping for the big heavey. Anyhow, I ended up with the former. I did observe a difference in weight between the light sixer and the vader. The sixer definitely seemed heavier that mr. vader. I this the result of the extra 2 switches, or did they further reeduce the RF shielding or something in the vader? I do notice that with each revision of the 2600 it became more and more cheaply made.

[povlok1]

The Heavy Six'er and the so called 'light' sixer are the same design on the inside. The ONLY difference is the base. The 'heavy' unit uses a roughly 3/8 inch thick base made out of a somewhat soft plastic. The later units went with the standard thin, hard, brittle units that are similiar to whats on the 4 switch as well. Here is a pic of my workbench,, all the units stacked on the right are out of 6 swithers (both heavy and light) and ther rest of the units in the middle and on the left are 4 switch units,, hope this helps a tad

[Zeus]

Nice Pic! I have noticed that the quality of the 2600's construction declined with each redesign.

 

Heavy sixer: built with thick, durable plastic, cartridge slot is deep and hold games firmly in place.

 

Light sixer: made with cheaper plastic, although the cartridge slot is still deepset.

 

4-switch: cartridge slot made more cheaply, is shallower, games are easily displaced with ground vibrations.

 

Jr. models: made by cutting corners anywhere possible. The buttons are poorly constructed and break easily, the cartridge slot is even shallower, and doesn't seem compatible with all games.

 

Seems like a sad trend

[povlok1]

sure.. cheaper as they go.. but not really a bad thing. The only main drawback of the four switcher is the crappy Difficulty selector switches,, these tend to 'jitter' easily when they get old. Also the RF shielding is obviously cheaper and less efficient in the 4. However, considering the simpilicity of the design of the 4 to the 6, its not only cheaper but a smarter layout. Its obvious proof of the technology developing as the unit got older. A cheap composit mod on these takes care of the RF problem, and who actually uses the difficulty switches;) When you mass produce somthing, the cleaner the design, the cheeaper it is to produce,, wich in turn means more ataris for you and me