Well, I thought I'd get the whole organization idea started by making a 2600 sticky (there was no real competition for it, and I know the system like the back of my hand, so what the heck) I'll put the most important threads here, and if you think something should be added, go ahead and post. It's kinda like the "Read this first!" thread that gannon *cough*deleted

Hacking instructions originally made by Ben Heckendorn himself

Thanks to HK-47, you can easily access the how-to's Ben has made over the years for hacking your 2600. The index can be found here, or choose what you want:


Of course, feel free to search and check this thread (and, if you still can't find your answer, make a new thread) if you are having troubles with these guides.

Completed/WIP Atari 2600 Handhelds
Of course, everyone could use a little inspiration here and there, so here are a few examples of completed 2600 handhelds.
All of Ben's portables in their glory
Jsoper's Atari in Dreamcast controller (scroll down to bottom)
My 2600 SP (which broke down 2 weeks after being done ) and SP+ (scroll down a little)
If I missed any others, please let me know, I'll fix it ASAP

Ben Heckendorn's Vlink pinout
If you ever make 2 portables, or know somebody else with a Heckendorn portable 2600, or just want more stuff, the Vlink is right for you! This lets you play your portable 2600 with other people, in a way similar to what you have on the Gameboy. The official post with the pinout is here
The main post within:

Atari Flashback/Flashback 2.0
I'm sure you have all seen or heard about the Atari Flashback, and I just thought I'd start (and pretty much end) by saying that the Atari Flashback will not work for your handheld 2600 because it does not have true Atari 2600 hardware. It uses other hardware, probably NES on a Chip, that emulates the 2600.

The Flashback 2.0, however, is much more promising once it comes out. It uses true Atari 2600 hardware, and even has a place where you can wire in your own cart slot, assuming you have one (Atari understandably doesn't want to have to support 20 year old games that people found at a flea market if people are having troubles, otherwise it probably would be there already.) It will also be very small, so this is definitely something to look into

If you like the 2600...
There are a few sites you may want to check out. First of all, there is AtariAge. Which is probably the largest Atari related site, by far.

Next, there is Digital Press, which is more of an all-around gaming site, which has stuff for systems other than what was made by atari.

If you want more sites about portablizing Ataris, check out the Atari 2600 CE site This project has been discontinued long ago, but it has a good read and is good for if you are hungry for portablizing information or what have you.

Atari 2600 Schematics
One of the most handy things in building a portable atari is the complete schematics. You can find the 4-switch schematics here if you are interested.

Trick out your Atari 2600!
Believe it or not, you can teach an old dog new tricks... that is, make your atari do new things! Of course, there are a wide variety of video mods, and you can decide which you want to try by looking here.
Next, you can have true stereo coming from your Atari 2600. If you do this, be sure to have a switch for mono, since sometimes the sounds are too separated. The guide is here.
Of course, you may want to try to put LEDs and stuff in your 2600, just as an idea.

[size=0]This guide made by SpongeBuell... and my parents never thought I'd amount to anything[/size]

Let's hear it for Spongey!
You should copy that to WikiPortable!

I'll start working on a "cheat sheet" like this for the Scrceens section.

Stickified...

OOh, nice....Very nice

Yes, my compliments.

I simply cannot wait for the european release of the Atari Flashback 2.0, i'm most likely to buy one (to thrash my brother at combat, he's never played it before!)

Here's the link to pictures of my completed 'Plain Box' Atari 2600
Portable:

http://benheck.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=4874

Be sure and look on the second page because I added more pictures
which show some new hardware add ons.

Rick Murray

Done!

Thanks! You da man!

Rick

Put the pal atari composite mod up there. Here's the link http://www.portablesofdoom.org/2600.php

Hey, all the links to the atari pages dont work as they are referenced to the older forums, not the new version of phpbb. Just replace /ipw-web/bulletin/bb/ with /phpBB/ in all the links.

Thought Sparkfist did that already, though I'm probably thinking of the other thread

Anyway, I just fixed it

Yeah I though I fixed all those when FDSMAN mentioned it about 3 weeks ago.

it works.

The Atari 2600 is the system most people collect games for. This is likely due to more people owning a 2600 than any other classic gaming system. Back in its heyday, who didn't have an Atari? This has two effects. First many people have a nostalgia for the 2600 and pick one up to play all the games they remember from their past. And second, because so many people had one, it's one of the easiest systems to collect for as there are so many games floating around.

Of course, it's only easy to collect for if you're a casual collector who's just looking for the more common games that most people enjoyed in their youth. Games like Combat, Air-Sea Battle, Yars' Revenge, Pitfall!, Adventure, River Raid, Asteroids, Demon Attack, and Chopper Command bring back fond memories for many and fortunately are very easy to come across. But if you're a serious collector who'd like to check off every game released for the Atari 2600 (ha!) then you have a serious challenge, as the 2600 can also be the most challenging system to collect for. At the time of the big game crash of 1984, the Atari 2600 market was saturated with games, many of which had low production runs and a short-lived shelf life. Many rare games never even made it to store shelves, such as those offered by the Atari Club (Swordquest Waterworld, Crazy Climber, and Quadrun, for instance).

This guide focuses on North American releases, although it does include select international releases. We will be adding more PAL and other international releases in the future. If you have any comments about the listing of a title or its rarity, please post them to the Rarity Guide Message Board.

The rarity scale is a general indicator of how easy or difficult it is to come across a game. The scale starts at 1 (very easy to find) and finishes at 10 (nearly impossible to locate). Thanks to auction sites such as eBay, even extremely rare games come up for auction frequently enough, but these often command a fairly high price depending on the rarity.