1. I can't solder to save my life.
2. I live in the UK and I see that the PAL 2600 is quite different to the NTSC one, and every guide I can find mentions the NTSC one only.
Anyway, about a month ago I was at my local car boot (Do you have these in America?) and there on a stall was a 2600 Jr. So I figure, what the hell! LET'S GO FOR IT!
So I took the Jr apart, bought a ton of stuff from Maplin (UK version of Radio shack) and set to work. To my utter amazement, IT WORKED! That is to say, Ben's original video mod worked, (new one didn't) and I could power it from batteries. Now the only problem with this is that the Jr... well..... sucks! It's made of the cheapest components and no matter what I did, I couldn't get a satisfactory picture on either my main telly, or the portable one that I intend to use. On games like SW Death star battle, the enemies were virtually invisible and try as I might, I could not get the water in Pitfall to go blue, without the other colours on the screen turning into a garish mess!
So I figured if I was going to do this, I was going to do it right! I ventured onto ebay and looked for a 4 switch. Now here comes the first international hurdle! In the UK we only got 2 models of 2600. (Not including the various Jr models) We got the 6 switch woodie and the 4 switch vader. I honestly didn’t even know a 4 switch woodie existed until I saw them on ebay US. Anyway, woodies are common as muck, vaders come up far les often, and when they do, they’re not cheap. Still, after a short time I found a one listed as faulty and took a chance that I could get it working again. Sure enough, it arrived dead. I connected batteries to it in the hope that it was power… still dead. So I did the video mod on it and…..BINGO! I guess the RF box must be fried or something coz it sprang into life, and the colours are bang on! (Well almost, but more on that later!)
So given the fact that there is naff all info on modding a PAL 2600 on the internet. And the fact that Radio Shack part numbers aren’t much use to us here in Blighty, I’ve decided to document my build in the hope that it will help others in PAL territories avoid some of the problems I’ve had. (Like 2 orders to Maplin for the wrong bits!) I intend to take pictures of every step of this build and hopefully when it’s finished, others will see that actually, it ain’t that hard!
The piccies attached below display the PAL 2600 Vader motherboard, testing it to see if it works and hacking it down to size. International hurdle number 2! The PAL can’t be hacked into a 4”x4” square as it has this daft protrusion on the side. Something I hope to relocate as I go.
Now for the bit where I ask for help! (This will be a recurring theme!
) Just got one question so far. The picture below of it running Frostbite (one of my faves!) was taken when I’d only just done the mod. As you can see the colours need a bit of tweeking but it’s not far off. So my question is…. Where have the score and timer gone?!?!?! If you play the game you can see movement in the blue, but no amount of altering the pots will make the score appear! All other games tested so far though, work perfectly! Any ideas?Any other comments or suggestions are welcome. I’ll hopefully be updating this soon!
Rik,
Thank you very much though! Do you know what each letter means? I know the connections to the TIA and RIOT chips and have worked out that W is where the IC unit needs to go to. I'm also figuring Z is ground and I know Q is Audio and X is Chroma. So it's really just O, P, Y, I, J, K and L I need!
