I am working on building an Atari 2600 from the three main chips, although I don't plan on making it portable. I am currently breadboarding it off of this schematic that i modified:
I am curious what the blocks are on the power and ground lines of the cartridge port. I am a computer engineering student with many years of hobby electronics construction and am unsure of what I am looking at.
Also, should any of the modifications on the schematic cause problems with the atari? Are there more modifications that I should do? What about links to a good stero mod that can be built straight off of the TIA pins.
And finally, what is pin 9 on the TIA and what should I do with it.
I had an atari that I broke the wires from the switch board to the other board and then made it worse by trying to solder it when I was to young to solder very well. The chips were just sitting there and they begged to be used again. But the main reason is that it is just a fun project.
Oh ok. Yeah I was just wondering cause it seemed kinda weird for somebody too rebuild the atari board. But I see your quite good with electronics. a lot of people around here want smaller atari pcb's. A guy named Gannon already designed one. But I was wondering if his fails can you try? Cause a lot of people here want such a pcb. And the pal people even more cause Gannon didn't design a pcb for them yet.
If I can get this working then I will most likely design a pcb although I will design it to mount in a computer drive and allow it to play games while still in the drive. Hopefully running off of computer power and with a cart port on the front. But I would have a spot for a normal power plug and a molex one. But I don't want anyone to hold me to this. If my school work gets to be to much, I might have to delay the work on this.
As for pal, maybe if i can get a hold of a pal unit to pull the chips on.
oh ok. That doesn't really matter. Just if you design one. Try too make it smaller then the original. (that is hacked up in a 4 by 4 inch square) If you really can't it doesn't matter. But it would be cool.
If your planning to make it portable anyways, go the easy way and ask Gannon if he has any of his Atari PCBs left. He designed a new PCB that would work just like a hacked 4x4. I think he's selling them for $10 or $15, all you have to do is solder the parts on. Sounds better then rebuilding from scratch.
vskid wrote:Nerd = likes school, does all their homework, dies if they don't get 100% on every assignment
Geek = likes technology, dies if the power goes out and his UPS dies too
The point is making it myself. I assumed people on this forum would understand that kind of satisfaction. Plus once I get the answers I need and the few components I don't already have, breadboarding will take me less time then it would to solder everything into that board. I love my breadboard and have gotten very good at using it.
Mah_Freend_Amee wrote:The point is making it myself. I assumed people on this forum would understand that kind of satisfaction. Plus once I get the answers I need and the few components I don't already have, breadboarding will take me less time then it would to solder everything into that board. I love my breadboard and have gotten very good at using it.
Well that sounds admerable, thought I still think if you're going to make it on a breadboard just use the schematics off Gannon's PCB. It is really a lot easier to read what someone already has layed out and figure that out then to try and read something like the original schematics and figure them out then refine that. If you are interested in use what Gannon has he has pictures on is site (under pictures) that show the PCB layout. You can also just PM/email him and ask for them.
vskid wrote:Nerd = likes school, does all their homework, dies if they don't get 100% on every assignment
Geek = likes technology, dies if the power goes out and his UPS dies too
I found this in my more recent searches and wonder if anyone has done this? http://www94.pair.com/jsoper/2600_stereo.html
If so, how does it sound. Even if it sucks I will include it but with a switch to return it to mono. This way i can test out if any games had stereo sound.
Looks to be the same as the guide at Portablesofdoom.org. You can double check with the guide at PoD to be sure it works.
vskid wrote:Nerd = likes school, does all their homework, dies if they don't get 100% on every assignment
Geek = likes technology, dies if the power goes out and his UPS dies too
