Oops! & New Video Mod

A.J. Franzman · Post by **A.J. Franzman** » Fri Feb 18, 2005 4:57 am

First the oops: while working on final development of my new composite video mod tonight, I accidentally hit a corner of my only 2600 board with the 9-volt battery snap "tail" of my universal battery eliminator (now insulated, D'oh!), and the Atari died. After a bit of testing, I discovered that the 6532 chip (a.k.a. PIA, RIOT and Atari part number C010750) is toast.

If anyone has a RIOT chip to offer, it will help me complete the mod and get it out to you that much faster! I know Best Electronics has it, but their price is $8 plus shipping and they have a $20 minimum order...

Here are some details on the new mod: it will be a bit more work to install than Ben's mod [EDIT: Ben's first composite mod], and involves disconnecting/removing some parts from the board. It uses a few more parts but only one active component, a transistor. It gives exactly the same colors as the original RF output with no additional adjustments (only a slight tweak of the color pot already on the 2600 board may be needed), and should have no sync issues at all. In fact, it optionally allows adding in the blanking signal from TIA pin 6 that is not connected on most or all 2600 motherboards. Including this signal may give a slightly brighter picture, and may improve sync stability with some screens. There will be new info I discovered about the Atari's video, and some additional optional upgrades that can be incorporated into the mod which may give more improvement to the image quality.

When I have completed testing and refining the mod, I'll give Ben the first option to post it on his site. If he accepts, you'll get it here first!

Post by **gannon** » Fri Feb 18, 2005 10:15 am

I could sell you one for $5 plus shipping. It was going to be for my 2600 pcb design, but I don't have the skill to etch it myself or the money right now to have it etched for me

HK-47 · Post by **HK-47** » Fri Feb 18, 2005 2:39 pm

http://www.vintagefunworld.com/
These guys have riot chips for $4 each. Theres an ok company, I bought an atari 2600 off em. Anyway, will this mod allow the psone screen to be used?

A.J. Franzman · Post by **A.J. Franzman** » Fri Feb 18, 2005 9:49 pm

HK-47 wrote:http://www.vintagefunworld.com/
These guys have riot chips for $4 each. Theres an ok company, I bought an atari 2600 off em. Anyway, will this mod allow the psone screen to be used?

Thanks for the lead, I might be ordering from them (unless Gannon or someone else comes in lower

).

The mod I'm working on should work on any TV, monitor or screen that works with NTSC composite video input, even those that have problems with Ben's mod. The only Atari board I have is a 4-switch, NTSC, revision 14 board. According to the service manual at AA, the mod will also work as described on revision 15, 16 or higher NTSC 4-switch boards.

For other boards, it may need to be adapted - I won't be able to tell for certain until/unless I get those other boards, though. And I'm not in the market - I'm only sharing what I learned over the course of about 2 weeks developing this mod for my own one-time use, so if anyone wants me to verify it on other boards, you'll need to send me your board (or complete console) plus return postage and about $10 for parts and labor. If it doesn't work I'll refund the parts & labor cost and return the board to you, restored to stock configuration. For PAL boards, you'll need to send me a PAL screen too.

Anyway, all of this is getting a bit speculative since I haven't finished verifying the mod on my own board yet! It did look good before I killed my RIOT chip, though.

Post by **gannon** » Fri Feb 18, 2005 10:24 pm

hmm... is that the 4050 mod you're doing?

A.J. Franzman · Post by **A.J. Franzman** » Sat Feb 19, 2005 1:24 am

No, it's a mod that I haven't seen on the internet. (Believe me, I searched very hard to try to find them all!) It's slightly based on the CD4050 mod but does not use an IC. It is not the same as the mod that replaces the CD4050 with jumper wires either. In its basic form it uses fewer parts than either version of that mod.

Post by **gannon** » Sat Feb 19, 2005 11:42 am

hmmm.... does it use any ICs, or does it just use resistors?

HK-47 · Post by **HK-47** » Sat Feb 19, 2005 1:17 pm

It uses a few more parts but only one active component, a transistor.

A.J. Franzman · Post by **A.J. Franzman** » Sat Feb 19, 2005 3:26 pm

Gannon, I said it doesn't use an IC. HK's quote is from another thread, where I said it uses more parts than Ben's mod (but it still uses less than either version of the 4050 mod).

HK-47 · Post by **HK-47** » Sat Feb 19, 2005 3:51 pm

A.J. Franzman wrote:Gannon, I said it doesn't use an IC. HK's quote is from another thread, where I said it uses more parts than Ben's mod (but it still uses less than either version of the 4050 mod).

What are you talking about? I quoted you from the first post in the thread...

Post by **gannon** » Sat Feb 19, 2005 4:33 pm

lol, I guess we're all getting confused

I guess the transistor is for amplifying the signal

A.J. Franzman · Post by **A.J. Franzman** » Sat Feb 19, 2005 6:19 pm

HK-47 wrote:
A.J. Franzman wrote:Gannon, I said it doesn't use an IC. HK's quote is from another thread, where I said it uses more parts than Ben's mod (but it still uses less than either version of the 4050 mod).
What are you talking about? I quoted you from the first post in the thread...

Silly me, thinking I didn't already answer Gannon's question in this thread...

Gannon, SCROLL UP!

HK-47 · Post by **HK-47** » Sat Feb 26, 2005 2:59 pm

Hey, has anyone seen this mod before? Any indication on how good it is?
http://www.atariware.cl/pixel/sec/eng/2600av.htm

Post by **gannon** » Sat Feb 26, 2005 3:05 pm

I've seen that mod before. That's the one I designed into my atari pcb actually

HK-47 · Post by **HK-47** » Sat Feb 26, 2005 3:15 pm

Is it any good? Im thinking about spending $60 (man thats expensive) on the cybertech mod since it looks the best. But is this one any good? Worse or better than bens mod? Maybe I should email nathan strum and tell him about this, since he has a mod comparison page...
http://www.cheeptech.com/2600mods/2600mods.shtml
EDIT: I cant spell...