The case for the unit was actually the hardest part to design. The first month of the project was wiring and figuring out what did what on the Atari board. Up until now I had mostly just torn things off and re-wired them. But the case was the thing I actually had to design. The case had to contain a circuit board (the original Atari guts), the video screen and its circuit board, the cartridge slot, the batteries, the controls and the power/volume switches. Most importantly, it had to look COOL! In order to look 'cool', it had to be as small as possible. Obviously this depended on the size of the main circuit board...

The rear half of the unit.

  The unit was done in 2 halves. The rear half contains nothing but the circuit board and the cartridge slot connector. There might be some electric tape back there, too.  Early on I realized that the cartridge would have to stick straight up. It saved room, since it sat on TOP of the circuit board, and not beside it, on the same level (like a Gameboy). 

  Had I made the cartridge slot like the Gameboy, it would have made the length of the unit about 4 inches longer at the top! Besides, sticking straight up is 1): a sun-screen 2): more like the original Atari. 3): different!

  As you can see by the above picture, the circuit board and case was about as small as it was going to get! The blue thing in the lower left corner is one of the potimeters that I used to adjust the video. (see a few pages back). It took about one zillion years to solder the ribbon cable between the circuit board and the new cartridge slot, but it allowed me to put the cartridge slot wherever I wanted.

Now for the Front Half of the case!

The front half of the unit. (interior)  

The front half of the unit had a lot more stuff in it, of course. That's where the action 
is, you know!

LEGEND (of Zelda)

A): The circuit board of the portable television. The portion near the 'A' has the screen, so it's the thickest. To the left is just circuit board, since that's where the batteries were on the original pocket TV. This space allowed me to place the Control Pad Circuit Board (E) right on top on it. (well, it appears BELOW it here). In the lower left corner of the TV circuit board you can just make out a screw that attaches to control circuit board, holding the TV circuit in place.

B): The speaker. It's actually the speaker that came with the pocket TV, so, yeah! It's heavily hot-glued into place, and several holes were (manually!) drilled in the case to let sound through. Just to the right of the speaker is the back of the Power Switch. Luckily for me, the original Atari power switch could turn 2 different circuits on and off at once. I wired it so it would turn on the TV and the Atari at the same time, but on different circuits! They must have been thinking ahead back in '77...

C): The place where the 9 volt hooks up. It had to be tough to with stain the insertion force!

D): The volume control knob. It's an off-the shelf model from Radio Shack. The silver colored knob also came from Radio Shack. It looked the most vintage 1970's of all the knobs they had.

F): This thick section of the case holds the batteries. I crudely drew where they are. If you look back a few pages, you can see them from the front.

Getting the slots and compartments for the batteries was a bit tricky, since the Computerized Router that I used to make the case could only do XYZ up and down, not from the left or right. The cutting bit could go up and down (for depth) and left right up down or diagonal (for shapes.)

It's hard to explain kinda. The best analogy would be that it was like designing a level for Doom, where it seems 3-D, but you're really only making a 2-D map.

Or maybe... Ever see one of those pin-things, where a zillion pins are under glass, and you can put your hand against it to make a shape? Well, it's like that. Everything has a position and depth, but that's it. Course, I reckon most molds and castings are kinda like that.

Well, that's about it for the story behind the making of the Atari 2600 VCSp. Thanks for coming along for the ride!

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