Been meaning to grab my old 2600 from mom's house for the last four years and finally did so a couple months ago. It was our original family system from Christmas 1980 and I used it til about 1990 when I packed it away. I could never get into any other console beyond the 2600.
Got it home and grabbed an old 13" TV I had in the garage and the thing fired right up. It was fun remembering how much fun some of these games are and might explain why I've come to love the old B&W vids. So I played it like this for a couple days and then got lost in an internet worm hole for about 4 hours after discovering Atari age. Whoa! Harmony cart (clicked add to cart instantly) whoa! Electronic Sentimentalities s-video/comp/stereo audio board (add to cart)....
I received and installed the video board first. During install I also replaced caps, voltage regulator and cleaned all the switches, along with a small switch that toggles the audio outs from stereo to mono. I'm glad I did it, there are a number of the newer home brews that were programmed with stereo in mind.
The s-video looked amazing on my 37" LCD and the sound is awesome through my system. BUT.... I found the input delay lag on the lcd to be maddening (even with game mode on). Games that required precise timing and fast scrolling images were awful to play. Went back to the little 13" CRT for a couple weeks.
Kept an eye out on CL for a curved CRT with s-video and found this 20" about 30min from me for $10. Upon first test I was blown away. Kaboom! is stunning and got my best score ever on the first game.
Composite into new TV.
S-video into new TV.
S-video into new TV.
I wasn't gonna use the internal speakers and I didn't want to look at that awful looking case so I decased the TV and made a stand for about 17 bucks.
Perfect little table. Harmony cart is pretty damn cool. When I was doing the video mod I knew the harmony needed to be power cycled to change games so I added the red momentary button to the back of the unit to interrupt power for selecting new game.
Took a peek into the wico stick to see why it was so badass feeling and it quickly made sense after seeing the orgy of leaf switches packed in there.
Was fun to re-discover and upgrade this unit. Been a blast playing and will continue to be for years.
good day.