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Snowy picture on the old Atari :( (1 Viewer)

Ron1973

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After a good while, I dug out the Atari 2600 after buying "new" joysticks. I don't expect hi-def from an Atari, but I've never seen it this snowy/fuzzy looking. I've had it hooked up to this TV before (55" LG LED) and it was okay, but now it's kinda-sorta tolerable.

I'm not using the old video switch box, but I'm using a RCA to F connector and going to the antenna input on the back of the TV.

Would replacing the coax coming out of the unit possibly make a difference? I did it on another unit before, so I wouldn't have an issue. Any other suggestions?
 

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Long post, but Atari topics don't appear often so I'm going to take advantage of it. ;)

The F type adapter is the easiest and cheapest way to improve your video quality on your 2600. That's what I was going to post as I clicked on this thread topic...

But since you've clearly already done that and beat my easy advice to the punch (I hated tv/game switchboxes as a kid), you're getting interference as I'm sure you realize. Changing the cable wouldn't hurt if the replacement is better shielded, you could move things around to hopefully reduce the RF interference, shield your existing cable with aluminum foil, etc.

But sadly, RF stinks, the systems are aging and not necessarily fully within original specifications (To be expected when the oldest are fast approaching 40 years of age), and the increasing amount of wireless signals just makes the modern environment that much less hospitable for such a thing. Really the best way is to leave RF behind and perform a composite and/or S-Video modification and leave picture troubles behind.

I've done it to my 2600, 5200, and 7800 and been pleased with all three (Or more accurately, paid someone else that designed an add-on video circuit to do the work). If you're handy, you could do it yourself by buying the video board to install yourself, or with a more basic mod, put it together yourself with capacitors and such while following instructions. If not, there are folks that can help for a relatively small fee.

The forums at AtariAge are the place to go for things like this. I think my S-Video modification for my VCS was done by a user named Longhorn Engineering. Not sure if he's still around, but I've been extremely pleased.

http://atariage.com/forums/index.php

Lots of other neat stuff around there, as well. Take this upcoming multicart for instance that will allow you to play 2600 homebrews like this on your 2600 (And anything else available, including Supercharger cassette games like the Official Frogger).

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/220696-new-harmony-product-harmony-encore/



If you're familiar with the Asteroids conversion for this system (And I bet you are since it's one of the most common games for it), this should really amaze since the modern hobbyiest have done things with this hardware that couldn't be imagined back in the late 70's and early 80's.
 

Ron1973

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Leo, I love the idea. I had looked at buying an already modified unit before that had RGB cables coming out. Right now, though, I think I'll be happy simply replacing the cable. It is something to do with the cable; I accidentally jiggled it around last night, and like magic, I had clean "sharp" (for an Atari) picture again.

In the future I will keep it in mind about upgrading the system. I've seen before/after photos of the RGB system and it's like night and day. Right now, I'm just playing for an hour or two at night after my kids go to bed, although my oldest son (he's 18) has decided he wants to play against me on Pac-Man this weekend....lol :D
 

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I'm seriously tempted to buy one of those Ataris that have already been modified with the newer connection. Haven't played in years! I wonder if I could finally beat that Ghostbusters game that always used to kick my ass as a kid.
 

Ron1973

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Josh Steinberg said:
I'm seriously tempted to buy one of those Ataris that have already been modified with the newer connection. Haven't played in years! I wonder if I could finally beat that Ghostbusters game that always used to kick my ass as a kid.
Games I used to absolutely own are now kicking my tail! I tore up Pac-Man, but I got bored out of my mind. No scene changes, and the ghosts are absolutely predictable. When you're 40, your reaction time isn't as good as when you were 10!
 

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Ron1973 said:
When you're 40, your reaction time isn't as good as when you were 10!
I'm worried that's going to be true even at 31! I wasn't that good when I was 10...
 

Ron1973

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Josh Steinberg said:
I'm worried that's going to be true even at 31! I wasn't that good when I was 10...
My mother and I were reminiscing about how we used to stay up half the night playing it. She loved it, but a good friend of mine who used to come over was absolutely befuddled at her. She could play Pac-Man round after round without tiring, and was absolutely so good that the ghosts would just go to the escape hatch and stay! Now her hands can't even work good enough to play. It would be a kick for her to play me a round again!
 

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Be sure to track down Ms. Pac-Man and Jr. Pac-Man, if you haven't already. Both are cheap and easy to locate, and are far better efforts than the infamous Pac-Man port programmed by Tod Frye.



Note for the uninitiated that might watch these, the flickering graphics don't look like that on a real tv. Only every other frame is recorded here, making the flickering look far worse than it actually is.



If you acquire a reprogrammable multicart like being discussed in a forum discussion I linked to earlier in this thread, it opens up some far superior conversions like this new one that's under development.



He's doing this all in 4K, the same constraint that Tod Frye had back in the day since Atari wouldn't let him use an 8K rom chip in order to keep costs down. And he's doing it in his free time and surely has invested a lot less effort into it than Frye did, despite the limited development schedule that Atari granted him.

All that's missing essentially are the intermissions. And the audio being pushed through the 2600's TIA chip sound almost exactly like the arcade original

Frye's heart just wasn't in it, it appears.
 

Ron1973

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I got Ms. Pac Man for Christmas one year. I saw someone playing it at their house and was absolutely enthused. Jr. Pac Man I tracked down about 20 years when I was working for Radio Shack. For some reason, Radio Shack Unlimited (RSU) offered a variety of the old games, and for a while, the console itself. I ordered Jr. and Joust through the program. I should've ordered more games looking back on it.
 

Ron1973

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Count me impressed! I've been reading through stuff and I'm completely in awe of what they're able to do with the 2600.

I was always impressed with the 3rd party manufacturers as opposed to Atari proper. Atari had some good titles, but Activision, Nintendo, and Imagic all consistently had good titles. Of course, later on Atari ported some Nintendo titles.
 

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Was Keystone Koppers (I think that's the name) Activision? That was my favorite game as a little kid. The Activision HQ used to be near my house growing up and we used to hear rumors they recruited school kids to test games. I have no idea if that was actually true, but we looked at the building with the awe that the kids in Willy Wonka had for the chocolate factory building.
 

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There are even 2600 games with high score save capabilities, something we all would've thought was impossible as kids. They use a homebrew voice add-on that plugs into the 2nd joystick port (Itself, a neat homebrew addition), which also includes some memory to store that score data.





Ron1973 said:
I was always impressed with the 3rd party manufacturers as opposed to Atari proper. Atari had some good titles, but Activision, Nintendo, and Imagic all consistently had good titles. Of course, later on Atari ported some Nintendo titles.

Nintendo never actually did any programming on Atari platforms. Back then, they licensed their properties out for home use.

On the Atari 2600, Coleco (Also Atari's competitor with the Colecovision game console, back in the days when platform holders also released games on competing hardware) was behind the Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr. ports. Atari, when they resurrected the VCS with the 2600 Jr. during the late 80's, bought Coleco's rights to these and rereleased them.

Incidentally, Donkey Kong was almost as famous as Pac-Man for how poorly done the 2600 effort was. Homebrewers have put it to shame, as shown by a video below of a level not even present in Coleco's effort.



Mario Bros. was licensed by Atari and done in-house. And Popeye and Sky Skipper (A game that went virtually unnoticed in arcades) were licensed and released by Parker Brothers.

I think that covers the Nintendo properties that appeared on the VCS.

Josh Steinberg said:
Was Keystone Koppers (I think that's the name) Activision? That was my favorite game as a little kid.

It was, but it was called Keystone Kapers. :)
 

Ron1973

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Josh Steinberg said:
Was Keystone Koppers (I think that's the name) Activision? That was my favorite game as a little kid.The Activision HQ used to be near my house growing up and we used to hear rumors they recruited school kids to test games. I have no idea if that was actually true, but we looked at the building with the awe that the kids in Willy Wonka had for the chocolate factory building.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keystone_Kapers
 

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