Posted on May 11th, 2008 by JMT.
Categories: Articles.
I found an atari 2600 at a flea market. Of course I got the “it worked the last time my kids played with it 300 years ago” response, which means chances of working are about 5%.
The unit would not turn on. So I cracked ‘er open.
The first thing I noticed was that the right-angle power plug was loose. In fact, it was so loose the soldered contacts weren’t connected anymore. The plug pins were kind of floating in the pcb holes. I tried holding it to the side to force contact, and it still wouldn’t turn on. So at first I thought that wasn’t it. I was also able to read +13v all through the unit.
Unable to find anything else to try, I figured I’d give that powerplug a try anyway. So I resoldered the 3 pins on. And lo and behold, now it works!
So if anyone has a non-functional 2600, check that power input connector.
But the story doesn’t end there. The On/off switch was very touchy. The system would reset itself constantly unless the switch was in just the right position. So I sprayed electrical contact cleaner inside the switch and played it back and forth a bunch. And viola, now the On/Off switch is as solid as the day it was born.
So if anyone has twitchy switches no their 2600, try spraying contact cleaner in them.
The contact cleaner also helps twitchy paddle-controllers, but only about 50% of the time. Also, the paddle controllers tend to need re-cleaning every so often, kind of like 5200 joysticks.
This 2600 I got came with 3 sets of paddle controllers. One was junked, one was twitchy, and the cleaner only fixed the player-2 paddle. However, the 3rd set of paddle controllers is as smooth as a baby’s bottom. Better than any of the sets I already had.
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