Atari 2600

This is the Rev. A Atari 2600 Jr. The 'Rev. A' is identifiable by the silver decal in teh middle, the Rev. A has the rainbow thing going on in there. I bought this on ebay with its original box a while back. It also came with its original accessories: the 'Outlaw' Cartridge, the RF connector, instruction manual and power adaptor. I immediately opened it up to make some mods (explained below). Recently I disconnected it from my TV in the living room. I needed the shelf space for my Sega Master System, and more importantly the 2600 cartridges and its slot can cause alot of headaches, as opposed to the emulator which I play daily...and which causes ZERO problems. I put it back in its box to wait for the next time its called upon...

Here is a shitload of joysticks and controllers. The 2 with the shiny rainbow decals (which coincidentally matches my Rev. A 2600 Jr.) are actually Atari 7800 joysticks. They have the same connector and work fine with the 2600. These are in great condition but are difficult and uncomfortable to use. I bought them in ebay along with the set of paddles you see below. I made a tiny and simple 'mod' to those...I applied a sticker to the bottom of the player 1 paddle, since Atari does not identify which is which (and since they are both part of a singular controller plug/port), you have to trace out the wires each time otherwise. You can also see the original stock 2600 joystick -- which is a bit worn out -- and one more after that....
My buddy Dave hooked me up with this, its a 3rd party made 2600 joystick from back in the day. the handle assembly has been broken/lost/removed and its actually more comfortable now. I call it my 'Bob Barker' Joystick becuase of its simple and thin design. I use it exclusively when I play emulators and its very sensitive, durable and comfortable. Why Atari themselves could never build something this decent (in terms of controllers) is beyond me.

Attached to the end of it is something called the Stelladaptor. It allows you to connect a regular old school 9 pin Atari joystick to your USB port on your computer so when you play emulators, its the real deal (kind of). Maybe now you understand why I disconnected my actual Atari console. I bought this thing from Atariage.com for like $30, but it is not and has not been available for a long time now.

I converted my 2600 to have composite outputs, like a VCR. This saves you the trouble of fucking with that switchbox like the Atari came with. On the circuit board you see suspended from the motherboard are some resistors and also some potentiometers to adjust color saturation/etc. Worked out really well.

Games:

I am most interested in games made by Activision. Specifically, I am interested in those with the 'Standard' Style of cartridge design/art. You can see what I mean here. There are 33 of them, heres the list:

1. Decathlon
2. Barnstorming
3. Boxing
4. Bridge
5. Checkers
6. Chopper Command
7. Crackpots
8. Dolphin
9. Dragster
10. Enduro
11. Fishing Derby
12. Freeway
13. Frostbite
14. Grand Prix
15. Ice Hockey
16. Kaboom!
17. Keystone Kapers
18. Laser Blast
19. Megamania
20. Oink!
21. Pitfall!
22. Plaque Attack
23. Pressure Cooker
24. River Raid
25. Robot Tank
26. Seaquest
27. Skiing
28. Sky Jinks
29. Space Shuttle
30. Spider Fighter
31. Stampede
32. Starmaster
33. Tennis

Activision hands down made the best and most fun games. I have a few in boxes and I have a few more that came with instructions. The only exception to this rule is the 'white label' version of Space Shuttle. That is the most rare Activision game overall so I had to have it even tho it isnt part of the 'Standard 33'.




Portable 2600

I learned of this guy named Ben Heckendorn somewhere along the way. He figured out how to make a 2600 into a GameBoy style portable by hacking apart a real 2600 as well as a portable TV. He wrote a book about it that explains how to do it and sells kits for the case. I've started working on mine, but I also invested some dough into his project to mass produce them and as a return on my moneys I got one for free.

Heres the 2600 Phoenix which I got for free:

Here is the current progress of my own, the VCSp: