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The Sixer-Fixer-upper: Revisited


Nathan Strum

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So, remember when I foolishly wrote this?

Quote

So that brings us up to the present. It's been my intention since July to fix my 2600. Again. Permanently. Again.

 

(I should point out by "permanently" I don't mean actually expect it to keep working "forever", but rather that everything gets fully fixed, and nothing is lingering. So "completely" is probably more accurate, although I'm certainly hoping for some longevity.)

I guess two years counts as "some longevity". :roll:

 

Because yesterday, after recently moving back to Seattle*, I finally unpacked my 2600, hooked it up for the first time, and got this:

pac-meh.JPG

 

pac-meh-2.JPG

 

Looks suspiciously like the pics in that other blog post, doesn't it? (I'm assuming you clicked on the link. If you didn't... how do you know I'm not lying? Or maybe there's something really spectacularly awesome you're missing over there! How can you even sleep at night not having clicked it? Do it! Do it now!!)

 

Right... so it looks like I get to take my 2600 apart again. Not sure what happened. Hopefully something just worked loose. I really packed my 2600 well, so it shouldn't really have been bounced around any. But what happens in a POD, stays in a POD. Or something.

 

(The world's briefest 2600 repair later...)

 

Well, that was easy. Three of the chips (including the mod board) had worked themselves a little loose from their sockets and just had to be popped back down. Probably because of the rather extreme temperature differentials between Southern California and an unusually snowy Seattle, plus being jostled around for 1100 miles during the move.

 

Anyway - it's all back-to-normal now:

pac-man-up.JPG

 

Usually I have my 2600 hooked up to my 46" Sony HDTV, but that didn't make the trip. It was over 16 years old, the backlight was starting to get spotty, and the thing weighed 90 pounds! (Just about ruined myself getting it off the wall.) I can pick up a newer, bigger, lighter, better, and faster-responding HDTV for a fraction of what I paid for that one. Besides, there just wasn't enough room in the POD for its box. But I kept my Sony CRT, tuner, and various and sundry gaming-related sundries (s-video switcher, color bar generator, etc.), so I can get back to playing (and helping develop) homebrews.

 

Now then... all I need to do is figure out in which of the 70 or so boxes I packed, are my AtariVox and Harmony cart's SD cards. :ponder:  :roll: 

 

 

 

*After a brief absence of only 31 years. I'm much happier now.

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There are condos everywhere. It's like driving down canyons made of ugly architecture.

 

Funny you should mention the missing Blockbusters though - I passed by a couple of former locations the other day, and was kind-of lamenting them. Well, maybe not Blockbuster in particular, but that era of home video rental. Discovering new favorites, hunting for elusive rarities, binge-watching cartoons or sci-fi, or just renting really, really awful movies for the sake of making fun of them.

 

Speaking of which... I wonder if I should go see the new Avatar flick?

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Did you land a new gig? Speaking of gigs, is your old email address still valid? Lemme know sometime and we can catch up. 

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