wongojack

Wow - thats pretty awesome. Are you going to keep adding to it?

Good troubleshooting would dictate that you try it on a different display and plugged directly into the TV. Try a CRT TV if you've got one. Make a list of the games that are garbled and pay attention to if they are the same ones every time. Push all the buttons on the device and see if anything changes - switch the B/W switch too.

Do you have the cart mod installed?

An onboard SD card slot would add significantly to the unit cost also. Kind of premature to talk about cost. Curt's objection in the thread was that it would compete with Harmony and not that it would make it cost more, so I was going off that. Besides, you'd still have to buy some kind of 7800 flash cart which won't be free. I'd rather pay for it in the unit. There a homebrew focus to this thing after all. SD would be the easiest way to 'test' on a working system. Anyway - just keeping the thread warm

I love BSG, but TOS Blu Rays are amazing. You can switch back and forth between the old and remastered versions of the show almost instantly and there are tons of specials in there. I encourage you to try and acquire them, but I can't part with mine.

Juno First and Medieval Mayhem stand out for me. Was that Marble Craze game a homebrew? The one where you play with 2 paddles at the same time? That stands out as being really clever, but probably not in a top 10 etc.

That can still be done if the unit comes with an onboard SD cart slot.

Sloopy - I dunno if you if you still have this unit, but while I was working on my FB mod, the AV "sub board" became half connected at one point and I saw some similar results. Check to make sure that the gray wires leading to the sub board are fully connected. They are relatively easy to reconnect if that needs to be done, but use a magnifying glass.

@gnash - Hey did the Flashback on board games still work after you used this as a work around?

I was able to repair the 'lifted' pad by carefully sanding off the coating on the traces that lead to the pad area and then soldering my switch wire across them. It was a delicate repair, but when I was done, I tested and the Flashback rom worked again. At some point, the A/V wires came disconnected from the sub board - I didn't realize this was happening and got some unusual results while testing. I eventually had to strip and re-solder the A, Grd, and V. Continuity tests fine with the points on the top side of the board now so I think that is repaired. I proceeded with my mod and got the cart wires soldered on fairly easily, tinning both the wires and the pads was critical. Since the diagram shows lower J9 and upper J3 connected to the bottom lead of the switch, I assumed that it would NOT matter if I connected the corresponding wires manually - so I connected the lower pad of J9 to the lower pad of J3. When I did that, I tested the cart slot and got garbage. Then I connected to top and bottom of J3 - no change just garbage. It all seemed to be going great, but something isn't right. I switch back to the Flashback rom and it also looks just messy. Because I have a FB 2+ I used gnash's alternate pin 20 workaround that he identified here: http://www.atariage....ort-workaround/ Aside from just unknown stuff killing me, I think there could be 2 main places where I've screwed up. 1) Connecting the lower pad of J9 to the lower pad of J3. I'm actually using the upper pad of C7 as a work around - maybe this caused something to blow, but that seems unlikely. Perhaps someone else will comment on that. 2) Using the alternate pin 20. This is a pin directly connected to the ROM, so maybe my flashback doesn't like that. I checked for shorts around it and didn't find any. I'll pull that wire off tomorrow and see if there is any change. A possible 3rd place is my work around J9 - its a mess, but continuity checks out and I did test that the FB worked after I repaired it. Right now I actually have one wire connected to the top of J9 and the other connected to the top of C7. They connect and the FB did work connected like this. Thanks to BAtari for this work around. I guess another problem could be the A/V wires that came loose. My cart edge connector could also be flaky since I wasn't able to properly test it. If anyone wants to chime in and stop me from talking to myself, I will gladly welcome your advice.

I was thinking about this more and I think it needs to have an SD card. Curt said he didn't want to hurt Harmony sales, but I don't think you can avoid putting an SD on this thing just for that. Also 7800 games aren't supported by Harmony.

I got the resistor off just fine using the technique in the video, but then I immediately pulled the pad off when trying to solder a wire to the top pad of J9 - 5h!+ I guess I can hope that BAtari's work around works for me too, or maybe I'll just never play the flashback games on this one, or something else entirely. My mistake on this one was that I don't have a magnifying glass that I can strap to my head - the switch pads are smaller than the others and it really takes precision.

This guy sells pre-modded consoles on his website: http://electronicsen...%20Systems.html He has an ebay store and I believe posts on the boards as "LittleJoe" Here is a thread where he comments on the mods he's selling. He recently switched from the LHE mod to BAtari's mod, so its good stuff. Someone in the thread also comments on the Best Elec mod: http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/181120-current-video-mods-2600/

I've got pictures of what I've done so far here: https://skydrive.live.com/redir.aspx?cid=ec7bd1a81d3e9f22&page=play&resid=EC7BD1A81D3E9F22!127 I'll update that as I make more progress.

As far as my question about how to remove the resistor at J9, I found this video which seems to demonstrate the technique: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XyrNjNXSo8 The example is NOT on a Flashback.

Does the FB3 support a PAL display? If it does that might be one reason why it exists as I don't think any of the other FBs have done PAL.

I found some other posts on this. BAtari had trouble desoldering the resistor and offered this (in a different post): BTW, J9 is on the right near the yellow wires I soldered in. When I tried to desolder the 0 Ohm resistor at J9 I screwed up its solder pads so I followed the traces to R10 and C7 and soldered wires there instead. Indeed, shorting these connections does enable the FB2 ROM and it works properly so I know my screwup wasn't fatal. But carts don't work when shorting J3 and opening J9 I'm thinking I might just try to clip the little wire on the resistor and then use either R10 or C7, whichever is the actual switch. If I can use GRD for J3 this will mean not having to desolder the resistor and potentially f'ing it up. If anyone has advice for me that would be helpful

@Zoyx I agree that after you kind of figure it out, its too easy - at least you are still getting some value out of it 28yrs later.

Summary 1) How should I remove the jumper across J9? 2) Do J9 open AND J3 shorted both have to be true to use cart? 3) Can I wire the onboard/cart switch using GRD from J9 OR J3? I've got the cartridge slot all wired up and I'm getting ready to attach to the actual FB2+ board. Whats the best way to remove the resistor thats across J9? I'm not really experienced with this and I don't want to damage the pads underneath. Also the silkscreen says J3 Short = Game Cartridge J9 Open = Game Cartridge From the descriptions on this board about the various switches that people have built, I'm guessing that this is an AND condition, meaning both of these have to be true to get the game cart mode? Also, I pulled my cart slot off of a broken 4 switcher that had a broken power switch and would not display correctly, I proceeded to desolder the difficulty switches off of it and wanted to use one for the Onboard/Cart switch on the FB. These switches only have 3 "connectors" hanging down. Can I still use one of them? I think I should be able just to connect the ground of one of either J9 OR J3, or do they have to use their own ground? I would of course connect the other side of each to the switched position of the switch, something like this: Device is switched to J3 (cart) in the above example. Will that work?

I was randomly inspired to go for 999 on this game this week. I used my family's original light 6'er and my original Chopper Command cart. Good ole SlikStik got the job done.

I've got the Family's L6 and it works pretty well. Inside there was a scrap of paper with August 1981 stamped on it. It uses an aftermarket powersupply, and I had to do a repair on the solder pads that attach the power port to the mainboard. For years it was in the attic with a rubber band on the right difficulty switch and the power plug - it kept the plug in a position that would avoid the problem caused by the loose solder pad. As a result the right diff switch sometimes doesn't make great contact when set to B - so you get a small paddle in Video Olympics when not expecting it. I think I fixed this with some liberal application alcohol and wiping on the switch contacts. I recently got rid of all my Commodore stuff to a collector here locally. I had several CIB games (BT II, California Games), and a C64 SX. It felt like I'd given away a child, but none of it worked anymore, and I was making a choice not to put time into that particular hobby. Original NES still works well despite all the times I tried to beat the 5h!+ out of it playing Tecmo Bowl.

Thanks, thats what I thought - just wanted to verify

Digging up this thread to ask a question. After one does the BAtari mod (for which the solder points appear to be identical to the LHN mod), does the original RF out still work?

Hilarious thread . . . and Cebus, I totally got your joke the 1st time and I had no idea you were the lamp guy. Ern, Did this unit ever get fixed?

PB Frogger and Official Frogger are both pretty nice in the music dept