7800 help

[Troytn]

I recently bought an Atari 7800 off of Ebay. The ad stated fully working with all connectors. Well got it today. It was missing the tv hookup. I went to radio shack and bought an RCA to coax connector.

 

Well the 7800 does not work. It came with 6 games, only Ms Pacman works but its only in black and white :-( (any suggestions why?)

 

There seems to be alot of play where the cartridge sits in the system. I have to really wiggle the game to get it to come on. NOt good.

 

The seller has over 200 positives on Ebay. I have sent him an email but my guess is I was taken. Is there anything you suggest I can do?

 

What a bummer. I had to wait a week for it and now its junk. I guess its the risk I take buying on Ebay.

I paid $40 for it and 6 games.

 

The rca-f connector to coax should not have an effect on the color would it? tried some of my 2600 games and they are in black and white as well.

 

Any suggestions on a respectable place to buy a working 7800?

 

I have several 2600 games and 7800 games but need a 7800 console.

 

Thanks for all you suggestions. A great forum here.

 

Troy

[Lemmi]

First thing i would do is clean all the connections , carts, system and try it again, and there is a pause button on the 7800 that might be messing with the color put MS pacman back in and press the pause button and see what happens

[Troytn]

Thanks for the suggestion..

 

Can you direct me to what I may use to clean it? I can clean each game individually but how wold one access where the games attach to the unit?

 

Meaning how would one clean the actual 7800 connections?

 

Q-tip?

 

Thanks again

[Lemmi]

Well for cleaning the system connection i used to use a piece of cardboard with a thin piece of cloth ( like an old thin pillow case ) and place it over the entire piece of cardboard and then i would wet one side of the cloth and stick it in the slot and move it up and down then flip it over and use the dry side to dry it out

 

 

 

there is probably a better way that others have but thats the way i used to do it before i found a cleaner that works in all systems

[Troytn]

Lemmi,

THAT DID IT!

All is working well. I took an old tee shirt very thin tee shirt, took an atari cartride and put he tee shirt over the cartridge end and used contact cleaner and sprayed the tee shirt, inserted the game cartridge while the damp tee shirt over it into the 7800. Whalla..the system works great! I also cleaned each game.

 

On the color thing...It seems the Atari will not display bright vibrant colors on my 60 big screen tv? Anyone have any idea why? It displays very dull washed out color almost black and white.

 

I took the 7800 and hooked it to my 27" tv and beautiful colors!

Does not make sense to me anyone?

 

anyone use an atari an a big screen?

 

Thanks agin for the help

[Lemmi]

Great glad to hear everything is working well now

 

as for the Huge ass TV you got i think its just to big for the 7800

[Albert]

On the color thing...It seems the Atari will not display bright vibrant colors on my 60 big screen tv? Anyone have any idea why? It displays very dull washed out color almost black and white.

 

Are you hooking the 7800 directly to the projection TV? If so, perhaps it doesn't have a very good internal tuner, or at least one that works well with the 7800. I would try hooking the 7800 up to a VCR and then running the output of the VCR to the TV. Others in the past have reported getting a better signal by doing this.

 

If that doesn't help, maybe you can find someone willing to modify your 7800 with s-video or composite output. I have a 7800 with s-video output and it looks fantastic hooked up to my Sony Wega television, as well as Commodore 1702 monitors.

 

..Al

[jsoper]

On some 7800's, the colors for 2600 games are not as strong as the ones for 7800 games.

[Troytn]

Well I got my 7800 up with full color on my 65" HD widescreen. I was trying to run the coax through my HD Directv receiver on analog channel 3. It won't do it.

 

So I ran coax to my vcr which then runs composite to my Denon avr 5803 reciever which upconverts composite video to component output to my 65" tv. Ol glorious Atari on my 65" set.

 

I even use the stretch modes on the tv to full the entire 16x9 screen with Atari so I do not get screen burn in.

 

Thanks all for the help.

 

I may have to start looking for more games!

 

I still find Atari games more fun then todays Xbox/gamecube games. Maybe its because I grew up with them in the 80's.

 

I wonder why the xbox and gamecube do not come outwith Atari classic games? Man what they could do with graphics on those machines to the classic Atari games.

 

I would buy one if it had newer versions of these games. I guess its a trademark thing. I bet with the storage capacity of these new games one could put 3-4 entire Atari games on one xbox dvd...