difficult carts on your sixer? This might help

[+SpiceWare]

I've seen a number of references to people having problems putting some cartridges into their six switch Atari. I have as well, but never worried much about it because I would just play those games via my Krokodile Cartridge instead.

 

I recently acquired the new Harmony Cartridge as I'm interested in using its enhanced abilities, such as the Pitfall 2 DPC chip, in a future project. Turns out the Harmony I have uses one of the cartridge cases that's a tad difficult to put into my Atari.

 

I looked at the dust covers of the Atari and the Harmony cartridge and figured out that one of them must not be opening (or not opening fully), which would cause it to be difficult to insert the cartridge.

 

I first attempted to pre-open the Harmony cartridge and keep it open (by squeezing gently on the cartridge) while inserting it into the Atari. That didn't work, so I figured the problem had to be the cover in the Atari. While looking at the Atari I tipped the case back and I noticed that the slot cover opened up. I tried inserting the Harmony while keeping the Atari tipped, and it went in w/out any hassle!

 

Slot cover closed on the Atari

 

Atari tipped

 

Slot cover open on the tipped Atari

 

I tried this with other problem cartridges and it helped most of them as well. A couple times the slot didn't open right away, but I was able to get it to by gently tapping on the Atari.

 

As always, YMMV - ie: if the springs in your Atari are strong than the springs in mine, then tipping the Atari may not open the slot cover.

Edited March 17, 2010 by SpiceWare

[shadow460]

The dust cover on my Sears H6 is actually stuck open. Beats me as to why, but as long as it works and the console still looks classy, I'm OK with it.

[A.J. Franzman]

As always, YMMV - ie: if the springs in your Atari are strong than the springs in mine, then tipping the Atari may not open the slot cover.

They don't use springs. There's a strip of sponge rubber adhered to the side of the flap. By now, a large proportion of that rubber is either disintegrated or permanently flattened, so I believe the covers in most consoles only close by gravity now.

 

Side note: Many of you may have noticed that the flap never completely closed, even when the console was new. While working on building a handheld console, I had the opportunity to disassemble and examine a cart port. I discovered that the flap is incapable of fully closing due to dimensional errors in the original design. However, since I figured my portable would be subject to a lot more dust than most consoles, I spent some time with a bench grinder and a file to make it work properly, by removing some material from the flap itself, as well as from the upper side of the female card-edge connector. I also put in some fresh foam weatherstripping to make sure it would close without help of gravity.

[+SpiceWare]

Interesting - I'd seen the springs in the cartridges and figured they'd done likewise in the console. Thanks for the info!

 

Hmm, how easy was it to disassemble the cartridge port? Might be more convenient for me to permanently remove the cover.

[A.J. Franzman]

Hmm, how easy was it to disassemble the cartridge port? Might be more convenient for me to permanently remove the cover.

Not terribly easy unless you've done something similar before, at least on a 4-switcher. You have to unsolder the connector from the board (24 pins) to remove it, then you can get at the screws that hold the plastic guide onto the card-edge connector. I believe other console styles will require similar effort.

[+SpiceWare]

I think I'll stick with tipping then. Thanks!

[seanhq]

I think I'll stick with tipping then. Thanks!

I find standing on my head while inserting cartridges into the tipped console helps too

[bah]

One thing I have noticed with my 4 switch is that certain carts would not go in easy or at all. Both of these had the inner cover slid back exposing the circuit board and the inner spring was not strong enough to slide the dust cover on the cart forward and latch it. When the board hits first it causes friction so that the outer tabs can't release the dust shield in the cartridge port.

 

Medieval Mayhem, is it possible that the carts that don't work are not latched so that the sliding inner cover doesn't push the 2600 dust shield open before the circuit board hits it?

 

bah

[Lynxpro]

Hmmm... And here I thought this was going to be a thread about various games that didn't play properly on a Sixer.

 

I would really like to know if I was the only person on the planet with a Sixer that didn't properly play Air Sea Battle. 6 different carts bought - and returned - from different stores and it never worked for us... That really cheesed off my Dad back then; mainly because he wanted to play it!

[coyo5050]

Ahh, this probably explains why I was having so much trouble putting my Harmony cart in a Sears 6 switch I just got. It always goes in to my 7800 just fine which is what I normally use.

[Herbarius]

I would really like to know if I was the only person on the planet with a Sixer that didn't properly play Air Sea Battle. 6 different carts bought - and returned - from different stores and it never worked for us... That really cheesed off my Dad back then; mainly because he wanted to play it!

 

I would guess it's an unusually "selective" damage in your VCS. Maybe one chip that works "almost perfectly", so most games play fine, but coincidentally Air-Sea-Battle depends on that one tiny bit that's malfunctioning.

 

I hope I'm making sense.

Edited March 24, 2010 by Herbarius

[Mirage]

I'm not sure if this is related, but my Harmony, from day 1, has been super hard to fit into ANY of my 2600's. I have to really mess with it to get it in to the point where once it's in there, I'm afraid to take it out. But I do because I don't want to wear out the slot. I've tried it out on at least 10 different regular 2600's (heavy/light/4/6/woody/vader) as well as Juniors. Same thing in all. So, it sounds like it may be a spring or something on the Harmony?

[+SpiceWare]

Medieval Mayhem, is it possible that the carts that don't work are not latched so that the sliding inner cover doesn't push the 2600 dust shield open before the circuit board hits it?

It's SpiceWare - "Medieval Mayhem" is my Custom Status as the picture I used for my avatar is from a game I wrote. You can set your custom status in your profile, it's directly above the setting for gender.

 

I imagine there's any number of reasons a cartridge won't go into an Atari. I just figured out this "tip the console" solution and thought I'd share in case it helped out others.

[potatohead]

Seems to me a tiny shot of silicone would clear this up. I just checked my sixer, and the door stays closed, but does stick a bit, depending on the shape of the tabs on the carts. I think I'm going to use just a bit of silicone on it, when the time comes. I've a few carts that I use regularly, and that's Harmony, My "show off" copy of MM, Space Invaders, KABOOM (which is one that sticks slightly), and Super Breakout, all work well. Some of the funky shaped carts stick, but I don't use them enough to worry. Mostly I'm either programming the thing, or sharing it with a few friends.

 

The tip helped with KABOOM, BTW.

[Nukey Shay]

I would really like to know if I was the only person on the planet with a Sixer that didn't properly play Air Sea Battle. 6 different carts bought - and returned - from different stores and it never worked for us... That really cheesed off my Dad back then; mainly because he wanted to play it!

Necrobump due to a linked post...but it might help to know what the effect is that you are experiencing.

 

Something that is pretty uncommon for Air-Sea Battle specifically is that the program does not mask collision register values before they are passed to temporary ram (ie bits 0 to 5 are automatically assumed to be zero by this program). Faulty collision-detection causing problems?

 

 

LF0B2:
      lda $B2,X  ;4
      sta NUSIZ0 ;3
      sta REFP0  ;3
      lda CXM0P  ;3
      lsr        ;2
      lsr        ;2
      ora CXM1P  ;3
      sta $D9,X  ;4

 

This glitch and some others were corrected in the palette-select hack I did long ago. Should be located in the Supercharger hack thread, IIRC.