Paddles not working on my Atari 7800

[Kaboom69]

Hey guys,

so I got an Atari 7800 but my paddles don't move on it, although the buttons on it work. I know for a fact the paddles work as I tried them on a different system. What should I do?

[GroovyBee]

What game(s) have you tested them on?

[Underball]

I had one 7800 console the couldn't use paddles either. I believe certain revisions of the 7800 motherboard have trouble with paddles. The paddles are locked in the position all the way to the right. My same paddles work just fine on a later 7800 board though.

 

Oddly enough, the one that couldn't use paddles had none of the Activision FE banking game compatibility issues. Robot Tank, space Shuttle and Decthlon all worked fine.

 

My later 7800 that could use paddles fine had problems with Decathlon and Robot Tank until I modded it to use the channel 3/4 switch to toggle the suspect timing circuit they added for 2600 Dark Chambers on and off.

 

I don't know that they ate related issues, but it is an odd coincidence worth mentioning.

Edited April 24, 2011 by Underball

[Kaboom69]

I had one 7800 console the couldn't use paddles either. I believe certain revisions of the 7800 motherboard have trouble with paddles. The paddles are locked in the position all the way to the right. My same paddles work just fine on a later 7800 board though.

 

Oddly enough, the one that couldn't use paddles had none of the Activision FE banking game compatibility issues. Robot Tank, space Shuttle and Decthlon all worked fine.

 

My later 7800 that could use paddles fine had problems with Decathlon and Robot Tank until I modded it to use the channel 3/4 switch to toggle the suspect timing circuit they added for 2600 Dark Chambers on and off.

 

I don't know that they ate related issues, but it is an odd coincidence worth mentioning.

How did you do the mod and what does it do?

[Underball]

I had one 7800 console the couldn't use paddles either. I believe certain revisions of the 7800 motherboard have trouble with paddles. The paddles are locked in the position all the way to the right. My same paddles work just fine on a later 7800 board though.

 

Oddly enough, the one that couldn't use paddles had none of the Activision FE banking game compatibility issues. Robot Tank, space Shuttle and Decthlon all worked fine.

 

My later 7800 that could use paddles fine had problems with Decathlon and Robot Tank until I modded it to use the channel 3/4 switch to toggle the suspect timing circuit they added for 2600 Dark Chambers on and off.

 

I don't know that they ate related issues, but it is an odd coincidence worth mentioning.

How did you do the mod and what does it do?

http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/167080-does-anyone-have-the-original-text-for/page__view__findpost__p__2067178

 

As I said before, certain revisions of the 7800 had compatibility issues with a few 2600 Activision games, notably: Robot Tank, Activision Decathlon, and Space Shuttle: A Journey Into Space. They added a timing circuit to fix problems wiht 2600 Dark Chambers, but that timing circuit broke compatibility with those Activision games.

 

I did two mods to my 7800. A composite video mod, and the one described above. Since it was modded for composite video, the channel 3/4 switch was no longer needed, so I cut the motherboard traces, and used it to toggle the suspect timing circuit on or off, depending on the game.

 

What I was saying was that: the 7800 I did the video and timing circuit mods to, works fine with my paddles. But I have another older 7800 that I didn't need to mod to be able to play all of those games, but that particular 7800 can't use paddles for some odd reason. I found that out when I built a custom 7800 Proline Paddle out of a poorly-working Proline joystick case. I then bought a pair of standard 2600 paddles thinking the paddle I build was bad, but it wasn't. It was the 7800 itself.

 

I've read reports elsewhere that very rarely, but still occasionally, 7800's don't play nicely with paddles. Such is the case with one of mine. maybe the timing circuit it a clue to be able to identify the 7800's which might not use paddles correctly.

[Kaboom69]

Tried the mod and it didn't work.

[Underball]

Tried the mod and it didn't work.

I never claimed it would. It wasn't for the paddles. The mod I did was on the console that ALREADY worked with paddles.

[Kaboom69]

Oh I see, I misunderstood.