My 7800 works again!

[Chris-in-NJ]

I've just realized, by going through my posting history here, that it's been more than five years since both of my 7800 consoles developed problems. Last night, thanks to my brother, one of them is working again. What happened on this one was that the little thing on the back of the console where the power cord connects broke off. His solution was to solder the two leads from the power cord onto the main PC board in some way -- don't ask me how as I'm no expert. So it powers on now.

 

Imagine my surprise on connecting it to my 1985-vintage Toshiba TV that not one of my 6 joysticks - 5 "Pain-line" and 1 original 2600 - worked properly. I systematically tested the Pro-lines and found one that refused to go down, but everything else worked. I tried putting some packing tape on top of the connector on the brownish PC board inside. That worked for about 2 minutes before the stick refused to register down again. Then I thought of something - why not use two of those foam disc things inside to create more pressure inside so the white plastic "feet" of the shaft from the exterior stick touches all the contacts? I tried it and it worked. Only problem is, I didn't align the fire buttons properly when I rescrewed the casing. Tomorrow I'll give it another go, as it's after midnight here and I'm tired after playing various versions of Pac-Man from the Pac-Man collection.

[+-^CrossBow^-]

Besides using two foam rings, you could have taken the foam ring that was in it and turn it 45 degrees. This would mean the diagonals are now at the main cardinal locations since the foam depresses over time in the same spot, you just turn it a touch and you have a fresh section of foam again.