Compiling 2600 Jr. "Unicorn" 1-chip serial number list, please help!!

[JustS]

Found a 1chip in the wild a few months back at a flea market for a few bucks, I didn't think about checking until I came across this post. 

 

Here are some photos: 

[skintigh]

21 hours ago, JustS said:

Found a 1chip in the wild a few months back at a flea market for a few bucks, I didn't think about checking until I came across this post. 

That's awesome, and thank you for your contribution to the list!

[skintigh]

This serial number makes no sense. Maybe it's from a different unit? Maybe it's correct but failed tests and repaired many months later? It kinda breaks my list.

 

[Royboy]

My one is serial number 794 332070

 

Any idea what this means 

 

Pls email me the response, I may not see it 

[skintigh]

3 chip?

[+x=usr(1536)]

On 4/7/2022 at 1:03 PM, skintigh said:

This serial number makes no sense. Maybe it's from a different unit? Maybe it's correct but failed tests and repaired many months later? It kinda breaks my list.

Could also have had the lower half of the case replaced with one from another unit.

 

Something I've been wondering about is if the Janus boards weren't used in lieu of service repairs or full system exchanges after a certain date - it'd be a lot easier to swap out an entire PCB and send the dead one back to Atari instead of actually trying to fix the machine.  Given the price point the 2600 was selling at by the time the Jr. hit the market, it makes a certain amount of sense.

 

Note that I'm not saying that they were never used in production, just that if they were used as replacements for non-working machines it could explain why some of the serial numbers don't fall into place.

[skintigh]

Another 3 chip:

[+x=usr(1536)]

As a polite request: please keep this thread focussed on the one-chip 2600 Jr. serial numbers.

 

If you have a three-chip unit, the thread for it can be found here.

 

Thanks

[XEGS'r]

I'd like to contribute in the hopes of eventually installing a UAV into this beauty. I picked this up some time ago for about $20 and was shocked to find it was a single-chip. My initial intention was to see if I could integrate the Janice chip into a 7800 board, and I may do that sometime down the road. For now, I have merely socketed the Janice and added a socket for the embedded game EPROM. I've also recapped it, but other than that, nothing else has been done. If anyone's interested, I can scan these in as 1200DPI PNGs with a flatbed scanner so that the traces can be better documented. Keep in mind that the PNGs will be HUGE (~50MB+).

 

 

[XEGS'r]

Note that underneath the RF module shield is NOT a CD4050 but a LM3086 transistor array which is DIP14, so simply plugging in a UAV will not work here. More info on the LM3086 can be found on the attached PDF.

 

LM3086 Transistor Arrays datasheet.pdf

[alex_79]

A high res scan of the board is only useful to trace it  if you completely desolder every component first (and if you take note of the value/part number of each component and where it goes on the board). Note also that the "Janice" chip doesn't have the separate digital luma and sync outputs like the standard TIA, but only a single composite analog luma signal. So the UAV is not suited for this console.

 

Anyway, please open a new thread (with a sensible title) for this in the main 2600 forum or, better yet, in the hardware forum, as it's completely off-topic here.

The purpose of this thread is to list the serial numbers of known single-chip Jr. consoles, not discussing how to add a video mod to them.

Edited December 12, 2022 by alex_79

[XEGS'r]

Ah... my apologies. I will move this to the HW forum.

[skintigh]

13 hours ago, x=usr(1536) said:

As a polite request: please keep this thread focussed on the one-chip 2600 Jr. serial numbers.

 

If you have a three-chip unit, the thread for it can be found here.

 

Thanks

😁The reason I created the thread, and why I still maintain the list in the first post, is to gather as many 1-chip and 3-chip serial numbers (in a certain range) as I can. It's difficult to determine the range of serial numbers of 1-chips without gathering 3-chips, especially given the small sample size of 1-chips. So I want as many 1-chip and 3-chip sightings in that range as I can, preferably with photos, as the numbers are often smudged or faded and can be very misleading. Also, because a bunch of people post that they have one then disappear from the Internet before providing any details (like the only Rev 3 sighting), so documentation is invaluable.

Even better than photos of the vents and serial numbers are photos of the circuit boards, as I am trying to track down info on all of the different revs, and there's a lot, with very little info online.

 

It looks like the list in the thread you linked hasn't been updated in over a year, but I will look through posts in that thread an see if there are any that help my cause, thanks!

[skintigh]

8 hours ago, XEGS'r said:

I'd like to contribute in the hopes of eventually installing a UAV into this beauty. I picked this up some time ago for about $20 and was shocked to find it was a single-chip. My initial intention was to see if I could integrate the Janice chip into a 7800 board, and I may do that sometime down the road. For now, I have merely socketed the Janice and added a socket for the embedded game EPROM. I've also recapped it, but other than that, nothing else has been done. If anyone's interested, I can scan these in as 1200DPI PNGs with a flatbed scanner so that the traces can be better documented. Keep in mind that the PNGs will be HUGE (~50MB+).

 

 

Thank you for posting pictures that are actually clear and not blurry and out of focus. (Seriously, for some reason that is bizarrely rare for photos of circuit boards, maybe the dust makes everyone sneeze right when they snap the photo?) I don't think high res scans will help me any, and since there are schematics available online I'm not sure how helpful hi res will be to others, unless you have a rev that differs from the schematics. But thank you for the offer.

However, if you could provide a picture of the serial number on the case that would be a HUGE  help to me, thank you!!!

 

As for installing a UAV in there, I don't think it will fit...  

Edited December 13, 2022 by skintigh

[alex_79]

6 hours ago, skintigh said:

... and since there are schematics available online ...

There is no schematic of the production single chip Jr console. The "Jan" schematic available is of an early prototype and doesn't match the actual consoles that are out there. The most obvious difference being that the chip in the schematic is a 48 pin one, while the actual "Janice" produced is a 64 pin one (see also this thread).

Edited December 13, 2022 by alex_79

[XEGS'r]

13 hours ago, skintigh said:

Thank you for posting pictures that are actually clear and not blurry and out of focus. (Seriously, for some reason that is bizarrely rare for photos of circuit boards, maybe the dust makes everyone sneeze right when they snap the photo?) I don't think high res scans will help me any, and since there are schematics available online I'm not sure how helpful hi res will be to others, unless you have a rev that differs from the schematics. But thank you for the offer.

However, if you could provide a picture of the serial number on the case that would be a HUGE  help to me, thank you!!!

 

As for installing a UAV in there, I don't think it will fit...  

In the immortal words of Jerome "Curly" Howard:
Soitainly!!

[skintigh]

On 12/13/2022 at 11:59 AM, XEGS'r said:

In the immortal words of Jerome "Curly" Howard:
Soitainly!!

I was hoping for a little more view of the vents to confirm, ya boidbrain, but so far it definitely looks like a 1-chip!

[skintigh]

Another >2M 3-chip from ebay.

[XEGS'r]

Oh, my apologies...

 

Here ya go...

 

[CECIL]

[skintigh]

1 chip?

[skintigh]

1 chip, is that a "9B?"

 

[skintigh]

weird

[apogee79]

I recently acquired a single chip unit off fleabay.

Serial A1 9B 2048342

Rev 4 board

[apogee79]

Another bit of info while searching

Three chip 

SN A1 96 2013507