Atlantis and Cosmic Ark no longer working.

[Joel D. Park]

My friends,  I have kind of been out of the Atari 2600 game for a very long time. 

I got an Atari hooked up and working.  Going through the cable jack on a new TV,  as channel 3.   All well and good. 

 

I can play most games including Activision (which have always been a little problematic.)

However; I cannot play Atlantis and Cosmic Ark. 

 

I've tried 3 different Atari 2600's.   And I've cleaned the heck out of the two cartridges and my 2600 ports.  
I don't remember having issues with Imagic Carts.   But I'm able to run Riddle of the Sphynx and a few other Imagic games.

Is there any possibility that the scan rate on these two games could be stopping the TV from recognizing the Analog signal?  
If I shift them around in the 2600 sometimes I'll get the colored lines, and some form of buzzing.   Otherwise I just see a blank screen with no sound, and a slightly different colored line down the side.  

Thoughts?   

[Joel D. Park]

Oh note,  it is possible that the games are just BAD, but they both seem to be failing in exactly the same manner.   
I'm probably gonna try and dig up a VCR with an RF modulator and see if that works better.  

 

[insertclevernamehere]

They may be victims of bit rot but at least they're fairly common, cheap games to replace.

[Joel D. Park]

That would be terribly sad. 
There would have been millions of these games probably, so I doubt they would have used EPROM's or whatever, that could rot. 
But honestly I couldn't say.  Hopefully regular mass-produced games cannot rot.  

 

[RamrodHare]

Sounds like the carts have probably failed. I'd try a different TV first, but if that doesn't work, just replace the games.

[+x=usr(1536)]

3 hours ago, Joel D. Park said:

Is there any possibility that the scan rate on these two games could be stopping the TV from recognizing the Analog signal?

It likely wouldn't be affecting the scan rate, but it is possible that if the games are generating an unusual number of scanlines that could be giving the TV fits.  That said, it seems unlikely that this is the problem.  More:

3 hours ago, Joel D. Park said:

it is possible that the games are just BAD, but they both seem to be failing in exactly the same manner.   

This suggests that there's a physical issue with the carts.  What that may be is open to speculation, but it's probably a safe bet that bit rot is involved.

3 hours ago, Joel D. Park said:

I'm probably gonna try and dig up a VCR with an RF modulator and see if that works better.

Honestly, it's probably not worth going to the effort.  If other games work fine over RF, there's no reason why the VCR should have an effect one way or the other.

3 hours ago, Joel D. Park said:

Hopefully regular mass-produced games cannot rot.

Any IC is capable of rotting.  Whether it does or not comes down to manufacturing defects, how it's been stored and handled over its lifetime, etc.

 

[Joel D. Park]

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

How it's been stored and handled over its lifetime, etc.

 

The last 5-10 years they were in a cabin which was unheated in the Winter.  Never too hot,  but possibly cold/ or some humidity.  
Not sure their life prior to that.   There labels look good but may have came from "Cartridges galore" or something. 

I've got my real 2600 collection.  But I'd collected these over the last few years just for playing purposes so I wouldn't have to dig in my real stuff. 
I did confirm that my collection version of Atlantis works.  But it even shut off at one point and gave me "No Signal" on the TV, then came back on.  

I just dug up an old school TV with a real channel selector instead of everything digital.   If it still works I'm going to give the carts another chance.   
If no luck I'll open one of them up and see if there is visible corrosion inside from humidity or something that might be crossing pins or something odd.   

[Joel D. Park]

Not the TV,  just bad Carts I guess.  I opened the shells,  there is no corrosion or anything else to note.  

I cannot remember if I ever played them honestly since I got them.   If they were with another lot of games, who knows.  
So they could have been bad for a long time.