The 2600+ Game Compatability Thread

[Varanis Ridari]

57 minutes ago, MikeM_ said:

Keep this in mind too. I've just about given up on some carts, then did one more cleaning that made them work again. 

 

I'm looking into trying DeoxIT on my carts to see if it does a better job than 99% isopropyl alcohol does. It's really hard sometimes to determine if the problem is with a brand new electronic device or a 40+ year old copper contact on a game that sat in someone's moldy basement for 20 years before selling it on ebay. lol

 

They are sturdier than we give them credit for though. Out of all my games, only 3 out of 172 have been actually bad and they were super common ones (Coleco White cart Donkey Kong, text label maze craze, text label backgammon). Picking up an ok condition orig 2600 will give you something to validate your games against and give better peace of mind in the quality of your purchases until the remaining bugs have been worked out of the +. 

I do eventually want another OG VCS, as the last one went to the great pie in the sky, and this 2600+ basically replaces it.

 

For what it's worth, I must have cleaned and abraised those contacts 20 times and the weird glitches above never stopped.

 

I know these Jr Pac-Man carts are banked, so since it wasn't pulling music, or complete graphical data, but did pull enough of the program to run (incorrectly), I had a hunch there was a bad bank in there, or bad/oxidized traces leading to that bank beyond where my Q-Tips could reach.

 

An OG Atari might not have issues accessing it because of different throughput tolerances, but clearly my 2600+ wasn't getting the "complete" ROM, but somehow enough to "run" bugged.

 

The availability of this game is why I just said to hell with it, and refunded out for a different copy. If it was something rare or hard to replace, I might have decided to open it up.

 

You're absolutely right about the hardiness of these games. I've gotten games that looked visually ten times worse than these, and was sure wouldn't work, but did.

 

My copy of Amidar looked like a chain smoker owned it, yellowed everything, but fired up after only 2-3 cleanings with ISO, no abrasion needed. Weird!!

Edited February 14 by Varanis Ridari

[Varanis Ridari]

On 2/13/2024 at 5:37 PM, Varanis Ridari said:

I do eventually want another OG VCS, as the last one went to the great pie in the sky, and this 2600+ basically replaces it.

 

For what it's worth, I must have cleaned and abraised those contacts 20 times and the weird glitches above never stopped.

 

I know these Jr Pac-Man carts are banked, so since it wasn't pulling music, or complete graphical data, but did pull enough of the program to run (incorrectly), I had a hunch there was a bad bank in there, or bad/oxidized traces leading to that bank beyond where my Q-Tips could reach.

 

An OG Atari might not have issues accessing it because of different throughput tolerances, but clearly my 2600+ wasn't getting the "complete" ROM, but somehow enough to "run" bugged.

 

The availability of this game is why I just said to hell with it, and refunded out for a different copy. If it was something rare or hard to replace, I might have decided to open it up.

 

You're absolutely right about the hardiness of these games. I've gotten games that looked visually ten times worse than these, and was sure wouldn't work, but did.

 

My copy of Amidar looked like a chain smoker owned it, yellowed everything, but fired up after only 2-3 cleanings with ISO, no abrasion needed. Weird!!

I wanted to come back and confirm it was the Jr Pac-Man cart and not my unit. After all that cleaning, still visual glitches and absent music, I believe one of the banks was probably rotted.

 

Got my "new" boxed copy of Jr. Pac-Man, and even though it too required some cleaning to start, it works absolutely perfectly. Music is there, no visual glitches, and mazes are completable! ❤

[shane857]

I have had this Zellers multi game "bootleg" cart in my collection for a while, never played it thou.

So decided to try it on the 2600+. All games work fine thou it was trial and error with the DIP switches to boot all games, no info with the manual. lol

[shane857]

Just now, shane857 said:

I have had this Zellers multi game "bootleg" cart in my collection for a while, never played it thou.

So decided to try it on the 2600+. All games work fine thou it was trial and error with the DIP switches to boot all games, no info with the manual. lol

 

1 minute ago, shane857 said:

I have had this Zellers multi game "bootleg" cart in my collection for a while, never played it thou.

So decided to try it on the 2600+. All games work fine thou it was trial and error with the DIP switches to boot all games, no info with the manual. lol

Games are... Bermuda/river raid clone. Cracker Pet/Crackpots. Canival/Nuts. Motor Race/Motor cross. Missile Commador/Missile Command. Suppermen(lol)/Superman. Baby Snoopy/???? And Circus which is Circus Atari.

[bigfriendly]

6 minutes ago, shane857 said:

Games are... Bermuda/river raid clone. Cracker Pet/Crackpots. Canival/Nuts. Motor Race/Motor cross. Missile Commador/Missile Command. Suppermen(lol)/Superman. Baby Snoopy/???? And Circus which is Circus Atari.

That's funny. Was there a release date for the cartridge on the box?

[shane857]

1 hour ago, bigfriendly said:

That's funny. Was there a release date for the cartridge on the box?

No. Just says made in Taiwan.