Does anyone have an *original* authentic Atari 2600/2600A VCS Domestic Field Service Manual? Not the photocopied copy-of-a-copy Best Electronics sells.

[+-^CrossBow^-]

6 hours ago, Kirkland said:

Release Candidate #1!

I do not like the quality of the image on page 3-3.. part of why I requested if anyone has a legit copy to scan in the first place.
I don't like how tech tip #18 on 9-4 is worded.  Should "Taiwan games" be replaced with "Taiwan consoles"? or reword the whole thing?

There are a couple motherboard images that will need to be pushed closer to the edge of the page to allow for spiral binding.

I will likely move the footer to be mirrored on the bottom edges when printed.

Index page was from the original NTSC manual and I had to update all the pages.  Was there a legitimate index page in the real FD100133 Field Service Manual?

Should I change the cover to FD100133 Rev 3? Final Rev? Leave as is?  I punted the ECN to the back before the index.

Speaking of ECN, if this is a final copy, do I need to leave the 4 pages with the extra "Changed per ECN 21" notice intact (4-25,6-21,8-3,8-7), or should I just standardize all footers?

Do I even need the ECN since the cover is Rev 2 (which should make its inclusion a moot point)?  I'll probably leave it in for posterity.

 

Any questions, comments, rants, things that should be fixed/different, gotchas- whatever.. Let me know so I can fix as needed.

I'll probably do a good sanity check read through over the weekend, then fire off to Lulu.com on Monday to see what a printed copy looks like.

Atari_2600-2600A_VCS_Domestic-Field_Service_Manual.pdf 59.57 MB · 1 download

Awesome! I've already got it in my console doc library now. You know I got to thinking about this, and I know I have an official service manual for I think the 8-bit computer line but possible the 2600 as well. It is buried deep out in my garage though so I'm not sure where it is and it has been well over a decade since I first packed all of them away.

 

[CPUWIZ]

Are these out there?  Although, the CX-22 is still sealed. 

 

 

[CPUWIZ]

18 hours ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

Awesome! I've already got it in my console doc library now. You know I got to thinking about this, and I know I have an official service manual for I think the 8-bit computer line but possible the 2600 as well. It is buried deep out in my garage though so I'm not sure where it is and it has been well over a decade since I first packed all of them away.

 

 

Do you have this one?  I can send it to you and just ask you, if I ever need anything from it.  

[Kirkland]

4 hours ago, CPUWIZ said:

Are these out there?  Although, the CX-22 is still sealed. 

 

 

I haven't seen a scan of the CX80 FSM, just the CX22.  

[CPUWIZ]

1 minute ago, Kirkland said:

I haven't seen a scan of the CX80 FSM, just the CX22.  

 

Cool, I don't mind removing the staple to scan it, but I will wait a couple days in case someone already has it.  

[Kirkland]

7 minutes ago, CPUWIZ said:

 

Cool, I don't mind removing the staple to scan it, but I will wait a couple days in case someone already has it.  

The existing CX22 scan is 300dpi/Bitmap and a little dicey in the schematics pages.  36 pages at 1.4MB is not a show of quality.

I was going to clean it up quick, but the source material just isn't great to work with.

[hizzy]

On 3/29/2024 at 10:46 PM, Kirkland said:

If you are looking for an official Atari 2600 Field Service Manual, then this is one of the original 185 copies:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/275948044537

 

I initially snagged the $39 copy from Best Electronics hoping that it was an official, high quality version- but instead it's the same as the scanned version on the internet.  Complete with skewed pages and copies-of-copies with hole punches.  I had hoped someone lurking on here might have one of those 185 originals, to see if the illustrations and diagrams were of noticeably better quality.  Was trying to avoid plunking down $362 just to find out.  Either way, I'm well on my way with a rebuild.  

Would anyone want to chip in to buy this thing and have it sent to Kirikland? 

[+Mitch]

Why buy it when several people already have a copy?

 

Mitch

[CPUWIZ]

1 hour ago, Mitch said:

Why buy it when several people already have a copy?

 

Mitch

 

Pretty sure one of mine has those yellow dividers, that box is hard to get to.

[jhd]

On 7/6/2024 at 10:34 PM, Mitch said:

Why buy it when several people already have a copy?

 

This was my Father's attitude. We already have that [tool, appliance, etc.] there is no need to buy another, even if we have not seen or used it in many years.  🤣

 

Just because something exists does not mean that it is available when and where it is needed. 

[hizzy]

Also, everyone seems to have the same copy-of-a-copy and not the first gen manual.

 

This is a great effort. I'm enjoying the PDF! Thanks for your work!

[+Mitch]

Here are cell phone pics of two pages with illustrations.

 

Mitch

[Kirkland]

On 7/10/2024 at 10:07 PM, Mitch said:

Here are cell phone pics of two pages with illustrations.

 

Mitch

That appears to be the same mass-produced copy that everyone has.  Which may be all there is for certain revisions.  You can tell the older ones were typed/printed due to how the ink smudges and transfers to other pages.  I'd still like to know what font they used- the odd "T" vexes me in font matching.  It appears to be an in-house variant of Garamond, but would be nice to dial it in.  If I get my hands on an original typed one, might take a crack at making a font out of it- I assume it's a combination of a standard font plus a couple of customized characters.

[Kirkland]

Schematics.

Mental note: don't try to rebuild, they will eat your soul.

Work in progress. Not sure how far I will take it.

(original is 8.5"x11" @1200dpi, that way a 18"x24" poster eventually isn't out of line...)

Atari 2600 Field Service Manual (USA)_037.tif

[Kirkland]

When I look back on my life and lament about wasted time on stupid projects, tonight's schematic template rebuild project will easily be in the top 10.

Atari Schematic TEMPLATE - Size C (18x24).tif

[Kirkland]

Further progress on the Rev 16+ mobo image.

A question for the purists- should I leave everything black and white, or throw in some color?  I could see color coding resistors/capacitors and labels in general.  Like make on the resistor locations (R222, etc.) be in blue text and capacitors (C201, etc.) in red text while the values would still be just black.  Due to size, I'll probably make the print size one black and white to preserve details, but that 18" x 24" poster might need some color to it.  We'll see.

All trace lines will be black, though.  They are just red/blue/green now so I can align them easier.

Atari 2600 Field Service Manual (USA)_037-07212024.tif

[hizzy]

9 hours ago, Kirkland said:

Further progress on the Rev 16+ mobo image.

A question for the purists- should I leave everything black and white, or throw in some color?  I could see color coding resistors/capacitors and labels in general.  Like make on the resistor locations (R222, etc.) be in blue text and capacitors (C201, etc.) in red text while the values would still be just black.  Due to size, I'll probably make the print size one black and white to preserve details, but that 18" x 24" poster might need some color to it.  We'll see.

All trace lines will be black, though.  They are just red/blue/green now so I can align them easier.

Atari 2600 Field Service Manual (USA)_037-07212024.tif 970.74 kB · 5 downloads

Why not do both? I would buy this if you print it. The more options the better!

[JasperAK]

On 7/13/2024 at 12:15 AM, Kirkland said:

That appears to be the same mass-produced copy that everyone has.  Which may be all there is for certain revisions.  You can tell the older ones were typed/printed due to how the ink smudges and transfers to other pages.  I'd still like to know what font they used- the odd "T" vexes me in font matching.  It appears to be an in-house variant of Garamond, but would be nice to dial it in.  If I get my hands on an original typed one, might take a crack at making a font out of it- I assume it's a combination of a standard font plus a couple of customized characters.

I'm not a professional typographer but the two samples you posted of the text lead me to believe that the text was produced on something like the IBM Electronic Selectric Composer. The letterforms themselves remind me of various different typefaces on typewriters. The typeface has a relatively high X-height, virtually no variation in line thickness (unlike a garamond), and there is absolutely no kerning that I can see. Also of notice is also that some of the letter spacing varies, most noticeably with the 'e', 'i', and 't'--sometimes the letters just don't fit right together like with 'frequency', 'television', and 'switch'. It makes it look very mechanical to me. But Jasper you ask, 'the text is justified. How can a typewriter do that?' Well, the Electronic Selectric Composer hit the market in 1975 and could use proportional typefaces and print justified lines with apparently little extra work. But at the end, the big thing that really stands out to me is that whomever typed it up, used the standard convention of putting two spaces after an endstop before starting the next sentence. That's a typewriter convention, generally not a typesetting convention.

 

Regarding the distinctive 'T' and other capital letters. The capital letters definitely have a more Old Style look while the lowercase have a more Slab Serif (typewriter) look. The 'T'--with the slanting parallel serifs--resembles the one in several different typefaces: Italian Old Style, Jenson (some versions), and Bembo. Aside from the angle in the lowercase 'e', Italian Old Style kinda resembles the lowercase in the samples. Bookman, Iowan Old Style, and Plantin also resemble the lowercase letters but the capital letters seem off.

 

Really though, it reminds me of a typeface called F25 Executive which can be found all over the internet. It is a proportional typeface that matches the IBM Executive typewriter. It's not a match, but it does evoke the same style in the samples to me. It is one of my favorite typefaces to use and would be the one I'd use if I were re-typesetting the document.

 

[Kirkland]

3 hours ago, JasperAK said:

I'm not a professional typographer but the two samples you posted of the text lead me to believe that the text was produced on something like the IBM Electronic Selectric Composer. The letterforms themselves remind me of various different typefaces on typewriters. The typeface has a relatively high X-height, virtually no variation in line thickness (unlike a garamond), and there is absolutely no kerning that I can see. Also of notice is also that some of the letter spacing varies, most noticeably with the 'e', 'i', and 't'--sometimes the letters just don't fit right together like with 'frequency', 'television', and 'switch'. It makes it look very mechanical to me. But Jasper you ask, 'the text is justified. How can a typewriter do that?' Well, the Electronic Selectric Composer hit the market in 1975 and could use proportional typefaces and print justified lines with apparently little extra work. But at the end, the big thing that really stands out to me is that whomever typed it up, used the standard convention of putting two spaces after an endstop before starting the next sentence. That's a typewriter convention, generally not a typesetting convention.

 

Regarding the distinctive 'T' and other capital letters. The capital letters definitely have a more Old Style look while the lowercase have a more Slab Serif (typewriter) look. The 'T'--with the slanting parallel serifs--resembles the one in several different typefaces: Italian Old Style, Jenson (some versions), and Bembo. Aside from the angle in the lowercase 'e', Italian Old Style kinda resembles the lowercase in the samples. Bookman, Iowan Old Style, and Plantin also resemble the lowercase letters but the capital letters seem off.

 

Really though, it reminds me of a typeface called F25 Executive which can be found all over the internet. It is a proportional typeface that matches the IBM Executive typewriter. It's not a match, but it does evoke the same style in the samples to me. It is one of my favorite typefaces to use and would be the one I'd use if I were re-typesetting the document.

 

That F25 Executive really is a nice font. I usually take issue with typewriter fonts as their creators tend to go overboard with ink smudges and other over-the-top exaggerations of ink splotches- just give me the actual printhead impression already.  Someday I'll find where they got that capital T....
I'll have to take a closer look at your mentioned fonts.  I've spent way too much time digging through fonts over the years, might as well do it some more.  Thanks!! 

[Kirkland]

Ok, it's waaaaaay past my bedtime, but the results speak for themselves.

Color release candidate.

Very scaled down preview version- the original is 18"x24" @600dpi.

The orange is a little too close to red, but it still pops out when I look around the image, so we'll see.

Debating if I colorize the text for the switches, and if so, what color.

 

 

Atari 2600A Motherboard Schematic - Rev 16 and up.tif

Edited July 22 by Kirkland
clarity

[Kirkland]

Making great progress on the Revision 14/15 board schematics (which is practically identical to the Rev 1-13 schematics).

Uploading a full size copy because it is not complete, but gives a better idea of what the final product looks like.

Traces are red/blue because I'm still mapping them out.  Will be black in final copy, like the R16+ version.

Atari 2600 Field Service Manual (USA)_035-07232024.tif

[Windless]

On 7/18/2024 at 8:33 AM, Kirkland said:

When I look back on my life and lament about wasted time on stupid projects, tonight's schematic template rebuild project will easily be in the top 10.

Atari Schematic TEMPLATE - Size C (18x24).tif 2.18 MB · 13 downloads

I wish when I'm almost dead, I can look back and remember spending some of my life for such meaningful things ❤️ 

[Kirkland]

2600A Revs 1-13 DONE

2600A Revs 14-15 DONE

2600A Revs 16 and up DONE.

On to that pesky original 2600 with the switchboard...

Not sure if I'll keep the notation of changes on the 14-15 revision, but there were so few changes from the 1-13 revisions...

150dpi versions this time, for the vision impaired among us.  I'll drop 600dpi versions in their own topic when I get the 2600 done.

Atari 2600A Motherboard Schematic - Rev 1-13.tif Atari 2600A Motherboard Schematic - Rev 14-15.tif Atari 2600A Motherboard Schematic - Rev 16 and up.tif

[Kirkland]

Ok, I've finished editing the schematics as for what I know.

Unfortunately, a handful of items do not line up between the motherboard schematic, the motherboard silkscreen, and the parts list.

Here are the discrepancies: (with notes)

 

Realistically, just need R206 Ohms value on an original 2600 mobo verified.

The rest are just cosmetic or parts list issues.  Fairly certain the R215 issue is a typo.

 

 

2600
Schematics:	Silkscreen:	Parts list:	Went with:
R206 10K	R206 24K?	R206 24K	R206 10K
^ Needs verified
X200	X200	X200	X200
3.579575 Mhz	3.579545 Mhz	3.579575 Mhz	3.579575 Mhz
Atari Engineering master list has:
C010177 as Rev. E Crystal: 3.579575 MHZ
C015510 as Rev. 02 Crystal: 3.579575 MHZ
"The actual spec for TV colorburst is 3.579545 MHz +/- 10Hz, but most TVs can handle a few hundred Hz either way."
Since it is "A200 MPU" and "A201 TIA", should I label "A202 RAM"?
-- In 2600A, just listed as "IC (6532)"
-- In old schematics, labeled "I/O - RAM - TIMER ARRAY"
A203 is listed as 4050, but parts list has it as 4050B (using 4050).
It appears the Atari 2600A Parts list (8-5 thru 8-8) has been updated (ECN #0021) to reflect Rev 16+.
Now items incorrect/missing for some Rev 1-13, Rev 14-15 parts.
2600A	Revs 16 and up
Schematics:	Silkscreen:	Parts list:	Went with:
No R200 (like the part list, unlike Revs 1-13, 14-15)
R215 47K	R215 47K	R215 47	R215 47K
(I'll assume parts list is just a typo- 47 instead of 47K - have to check part no.)
X200	X200	X200	X200
		3.579575 Mhz	3.579575 Mhz
rename "A205 - 555" to "A205 - TIMER 555"?
no room to rename "A203 - VOLT. REG." to "A203 - VOLT. REG. - 78M05"
2600A	Revs 1-13
Schematics:	Silkscreen:	Parts list:	Went with:
R200 24K		not listed	R200 24K
R203 56		R203 2.2K	R203 56
R204 150K		R204 220	R204 150K
R205 15K		R205 240	R205 15K
R215 56K		R215 47	R215 56K
R217 27K		R217 24K	R217 27K
R219 3300		R219 4.7K	R219 3300
R221 3300		R221 4.7K	R221 3300
no R229->R234
C201 4.7		not listed	C201 4.7
C202 47pf		C202 10pf	C202 47pf
C203 20pf		C203 .01	C203 20pf
no C244->C245
Q201 2N3563		Q201 2N3906	Q201 2N3563
no Q202 (which has right transistor value for Q201)
no CR202, CR203
X200	X200	X200	X200
3.579545 Mhz		3.579575 Mhz	3.579575 Mhz
2600A	Revs 14-15
Schematics:	Silkscreen:	Parts list:	Went with:
R200 24K		not listed	R200 24K
R203 56		R203 2.2K	R203 56
R204 150K		R204 220	R204 150K
R205 15K		R205 240	R205 15K
R215 47K	R215 47K	R215 47	R215 47K
R217, R219, R221 are correct (unlike Revs 1-13)
no R231->R234
C201 4.7		not listed	C201 4.7
C202 47pf		C202 10pf	C202 47pf
C203 20pf		C203 .01	C203 20pf
no C244->C245
Q201 2N3563		Q201 2N3906	Q201 2N3563
no Q202 (which has right transistor value for Q201)
X200	X200	X200	X200
3.579545 Mhz		3.579575 Mhz	3.579575 Mhz
Atari Engineering master list has:
C010177 as Rev. E Crystal: 3.579575 MHZ
C015510 as Rev. 02 Crystal: 3.579575 MHZ

[Kirkland]

Ok, now that I've put a fork in the schematics, I've moved on to doing the silkscreens.  I wasn't planning on it, but here we are.

Anyways, after making some forward progress, I initially thought that a light blue and light red would visibly make resistors and capacitors stand out on the mobo.  But now that I've done that and started using red and blue for labeling, it almost feels like it's too busy/overkill.  Do I just revert them back to black and white (no light red/blue fills) and the colored labels will make them stand out enough? Leave as is?

Bleh, more work.  Opinions either way?