Composite-modded 2600 has blurry, smeary video. Any tips on how to troubleshoot and fix?

wowbobwow · July 22

Hi all!

I was recently given an amazing trove of Atari items from a relative of a gent who was an electrical engineer who loved to collect and modify things. I’m delighted by the contents of the boxes - especially a Composite-modded Atari 800 in beautiful condition which works fantastically.

However, the collection also included this lovely Atari 2600 “Heavy Sixer” which he’d also done a Composite mod on - likely back in the 1990's, according to his family member who gave me this stuff. Unfortunately, the image I’m getting out of the 2600 isn’t great - the system works and loads games, but the visuals onscreen via Composite are “smeary” at best.

I’m reasonably handy and familiar with upgrading and doing beginner-level mods on old computers and consoles, but I’ve never worked on a 2600 with or without a Composite mod like this before, so I’m not really sure even where to start. Here's a short video showing what it looks like while trying to play a game. Note that the visuals are weird, colors are off, it's blurry, and some of the graphics are borderline invisible. Also note that the weird gray band across the top of the screen seems to move with Mario when he jumps up there. Very odd!

Here are some pics showing the internals of the system, including his wiring job on the motherboard and the video/audio jacks. This man was a professional in the tech industry 30+ years before I was even born so I'm hardly in a position to criticize, but to my uneducated eye, the wiring and soldering on the motherboard end looks... odd?

Any tips or suggestions on how I might begin fixing this would be greatly appreciated! Alternately, if you happen to be in the San Francisco Bay Area and this is a system / modification that you're knowledgeable about, I'd be open to an in-person handoff and paying for your expertise...

Thanks!

cwilkson · July 24

That's a horrible mod. It is a well known hack and just about the worst one possible. (There is one method that's even worse. But only one.)

Remove that completely and get one that's engineered to produce actual NTSC-like waveforms.

The UAV and the CleanComp come to mind. I've never used either of them, or even seen the results in person, but people seem to like them.

Or if you can track down a used CyberTech mod (the last version) that had the best composite and S-Video outputs that I'm aware of by far.

There were only a handful made unfortunately. They are super rare.

In the short term....

If your Atari still has the original RF cable and if you have a TV with a coax style RF connector, get an RCA-to-F connector and use that for a much improved display.

The adapter looks like below. Buy it from your favorite seller. Plug and play.

TV Cable Adapter for Ata – Ancable