2600: 0.2A?

[Mindfield]

Now here's something odd. I was always under the impression that the 2600 sucked roughly half an amp -- all the AC adapters I've ever seen for them were all at least 500mA. However, I had my lovely Sears Big Sexy out testing a few new acquisitions out, and when I was packing everything back into its box I noted how incredibly small the AC adapter was. I read the specs out of curiosity, I noticed it listed 9v, 200mA. 200mA?! That can't be right. And yet, there it was, and the thing works great. Does the 2600 really only suck one-fifth of an amp?

[Susuwatari]

The numbers you see on the power supply is the max rating. The one numbered at 500mA simply means it can work with any devices that draws up to 500mA and not an mA more.

 

Amp is a measurement of the electricity's flow. Voltage is like the pressure driving the electricity. Electronic devices only draws a certain amount of amps or milliamps.

 

This is why just about every power supply is rated higher than what the device actually needs but always at the correct voltage. High voltage will burn out the electronics.

 

If my memory serves, the 2600 typically needs about 100mA although it'll depend on 3rd party accessories. A ROMScanner for example draws extra current.

[Mindfield]

Well, I know about max amperage 'n stuff, I was just surprised that the 2600 draws so little power. For some reason I always imagined it must have drawn at least 300+. I mean, even at 200mA, that's 1.8 watts... seems awfully low.

[jsoper]

I took some measurements when I started building my portable:

210 mA -- Adventure in cmos multicart

272 mA -- regular Adventure cart

330 mA -- Pitfall 2 cart (has extra chip)

As you can see, using a cart or multicart based on a cmos eprom gets the current down.

Replacing the 6507 cpu with a cmos 65c02 would help even more.

[Cassidy Nolen]

I did not think you could swap a CMOS because of the propogation delay (I think that is the right word; time required to "reset" the signal in the chip). Maybe I am wrong, just would hate to see some genius hack fail because of something simple.

 

 

Cassidy

[Vigo]

Replacing the 6507 cpu with a cmos 65c02 would help even more.

 

Don´t do this, because this will mess up many games (the 65c02 has an optimized CPU core)! But you can replace the 6532 with a 65c32 (works fine in my 6 switch model).

[jsoper]

Replacing the 6507 cpu with a cmos 65c02 would help even more.

 

Don´t do this, because this will mess up many games (the 65c02 has an optimized CPU core)! But you can replace the 6532 with a 65c32 (works fine in my 6 switch model).

Really? I just thought it had extra instruction and interrupts. Oh well.

Do you know a supplier for a 65c32? I've never found anyone who sells them, wasn't sure they really existed.

[Vigo]

The 65c02 has additional opcodes and some instructions were optimized, needing one machine cycle less than the standard 6502.

 

My 65c32 was made by California Micro Devices (CMD), and it has a date code from 1992. But since i heard that CMD doesnt make 65xx products anymore, i guess the only way to get one is finding a vendor which has abandoned chips...

 

Since i live in Germany, i don´t think naming my source would help you much.