Dissasembling a 2600 cart?

[Synthead]

I have a really shredded up Yars' Revenge common cart with a hole in the sticker screw already, and being me, I really wanna take this baby apart However, removing that screw didn't work the magic I thought it would. And I dind't want to force anything - it would suck if I broke the plastic. I thought I would ask you guys before I went on ... How do I properly dissasemble a genuine Atari cart?

[Nukey Shay]

Just like you did...by taking out the screw first. In addition, small tabs hold the 2 shell pieces together. Start at the open end of the cart, and gently pry into the gap (a butterknife works well here)...and just work your way around the cart to unclip the tabs. Take care to keep the cartridge dust door (if it has one) resting against the lower half as you pull the upper shell away...because that door can be kind of confusing to get back in until you figure out the spring.

 

There's a diagram around here someplace...

 

Why are you disassembling it?

[Synthead]

Curious about what the innards look like

 

And if something goes wrong with any of my carts, I'll know what went wrong, how to fix it, and how to not break it worse.

 

I'm gonna try to open my cart now

[Synthead]

Nice!! I got it off very easily! Whoa .. the chip in it is really odd looking. It's totally square and very thick. Doesn't look like most of the other homebrew chips I've seen ... huh ... very nicely made though, wow.

 

Thanks for the fast and very useful help!

[Radio F Software]

If you can, could you post up some pics?

[Nukey Shay]

Nice!!  I got it off very easily!  Whoa .. the chip in it is really odd looking.  It's totally square and very thick.  Doesn't look like most of the other homebrew chips I've seen ... huh ... very nicely made though, wow.

 

Thanks for the fast and very useful help!

 

Homebrew carts are made with eproms...an erasable chip (and a hex inverter must also be on the board). Commercial carts made back in the day were almost always made with non-erasable rom chips (unless it was a prototype or the quantity produced was too low to warrent a rom setup). Some production quantities were even too low to use a chip with a casing (those will look like a "blob" stuck right to the board - the silicon wafer is inside that instead of being in a casing). Some titles appear as both (in that case, the production was probably stopped too short and they needed a smaller number of carts to finish up).

[djmips]

Nice!!  I got it off very easily!  Whoa .. the chip in it is really odd looking.  It's totally square and very thick.  Doesn't look like most of the other homebrew chips I've seen ... huh ... very nicely made though, wow.

 

Thanks for the fast and very useful help!

 

Homebrew carts are made with eproms...an erasable chip (and a hex inverter must also be on the board). Commercial carts made back in the day were almost always made with non-erasable rom chips (unless it was a prototype or the quantity produced was too low to warrent a rom setup). Some production quantities were even too low to use a chip with a casing (those will look like a "blob" stuck right to the board - the silicon wafer is inside that instead of being in a casing). Some titles appear as both (in that case, the production was probably stopped too short and they needed a smaller number of carts to finish up).

 

I had the theory that boards with the blob stuck right to the board were a cost savings approach, but required higher volumes to offset the higher setup cost. Just like the small homebrew production runs using EPROMS can't justify mask ROMS. I was sure mystified the first time I saw the blob stuck on a board. They also didn't have the metal RF shields like the early Atari carts had. (Maybe the metal RF shield is the 'totally square and thick' part Synthhead is referring to. All of the Kaboom carts that I've taken apart have that shield.)