5200 "frying"

[Chris-in-NJ]

I just managed to fry my 5200 with Beamrider! 2600 frying is well documented, but I don't think I've heard of 5200 frying before. WHat happened was this:

 

1. Played a game of Miner 2049er, removed the cart, didn't turn off the 5200, then put Beamrider in.

 

2. Starting screen came up fine, selected 1 and 1, and started to play.

 

3. After about half of the bad guys had been shot, the screen started going crazy. The area where the player's ship is would flash white whenever a horizontal line touched it. The horizontal lines themselves would shift from side to side every now and then.

 

4. While this was going on, game play continued as normal. The screens at the end and start of each level stayed the same. However, once I hit level 2, the flashing in the area of the player's ship stopped, and in time with the instability of the horizontal lines, the score and number of enemies left to hit would be seen to the left of their regular positions, and in white text.

 

Has anyone else ever managed to fry the 5200 in this way before? Mine is a 4-port if this means anything.

 

(My friend Derek and I coined the term "game 0" for frying his 2600 back then as we first managed it on Circus Atari, which had its games numbered 0 through whatever minus 1, rather than 1 to whatever...)

[ziggystar]

So it doesn't work at all anymore?

 

Sometimes I run into issues with the 5200's ram not getting cleared and I have to turn mine off for at least 5-10 seconds before i pop another cartridge in.

[Chris-in-NJ]

The 5200 works fine, I guess it was a one-off happening. Maybe I'll try to duplicate it later tonight