My first attempt at modding a Flashback 2

[thevnaguy]

Not very pretty, but it does work!!!!

 

Instead of soldering each wire to the cartridge header, I used two floppy drive cables and kept the ends on once side to use as a plug for the cartridge header. Worked out real well!

 

I have two more left to modify now

 

I have been playing space invaders on this thing for over 2 hours, having a blast!! forgot how much I liked the original atari

 

[foxglove9]

Very cool! Congrats!

 

It's funny because whenever I can scrape together money to mod my Flashback the first game I want to play is Space Invaders as well. I always loved the Atari version over the arcade.

[Dusk2600]

thats a cool modd, lot better then i could do.

[thevnaguy]

It is not has hard as you would think. I used the mod instructions by http://home.socal.rr.com/kokosplace/fb2/fb2_mod.htm since my circuit board looked like that. If you use a low wattage pen solder iron and pre-tin all the connections it is quite easy. Have to make sure you use 28 gauge wire (hard drive or floppy drive interface cable) any thicker wire will pull the solder tabs off the board (had this happen, rats!!!).

[Prodos8]

Eh...I little rough for my tastes, but I've seen worse. Nice job getting it to work though. I haven't worked up the courage to try and do mine yet.

 

BTW how did you cut through the case as it looks melted rather than drilled or cut?

[Paranoid]

Looks to me like he used a dremel tool with the cutting bit. It'll do this to plastic.

 

It looks good. I like the idea of having the cart slot plug into the end of a floppy connector like that, but I don't get how you got that to work.

[thevnaguy]

I used two floppy headers, then used every other wire in each header starting with the wire with the red stripe. That is, on one header I used the wire with the red strip, then skipped a wire, used wire number 3, then skipped again, used wire 5 and so on. Then on the other heater, I skipped the wire with the red stripe and started with wire 2, skipped a wire, then 4 and so on. Worked out real well.

And yes, I used a dremel tool to cut the plastic. I am in the process of making a shield to go around the cartridge header to make it look nice.

[Paranoid]

Heh... I'm going to have to take your word for it. Soldering a joystick for the 7800 is an advanced project for me. Oh... wait... I get it now... yeah... cool solution.

 

And I only recognized that as a dremel cut because I was just modifying a plastic case a couple of days ago, and the cut looked just like that. A bunch of tiny black shavings... Gotta love Dremel tools.

[+batari]

If you want to really cut corners, you can use the old-school floppy connectors (for 5.25" drives, like this one)

 

 

Then you don't need to buy the edge connector, as the floppy cable has one on the end. However, since the cart is 24-pin and the cable is 34-pin, you need to do some surgery with a sharp razor blade, then a little super glue to patch things up.

[thevnaguy]

Great idea on the 5.25 drive cables!!! I will have to find one and try it out on the next one I modify.

[SomeGuyWithDSL]

If you want to really cut corners, you can use the old-school floppy connectors (for 5.25" drives, like this one)

 

(image)

 

Then you don't need to buy the edge connector, as the floppy cable has one on the end. However, since the cart is 24-pin and the cable is 34-pin, you need to do some surgery with a sharp razor blade, then a little super glue to patch things up.

 

batari,

 

The slow ones amongst us (I) need a little more help getting this through our (my) heads.

 

Are you saying that a 24-pin block cut out of the larger 34-pin floppy connector is identical to the 24-pin edge connector needed for a 2600 cart? And that I (I mean we) could just leave those 24 wires in the ribbon cable connected and solder the other end to the pads on the FB2? I see the resemblance in the two connectors now, but it had never occurred to me that the two would actually be identical in terms of pin spacing, etc.

 

And what about attaching this connector to the cart guide, then? Is that where the super glue comes in? I'm about to open up my FB2 to work on a cart mod and this is fascinating.

[Paranoid]

If you want to really cut corners, you can use the old-school floppy connectors (for 5.25" drives, like this one)

 

(image)

 

Then you don't need to buy the edge connector, as the floppy cable has one on the end. However, since the cart is 24-pin and the cable is 34-pin, you need to do some surgery with a sharp razor blade, then a little super glue to patch things up.

 

batari,

 

The slow ones amongst us (I) need a little more help getting this through our (my) heads.

 

Are you saying that a 24-pin block cut out of the larger 34-pin floppy connector is identical to the 24-pin edge connector needed for a 2600 cart? And that I (I mean we) could just leave those 24 wires in the ribbon cable connected and solder the other end to the pads on the FB2? I see the resemblance in the two connectors now, but it had never occurred to me that the two would actually be identical in terms of pin spacing, etc.

 

And what about attaching this connector to the cart guide, then? Is that where the super glue comes in? I'm about to open up my FB2 to work on a cart mod and this is fascinating.

 

I had always noticed the resemblence between the floppy edge connector and the Atari connector, and my guess is that they both use some ISO standard for the spacing. If you look at the actual edge connector of an old 5.25" floppy drive and compare that to a 2600 cart, the leads look pretty much the same in size and spacing, too...

 

I never bothered to count the pins... but the fact that the floppy is 34 and the Atari 24 pin seems to present problems. You would have to cut through the pretty substantial block of plastic on one side... between the 24th and 25th pins... Seems like you would want a pretty precise tool to do this... a dremel would make a mess, and a razor blade or an exacto knife would require someone with a kung-fu grip and nerves of steel.

[Zonie]

You could dig up an old MFM hard drive cable. There were two cables for these drives, a 34 pin and a 24 pin. use the 24 pin, no surgery. I'm sure you can find 24 pin card edge connectors in Digikey or Newark Inone cataloges too.

 

It is a shame that they didn't include Space invaders on the FB2.

[Paranoid]

You know, I've got several old MFM machines in the garage, and a few old Winchester drives. I bet I've got 5 or 6 of these just lying around.

 

Too bad I don't trust myself to solder onto those teeny little pads.

[IBP]

Are you saying that a 24-pin block cut out of the larger 34-pin floppy connector is identical to the 24-pin edge connector needed for a 2600 cart? And that I (I mean we) could just leave those 24 wires in the ribbon cable connected and solder the other end to the pads on the FB2?

 

Yes. The two connectors use the same ISO spacing for the pins, so the atari cart fits into a 5.25" floppy cable. It's how I did my first atari hack.

 

You don't even need to hack the floppy connector up, as if I remember correctly it is short enough to allow the atari cart to fit over it (the cartridge edge connector would be in the middle of the block with two spare pins on one side and three on the other). You need to put a blob of epoxy each side of where the edge connector would go to guide the cart to the correct pins, and work out which cores of the ribbon to start and finish on.

 

Still, it's a lot easier than hacking the connector or modifying an atari one.