Didn't know this mod existed. I definitely need to get this done. Thank you for creating this video. I just got done rebuilding my setup and I got an 8 port Composite Switcher. I I'm kinda done with RF at this point despite the fact that I am using a CRT. This is my first time watching your channel. Keep up the great work!
The foil across the switches are ESD straps...not RF shielding...best to leave them in place to protect circuitry from static charge when you touch metal switch throw.
Our kids had a 2600 wood grain version -- pretty early version. They had lots of games, and when they heard PacMan was coming out for it, were really excited. We pre-ordered, waited with anticipation, and when it arrived, plugged it in and...suffered major disappointment. What the @#$@# was THAT? Fortunately, when the 5200 came out, we got that for them, and its PacMan was excellent. Ah, good times. :)
@@Inaflap of course, it's the infamous story about the lame E.T. atari rushed to market before xmas and ended up destroying the arcade business back in early 80s, although there were other causes but certainly E.T. cart contributed a lot to it
Holy $h!# I'm so glad I found this video! I've been researching the best 2600 composite mod and they all required WAY too soldering. THANK you for putting out this video, this will be so easy!
that's a really neat looking mod for an atari 2600 it seems to be way better than what they povided us with back then .... the picture looks to not be glitchy and sound sounded good ......
Indeed, Pac-Man 4K is an amazing homebrew port of Pac-Man using the same 4K limitation they had back in the day. However as a kid, I still enjoyed the Pac-Man we got back then. For kicks I still fire up my original Pac-Man cartridge from time to time :-)
YT suggested this video while I was looking for Atari 2600 stuff. This gets a 11 out of 10 rating. 10 for the content and a bonus point for not saying "or you can run it through an old VCR." So, then I checked out your video list- tons of vintage I grew up with in the 80's! But then... the music videos... oh yeah, I'm subscribing!
Wow, the frame rate really highlights the biggest complaint from that version of Pacman. Those ghosts are flickering so badly it looks at times like there's one ghost that's whizzing all over the screen, lol.
Because basically that was it was. Due to time constraints and limitations, plus only having a whole 4k space to work with, Howard Scott Warshaw basically had the four ghosts condensed into one sprite that is drawn every other frame. So ghost 1 gets drawn, then ghost 3, then 2 and then 4. Which was mostly hidden by a crt with how it would produce the image. AkA the old 2600 racing the beam trick. Where they would just code the sprites to be drawn line by line as the image is produced by the Electron gun in the TV(to put it in very basic terms)
@@The_Real_DCT it was actually quite impressive, what the developers of the various games games managed to do with so little, wasn't it. I've learned quite a lot since my initial comment above, so have much more appreciation of it. I do love that term too. Racing the beam. It sounds so cool to a nerd like me. :-)
Great tip!, thx! I will get one for my Atari 2600 too. I was a bit disappointed because I couldn't get the joystick only from the RetroN 77 gaming console. Price for everything is a bit for me now...
There's a lot of hate for the original Pac-Man on the 2600, but I enjoyed it back in the day and still enjoy it in 2022. Hearing the "dun dun dun" sounds as Pac-Man eats the dots is so nostalgic for me. Development tools are way better today verses back in the late 1970s and early 1980s. You should check out Pac-Man 4K which is a way better version of Pac-Man.
@@Inaflap Pac-Man 8K is indeed good, however the charm of Pac-Man 4K is showing what could have been done back in the day with the same 4K limitations if the developer had more time to work on the game.
@@geekwithsocialskills Fair enough. No doubt there was a lot of pressure to release for the Christmas sales. Are you aware of the Pac-man game developed by Atarisoft for the Colecovision. It is excellent.
i still have my atari from 47 years ago and use a antique TV to operate will you do this mod to mine if i sent it to you the Atari still looks as good as it was made and its like the one you are holding
ET is a great game once you apply the "not falling in holes quite so easily" patch. Tell me what are the pcb like things just in front of the TV with the logic gate symbols printed on them? Good job on the AV mod BTW ;)
I have Jr. with the deluxe mod, and it’s nice and sharp. However the color is a bit weak, i have to turn up the saturation quite some on my CM8833-II (I am in PAL land). And the audio interferes with the picture. I also have a Vader that I modded with a stripboard mod. That has good audio and color, but the video is fuzzy/soft. I wonder if I will ever get both good color and audio PLUS the sharpness… Fun video! Keep up the good work!
So in Yars Revenge, you were wondering what the vertical strip was going down the screen. That's your safe-zone, the small stalker missile which is moving towards you can't damage you when you're in the safe-zone. Your aim is to destroy the orange shield around the gun turret just enough so you can destroy it. Nice mod - is it PAL compatible?
@@fractalMD , Sadly no I haven't. I don't read to much. I tinker with Raspberry Pi's, Arduino's, and play a lot of PC games or retro stuff on the CoCo :)
Dunno, but i think there is something not right with this Pac-Man game. The ghosts seems to bee jumping around while they should start with 1 and split to more ghosts. Here they jumping around. (Or, it is a screen glitch)
The VCS / 2600 had hardware for 3 sprites... two bats and a ball, as it was based on Pong hardware. To display ghosts and a pac-man it is necessary to multiplex, spending some time displaying one ghost, and then another. There is a 4K and 8K version of Pac-man made about a decade ago, I think, and that does a much better job, but there is still a little flicker, especially when sprites are on the same scan-line. It's all an issue of timing.
C'mon Amy & Taylor why are you using that joystick on Pacman (death wish) don't tell me you guys don't have a Hyperkin ranger or a Sega controller..... You're give me pacman frustration nightmares!
This was so enjoyable to watch :-) I need to do this on my 2600.
Yes!
I love the atari games sound effects
Imagine playing 2600 Donkey Kong (same game) for 3 hours straight back in the day.
Didn't know this mod existed. I definitely need to get this done. Thank you for creating this video. I just got done rebuilding my setup and I got an 8 port Composite Switcher. I I'm kinda done with RF at this point despite the fact that I am using a CRT. This is my first time watching your channel. Keep up the great work!
That's awesome!
The foil across the switches are ESD straps...not RF shielding...best to leave them in place to protect circuitry from static charge when you touch metal switch throw.
We are living on the edge
The aluminium foil on the switches is supposed to protect the machine from static electricity from hands touching the switches.
very nice
Enjoyed this look inside the Atari...!
😀
Yars Revenge drove me nuts.
I always found it profoundly weird.
YT algorithm sent me here. Subscribed. Keep up the good work!
Thanks!
So glad I'm not the only one who played Donkey Kong like that.
Flawlessly? 😂
Our kids had a 2600 wood grain version -- pretty early version. They had lots of games, and when they heard PacMan was coming out for it, were really excited. We pre-ordered, waited with anticipation, and when it arrived, plugged it in and...suffered major disappointment. What the @#$@# was THAT? Fortunately, when the 5200 came out, we got that for them, and its PacMan was excellent. Ah, good times. :)
lol yes, you needed great imagination for those games and an even greater patience to not smash those poor quality cartridges like E.T.
@@alerey4363 I heard a lot of unsold Atari cartridges went to land-fill somewhere in the state of New Mexico.
@@Inaflap of course, it's the infamous story about the lame E.T. atari rushed to market before xmas and ended up destroying the arcade business back in early 80s, although there were other causes but certainly E.T. cart contributed a lot to it
@@alerey4363 there is a whole documentary on it I watched at some point on the ET landfill situation!
Holy $h!# I'm so glad I found this video! I've been researching the best 2600 composite mod and they all required WAY too soldering. THANK you for putting out this video, this will be so easy!
Hooray!!!
Medical officer doing engineering? You're the opposite of Jet Reno!
Tig Notaro is just so awesome.
Your videos are so much fun to watch keep up the great work. Thank you both.
😁
that's a really neat looking mod for an atari 2600 it seems to be way better than what they povided us with back then .... the picture looks to not be glitchy and sound sounded good ......
We are fans 👍🏻
That's like magic! :)
Perhaps Yar's Revenge inspired Trisha Yar from Star Trek: The Next Generation....
When that tar pit killed Tasha Yar I was traumatized. She definitely deserves some revenge!
@@fractalMDthe crew on Star Trek Lower Decks prank call Armus if that helps.
@@turret72 It does. It really does.
Go gurlz
That is awesome! We are clearly on the same wavelength.
Haha, nice! That PacMan game? It was a prototype rushed to market. There are some homebrew versions of PacMan for the 2600 that are awesome!
Indeed, Pac-Man 4K is an amazing homebrew port of Pac-Man using the same 4K limitation they had back in the day. However as a kid, I still enjoyed the Pac-Man we got back then. For kicks I still fire up my original Pac-Man cartridge from time to time :-)
@@geekwithsocialskills 8k Pac-Man is even better!
Cool my atari 2600 has the wood front. Although not had it out in ages.
Dust it off!
@@TaylorAmyShow I will have to.
YT suggested this video while I was looking for Atari 2600 stuff. This gets a 11 out of 10 rating. 10 for the content and a bonus point for not saying "or you can run it through an old VCR." So, then I checked out your video list- tons of vintage I grew up with in the 80's! But then... the music videos... oh yeah, I'm subscribing!
VCR? NEVER! (Unless it's a NABU) 😄 Welcome!
Just got this 😎now I need a harmony cartridge
Yes you do!
@@fractalMD already ordered mate 👌
@@thefifthdoctor6780 nice!!!
Fellow RF shield slinger here. Metal work be gone!
It's like, REMOVE THIS FROM MY SIGHT!
Wow, the frame rate really highlights the biggest complaint from that version of Pacman. Those ghosts are flickering so badly it looks at times like there's one ghost that's whizzing all over the screen, lol.
Legit ghosty ghost behavior.
@@fractalMD definitely. 😁
Because basically that was it was. Due to time constraints and limitations, plus only having a whole 4k space to work with, Howard Scott Warshaw basically had the four ghosts condensed into one sprite that is drawn every other frame. So ghost 1 gets drawn, then ghost 3, then 2 and then 4. Which was mostly hidden by a crt with how it would produce the image. AkA the old 2600 racing the beam trick. Where they would just code the sprites to be drawn line by line as the image is produced by the Electron gun in the TV(to put it in very basic terms)
@@The_Real_DCT it was actually quite impressive, what the developers of the various games games managed to do with so little, wasn't it. I've learned quite a lot since my initial comment above, so have much more appreciation of it. I do love that term too. Racing the beam. It sounds so cool to a nerd like me. :-)
Great tip!, thx! I will get one for my Atari 2600 too. I was a bit disappointed because I couldn't get the joystick only from the RetroN 77 gaming console. Price for everything is a bit for me now...
can totally recommend this mod, fo sho
@@fractalMD do you know where to buy the joystick separately?
@@mpess8569 I don't know, but I'll see if Taylor remembers where she got it
@@mpess8569 Amazon has them. Search for "Hyperkin Trooper"
There's a lot of hate for the original Pac-Man on the 2600, but I enjoyed it back in the day and still enjoy it in 2022. Hearing the "dun dun dun" sounds as Pac-Man eats the dots is so nostalgic for me. Development tools are way better today verses back in the late 1970s and early 1980s. You should check out Pac-Man 4K which is a way better version of Pac-Man.
Lol, true. As much as we throw shade I had many a blister from playing that version of pacman.
There's a Pac-man 8K out there too. That's really good, but I've only tried it using Stella.
@@Inaflap Pac-Man 8K is indeed good, however the charm of Pac-Man 4K is showing what could have been done back in the day with the same 4K limitations if the developer had more time to work on the game.
@@geekwithsocialskills Fair enough. No doubt there was a lot of pressure to release for the Christmas sales. Are you aware of the Pac-man game developed by Atarisoft for the Colecovision. It is excellent.
i still have my atari from 47 years ago and use a antique TV to operate will you do this mod to mine if i sent it to you the Atari still looks as good as it was made and its like the one you are holding
I'm afraid we can't, but you should try it yourself!
Cool!
😃
ET is a great game once you apply the "not falling in holes quite so easily" patch. Tell me what are the pcb like things just in front of the TV with the logic gate symbols printed on them? Good job on the AV mod BTW ;)
It's a little project I found on tindie!
www.tindie.com/products/tsj_electronics/computer-science-logic-gates-desk-toy-v11/
8BITB, crazy observant!
I have Jr. with the deluxe mod, and it’s nice and sharp. However the color is a bit weak, i have to turn up the saturation quite some on my CM8833-II (I am in PAL land). And the audio interferes with the picture.
I also have a Vader that I modded with a stripboard mod. That has good audio and color, but the video is fuzzy/soft. I wonder if I will ever get both good color and audio PLUS the sharpness…
Fun video! Keep up the good work!
Ah, PAL land. Even tho not perfect, both those systems sound pretty damn cool.
Fun fact. My car is named Vader and I have a vanity plate about it. Ha!
@@fractalMD fun fact: my father is Vader. And I am Luke.
@@root42 You are the chosen one!
“Safety third” - ha, love it.
;)
I click for the Atari. I saw two ladies and questioned my click.
I saw the STar Trek shirt.
I'm in a good place.
I Subscribed.
welcome!
So in Yars Revenge, you were wondering what the vertical strip was going down the screen. That's your safe-zone, the small stalker missile which is moving towards you can't damage you when you're in the safe-zone. Your aim is to destroy the orange shield around the gun turret just enough so you can destroy it. Nice mod - is it PAL compatible?
Thank you! That explains a lot. The Future Was 8 Bit does have this mod for PAL computers.
Safety Third! hah! That's my line!
😂
Great video as always :)
At least you are not a red shirt :D lol
Every read that Scalzi book based on the concept? I remember liking it.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redshirts_(novel)
@@fractalMD ,
Sadly no I haven't. I don't read to much.
I tinker with Raspberry Pi's, Arduino's, and play a lot of PC games or retro stuff on the CoCo :)
@@David_Ladd I'll bet you are reading plenty of manuals!
@@fractalMD ,
Ok you got me there. :D
Yes I have.
Have you seen the manual for OS-9 L2? :D lol
Especially the technical manual :) lol
@@David_Ladd I'll prolly just wait for the movie....
That's my kind of girls
😃
Dunno, but i think there is something not right with this Pac-Man game. The ghosts seems to bee jumping around while they should start with 1 and split to more ghosts. Here they jumping around. (Or, it is a screen glitch)
The VCS / 2600 had hardware for 3 sprites... two bats and a ball, as it was based on Pong hardware. To display ghosts and a pac-man it is necessary to multiplex, spending some time displaying one ghost, and then another. There is a 4K and 8K version of Pac-man made about a decade ago, I think, and that does a much better job, but there is still a little flicker, especially when sprites are on the same scan-line. It's all an issue of timing.
Did you do all that in your kitchen?
This is The Lab [TM].
C'mon Amy & Taylor why are you using that joystick on Pacman (death wish) don't tell me you guys don't have a Hyperkin ranger or a Sega controller..... You're give me pacman frustration nightmares!
We love a challenge! 😂😂😂
@@fractalMD Well you got me there, that's surely true.
@basketballsteve54 If it makes you feel better, we do have a couple hyperkin rangers that make appearances here and there. 👍🏻
20220329 9:33am Subscriber #323.
Nice to have you, Lord Vader.