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Handheld Atari 2600 VCSp
Mzilikazi writes: "This enterprising chap, Benjamin J. Heckendorn, has taken the chips out of an Atari 2600 and hacked together his very own portable VCS!
The site has a lot of detailed information and photographs detailing the construction of the unit. The screen came from an old Casio handheld television, and yes, it does feature an attractive woodgrain case. "
Mattel was, it appears, the first company to do this; Atari threatened to sue them, but the 2600 contains no copyrightable software (as the Intellivision and Colecovision did) and all off-the-shelf hardware (basically, three chips), so they really had no grounds to sue. Afterwards, other manufacturers began making 2600 clones.
The rest of that site is also very good; it provides some interesting insights into, not only the Intellivision game system, but the people behind it and the dynamics of the early-80's video game market. Recommended.
Eric
--
Be who you are...and be it in style!
Just do a quick web search on it (Casio EV-550). Maybe he got it used, but it's not like this is some ancient device that he pulled off the trash heap. He's even got the original box for it!
Atari's gonna come after you and poke you many times with a soldering iron, da?
--
Sega Saturn (as well as PSX) also has a lightshow built in.
Atari is now owned by Hasbro.
Since he didn't actually copy any of their stuff, only modified it, they can't complain.
Now if he started selling these things, they might take note.
Yes. The Commodore 64 was a Mostek 6510, a variation on the 6502.
Almost identical.
It was able to address any amount of memory through paging.
MOS Tech. Not Mostek. Argh. Silly me.
It did have a serial port, and no, I don't hink it was the bank switch.
It wasn't rs232.. I believe the signalling was intact, but it was at ttl (or cmos) levels instead of rs232 levels, so you needed a powered converter.
Actually, the other great game for the Jaguar was Tempest 2K.
The system also had, near the end, a CD player (which sat on top of the unit making it look a bit like a toliet). As far as I remember there were really no good CD games - however, it did have a Jeff Minter lightshow (think winamp visual plugin) built in for playing CD's! That's the only reason I still hook mine up at all. It was such a great idea, I can't believe that no system since has included a lightshow of some sort for CD's.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Haven't you ever heard of hobbies? Those are the sorts of things people do during their free time because they enjoy them. Some of us may enjoy reading slashdot over and over and over again. Or hacking the linux kernel, or coding a new GUI, or playing quake, or designing a new e-theme, or even *gasp* spending time OFF of the computer for a while.
:)
This guy decided to convert an old Atari system to a portable unit. Nothing he did by doing this caused me any direct or indirect grief, so I can't possibly think of any reason why he shouldn't do it.
Others may say he's wasting his talent on a useless project. Certainly, the potential use for a portable game system that is 20 years old might be limited, but all effort put towards these types of projects is experience toward other types of projects. This is a person who thinks up neat things. The next neat thing he thinks up and builds might a revolutionary PDA which nobody will consider wasted talent.
I'm sure he's quite content with his life the way it is.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
Well, you could always build one...
Nuts and Volts magazine ran a series of articles (later condensed into a small booklet for subscribers) a while back detailing how to do it (make the X/Y table, the Z head, adding a Dremel), but it could still set you back a grand...
Here in Phoenix, I was milling (no pun intended) around a place downtown (behind BOB), called Equipment Exchange - pretty cool place. Lots of chip fab equipment, much of it in VERY used condition - but there were a few gems. My favorite devices were the industrial robots (they actually had a Unimate! The thing was HUGE!). But one thing I did find in the expansive warehouse (it has to be seen to be believed), was three or four assembling tables of some sort (I think they were for SMT work, but not sure - for like auto-gluing of chips, or something).
Each table had a small X/Y board, with nice lead screws, and a small Z head. Each lead screw was powered by a stepper, with extremely smooth movement. The table even had a custom XT mounted on it.
I didn't ask the price of anything I saw (for one, I didn't know who to ask, as I was the only person in the warehouse, and two, it seemed like most of the stuff was out-of-range pricewise for me, and I didn't really have much need for any of it - I was just checking the place out), so I don't know how much one cost - but I imagine they might let you have one for a few hundred (for all I know, maybe even less!)...
Anyhow, that is what I found - so a homebrew job might be possible, if you know where to shop.
BTW (and totally OT): All you Apple IIe nuts in Phoenix: there was a stash of HUNDREDS of Apple IIe floppies in the bottom of the warehouse - in a couple of cases, they were in fair condition - I would guess around 1000 floppies total. Many cool programs (I found several Eamon disks in the stack).
I support the EFF - do you?
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
If you read the about the creator section of the web site it mentions that he has access to the design and milling equipment at work, not personally owned stuff.
Though you might want to check educational electronics catalouges, I seem to remember playing with very basic CAM setup in a highschool technology class about 5-6 years ago, worked with an Apple ][ iirc, and could only mill plastic.
"Listen: We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different!" - Kurt Vonnegut
This device reminds me of the TV Boy:
B oy.html
:)
http://www.atari2600.com/catalog/Specials/GamTV
It's basicly just a 127-in-1 game rom, built-in controller and Atari compatable hardware in one small handheld unit. The big difference (and downside) is that you still have to hook it up to a TV. It allows standard joysticks to be pluged in, so it may be nice to put it in your backpack and carry it to your friend's house if he has a projection TV
Another big problem is the price: $99.95
That's way too much. You can get the real thing at a Goodwill with some games for well under $10, unless the guy who prices things is a total loon and thinks it could be valueable. Then the prices for a single cart could go up to $5 EACH. It's true, once I saw a copy of DOS on 5.25 disks for the low, low price of $20 (!?!?!?!).
Even though a handheld VCS is cool, the cost of making one is too much (except as a hobby project), considering the VCS can be found at garage sales in the "Please help us get rid of this!" pile.
Has there been any word from Atari yet? They're still out there aren't they? I remember something about a 64-bit system a while back. Anyway, are they going to throw the typical "you're not using my product exactly the way I said you could so I'm going to sue you for more than you'll ever have" tantrum? My memories of my Atari 2600 are too fond to easily believe they'd take that route, but these days who knows? Speaking of which, I have GOT to GET me one of those! I'd take a 2600 over a PS2 or X-Box any day.
I don't use the word hero very often, but this guy is _the_greatest_hero_of_his_generation_.
- L. Hutz
I'd enjoy it more if it was a PS2 or Dreamcast. At least the Dreamcast is small to begin with. Converting it can't be too hard.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
Actually he didn't, the story submitter did. And this page shows what appears to be the new box the Casio came in.
Actually, it makes more sense when you realize that he didn't want to mess too much with the original circuitry. Obviously the ideal situation would be to take the picture data straight from screen memory and run it through a LCD driver chip and then straight to the TFT. But if you're going to stick with the Atari's composite out, then you need analog video circuitry to get it back into digital. That, indeed, is the (non RF) core of a pocket TV, so it's not just the screen he's using..
I do remember chasing my tail for a day and a half after I changed something in the attract mode and the whole damned game fell apart. Turned out that the byte (honest to God, one stinking BYTE) had pushed a loop over a page boundry, causing the conditional branch to take that extra cycle (or maybe two -- it's been a long time), which blew the scan timing which blew the screen timing, which just plain blew...
Stuff like that made it interesting, but not really hard.
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
The site doesn't discuss how the case was actually manufactured other than to say something about the "computerized router" that he used.
Does anyone have any information on small computerized milling machines that are inexpensive enough to obtain for hobby use? The ability to work with plastic and aluminum would be a big plus... Something I could use to repackage things like my mouse or keyboard shell or create wild tape dispensers... etc.
~GoRK
I still have my 7800 and it's just as portable. Comes with the lustrous duffel bag outboard paneling. And it also has 28 cartridges (27 if you don't count the mandatory second copy of Combat).
There are several approaches. They depend on what voltages are used by the Atari. As far as I know, most of the Atari actually runs off 5 volts, so it could be run directly off the 3 AA cells. Find the voltage regulator (probably a simple 3 lead TO220 device) and remove it. This linear regulator probably sucks up half the energy coming from the 9 volt battery. Feed the output point directly from the 3 AA cells (4.5 V). Now only part that requires thought is to figure out if the 9 volts are used for anything else. If not you could eliminate the 9 volt battery completely. There is one possible gotcha in that the polarity with respect to ground of the 3 AA cells might be wrong. Verify that the polarity is right. If it is not right, read on.
A good refinement of this hack would be to construct a simple switching regulator with one of those ICs that need only a couple external parts (usually miniature toroid and a capacitor). This would be a better way to feed the Atari because the voltage seen by the Atari circuitry would be independent of what state of charge the 3 AA cells were in. Also, if there were polarity considerations, an inverting regulator could be used. This technique could also be used if a voltage other than 5 volts were needed elsewhere.
Finally, by using a switching regulator, and finding room for an extra AA cell, you would really have even longer long battery life. Power the the screen from the current setup, but feed the switcher from the extra cell at the top of the stack. By the way, the switching regulator circuit would not take up more than a square inch of space.
The intro says an old Casio, but it looks new to me. It appears that he actually bought one just for the screen, throwing out the rest. There's got to be a cheaper way to get small TFTs.
This movie clip is almost as cool as the toy.
forth ?love if honk then