Click on the pictures to make them bigger.
The kit contains the following parts.
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In addition to the above,
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Open the Atari, take out the motherboard and place on the operating table. It might be a good idea to take those four little foam discs off the switches at this point so they don't fall off and get lost. | |
Untwist the metal tabs an take off the metal shield plates above
and below the motherboard. Identify the TIA. The PAL version is labelled CO11903 and the NTSC version CO104444. |
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Hold the 2600RGB board above the TIA like so. The purpose is to
find all the tall components that might get in the way of mounting
the the 2600 board. |
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I've circled all the tall components in magenta. Two transistors
to the left, a crystal, a big orange coil, and another transistor
behind it. |
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Out with crystal, out with big orange. The transistors just need
to be pushed out of the way. |
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I've put the two tall components back in, but mounted
horizontally. Some extra wire was used for the leg extensions. You
may leave off the orange coil if you don't care to keep the
original RF output functional. Look, the TIA chip is in socket. That's convenient! Note the orientation of the TIA. On my board it is facing a different direction to the other chips. For reference, you may use the silkscreen on the board, but not the socket (sometimes sockets are installed backwards). If your TIA is soldered to the board you will need to desolder it. Install the dual wipe IC socket in its position. |
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It's time to prepare the 2600RGB board! |
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Insert the pin strip into the bottom of the 2600RGB board as
shown. Solder only one pin on each. Adjust each strip so it is
straight and perpendicular to the PCB. Once it looks good solder
all the other pins. |
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Strip the insulation from the seven
wire ribbon cable. Tin the wires with solder and do the same to
the pads labelled EXTRA on the 2600RGB board. Solder the wires by
holding the ribbon in place and applying pressure with the
soldering iron tip, one at a time. |
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Solder on the 40p round pin IC socket for the TIA and 8p socket
for the programmed serial EEPROM. Solder the jumpers if required. Their functions are:
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Put the EEPROM in the socket. You may need to trim the legs of
the 8p socket otherwise they bump into the big annoying orange
coil, which is now mounted horizontally. |
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Insert the TIA into the round pin socket on the 2600RGB board.
But first, look at the legs on the TIA chip you have removed. Do
the legs stick out a bit like the one in the left of the
photograph? If so bend them in a bit using a flat surface so it's
more like the one to the right. This makes it easier to insert
into the round pin IC socket. |
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Stick the 2600RGB board into the TIA socket on the motherboard.
It's tight fit and may require some force. This is good, it won't
fall out. |
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Wire the audio and video connections. See the wiring
diagram for more details. Power is supplied to the 2600RGB
through the TIA socket. The 5V pad is for generating SCART
switching signals only. |
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Cut the ribbon cable to length and wire it to the left
controller port according to the wiring diagram. The pin listing for the Extra connector is,
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For reference. | |
Cut a hole in the metal shield for the wires to escape. File the
sharp edges so you don't cut yourself (or the wires). |
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Now it's time to install the switching power regulator! Find the linear 7805 three terminal regulator and remove it from the motherboard. Clean the solder out of the holes with a solder sucker. |
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Insert the 3p right angle pin header into the regulator holes as
shown, bent part into the motherboard. Align the short end of the
header with the pads on the switching regulator and solder them
into position (don't solder to the motherboard yet). |
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Make sure the area is clean and dirt free. Remove the plastic
which covers the sticky adhesive on the back of the switching
regulator. Stick it to the motherboard and solder the pins. |
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The pins of the switching regulator are labelled I for input, G
for ground, O for output. After you have stuck and soldered it in
place, I recommend testing the ground connection with a
multimeter. Measure the resistance between a ground point (such as
the large copper plane beneath the regulator) and the G pad to
check it is close to 0 ohms. If it is not connected please solder again. The Atari may be damaged if it is powered on and the regulator is not connected properly. |
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An extra capacitor is required to reduce radiated noise. Install
the supplied 220u electrolytic capacitor between the Input and
Ground pins of the switching regulator. The negative leg (marked
with a stripe) is connected to ground. |
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Drill two holes in the rear of the plastic shell for the audio
and video connectors. The 3.5mm socket requires a 6mm hole and the
8p mini-DIN socket requires a 12mm hole. The holes must be drilled with a step drill bit (shown to the right). Do not use a twist drill bit (shown left) as it may crack the plastic. |
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The shell for the Atari is about 3.3mm thick, which is too thick
to mount the audio socket directly. The trick is to use a large
twist drill bit (about 10mm or so) to remove some of the plastic
from the inside of the shell. Do this by hand. |
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Now the 3.5mm audio socket will fit. |
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Mount the audio socket and glue the mini-DIN socket in with two
part epoxy. |
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Once the epoxy has cured, you can solder the pin label board in
place. Put the console back together. Don't forget the little foam pieces around the switches. |
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Now to install the extra button on the controller. When pressed,
it will assert the left and right joystick signals simultaneously.
The Extra button is pressed while performing another action. This
normally impossible combination of signals is detected by the
2600RGB board. Extra + Up = Select. Extra + Down = Reset. Extra + Fire = Palette switch. |
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Drill a 5mm hole (twist drill bit is fine) to in the joystick
and mount the pushbutton in a convenient spot. Solder the two
diodes to the diode board and install according to the wiring
diagram. You can mount the diode board with double sided tape or
similar. There are five pads on the diode board. Button, Ground, Ground, Left, Right. Solder the pushbutton between the button an ground terminals. Then solder the ground, left, and right terminals to the joystick board. You can identify the ground connection easily because it's the only one that connects to all the switches. The left and right points should be obvious from looking at the board layout. |
Change Log
1/8/2015 - Page Created.
30/11/2016 - Added note that there are some parts included with the kit
which are unused for this model.