Guide for installing the 2600RGB into a Six Switch Atari 2600.
Tools and materials required:
- Soldering iron and leaded solder wire.
- Insulated copper 'hook up' wire. It's better to use wire that is thin and easy to work with.
- Solder sucker or desoldering iron if your TIA chip is in a white socket.
- Pliers and cutters and screwdrivers and tin snips and files.
Click on the pictures to make them bigger.
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The kit contains the following parts.
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In addition to the above,
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One adapter board is included. You will get a PPUADAPTER1 board
if you bought a PAL Atari Six Switch 2600RGB kit or a PPUADAPTER3
board if you bought the NTSC version. This guide will be about the PAL version of the console. The procedure is the same for the NTSC version, only the motherboard layout is different. The low hight pin strip supplied is used to attach the adapter board to the 2600RGB. |
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Take out the six screws out of the base and top comes of easily.
Inside there's a large board holding the switches, voltage
regulator, and RF modulator. I'll call it the switch board. In the
middle, under the formidable metal shield, lies the motherboard. The switch board comes off after removing two screws and disconnecting the 12p cable in the middle. |
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Take out the armoured motherboard house. It's attached to the
base of the plastic shell by a pair of screws on the bottom of the
console (which you probably removed already while trying to open
it in the first place). |
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Exposed the motherboard and identify the TIA. The PAL version is labelled CO11903 and the NTSC version CO104444. |
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Place the adapter board over the TIA to see if it bumps into any
surrounding components. In this case it hits the large green capacitor near pin 1. There is no space to bend it over here. This is a 100nF power supply bypass capacitor. You can replace it with the smaller capacitor included with the kit. Alternatively, you can mount it to the rear of the motherboard. If other components are in the way they will need to be bent over or moved. |
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Some of the early Atari consoles have white IC sockets that look
like the picture to the left. These white sockets have smaller
openings for the pins and will not accommodate standard 0.64 *
0.64mm size pin strip. Currently, the only solution for this is to desolder the white IC socket and replace it with the ordinary dual wipe socket included in the kit. I'm looking for source of 0.5mm round pin strip that does not add too much extra height. Once I find it, I will include it as a standard part of the kit. |
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Solder the pair of 20p 11.5mm pin strip to the adapter board in the motherboard position. The best way is to solder only one pin. Check that the pins are straight and perpendicular. Then solder all the rest. |
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Solder the pair of 20p low height pin strip to the underside of
the 2600RGB board in the places marked with the white outline. |
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Solder the 40p round pin IC socket in place. Also solder the 8p
IC socket for the EEPROM. |
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Inspect the all your solder joints. Once the adapter board is
soldered on many of them will become inaccessible. |
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Solder the adapter board and 2600RGB board together. |
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Insert the 2600RGB assembly into the TIA socket on the
motherboard. |
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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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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. I am using 40cm long wires for the audio and video signals. The audio is wired to the 3.5mm audio socket. The video signals go to the pin label board for the 8p Mini-DIN connector. I used two wires for ground to the 3.5mm socket for a lower resistance connection. |
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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,
Pin 8 is reset (EXTRA pin 1). Pin 9 is select (EXTRA pin 2). Place the motherboard back into the shield. Don't forget the two screws that hold it in place towards the bottom! |
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For reference. |
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Put the rest of the shield back together. Six screws hole the
bottom plate on. There should already be be some spaces for the
wires to fit through. |
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All back together |
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Found the power regulator. |
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Remove the voltage regulator IC and replace it with the
switching power supply module. Solder the right angle pin strip to the power module, the bent part goes into the switch board. Then remove the blue plastic from the sticky adhestive on the back, stick it down, and solder the pins to the switch board. Install the green capacitor as shown. The positive leg is connected to the I pin (input) and the negative leg is connected to the G pin (ground). |
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The final step is to provide a convenient means of connecting the audio/video signals from the 2600RGB board. The usual method is to drill a couple of holes in the console shell to mount a/v connectors. If you would like to do this, please follow the remainder of the Four Switch Installation Guide. The procedure is identical. |
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Instead of mounting a connector on the shell some people might
prefer a fixed A/V cable. The cable exists from the opening in the
shell provided for the RF cable. I have used my standard
cable set, but you may
use whatever is available. A separate cable for the audio is
recommended as this prevents video noise being coupled into the
audio signal. Attaching a cable this way does not require any modification to the Atari console's shell. |
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The Mini-DIN 8p cable from the cable set does not fit through
the RF cable opening. With a sharp knife, cut away some of the
soft moulded plastic around the connector. Now it should fit in
quite easily. |
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Inside the console, I have terminated the audio and video cables
by plugging into their respective connectors and covering the
junction with heat shrink tube. That's all for the console. When putting it back together, don't forget about the foam pieces around the switches and card around the rear connectors. |
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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
25/9/2015 - Page Created.
1/5/2016 - Fixed link for wiring diagram.
30/11/2016 - Added note that there are some parts included with the kit
which are unused for this model.