Let's Mod An Atari 2600 

I need to do this to my original Atari 2600!

Did you say your favorite game was E.T. fior the Atari? Blink once if you're being held against your will.

As a kid I was blown away by combat on the 2600. I miss that feeling.😊

Ok. Picking up a console that came out in the year I was born, then calling it almost 40 years old is a reality check I did not need on this Sunday afternoon!

I discovered your channel yesterday, and did watch all of it. I find it fascinating to see that the computers we children of the 80s have such warm feelings about can also captivate younger people.

I'm 54, so glad to see the new Generation having an interest and keeping"Retro Gaming" going

So great to see mods being made for old tech that brings new life to them. Love the Weird Science shirt too!

One of my first gaming consoles was the Atari 2600 in early 80's. I am now 51. Brings back so many memories. I think in the end I had over 200+ games. Thanks Kari for your channel. I am sure it will go far. Keep the videos coming!

There's something comforting about old gaming equipment and seeing enthusiasm for it from a new generation 😎

Good Lord! Your soldering skills are enviable! So clean! So precise! It’s like an extra bonus watching your videos. You have you and the topic you’re covering (meat & potatoes) then like an additional mini-game, we have the satisfaction of meticulous soldering. Bravo. Maybe in another 80 years I will gain such finesse with my own janky soldering endeavors.

a gem of a channel ! glad it popped up in the algorithm

43 now and the 2600jr was my first console when I was 5. Great to see people keeping them alive. Yars Revenge was one I could never get past the first bit of :D

I need to do this to my 1979 Intellivision console, which is also give or take 50 years old 😂, trust me, I’m older. Love your enthusiasm and working confidently with electronics which was my first job (electronics engineer), great to see.

Love the T-shirt, great 80's film..😁😁 Keep up the great vids.

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="260">4:20</a> The old "wish I had 4 hands" grip trying to test connectivity 🤣

This channel is dope. Its giving me Tech TV vibes from back when I watched it in high school early 2000s.

I got the Atari 2600 for Christmas in 1977 from a friend. We were so excited to play it and had a lot of fun. I sure bought a lot of game cartridges for it.

This is fast becoming one of my favorite retro channels. I only wish the videos were a bit longer. I could easily watch this for 15-20 minutes. :) Either way, great work!

You're the first person that I've ever heard say that ET is their favorite game! I had that game back in the early 80s and threw it away out of frustration! LOL

Keep up the great work; it's good to see more people getting into retro tech.

Not sure what all you’re doing but I’ll watch it all day!!!!!

Nice! And refreshing to see someone admit mistakes and how they fixed them. Nicely done, as always! Cheers!

Finally!!! Another person that likes ET, that was one of my fav Atari 2600 games when I was a kid but so many people tell me it was a flop or they hated it... but I loved it!

Again great video, Kari! Straight to the point, well presented and also some gameplay at the end! I had a huge collection of Atari 2600 consoles and games. I sold almost everything at one point in time.

Really enjoying the channel! It's nice to see the retro consoles getting some love from folks younger than me lol.

You made me feel old as the Atari was released the same year I was born. still, 3 years till I'm 50. keep up making the videos

Nice to see the next generation still enjoying the hardware some of us grew up with.

Very cool, Kari, seems quite straightforward. Definitely better than routing the signal through a VCR.

Yay, a new video, our prayers have been answered! ^^ and an interesting one to say the least! Never played Atari 2600 myself, but I hope to do someday! Cheers from Sweden!

Fantastic work on installing the mod. And that is a great kit, looks straight-forward and easy to install, compared to others I've seen. And you made it look even easier. And the ET game?! Wow, I haven't seen anyone play it (outside of specific RU-vid videos).

Bit of trivia for you: Your top is a shot from the movie Weird Science. The exterior shots of the school were filmed in Tucson AZ at Rincon High School. The shots of him finding the weird gadget was from the Air Force "boneyard" also in Tucson. One of my favorite weird movies!

So interesting that a young person such as yourself is intertested in this old tech from my youth. if RU-vid was around in the 80s this channel would have fit right in. You must have interesting parents that promoted this. Looking forward to more from you.

You're doing great! Nice content, short videos, well explained and great editing!

Great video Kari, I think you've really nailed the format on your videos so far, choosing a project, providing lots of detail, but still coming in at around 10mins, making them no-brainers to watch. I know I'm guilty of making self-indulgently long videos, but honestly when I see even a favourite channel post a 20-30min or even longer video, I wish they'd been a bit more ruthless either in the edit or in the scope. As for this one, I had an original VCS back in the late Seventies and loved it. I've still got all my later consoles from the 80's, but my VCS had gone, so I had to re-buy one recently. Luckily I have a couple of old CRT TVs with analogue RF tuners, so I can play them all unmodded BUT I'm torn about modding them for better quality. I went down a modding rabbit hole and found a bunch of RGB mods for all of my machines, including the VCS, but feel maybe I should leave them intact and just play on my Mister Multisystem if I want old games with RGB. Tough call! I envy you coming to it now and not having the same dilemma about modding, but when you have something that's been with you for over 40 years, it's harder to perform surgery on it! Anyway, keep up the good work.

Sweet video and great to see the mod installed and working.

I love seeing younger people getting in to our old Atari games and hardware. You did a fantastic job on Clean Comp install. I have this mod on one of my consoles, and an older composite mod on another. The Clean Comp definitely has the better picture.

Cool mod!!! I remember going out and buying the E.T. game when it came out…what a turkey that game is. It was the beginning of the end for Atari.

Very nice mod. Thx for the inspiration! 👏

This is such a good video and I’m looking to get into modding myself. Great work

You are the best by far!! Congrats and thanks for the video!

Love watching these vids, makes want to start a nother project

Great mod. I love your t-shirt with the famous Weird Science movie ❤

Now, I have to find my old Atari 2600 again! I like your format, strait to the point. Thanks :)

That was a hard mod but you did it effortlessly! You're awesome and I'm glad this is getting so many views!

You make me feel old as (love your videos) Was great to see you point out your mistake, not only did you learn but others also would

Ok, I was 10 when the OG 2600 came out, we got one in 79 when we got back in the states. I still have it, and all the games with it. Mine was the sears version the VCS

I would love to see more retro console mods. It's something that I would like to get into, but don't have the money or time to work on. So glad I found your channel and can't wait to see more.

Thanks 4 sharing this very cool video! I love moding things myself! Cheers!!

Great video! Thanks Kari. 😊

Rounding 1977 up to 'almost fifty years old' in 2024 hurts my 47 year old ego. My question would be -- do you need the blade back or will you just let it stuck in my heart?

Nice ! beautiful soldering work

Great video Kari. Well done!

I am older than the OG by a year! Nearly 50yrs old … oh borther! 😂 I remember getting one as a Xmas present in 1983. Great time to be a kid 🥰

Good work 👍🏻 love your videos

53yo here. My first console was one of those Heavy Sixers you were holding in the beginning. Now, I have an X-Arcade Tank stick with trackball for all my old arcade and console games.

I am 56 and my family was to poor for us to have one of these. But my best friend during the time when I was between 8 to 14 had one. I always kicked his butt in Combat. 😁

I've just discovered your channel Kari. Very impressed with the format and your skills. Subscribed immediately and I'm looking forward to many more great videos. Best of luck with the channel 🖖

Great video,love everything retro.

I clicked for your shirt. My God it’s something I should already own. You rock.

just what i need today, thank you!

In 1977 when I was 7 years old I won an Atari 2600 at my school's annual bazaar. It was the grand prize in one of those pick-a-pully-ticket-out of-a-big-jar games. Never one a single thing after that day lol.

I love your channel, looking for more videos in the future.

Love these videos!

I wish had half your soldering skill! Brilliant project. Many thanks for this.

Great simple mod! I hope there will be a lot of vids in the future, with growing skills too!

This feels like a really big channel that's been around for a long time. Love the content. Only downside is that the videos are too short 😆

Nice video, great job 👍😃

Excellent mod you made, lassie. I knew you give those old game consoles new makeovers.

Seen this before but VERY awesome video!!!

LOL. I almost choked on my tea when you said, "I have learned my lesson....". I think we've all been there.

Great work BTW keep it up

I purchased an Atari 2600 'Vader' years ago and it sat there. I heard about the video mod so I looked into it. I think I had to remove some components, I made a small PCB with a few resistors and a transistor and added some sockets to the back. Worked like a charm. I ended up selling it for 10x what I paid.

Very cool project!!

Really loving the format of your videos. No waffle, just straight into the retro! One suggestion for a future video - you seem quite a wizard at soldering. How about a soldering video detailing dos, don’ts, kit required etc. just a thought.

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="324">5:24</a> a good way to avoid this mistake (which is pretty common i think) is to refer to the pin numbers and not the physical layout. this can be difficult sometimes because manufacturers for really cheap plugs will just not include the numbers for the pins, but generally if you use a magnifying glass and a light you can find tiny numbers printed next to each pin. these numbers are always the same regardless of gender. i also like to keep a picture of both male and female plugs for whatever cables i'm making so i can double check. even then, its easy to make a mistake because if you hold a gendered plug backwards (like if you are soldering in cups) then the numbers will be reversed again lol; the back of a female plug is the same pinout as the front of a male plug and vice versa

Nice one! Retrosix is really putting out stellar work. Doing this on the larger 2600 is the same. The chip is in the same place but rotated 180°. But the lead coming out of the back would drive me crazy :D

Interesting mod and really nice presentation!

The skreets rocking with dis one heavy 👍🏾

Amazing, how this ancient stuff is still around and working. I had an Atari console like that, it must have been around 1973 or 74, came with a few game cassettes, but the one that we played most of all was Pong. All my mates and their girlfriends came around to try it out. Needless to say, the games were very simple and primitive and once the novelty wore off the thing disappeared into a cupboard. I eventually sold it it to help finance buying a car.

Great video i love the 2600❤

Loving the retro content and your WM accent. Big up Brum and the Black Country!

Wow, complimenti per il video e per la tua maestria! Good job Kari, you are smart and your video is pretty perfect 👍☺️ Ciao!

Great video, love the shirt!

Nice work!

You made it look so easy, nice job.

I’ve saved this to watch later. I’ve spent all day inside a Super Famicom problem solving no audio, I’m exhausted. Super excited to watch this video tomorrow 😊

Nice soldering skills！😃

I’m 49 we were very fortunate to have had an Atari 2600 even though our tv was a 13” b/w we still had fun. Our Atari came with Enduro, my introduction to racing games and video games overall thus becoming hooked on video games to this day, still playing on both console and PC when I can. I don’t do 13” screen anymore though. 😂

Wow, wish I could solder like you. Very clean.

Hi just saw your video for the first time. I can see you are an electronic wizard. You took me back to 1987 when i was taking electronics and can do some things although i only took it as a selective in higher school. Take care and greetings from Chicago👍👍

@<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="383">6:23</a> Wait a second! Let's talk about that Special ET cartridge!

Nice thanks for the video!

Another great video. 👍

A side-by-side comparison between the RF and the Composite would have been cool. Great video thank you!

The mention of the TIA reminded me of “Making Games for the Atari 2600” by Steven Hugg, found it such an interesting book.

thatw was some nice soldering for the mod board. i wish i was as confident.

Instead of soldering discreet wires to the mod, you might be able to get a SMT right angle connector (Hirose, Samtec, etc) with a mating connector to terminate the wires. Of course, you have to have enough room for the connector in under the console motherboard. Love this channel. Always a trip down memory lane for me growing up with a lot of these devices.

I did do a mod on the Atari 2600 Junior, to be able to connect it to the tv with the video signal. It was a mod where I did have to remove parts from the Atari first. To make it more difficult, the online manual showed a slightly different motherboard, so for one wire it was a bit of a guess. But it worked out, and my friends and me are playing the old games now. We are all around 58 years old and can still enjoy the old games. Recently bought the game Scramble made by Champgames (homebrew game). Although the quality is fine, I wonder if the quality of the mod shown in the video might be better.

This is cool! With composite output, makes it easier to then feed into composite to a digitiser and output to HDMI. Good soldering job! that looked very fiddly.

Every day Kari posts is a good day!