Modding an Atari 7800 NTSC - Composite Mod, Power Connector Change, Recap & Test! 

You pulled your Wang off nicely.

As soon as you chopped the lug off the power socket, I put my head in my hands. I also did this once. And remember folks, keep your wangs safe.

great video, I especially enjoyed the wang removal!

Very neat mods👍 Some nice innuendo too, everything needed for a great video experience!

Tidy job Mark - still on the hunt for a fixer-upper 7800 :) Great work mate!

You would be surprise that ball blazer came out in 1984. The 7800 is a port of the Atari 800 Computer.

VERY nicely done video.

Great video Mark, absolutely wangtastic. 👏

I used to know the guy whose job at Atari HQ was to catch and add the bugs into their consoles. That is a lie I just made up.

Panasonic caps are a good call. Always go for quality Japanese caps.

Nice work!

Nice! Classic Mark!

Nice work; old wangs can be prone to leakage.

I have just bought one of these bad boys. hopefully no bugs when i get to strip mine down.

Very good video, as always. I wasn’t too sure about using a sticky pad to attach the composite mod board, but it seemed work well enough.

Great mod mark, definitely worth doing. Ps, you can pull my Wang off anytime 😆😆😆😆.

Great update and repair with very little going wang, I mean wrong

Commando will be an issue for you with the unbalanced TIA and Pokey since sound effects are via TIA and the music is Pokey. As such, the TIA will overpower the Pokey music on that game. What should have been done was to simply lift the legs of R5 and R6 facing towards the back of the board and then solder your audio wire to the lifted legs together.

I didn't understand most of the technical stuff but I found it highly entertaining & interesting nevertheless. The double entendre inserts were very appreciated btw as it brought things down to my level. Good work that man, keep it up 🙂

Not sure about the logistics but it might be a good idea to have a diode on the power socket to prevent accidental frying of the system if someone accidentally inserts a much more common center positive AC adapter. I'd maybe Dymo a label on there so at least nobody forgets about the center-negative aspect. If the new board was designed a little differently, it could be further secured with a zip-tie through those old holes from the RF can. I don't think that double sided tape will endure many insertions.

Never touch your wang unless you intend to replace it. Wang jokes..... subbed!

Mark you really need to update you're RU-vid and Twitch avatar pictures, with the newer Chesney Hawkes 80s hair style photo. Really, really miss the Twitch streams, can't you get the whip cracking on the house improvements? Miss the innuendos to! but do still spot the odd 'unintended' ones. 🖖👍

Subscribed! That was great stuff and you've made me more confident about soldering/desoldering. Was there a particular preference or advantage why you choose the NTSC machine over a PAL 7800?

My faves are always the console jobs that you do. Will the mid board be secure with the sticky foam block or do you suggest securing it more?

My power connector only powers on if I hold it in the right place. I was intimidated because I didn't want to break anything but think now I can probably fix it. Thanks.

I enjoy Mark's soldering, oh sorry, I mean I like they way Mark fills the holes with his hot liquid. It's a good job he didn't pull off to many Wangs first. This is just pure filth. 😆

@Mark Fixes Stuff Have you tried 303 Protectant as a final clean? I had been using it on car interiors for a while, so decided to try it on my Amiga. It made my brand new case (black) look better so I have used it on just about everything plastic since.

I contacted TFW8B and they said it will not be restocked.. shame.. this mod is very clean and I really like it.

dont forget to mark polarity and voltage of the new connector, you don't want someone that isn't you use the wrong polarity.

There is it being said again about the 5200, what on Earth was backwards compatible in the early to mid 80s, I think that was an objectively silly want in hindsight Ie. future software emulation was easier than past hardware emulation. It costs more but there is an excellent S-Video mod available for the 7800 right now and an RGB mod in the works that is pending. My AC is a little ratty but if I didn't have it that would be mandatory to mod that to a universal one. ;) Just got informed about another 7800 mod one can do to add the console switches of the 2600 to complete the backwards compatibility. Since there is a TIA inside you can fairly easily attach switches to aid in games that pause with the TV Type switch on 2600 and for full console switch games like Space Shuttle. My take on that is probably an external module that attaches to one new DE-9 port in the console Ie. less janky heh. Also a controller pause button mod too but I'm not sure how you do that with stock controllers in a transparent way. O_o??? Winter Games actually does look pretty good, I'll give that a chance. ;)

I did a 7800 AV mod but couldnt get [TIA] sound. Not sure what i did wrong. Will try to figure it out at some point.

You should of done that Atari 7800 svideo Mod! Still I enjoyed the video:)

Here we have another Wang to pull off...

Well if i couldn’t find a rf demodulator ,i might have let modded my atari 7800 as well, But am fine with mine as how it is,however i might have be better off with a $80 professional rf demodulator as mine $10 tends to sometimes fail picking up the signal or it sometimes generates a poor composite video signal from it,with the pro version that supposedly shouldn’t happen and you could also fine tune the reception of it.

It looks like there's room in there to put in an AC power supply and give it an AC plug. You may need to cut the case though.

Is that AV mod also suitable for the 2600? I've got a mod kit but it talks about uncovering tracks and soldering on to them. Much prefer to solder in to a proper hole.

What kind/brand of silicone polish did you use ?

Does the ntsc version have the version of asteroids built in?

LMAO, I did these mods back in 2006 Only one wang left untouched? Pulled out all our wangs?

Would love to see you fix a 5200 and then throw it straight in the trash.