Top products from r/Atari2600

You definitely don't want to plug that power adapter into the wall outlet unless you're certain that it's both the right voltage and the right polarity. The best way to ensure this, of course, is to buy another Atari 2600 power supply online, but if you google around, you can probably find out what voltage and polarity you will need. This one on Amazon looks like the one you need from a quick glance, so it might be a good starting point for your search.

As for hooking it up to your TV, here is a great video showing you all you will need to know. If you're ambitious and you trust your skills with a screwdriver, you might want to open up that console and clean it and restore it. It must have decades of accumulated dust and dirt inside it, and it looks like the console end of the RF cable needs to be reseated too.

You should also clean the connectors of all those game cartridges before you use them, and here is one method of doing that.

There are companies out there. When I was custom making a usb atari joystick for my dads Atari raspberry Pi I was searching for replacemebt parts for a retrobit usb atari joystick since they used an all black plastic stick. Which was not flimsy, but lacked an authentic feel. So I got these with a much stronger internal plastic piece.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MT1PZ44/ref=cm_sw_r_other_apa_i_qKIFDb4QD6VBP

Works great honestly. Rubber cover does not feel exactly like an original atari stick cover but it's a replica and not going to be exact. But it does feel nice and can be used in both the cheap retrobit joysticks and the oroginal CX40's.

EDIT: Try what /u/hashbinbash said down below first. They seem to be talking from experience which is much better than my guesswork and it doesn't require you to buy anything.

This is a bit of guess work but here's what I think you need to do.

Short answer: Find a way to connect the atari to the top antenna connector. I can't identify it but can you plug the female part of an RCA cable to it? If yes, then it's simple a male RCA, a female-female RCA coupler would bridge the gap. SInce RCA is mostly associated with composite cables, you'll often find them in this format at your local "1-dollar shop" next to cheap earbuds and usb cables, I'm 90% sure theres nothing in the rubber between each coupler and you can just cut it to make it fit.

If a Female RCA cable doesn't fit... I don't don't what it is. Tell me and I can try to help you solve the mystery but without dimension or reference it's pretty hard to start looking.

Long answer: The two plugs on the left have the "antenna" symbol, so your atari is sending the right kind of signal for those connectors. These plugs are made to receive analog antenna signals, disregard anyone talking about composite and component signal, that the common fix but not the one your TV needs.

Now, I'm not sure exactly what the 75 ohm means, but normally those tell you the impedence the device must have. I'm really rusty on this and I,m not sure what impredence is anymore, but basically if your device doesn't have the right impedence, it doesn't work. The 75 om connector is probably for a less common type of signal which the atari doesn't produce. The atari has a "normal" antenna signal which should be compatible with the top plug.

The best way to troubleshoot to diagnosing each part. Like using the power adapter and tv switch with a known working atari. Also, one thing you can do to eliminate tv issues is buy one of these suckers:

http://www.amazon.com/Atari-2600-Coaxial-Plug-Female-Adapter/dp/B0028MXOF6

I would almost say it's required for the 2600 now a days just because of how much the switch boxes suck. You can get two at radio shack for a few bucks.

If you don't have access to another atari, you can use a voltmeter to check the power source. Touch the two tips to the two rings on the power cord while the plug is in the wall, the meter should show around 9v. You might be able to look up ways to diagnose the board itself with a voltmeter. Taking it apart and looking for components that look bulged or broken might help too.

Worst case, there may be some services that you can ship your atari to for a tune up, but I've never used them before. Good luck!

The guy who created the wonderful 8bitworkshop (code games for 6502 or Z80 based platforms in an online IDE):
http://8bitworkshop.com/

also wrote a complete book about how to create an Atari 2600 game using his tool:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1541021304

Oooh-- let's calculate for fun. The current length is 437 characters.
The shortest I can make is: https://www.amzn.com/dp/B01JESOLZI/
That's 37 characters, making the original 11.8x too long.

This is what I use to repair old consoles
Weller SP40NKUS 40-Watts Soldering Iron Kit https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00B3SG7F0/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_5koSCbHNHK4S6
It's inexpensive and works great.

All you need is some solder and wick and this will literally only take a couple mins and you have a fixed Atari

There are 3 : Adventure , Asteroids and Missile Command . Here’s a link for Adventure

Adventure Journal

Spray tuner cleaner into the potentiometers

https://www.amazon.com/Max-Professional-2053-Contact-Cleaner/dp/B0030MKAV4/

edit: Extremely common and has been for many years. But cleaning the pots will have them good as new in almost all cases.

Probably, yes. These are very common cables/adapters.

Here's some links:

6ft RCA cable on Monoprice

RCA female to F-type Male adapter on Amazon

You can really use a bunch of different types of cables and adapters, this is just what I would try to find.

My suggestion would be to use a Genesis to USB device with original controllers https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QRZ1HVS but I admit I haven't tried it myself yet

What country are you in? Is the tv and or 2600 PAL or ntsc? This adaptor from Amazon is what you need
https://www.amazon.com/Ancable-2-Pack-F-Type-Adapter-Commodore/dp/B06XSL31B3/ref=mp_s_a_1_1_sspa?adgrpid=58765130329&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI4daF5IWo4wIVkUkNCh3aiwAWEAAYASAAEgL1BPD_BwE&hvadid=274689476625&hvdev=m&hvlocphy=9018305&hvnetw=g&hvpos=1t1&hvqmt=e&hvrand=6501016470512242488&hvtargid=kwd-300502787480&hydadcr=25064_9920069&keywords=atari+rf+adapter&qid=1562682456&s=gateway&sr=8-1-spons&psc=1

Looks like a Belling-Lee connector. I can't find any male Belling-Lee to Female RCA connectors, but one of these + one of these might work.

You need one of these.

https://www.amazon.com/C2G-Cables-Go-27312-Compliant/dp/B0002J25OI/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1524185848&sr=8-5&keywords=rca+to+coaxial+adapter

Screw this into your antenna in, plug the atari's rca-ish plug into the adapter, and tune the tv to the broadcast channel you have selected on the unit. Power it up, and there you go.