Atari 2600 Composite Mod – a new board, but small!
I like my Atari 2600. I had one as a kid and played it to death! I loved the fact I could play the arcade games that I’d shoveled so many 10p pieces into, but now at home. Fast forward 30-odd years and I find myself with one of these consoles again. Naive and not sure about prices, I located an Atari 2600 composite mod board kit on Ebay, as I wanted a decent picture now that modern TVs didn’t want to entertain the modulated signal any longer. The price was considerable, but the kit worked and I was happy.
If only I’d known just how easy it was to make my own at a fraction of the cost! Now that I was getting back into electronics and soldering little projects, I’d thought I could offer these up to people on Facebook groups I was a member of, so they could benefit from not being ripped off by those selling on Ebay.
Having looked at offerings and solutions online, I thought I’d try my hand at making my own, but using verobard and making it as small as possible so that it can be sold as cheaply as possible. Some of the kits online are outrageously priced!
Here it is – all 5 x 5 veroboard holes of it:
Installed into an Atari Woody Sixer and works a treat! A fraction of the cost of those found online.
If you want to build one yourself, then here is the veroboard setup – note that the tracks are shown but these are on the underside of the board:
Of course, you can make them using a bigger piece of board if you like. In fact, if you want to replace the modulator unit that you remove and make use of the full footprint, then perhaps a piece of board 10 x 15 holes would be more realistic. I just wanted that cute, small form factor, so I can eke out more boards from a piece of veroboard.
Instructions are located here: Atari-Pico-Comp-mod-Installation Guides
In theory I could get that circuit a little smaller (4 x 5 holes), but it’d look even more crowded than it already is!