'Plain Box' Atari 2600 Portable.

[toplot]

IT'S DONE!!! My 'Plain Box' Atari 2600 Portable. I decided building the official case was too much work for a first timer like me, so I took the inner box from an IOGEAR laptop usb card and used that. The display is an Intec 2.5" screen and the joystick is from parts of an old pc joystick. It has a DC in plug on the side below the on/off switch so you can run it from a wall outlet. It takes 6 AA batteries to run both the Atari board and the screen. You can play with or without the joystick handle because it unscrews from the pad but I actually prefer the handle for most games.

I started this project on 5/20/05 so it took me almost two months to complete. After a good amount of frustration (and a fried Casio 680 ) but mostly fun I can finally say I did my first real elecronic hack.

More pictures are at my blogsite here:

http://ricksastropics.blogspot.com/

Rick Murray

[Motoman]

Let me be the first to congradulate you....

Congratulations on it! It looks a lot like i would like mine to look like (geez was that redundant) Nice job with the monkey sticker.

[SpongeBuell]

looks great! It's always nice to see a portable 2600, since they don't come very often

[daguuy]

cool good job that's a nice portable

[toplot]

Thanks for the compliments! I'll probably be doing some alterations and improvements to it for awhile like firming up the joystick which can be a little tempermental at times and maybe adding a paddle controller and an extra joystick port, audio and video out ports. I might even find time to play a few games on it too!

Rick Murray

[daguuy]

something i'm doing with my M64 is AV in ports as well as AV out

[The Hacker]

i love it
what video mod did you use

[Reaperman@home]

I really like the idea of the gravis-style joypad with the screw in stick.

here's an odd bit, nobody has made a 2600 with right-hand control yet...strange...

[Motoman]

here's an odd bit, nobody has made a 2600 with right-hand control yet...strange...

Probably because we're used to "controlling" the character/object with our left thumbs... Like gamecube/xbox/PS2 controllers. The main analog stick is on the left.

[bicostp]

Seems as though you're into astronomy, right?

Maybe what you could do is take some red cellophane and make a filter for the screen. (you'd probably need to run the Atari in B+W mode) That way you could always play it when you're out! (because if I remember correctly, red light doesn't interfere with night vision very much.)

[Turbo Tax 1.0]

cool it looks awesome about wat are the dimensions of it

[G-force]

Nice job Neat how you didn't have to open the screen case. It looks very original too, thats a hard thing to do really.

[Triton]

somthing like that bico, nightvision boosts infrared into the visual spectrum sorta by making it visible through adisplay. i think red cellophane is transparent under IR but it could be the oppisite, i dont think it is tho

[bicostp]

no I mean your eyes adjust quicker between red and dark as opposed to full color and dark. (at least that's what I have read)

I didn't mean Nightvision goggles or anything like that.

[toplot]

Hi Hacker -- I used the video mod from Ben's book. For the bypass connections to the 4x4 board I didn't use the books instructions but used these old instructions: http://www.classicgaming.com/vcsp/Step% ... acking.htm because for some reason I was having problems getting things to work using the books instructions (probably a newbie-itis thing).
_______________________________________

Hi Reaperman -- I'm left handed so a left hand controller makes sense for me.

________________________________________

Hi Bicostp -- Great idea about using the red cellophane for when I'm out doing my astronomy thing. Sometimes I'm literally up all night when I do imaging so playing games might help keep me awake!

________________________________________

Hi Turbo Tax -- It's 9 1/2" long by 6 1/4" wide and 2 1/4" high. It weighs 1 1/2 lbs fully loaded (batteries and cart).

________________________________________

Hi G-force -- I was a little gun shy about opening cases after frying my Casio 680 so I decided to leave the Intec screen alone. I used foam core board and lots of hot glue to build the support for the Intec screen so it would sit above the 4x4 board. I also used the foam core board for extra scaffolding to make the box more rigid.

Rick Murray