Atari 2600 Teardown

I recently picked up two Atari 2600 consoles and a box of games at the flea market for $40. As a nerd of all sorts I jumped on it. I've seem single consoles go for that price so I thought that if they both work I can sell one and make my money back.

So I get it home, plug the first one in and it worked. Perfect. Plug the second one in, turn it on, no dice. Oh well, let's see if it's fixable. A perfect chance to get a tear down on one of these!

4 screws on the bottom open the console up easily and reveal the boring side of the board. When I first cracked this thing open I found a huge amount of nasty dust. It looks like this poor thing was kept under a sand dune for a couple decades.

The traces are pretty odd, it looks like they're done with foil tape and are now wrinkling due to 30 years of age.

The last revision is 1980, these 4 switch consoles with the classic wood paneling were produced from 1980 to 1982. The date codes on the IC's places this console at the 15th week of 1982.

Every nook and cranny on this board was covered with that nasty dust. It didn't help that I ran out of dust spray the other day. To get the majority of dust away from sensitive places I just used a Q-tip to push it out of the way.

Some flux was left on when the board was made and that dust got caught up in it. Gross.

Aha! I found the problem (I'm assuming). These switches are connected to the shielding can with this metallic foil to ground them. The thing is, there's no continuity. By simply detaching it and reattaching the foil they began to conduct again.

Four of these bent metal pins hold the can on. They're easily bent to fix this. 

Lovely ROMs with the '82 date codes.