A Curious Atari Video Game Machine Restoration

Restoring and composite modding a classic Atari C-100 Pong, Atari C-380 Video Pinball and an Atari SC-450 Stunt Cycle in preparation for a big book launch event. Can I save these classic consoles in time for the big day? Tune in and find out!

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Video Music Video: https://youtu.be/GShDIkdpq58
RMC Atari Show & Tell: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmbfp09BJ4U

Breakout Footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMUv8KvVt08
Stunt Cycle Footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zU_Up648_kU

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Chapters:
00:00 What Have I Got Myself Into Now?
00:50 Atari C-100 Pong Console UK Power Supply (1975)
02:51 Atari C-380 Video Pinball (1977) Composite Mod & Restoration
04:25 All About THS7314 Analog Video Amplifier Chips
05:54 Atari SC-450 Stunt Cycle (1977) Composite Mod & Restoration
07:18 RF vs. Composite Video
07:44 Audio Output Wiring (Video Pinball & Stunt Cycle)
08:26 Testing & Troubleshooting
10:05 The Talk – Plus The Atari Video Music Makes An Appearance!

Royalty-Free Music From Epidemic Sound: https://www.epidemicsound.com:
Intro: ELFL – Neon Raceway
Cornelio – Feriado
Gavin Luke – Feeling Alright
Giants’ Nest – Tiny Things
ELFL – Octadrone VI
Daniel Fridell – Wow Factor
Sarah, the Illstrumentalist – It’s Up To You (Me)
Outro: Yomoti – Before Chill

#atari #retrogaming #console

Just over a year ago I was contacted  by legendary British game journalist   Lewis Packwood – this incredible looking chap  right here – asking for some help with a book   that he was writing all about weird and obscure  gaming machines – machines like these. Of course,  

As a collector and restorer of weird and wonderful  Atari things, I was more than happy to help out. What I didn’t consider at the time was that  I’d be showing them off at the launch event,   and even be involved in Lewis’s unique  interactive talk all about the book.

But first I had some work to do – after all,  it would be nice if people could see these   up and running and even have a play with them  themselves if possible – but most of them were  

Still in my TODO pile awaiting some work.  So I spent some time over the past couple   of weeks getting them all up to scratch –  or at least attempting to, as you’ll see. First up, Atari’s original  home Pong from 1975. Now,  

Unlike the other machines here I have previously  modded this one for composite video output,   as demonstrated in a video with Neil from RMC  a couple of years back – remember that one? But I never sorted out a UK power  supply for it – and although it  

Was also designed to run on batteries,  I wanted to have this up and running   all day for people to play with  – so now’s as good a time as any. Hooking up the original US wall  wart to my stepdown transformer,  

I can see that it’s outputting 6V. I mean, it  also says that on it, but it’s always best to   confirm. So I sourced some 6V supplies, but I  could only get them with barrel jack connectors   and the Pong uses an unusual 3.5mm TRS  connector similar to a headphone plug.

And yes – this is indeed the same connector as the  Atari VCS and later 2600 consoles – but crucially,   the Pong machines need 6V while the 2600  and – more importantly – a couple of the   other machines I’m using in the demo –  is 9V – so it’s very important to bear  

In mind and I will be clearly labelling  the machines to prevent any mixups. So I sourced some barrel jack to  3.5mm adapters – job done! Well,   except when I tested the polarity I  realised that they were negative tip.

I’m glad I did that before I plugged one in and  potentially damaged one of these rare old devices… After pondering for a minute  and considering my options,   I decided the best course of action  would be to reverse the polarity of the  

Adapters rather than, say, grafting the  3.5mm connectors on to the 6V supplies. By the way, I’m doing 3 of these because – well –  that’s how many Pong machines I have, although I’m   pretty sure one is beyond repair due to battery  leakage and the other is pretty low priority for  

This talk as it doesn’t offer much over and  above the original that I’ve already modded. So after swapping the wires around,  soldering and heat shrinking the adapters,   we can see that we now have the  correct polarity and voltage and   a quick test confirms that everything  powers up OK. That’s one job done!

I’m really glad I didn’t leave all of  this to the last minute like I always do. Yeah, no, that’s exactly what I did. Now, another thing mentioned in the book is  Atari’s Video Pinball from 1977 and I could  

Tell from those early chats with Lewis that  he’s a big fan of this machine and was really   keen to cover this, not least because it also  features an excellent home version of Breakout,   which was a huge hit in the arcades at the  time and of course was originally developed  

By Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak – who  was famously screwed over and swindled   out of a bonus by his business partner Steve  Jobs during the whole process. But that’s a   story for another time and either way none of  their work actually ended up in this console.

The Video Pinball was under development at  the same time as the original Atari VCS and   indeed shares very similar video circuitry,  including the RF modulator. I’m never going   to be hooking this up to anything with an  NTSC TV tuner and the ancient modulator  

Is a potential source of RF noise, so I decided  to remove it and as always store it safely away   just in case I ever want to put the Video  Pinball back to its stock configuration. The modulator is attached to a large  ground plane that acts as a heatsink,  

So in addition to the trusty moo gun,   I also use the soldering iron to add a bit of  extra heat and it all comes apart quite easily. But before we can go any further, this  board is pretty nasty to handle – as  

You’ve probably spotted, it’s covered in  old flux and it’s quite sticky to the touch,   which I’ve discovered is quite common with  this old Atari stuff. Unfortunately I don’t   have an ultrasonic cleaner just yet, so it’s  time for some IPA and some good old fashioned  

Elbow grease, including the bamboo toothbrush –  an indispensable part of any electronics toolkit. So, with that cleaned up, what will I be replacing  that RF modulator with? Well, a few years back   I bought some of these THS7314 analog video  amplifier chips. This is a tiny surface mount  

Component, but the ones I acquired are pre-mounted  onto these really handy breakout boards. These feature 3 channels and so they’re commonly  used for RGB mods for things like the Nintendo   64 and the Neo Geo. But in our case we’re  only dealing with one channel – composite  

Video – which makes things a bit easier to hook  up and the chip will handle this just fine. Incidentally, I always refer to this RetroRGB  guide when I’m working with them – Bob’s put   together a really great page explaining what the  chip is all about and how to get one connected up.

These RF modulators are quite well documented  online already, but as always I like to test these   things and just confirm the pinout for myself. We  can work out our 5V and ground very easily using   a multimeter, so by process of elimination  the third pin must be our video signal.

The next step is to get a ribbon cable  soldered in, and I’ll also glue it to   the board for some strain relief. Solder isn’t  supposed to be a mechanical connection after   all and the joints can break if they’re  pulled around too much, so it seems like  

A sensible precaution even if a certain subset  of the internet gets angry about this stuff. But hey, it’s all good for engagement. RetroRGB’s guide suggests that a 0.1uF  filter capacitor across the power pins   is a good idea to eliminate noisy  power issues, and who am I to argue?

Although I will say that it might be more accurate   to describe it as a decoupling  capacitor in this configuration. So, with that wired up according to the guide,  lets move our attention to the next machine. Also dating back to 1977 and being  based on a best selling arcade game,  

Atari’s Stunt Cycle is an even  more rare and interesting device,   and another one that Lewis was keen to cover in  the book. A product of the Evel Knievel craze   starting in the late 60s and spanning  well into the 70s, Stunt Cycle has the  

Player jumping 32 buses in their living room  – as proudly advertised on the box – as well   as a few other game modes that I and I’m sure  others at the book launch were keen to explore. Being a product of the same era and indeed  development process as its sibling console  

The Video Pinball, Stunt Cycle also features  the same RF modulator and therefore will be   exactly the same composite video output  mod. So that makes my life much easier. The process is much the same – removing the  modulator, cleaning off some excess flux (although  

It’s nowhere near as bad this time) and adding the  wires to hook up the THS3714 video amplifier chip. So let’s get those installed.  As mentioned a moment ago,   I’m only using one channel on these and  the eagle eyed among you will have no  

Doubt spotted that I’m using a 75Ω resistor  on the output side as per the RetroRGB guide.   We’ll see how the resulting signal looks and  potentially tweak it by adding a resistor on   the input side later on, but this  should give us a picture for now.

After sticking the boards down with some  self adhesive double sided foam pads to   keep everything tidy, that’s the video  side of both consoles almost ready to go,   with the wires tucked neatly underneath. As mentioned at the beginning of the video,  these consoles originally used an RF signal,  

Delivered over a cable like this one. It  would be plugged into a TV and need to   be tuned in as per any other TV station, and  this isn’t the optimal way of hooking things   up in this day and age, particularly  as I’m on the other side of the pond.

So I’ll be using this – the trusty old composite  video cable. I’ll run it out through the original   opening so no holes to drill – see, I’m learning!  – and as we also have audio hookups here, I’ll  

Wire those in parallel with the original internal  speaker so we can also get audio through the TV if   required. It would be cool to wire up some kind  of hidden switch to switch between internal and   external audio at some point in future I suppose,  but this will do for our purposes for now.

So after hooking all of the ground wires  up to one of the original modulator   grounding points – which I somehow  didn’t record – and working out the   polarity of the speaker connectors using a  multimeter and hooking that up correctly,   the final piece of the puzzle is  the video output, where the yellow  

Connector of the cable is soldered to  the 75Ω output resistor on the THS3714. …and here’s what it looks like  all connected up and ready to go. Now, I gave the Video Pinball a quick test  off camera and it seemed to be working fine,  

So after putting it all back together  I decided to put it through its paces   and try out the various game modes, and  it was here where I noticed a problem. That awesome Breakout mode I mentioned  was missing something – the sound seemed  

To be working and I could start  a game which would launch a ball,   but there was no paddle at the bottom of the  screen – which is kind of essential to the whole   process. So I had to strip the whole thing down  again. I should have tested it more thoroughly.

Thankfully it turned out to be an easy fix  – there are two socketed chips on the board,   one which handles pretty much everything,  and a smaller logic chip that does – I dunno,   I don’t suppose it’s really important to this  story. So I gave the legs and the chip sockets  

A thorough cleaning with some contact cleaner  and a quick test without fully assembling it   this time confirms that our paddle is  back and everything’s working great! So that’s that all back together – again – and  we can turn our attention to the Stunt Cycle.

Well, this one’s not so good. There’s this weird  rolling picture thing going on which looks to be   some kind of timing issue. Tweaking the trimmer  doesn’t fix the problem and neither did anything   else I tried – including swapping out the  one and only electrolytic capacitor. I was  

Convinced that this was a problem with the crystal  oscillator, and hooking it up to the oscilloscope   only confirmed what I suspected all along –  that I don’t really understand oscilloscopes. I also had some compatible 5V  regulators in my parts pile and  

Had thought I’d seen the voltage being  a bit unstable in my previous testing,   so with nothing to lose I swapped  that out too, but sadly to no avail. So the Stunt Cycle ended up being a static  display. It’s a shame but hey – 3 out of 4  

Devices certainly isn’t bad and the whole talk  went down an absolute storm, including the big   unveiling of the legendary Atari Video Music,  the world’s first music visualiser and Atari’s   one and only foray into the hi-fi market, which  certainly attracted a lot of interest on the day.

Another big hit was the original 1975 Pong  console, which was an absolute trooper and   kept people entertained for a solid  6 hours – the cool thing being that,   with the event being hosted at Retro Collective  down in Gloucestershire, people could also  

Pop downstairs to the Arcade Archive and see  how it compared to the original arcade game. Unfortunately the Video Pinball didn’t  prove to be quite so sturdy and on the   day it developed a bit of a dodgy power  socket, so we disconnected it to prevent  

Any damage. Not really unexpected for  45 year old technology and those 3.5mm   connectors can be pretty flaky at the best of  times, so hopefully that will be an easy fix.   I would have grabbed a soldering iron on the  day but hey, we were all having so much fun  

With everything else that before I knew it  the day was over and it was time to pack up. So overall the book launch was a big success, and  as always with this old stuff, I have a couple  

Of things to fix. I’m planning to have a look  at those in a future video so don’t forget to   subscribe to the channel so you don’t miss that,  big thanks as always to everyone who’s supported   the channel over the course of this year, and  you’ll find lots of useful links down below to  

Everything mentioned in this video, including a  link to buy the Curious Video Game Machines book. Finally, if you’re looking for something else  to watch, you can check out my Atari Video   Music restoration and history video which  should be appearing on screen as I speak.