Hello forum members!
I have an interesting problem. I have an Atari six switch unit, manufactured in May 1981 according to the little slip of paper found inside the unit. This is my original unit that I got during Christmas 1981. It has sat unused for at least 20 years, moving from various closets. I finally got it back from my brother. Took it apart, cleaned out the dust, and checked it over. It had a loose power port adapter, I re-soldered the connection to the best of my ability (which is not that great...) Verified I was getting proper voltages to the unit, and it powered on. Cleaned all connections and cartridges. I popped in Asteroids and...I got the Asteroids screen! Picked up the joystick, hit the button and nothing. I could not get the game to run. Turned on/off unit, jiggled cartidges, nothing. I tried Missile Command, same thing. Started getting frustrated, tried Demon Attack. And it worked flawlessly! Joystick worked, sound worked, game worked. Tried another Imagic game, Cosmic Ark. That one worked with a little jiggling of the cartridge. I tried Venture, I got video lines and a high pitched hum. I tried another cartridge, Defender. It took some jiggling but it worked fine. Last cartridge I tried was StarMaster. It came up to the start screen, heard the opening audio, but would not start.
So my question to you is this...What could cause some games to work but others not? I know the joystick is working. I get video output of the game at the start screens. I saw another forum post that over time the chips could degrade, bit rot. Is that a possibility here? Could it be another issue?
I have attached a few pictures here of the unit and mainboard. One thing I see is some type of buildup on the back of the board. I have not attempted to clean or touch it. Is that an issue anyone else has seen? Any idea if that is normal or is that part of my problem? Thanks!
