Part 2 - Look inside an Atari 2600 woody and Heavy sixer

[bearidic]

I think your heavy sixer was factory "repaired" , and it took less for the technician to swap the board than repair the original board , specially if the fault was in the cartridge slot, very common in earlier models.

When a machine is damaged, in warranty period, and it's still in production, it's the normal procedure, saves time (and sometimes money).

[bearidic]

Another sign of this, is the cable that links the motherboard with the switchboard, in earlier models, was like your woody, a flat cable , very fragile, with a high percentage of making bad connections between the boards, or easy to break if you have to disconnect one of the boards to repair it.

Because of this , I have very few doubts that your heavy sixer was factory "swapped" instead of repaired.

[alex0enochs]

odd..i have a lightweight one...but it has the same board that your heavy sixer has in it...whats so odd is the top casing seems to be the heavy sixer top..because it has the curve at the bottom of it tha the heavy sixer has...but its not a heavy sixer? i dont get it

[compandcons]

@alex0enochs Thanks for commenting. Atari didn't know what they had on their hands when they made the 2600 VCS so they quickly went from a small operation in Sunnyvale California to having them mass produced in Hong Kong. From my understanding the top of a Sunnyvale Heavy sixer will fit on a later model six switch (so they could use up old stock). It is also quite possible that the board you have is a Sunnyvale board that was shipped to Hong Kong when they took over production.

[Bylga]

One thing I don’t get whit the Atari 2600 is that some boards are seriously solder and there is some that a soldering nightmare!