Basically put, Atari would have bins full of parts - regardless of factory. Those parts were likely purchased by WB by the lowest bidder, and those parts were then used to assemble almost 200,000 Heavy Sixer consoles (and possibly even more) over the course of 1977 and 1978.

These Pre-Channel Selector units in my minds eye, started with the tan board units. The earliest units also are told apart by the PAPER FFC (Flat Flexible Cable) that joins the motherboard and the switchboard together electronically.

Channel Select - I think the next change to come was the channel selector units. The reason why is the Atari VCS I owned in High School. In 1998, I bought for $25 a damn-near-mint Sunnyvale Heavy Sixer with the old style non-channel select style - sticking-out-voltage-regulator board with a channel A/B switch on it. It looked VERY close to the tan-board above, complete with a blank 2200uf capacitor, but had the channel select switch portion on it (and I think it was deep in the case). It still had the paper FFC indicating an earlier unit, and it was attached at both ends with a removable connector (not soldered in place as some later early-release H6rs had). I seem to also remember mine having a Channel A/B switch hole that looks like it may have had the bar cut-out at the factory post-molding.

Switch to Red and later Gray/black Ribbon Cables - sometime in between release and 1978, the VCS was recalled for the paper FFC connector between the switchboard and the motherboard, and these were replaced with Red Ribbon CAbles. Keep in mind that people probably did send their VCS units into Atari to have this cable replaced. However, it seems a lot of them have survived with the paper FFC intact (my high school sunnyvale did) so I have to question if this was really a recall, or just a common repair on the early consoles.

Late Sunnyvales & The Taiwanese Heavy Sixers

Production of the "Taiwan" Heavy Sixer - with the earliest serial# I could find being T-0000347 - started sometime in early to mid 1978. Some snobby collectors have said these are not "true Heavy Sixers" because of the switchboard and lack of the "Sunnyvale" but I beg to differ, because I have a theory that these are every bit a "Heavy Sixer" as the Sunnyvale built machines, and probably more "sunnyvale" than they might seem.

What I surmise is the Taiwan models were actually just leftovers for the Sunnyvale Plant that were shipped to whatever company/companies in Taiwan Atari wanted to contract out to make their new consoles. This would make sense because it would cost more to have new bottom plastic, new panels, new bezels, and new switchboards, and basically, a whole new engineered console to be made at a new plant.

Above is my Taiwanese Heavy Sixer during it's rebuild. Notice the bottom plastic has one socket for the speaker sitting low, and the other side is taller. I've seen variations where BOTH had the center pin of the speaker mounts fully tall too. I'm wondering if it's a malfunction of the old molds possibly that were shipped over.

Taiwanese Heavy Sixers such as mine are pretty consistant in construction. They have a longer peg in one or both sides of the bottom plastic where the omitted speaker feature was to go, a channel select hole with Channel A/B molded in, they consistantly use the 1mm aluminum bottom shield plate over the motherboard, almost all use a REV8 motherboard, same Heavy Sixer front panel, same Rev 8 Switchboard with channel select and the 78M05 voltage regulator screwed to a metal plate soldered onto the circuit board rather than sticking out on a aluminum heatsink. However, they still use an earlier revision motherboard that continued to be used through the Light Sixer range. They also still have the "high up" (R) next to the Atari logo.

These consoles possibly shipped with the later variant of the gray power supply, but most of them shipped with the standard black one that ran through the console's production changes until 1992. They also shipped with a mix of CX-10 or CX-40 Joysticks, with some reports of one of each in the box, meaning Atari might have been using these to use up parts before the new, cost-reduced "light sixer" design took over.

Switch over to the Light Sixer, and Light Sixer Oddities - While I was perusing the AtariAge Post, one mention of a "Light Sixer" was that they "always" have the smaller switch holes with the rounded bezels on the light sixer....I have a bit of a dispute with this. See, I own a very late Light Sixer Sears Telegames, the unit has a stamp of 1980 inside on the paper on the main RF shield, but the PCBs are older revisions like those found in my 1978 Taiwan Heavy, and it has the old Heavy Sixer "rounded/short" trimmed slots. But here's something interesting....

Anyone ever noticed that it looks like there's a TINY gap between the older switch slots and the rest of the plastic, and some kind of APPLIQUE? Yeah, I think the units with this don't use a silkscreened on text, but rather, have an applique that is set down into the bezel. Basically, the Sears and Atari have the same stamping, except the Sears has a silver applique, and the Atari has a black one with white/red/orange lowercase text on it. It seems the "trim-free" examples have this text instead printed on the bare plastic.

At the end of the day, an Atari 2600 is an Atari 2600 regardless of where the switches are located, and much of this stuff is aesthetics, and personal preference. And if I'm being honest, there are some MINOR differences in how the console behaves both based on TIA revision and based on small changes in the circuitry from board revision to board revision, but the differences are mere outliers, most of the 400+ Atari 2600 catalog will run on any 2600, genuine or otherwise, regardless of what it's chassis is or looks like. It is known that SOME HEavy Sixers cannot play River Raid II (a rare enough cart as it is) or have an early TIA chip that generates different star patterns in games like Cosmic Ark, but over all, it doesn't matter.

Now don't just go jacking up prices on the Taiwan Heavy's just yet. They do have their fair share of issues as well. First off, dodgy soldering being the biggest problem. I had to basically reflow my entire Heavy Sixer on my own. I think that might even be part of why the Taiwans are not as common, is people threw them out due to dodgy soldering early on and likely replaced them with a 4-switch variant. I'd say the dodgy soldering was the biggest part of all the issues with it. Cartridge port, the pin header on the switchboard, all three main chips, the reset, select, and power switches, and the RF section really really benefitted from my clean solder-work. After doing all that, 97% of the issues with this Atari were gone and it's every bit as good as my newer, low mileage Sears.

The second problem is it seems there were some fitment issues on these, mine has a more unusually catankerous assembly of the motherboard into the main RF Casing than even my old Sunnyvale had. Getting the alignment right means putting a bloody cartridge INTO The port while re-assembling it to get it right, or the bottom edge of the cartridge port bottoms out in the hole in the RF shield. But if it's properly aligned, it works great.