The VCS/2600 is basically a 6502-series based computer that's designed for the sole purpose of playing video games. Video Games are no different than any other piece of software, a collection of compiled software code, running on a device using a microprocessor. That's it. It's no different than your iPhone - just older, slower, and has less memory. So what would the specs listing on the VCS/2600 look like if looked at in computer terms...well...this...

So again, in a nutshell, an 8-bit, 6502-ish based computer with joysticks, paddles, light guns, trackballs, and keypads for input devices, and it outputs to a television set over Radio Frequency (RF). Sounds basic because it is.

"HEAVY SIXER" - 1977-1978 - Sunnyvale CA & Taiwan - CX-2600 - The most esteemed variant of the Atari VCS is the "Heavy Sixer", which is the "Launch Edition" or original version of the VCS. These are told apart by the 1/2" thick bottom plastic, six brushed aluminum switches on the panel, all lower-case lettering on the console (Atari version only), and some wild variation in the orange border around the Switches (also ATARI only).

The earliest Heavy Sixers had no channel-change switch on them. They were hard-wired to use Channel 3. These were only made in the Sunnyvale factory in California. Some models shipped to some markets with a lot of interference on Channel 3 were reported to be modified either at the store or aftermarket to use Channel 4 instead. The fact that there is a hole, or no hole marked Channel 2/3 or A/B on the bottom is not a good indicator of age, as some Heavy Sixers left the Sunnyvale Plant with a channel change switch, and 2 4-slot vents on the bottom and no channel listing (requiring a thin screwdriver to chang ethe channel setting inside the console, or taking the whole top off to get to it), and some shipped with the Channel hole and no channel switch installed. Some of the earliest Heavy Sixers from Sunnyvale also shipped with a lighter "yellow" border around the switches (not all though, some SUnnyvales have the more typical orange border seen on later foreign 2600s).

In 1978, Atari (I surmise) shipped the remaining stock of Sunnyvale Heavy Sixer components to a new factory in Taiwan to likely bootstrap production overseas for reduced cost. Taiwanese Heavy Sixers look pretty much identical to late sunnyvales - channel select switch, darker orange panel border, open-ended switches, same REV B circuit board (which carried over into the LIght Sixer), but it seems they all used a new switch board identical to the light-sixer version that used a large pin header to connect to the motherboard, and had the 78M05 Voltage Regulator soldered to the switchboard and screwed to a large square metal heatsink also soldered to the switchboard, rather than sticking out from the switchboard front. All of these have a channel select switch and supposedl shipped with the earliest all black Atari 9vDC unregulated power supplies. It is rumored some came with CX-10 Joysticks, CX-40 Joysticks, or a combination of both, and most if not all shipped with an early mattle label non-numberized version of Combat as the pack-in game. It's unknown if any Sears consoles were made in the Taiwan Heavy Sixer format.

It seems also that Sunnyvale kept making units in the US after the startup o the TCI plant in Taiwan on the Taiwanese Heavy Sixers. Somewhere about mid 1978 is when the earliest LIght Sixers started showing up.

Light Sixers started around mid 1978 and include Sears and Atari variants. Also around that time, a prototype for a red/rainbow pattern Kee-Games Light Sixer was made. These newer units used a 4mm plastic bottom, the same innards as a heavy sixer, and the same switch bezel for most of the earlier builds. ALL of these had a Channel A/B selector switch hole on the bottom where the vents were on a Heavy Sixer that selected between Channels 2 and 3 for the source channel for the Atari. They were made in three locations: Sunnyvale CA (Rare), Taiwan, and Hong Kong, which Hong Kong being the most common assembly plant.

The "4-Switch Woody" variant started sometime in 1980 and continued into 1984. The earliest units were just light sixer shells with a thin plastic adhesive plate over the back, and a top piece with the speaker grills bonded out, and holes for the channel, difficulty switches, power plug, and controller ports stamped/molded into the back. Later the bottom piece had the ports completley bonded out to a flat, angled, un-textured section. These were made in several places including Atari at Sunnyvale (mostly not for resale display units which were slightly different), TRW Electronics in Taiwan, Hong Kong Atari Wong, and TCI might have made some units too. The font for the controls and panel changed to the same one for the Sears Consoles in All Caps. Sears 4-switchers are far less common (the light sixer is the most common variant of Sears), but they are not that super rare that they are too hard to find.

The main electrical distinction is the component count has been reduced, removing the CD4055 chip that causes noise when used with bluetooth controllers, and reducing out other redaundant or un-needed components. The chips are still socketed though on most, if not all woodgrain 4 switch units. The motherboard is mounted at an angle, making it easier to reinstall by just hooking it into the top plastic and setting the top plastic down into the case to put it back together. Also, RF Shielding is held on by bent tangs instead of screws. And the screw count on the bottom is reduced to 4 and no 2 screws in the middle as there's no big metal case for the motherboard in there.

The later "Vader" variant is simply a woody 4-switch minus the woodgrain, with a new logo that says "ATARI 2600" on the LEFT side of the front (instead of the ATARI Fuji on the right), no orange border around the controls, and a further cost-reduced motherboard that now has the RIOT, TIA, and 6507 soldered to the motherboard (oy vey!).

These models were sold past 1986, with huge discount post 1983 crash. They all shipped with CX-40s, but they shipped with different pack-ins than the earlier units.

The earliest Atari units sold with Combat for the Atari branded units, and Target Fun (air-Sea Battle) for the Sears version. Later, PAC-MAN was the pack-in with the Vader consoles. Juniors did not get a pack-in.

The 2600 Junior is a cost-reduced, much smaller version of the 2600 that was put on the market in 1986, but could have been designed as early as 1982-1984ish. IT follows the design language initiated by the 5200, and the 7800. They are in a case the size of a VHS tape case, and only about an inch and a half tall. A long metal strip runs along the top for the labeling and logo, which now is fully "ATARI 2600". The earliest Junior units are the "Short Stripe" units (1986-1988), replaced by the "Long Stripe/Long Rainbow" units in 1988, which ran until 1992.

The RF Cable connects to the back rather than being hard-wired inside like the earlier units. A larger RF Shield covers tha mjority of the board, and for the first time, we have a power status LED light on top. Power and Color/B&W are still slide switches, but the Select and Reset use a membrane lexan keypad strip that fits FFC cable style into a connector on the motherboard, and slides into a track under the buttons on the right top of the console. All chips are soldered in place, no sockets.

Speaking of Chips, later variants of the 2600 Junior ran on a single "PAM" Chip instead of the usual 3 separate chips, a 6532 "RIOT" , 6507 CPU, and Atari custom silicon "TIA" or "STELLA" Chip. the PAM chip was basically a SoC, or 2600 on a chip. That said, while considered a "holy grail" among collectors, they have some issues with some games due to the behavior of the PAM not being identical to the three distinct chips.

The big deal with the 7800, is that it is it's own thing. It was intended to compete in the 3rd generation against the Sega Master System and NES. The 2600 Reverse Compatibility was a thing that they installed back in 82-84 when the machine was designed, but was out of the picture by the time the NES came along (though it was the one thing the competitors did not offer). I don't have any exposure to one of those either.

The Coleco Gemini/aka Columbia Home Game System - which my mom swears to this day was a Colecovision - two different things. The Coleco Gemini was a 2600 compatible console that was also sold through the CBS Entertainment Catalogs around 1982-1983. It's unique thing was not necessarily the console, but the controllers that it came with which combined a joystick and a paddle in the same controller.

Lastly there were tons of clones sold all around the world, just like the NES, Just like the Famicom, just like anything else really, these included Dactar, Dismac, a lot of Brazilian stuff, mostly just chinese clones of the 2600 and 2600 Junior touting over 100 or so games built in, selecatable in lieu of a Color/B&W Switch. Some of them looked nothing like the 2600, such as the TV Boy or Wonderboy which actually ran on batteries, was wireless, and sent the game over the airwaves to the TV.

So first, let's talk about the RF Cable itself. The RF Cable itself, is like an Antenna. I've even heard someone once say that early Heavy Sixer literature would try and use the fact your Atari could act as a makeshift Antenna was a selling point. All an antenna is, is a piece of metal that can help aid in picking up Radio Frequencies. That's why all those old TVs and Boomboxes had "rabbit ears" - or those big silver, telescoping things you moved around to recieve radio/TV stations with. So what attaches where the Antenna goes in 2024 - the same thing - your RF Switch, or in lieu of one, a Coaxial connector.

A strange experiment with my Light Sixer, is that when I was recording YouTubes in 2024, and decided to wrap the Sears LIght Sixer cord up. It seemed to really clean up the video signal.

But First, let's talk a physical limitation - Those of us who are using "Heavy Sixers" might need to invest in some "extension cords" for our original Atari systems. The reaosn why is because the fancy schmancy trim in the back keeps the dongle from fitting into the port. However, there have been SOME reports of these dongles working with the Heavy Sixer but just needing a delicate nudge into the port to fit just enough to work. I think it's really all up to a multitude of variables with the console. First off, you might be able to loosen the two screws in the back and slide the entire board assembly back a little bit until the ports are stuck out far enough for the dongle to touch all 9 pins. The easier (and less tricky) option would be to use an extension cord. However, let's get to the main event here.

Let's talk about the reason why those Wireless Controllers make noise (and now do it somewhere where I don't get into an arguement with people who want to argue for the sake of arguing). There's been all kinds of hoopolah about "RF interference" (close), and other issues relating to how the consoles are wired. The thing is, the common thread is it's SIXER variants having the problem, and I'm doubtful a lot of the people on the internet who want to argue, are electronically knowledgeable enough to make an educated guess as to what the problem is.

Component A203 is a CD4050 Hex Buffer/Inverter chip. This is a special I/C on the motherboard of the Atari "Heavy Sixer" and "Light Sixer" consoles that does not exist on other models such as the CX-2600A models (woody and vader 4 switch) or the 2600JR. This chip can probably act as some form of an audio amplifier, as I know from making Fuzz/Distortion/Synth guitar pedals using simliiar chips (CD4069 and CD40106), and it could be possible that the Atari is picking up noise off the dongle and amplifying it through this chip somehow. Could be signal feeding back into it, as some accounts say the fire button has a "Debounce" through two fo the inverters - Debouncing is a technique that prevents unnecessary function executions by delaying the invocation of a function for a set amount of time. It's used in programming, hardware switches, and websites to remove unwanted input noise and prevent extra activations.. There's also a video signal fed through the same chip as well, which is one reason the Sixer consoles are so desireable, that CD4050 cleans up and boosts the signal a little for the video, making the colors a little brighter, vivid, or more "saturated" than later revisions of the system. I also know, CMOS chips, like the 4050, can bleed signal across the inverters if the output is high enough.

Enter the A/V mod, a modification to the VCS/2600 that instead allows the console to send audio and video to your TV via the classic 2-3 RCA connector cable of Yellow/Red/White that we're now so used to seeing on legacy A/V equipment.

Audio/Video Signals from the 2600 come from 2 separate areas. The TIA gives off the video, while the RIOT gives us the audio. These signals are then fed through some passives to a metal box that looks like an HO scale box truck trailer called the "RF Modulator". This box, which is fed signals via 3-5 little pins, takes the audio and video signals, combines them, and then sends them to the TV via a 75 ohm output (which in turn is converted to 300 ohm in the classic sense via a TV/Game Switchbox).

Most of these A/V mods feed the audio signals out of the RIOT direct, and then grab a composite signal off the TIA and modulate it just right so the color burst signal is shown on screen corretly (Color burst happens BEFORE it hits RF - ie, that little Trim Pot on the motherboard - aka "color delay") - this is usually done through some form of transistor or video modulation circuit of sorts.

Off the board where all these circuits are, the audio is fed to 2-3 RCA Plugs. Left and Right are either combined as Mono (typical for an RF atari unit), or are separated as Left and Right Channels in rare cases (If you read my bit about the original VCS supposed to have 2 more speakers INSIDE the case with each audio channel a part of them, you'll know why, and why mixdown to Mono is probably better).

What the A/V mod does is a few things. First, it cleans up the signal by removing a bunch of RF equipment that can act as an inadvertant antenna (remember what I said about the Atari 2600 being an antenna when it's off), it also (in some circuits) boosts the circuit to get rid of interference, and cleans up the audio and video signal, making it more crisp.

But like everything, it's also a trade-off. First trade-off is that a lot of these modifications require you yank out a lot of the 45 year old circuitry to get it to work properly, meaning there are some 2600's out there that will never again be able to use RF because most likely, the owner or modder, threw the circuits out because they are "ooooooold".

Second, the 2600 never had A/V to begin with because it predates it's widespread use by a long shot. When it was released, most of these units were attached to old TV sets with 300 ohm screw terminals in the back, had interference from Antennas, poor house wiring from the 1970's and before, RF interference from appliances, and were on old TVs with low dot-pitch Cathode Ray Tubes that blurred up the pixels and made it look better than it was anyway. That was what all those programmers intended when they programmed those games. The poor-seeming (to today's standards) TVs of the time made the games look better than they really were. Add in the interference, and the 3D effect you lose with A/V, and then people begin to complain the pixels look "Jaggy" (jagged), and even then, you still get some artifacts because it's not a perfect picture signal on A/V either.

The last is the most trivial - altering historical video game hardware in the name of "progress". The least destructive method is to solder the board, stick it to the bottom of the case, and then run the AV Cables out the back hard-wired, or if you need more length, have a "pigtail" hanging out of the back of the 2600's RF connector hole, and attach your A/V to that. A lot of people like the cool look of drilling holes in the back of the case to add A/V ports, but I don't like this because, what if someone wants to use it as it was original later on? Maybe a Museum wants to use your Heavy Sixer with a period correct CRT for a display? Then what? It's not easy to fill and texture plastic. I know, I've tried.