At 01:47 PM 4/17/00 -0700, you wrote:
Also, I had to take my sister's 2600 apart in order to
give it a good cleaning (it had cobwebs in it. I'm
still trying to figure that one out). What makes the
TIA and other stuff inside so big? The chips
themselves can't possibly be that huge. Is it the
circuit board that makes them big? If so, the actual
hardware might be used, just make a more compact
board, right?
The original 2600 has a daughterboard of some kind, but still has a case
far bigger than is otherwise necessary. At one time they were thinking of
putting internal speakers into it, but that was shelved early enough for
them to alter their case design if they needed to, I think. The case was
big so to indicate "perceived value" as Al Alcorn told me. They wanted it
about the size of a piece of rack home stereo equipment like a tape deck or
a turntable.
The 2600 Jr. is more representative of the actual space requirements for
the 2600 hardware. If you remove the RF modulator, use mini resistors, and
cram it all next to eachother you could make something small enough to fit
into a portable with the stock chips, but it would probably draw too much
power.
Glenn Saunders - Producer - Cyberpunks Entertainment
Personal homepage: http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/1698
Cyberpunks Entertainment: http://cyberpunks.uni.cc
--
Archives (includes files) at http://www.biglist.com/lists/stella/archives/
Unsub & more at http://www.biglist.com/lists/stella/
