> I took my 2600 apart tonight; it's a six-switcher with a Rev B
> motherboard, (C) 1977.
>
> Between the 6507 and the TIA, there's a 24-pin pad. It's clearly
> designed to hold a socket, but there's no socket in it and the vias are
> filled with solder.
>
> I'm guessing that there was another part Atari was considering but
> dropped for cost reasons. Does anyone know what it was? It looks like
> a bunch of the lines run to pins 5-11 on the '07; that makes me suspect
> that it was likely to be either ROM--a built-in game?--or onboard RAM.
>
> Does anyone know?
http://www.atariage.com/2600/archives/funfacts.html?SystemID=2600
makes it sound like it might be Combat...supposedly meant to be
hardwired in.
Assuming that's what it is, you're much smarter than me about the
wiring in these lovely beasts :-)
Combat is great, but I think a hardwired game kind of detracts
from the multipurpose nature of the Atari, even if it could also
play carts normally (I'm not sure how much the flexibility of the
Atari was foreseen when it was created; I've heard that it was mostly
geared at hopefully porting some of the simple arcade games of the
era, and that was about it...it's come a long way, baby!)
--
KirkIsrael@xxxxxxxxxxxxx http://kisrael.com
Life's too short for sentences that begin "life's too short for..."
--Slashdot
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