You know something else that really grind my gears ?

You know something else that really grind my gears ? Fixing/modding something that won't work when your done.

Yesterday I finally decided that I was going to mod my Colecovision. It's not really for me that I was doing it, it was for the Arcadia Festival. I was only adding a simple Audio/Video Composite mod to it, to be able to use RCA cables with it. My friend Sensato recently gave me a new way of doing it since the previous method I had was scary and expensive. By scary I mean it looked like it was freaking hard to do.

The first part of the mod went fine and was done pretty fast. Three small components, add the wires and then test. After less than an hour I do my first test : I get a clean picture ! Yeah ! Time to clean everything, put the connectors and call it a day.

I put duct tape (my favorite kind of tape. How could a tape that has a duck as a logo can not be your favorite too ?) to avoid any short, makes the holes for the connectors, put them in, solder everything (including the top metal shield), secure everything and do a test before closing it out.

And thats when it started to go downhill : I get washed out colors. I remove the metal shield (remember, in the old days, they were soldered to the board) and leave the Coleco pluged in to see how I was doing.

And I get perfect colors. I start to reassemble it.

And I get washed out colors. Even sometime, I don't even get colors ! I'm starting to get pissed. I think that maybe the RF shield is causing a short and I decide to remove it. Anyway, this one won't be using RF output anymore.

And I get perfect colors. I start to reassemble again. I put the metal shield and everything looks good. I put screw the shell back in place and I test.

And I still get perfect colors ! Yeah ! Then I realize I forgot to put in the power LED.

I should mention here that Colecovision were hard as hell to disassemble. They are made of 3 plastic part : top, base and front. The top and the front are screwed together and then a sticker is put on the front, making them stuck forever, unless you want to lose the sticker (which is almost impossible to replace). Once you're done putting it back together, you don't want to open it again.

So I open it back and look for a 5v lead. The Coleco power adapter output 12v, 5v and -5v, but I can't get the 5v from there because the main switch only is for the 12v lead. I had to look on the net for the schematics, find a suitable 5v lead and connect a red LED to it. Then it's time to test the LED.

Guess what ? Red LED, not the hyper-bright kind, doesn't need 5v... they need less than that. I burned 2 LEDs to realize that. I still can't understand why I didn't buy hyper-bright red LED instead of regular, while I got green and blue in the hyper-bright... So I settle for a green LED, which love the 5v (this thing is bright enough to make you blind, I'm sure) and start making the hole for it next to the power switch. I hook up everything, test the light and reassemble the damn thing.

By that time, I have spent 2 hours and a half on that. I'm finally done and do a final test.

I get washed out colors ! Argh ! The next hour and a half was spent disassembling and reassembling the whole thing because I was sure I had fixed the issue. Around 10:30PM, I was finally done. Good colors, nice and powerful LED and everything fully assembled.

Then I started to work on the Atari 2600. I had first done the mod to a Atari Jr. but might have killed it during the mod. Good thing I have a backup ! I do have to mention that I used the wrong potentiometer while I first did the mod. I used 2k instead of 1k, but in my mind, a 2k pot in the middle become a 1k pot. Maybe not...

I remove the 2k pots, put the 1k pots in, resolder on the second Atari board and test.

Clean picture, good colors. It's karma, I'm sure.

It's getting late so I decide to put the metal shield back in and call it a day. But before I go to bed, I do a last test.

I get a scrambled picture ! It took me five minutes to saw one little wire had broken off, the one that sync the whole video signal !

This one will be fixed tonight. I'll then install the connectors, the power LED (I won't forget it this time).

Then I start to pray that everything hold off next November !