Holy Atari 7800 Batman! Yes I bought two of them for some reason, I clearly need to be supervised a bit more often.
The 7800 was the third games console after the 2600 and the 5200, and unlike the 5200 it was backwards compatible with the 2600 out of the box, it was improved in all areas but used the 2600 TIA chip to provide sound for 7800 games, this was the main criticism of the device, however it was possible to use the POKEY sound chip from the Atari 8 bit computer series inside game cartridges to give better sound, but this was rarely used. Also new in the hardware was an unauthorized software lockout, the 7800 BIOS would check for a digital signature stored on the cartridge, and compare it with a software generated signature, if they didn't match the 7800 would stay in 2600 mode
The unit itself looks quite nice, it has the same logo and rainbow from the 2600Jr
On the top you get the cartridge slot, which is the same as the 2600, then four momentary switches, Power, Pause, Select, and Reset with a green LED between power and pause
On the bottom is the model label, there are two plastic bars which you could wrap cables around
At the rear there are two sockets, a proprietary power socket and a RF output, you can easily mod these for composite video and audio out
On the front there are two joystick ports and the difficulty select switches, although on some 7800 games they would select options like turning off in-game music instead
These are the joypads that came with my machine, they have detachable sticks, and are smaller than they look, the two fire buttons are independent of each other but are incompatible with the Sega Master System controllers. However earlier revisions of the 7800 came with the Proline joysticks
Just your average RF lead
This is the PSU, 9V at 1A but with a proprietary connector, the pin-out is printed on the label
One of my 7800's came with the box, here is the top and bottom
Front and back
Left and right
Both my 7800s have Asteroids built in
I don't have any 7800 games yet, so I tested the cartridge slot with some recently bought 2600 games, Centipede, Space Invaders, and Missile Command
Asteroids, Phoenix, and Pacman
My other 7800 works, but has a slightly fuzzy RF output, maybe I'll mod this one..?
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