Ben Heck's Atari Video Music Teardown

[@chriswalker8361]

Just finished the repair on my Atari video music and it wouldn’t have been possible without this video! Thanks for the time spent on this.

[@pokehybridtrainer]

Techmoan brought me here. Good stuff! Need to check out some more videos from ya.

[@ukyo6195]

So, who cares?

[@kebman]

I came from YCombinator

[@kurtownsj00]

Same, though the name Ben Heck was already known to me, just never saw any vids lately!

[@brandon-butler]

This is actually really cool. Please do more repair videos like this :D

[@SharpblueCreative]

Agreed.

[@mushroomsamba82]

This episode was so relaxed and laid back, reminds me a lot of the old episodes. I like it and I hope we get more of this.

[@Psychlist1972]

I assume you were having a bit of a brain fart when you kept calling the pots "capacitors" :)

[@TortureBot]

I was thinking the exact same thing.

[@element14presents]

+Pete Brown Sometimes there isn't enough coffee in the world...

[@raindogred]

+Pete Brown unless they are variable caps???

[@Psychlist1972]

+raindogred Which they weren't :)

[@bborkzilla]

At least he didn't call them "Condensers" :P

[@garthhowe297]

This is one of the first times I have seen some really useful troubleshooting methods explained. Thanks!

[@proyectosledar]

Hi Dave, sorry I meant Ben. Nice teardown! This is the kind of videos that I like, more like this!!!

[@asdfgamlin]

What a bobby dazzler!

[@dajack05]

+Proyectos LED If only he had thrown in a "and bob's your uncle!"

[@ChaosDivides]

Don't turn it on, take it apart!

[@Ogma3bandcamp]

+Proyectos LED The big difference is Ben actually repaired it. I've never seen Dave Jones successfully repair anything.

[@trulygg]

I honestly never knew this was a thing. Sure it was made 17 years before I was born but I'm still surprised that I've never heard it mentioned.

[@MrBlakBunny]

*prediction before watching the video* Ben opens its, felix remarks "That is a lot of Cocaine in there, i thought you said this was from the 70's, not the 80's"

[@dodoubledragon]

+MrBlakBunny So close, lots of Cocaine but no Felix :(

[@DeliveryMcGee]

Yeah, coke was big in the '70s-early '80s. Scarface was set in 1980.

[@_Ramen-Vac_]

cocaine is a hell of a drug...

[@stevencarter7999]

holy s**t. my aunt had one if these on a shelf in her din. for as long as I can remember.

[@DogsBAwesome]

I came here from Techmoan's video and realised KZbin have unsubbed me from the ben heck show.

[@SelfIndulgentGamer]

brian whittle I was curious as to who copied who lol :)

[@somethingelse2lookat502]

I was glued to this video. I never heard of this system. Fantastic video

[@zaprodk]

You know you got capacitors on your mind when you start calling everything capacitors (including the pots) :D

[@charleswolfman]

This is awesome, guys. Glad to have a look inside something I never even knew existed.

[@dogcowrph]

Your daughter is full of excitement... So wonderful to see. I found this at Techmoan's youtube page.

[@guerillagrueplays6301]

I'd still love to see you do something like an inverse handheld video, turning a handheld console into a set-top model. Atari Lynx, perhaps, or Game Boy Color? Heck, maybe the Wonderswan, even, that'd be neat.

[@sprybug]

People have done it with the Game Gear. There's even a kit you can buy to do it. With enough digging you can actually find schematics to do it, however it requires several 74LS Logic ICs and an RGB to Composite/S-Video chip converter like the AD725. I built one once and it worked for the most part, however when there was too much blue it would cause the VSync to go out of whack. When I would turn the pot down on the blue, it would be really washed out, but would fix it, however it didn't look good. Was never able to figure out that problem.

[@vader0ne]

Wow thanks for showing this. I do own one not sure if it still works and i am missing 2 buttons,but back then it was high teck ,and thanks for all the 70's pun I feel so old now.

[@tomgeorge3726]

6:15 capacitors with shafts, POTENTIOMETERS with shafts... 8.35 1000uF, 470uF, what voltage? When did you check the power supply rails and ripple? Good video, the front panel looks upside down..

[@PixelOutlaw]

Don't loan your electronics to Ben. He tastes them. :D

[@n.h.s.a.d.m.]

Ben, please stop licking the Atari.

[@trebuchetgunt2432]

This is great! Cool to see old stuff work again and some insight on how/why they did it that way and how it might be done with modern technology. Maybe you could do a few videos with John from John's Arcade. Talk about why those gigantic capacitors are used in power supplies, or ,maybe explain exactly how the kinds of video sync works with the oscilloscope, or explain why incandescent is just so much nicer than LED when you're willing to spend the extra electricity.

[@Terra_Byte_Tech]

Amazing video as always! I hope one day we can have someone do a full analysis / breakdown of how the AVM works. I was particularly impressed by the wide range of colors it could output. (i do realize this was mostly an analogue system, but im really interested in what role the digital components really played in this)

[@franksalazar4576]

have you modded a old gameboy? perhaps adding a backlight to the old Gameboy and also adding an video out to plug it in on a tv Thanks for the great show!

[@bripbrap]

+Frank Salazar I asked for something like this ages ago. But to essentially turn the Gameboy into a console. even with plugin controller. would be an amazing few episodes!

[@franksalazar4576]

+Jayson Harris a portable game boy console! Hope we get some attention

[@YoManRuLz1]

+Jayson Harris There are a ton of ways to play gameboy games on a tv. Now a Game Gear, that would be interesting.

[@JJiG]

+Jayson Harris that would definitely be amazing, I just don't think it'll ever happen. Shame, it's such a great idea!

[@lillydoye7418]

The master system and game gear had reasonably similar hardware so modding a master system could be a good starting point. Otherwise video out boards are available.

[@JaredReabow]

Capacitor with plastic shaft? Don't you mean Pot or variable resistor?

[@johantjie]

Best start to a weekend!

[@ladr1550]

There are plenty of old tvs being restored and being taken care of.

[@wisteela]

Excellent work. They were announced in 1976, and came out in 1977. There is a date code of 7702 on the video chip. It's a real shame that these were never released here in the United Kingdom.

[@cgflyone]

Wow. I thought I was the only person who bought one! New, no less! Worked at Buddy Sales in the San Fernando Valley who at the time just happened to have been an Atari dealer. I used that device a LOT, maybe until PC visualizers came on to the scene moving on to G-Force and iTunes visualizers. Definitely kept it through the 80's. Thank's for the trip down memory lane! Now, where did I put mine... 😕

[@martinda7446]

First time I ever saw someone try and nibble the lid of a repair item. Kudos.

[@Nicotinebeige222]

Its amazing how expensive it was, I have an entire Technics receiver made the same year as this, and it was only $10 more when new.

[@dawn1berlitz]

ive never even heard of this atari product till today its very interesting piece of electronic from atari

[@yuppiehi]

Now THIS was a great video! I thought the teardown was boring, but got excited when it didn't work. Luckily the schematics were available. I wonder if he would've found the broken op amp without the schematics?

[@HainjeDAF]

Is that Felix laughing in the background? :) :) You have me in stitches... 'It tastes like a high school gym...'

[@nrg16108]

You can easily change the RF out with an RCA adapter for a couple dollars-no lousy RF switch or composite video mod needed.

[@profhojo74]

Devo used one of these devices for the video of The Day My Baby Gave Me A Surprise from 1979 which is how I heard of it and have wanted ever since.

[@thejaquio]

What model of TV are you using during the tests? It looks A LOT like the Sony SXRD A3000 series. The KDS-55A3000 is still my Living Room TV. I bought it in 2007!

[@bsiever007]

I would suggest using 2 y audio adapters for both left and right audio inputs. One for the source and the other for the stereo preamp to hear the music. Or using an RF splitter to separate the video and the audio.

[@thisjamescoker]

Love this video! Can I ask how you hooked the unit up to the TV? Did you use an RCA to F adapter into the coax input on the TV? Is there a way to connect this to the TV using a HDMI cable and an upscaler? Also, for the sound source, did you connect RCA to RCA or 3.5 mm jack to RCA? I recently came across one of these and I am trying to figure out whether it is broken, my connection is incorrect, or both.

[@TheJackShack]

You get it figured out?

[@jr52990]

I just wanted to point out how well the transitions were done in this video. I noticed Mr. Editor, well done. :)

[@TacoNissan]

+Joshua Walters transitions?

[@jr52990]

happy In between shots the transition from shot to shot was well done. He used a few tricks that were subtitle and cool.

[@TacoNissan]

sorry, i was just commenting that you said "transmissions"

[@jr52990]

happy Ah, crap, your right. It just goes to show that I'm a student engineer so spelling is getting worse and worse. I went ahead and edited it.

[@TacoNissan]

***** lol yea. I'm a student engineer too. My spelling is horrid sometimes.

[@travis4798]

I have a modern amplifier with a metal all the way around, non grounded. Also vintage electronics were built to last, idk what your talking about. I have a 40 year old receiver that powers up like it's brand new and sound great, only needed 1 filter cap replaced, though I should get the rest replaced as well.

[@SianaGearz]

Yes, double insulated devices or devices with reinforced insulation can have an unearthed all metal enclosure and HiFi gear usually is. Even more relaxed requirements apply to devices with a low voltage extenal power brick. You can't say that old stuff was built to last though. I mean sure, "planned obsolescence" even on high price devices wasn't a thing yet, but you're looking at it through the lens where most of the things that survived are the ones that were better built than the rest, or things that were preservation worthy and have been maintained with improved components. If you ask guitar amp repairman, as one big category of products that have been maintained for a long time, extremely sloppy designs weren't uncommon and the ones surviving today might be due to them being relatively simple, but then there are many questionable new ones too. As to components, for example big companies with good chemical facilities have drastically improved electrolyte quality and production methods during this time, but also a lot of minor ones sprung up to offer a cheaper product with all the compromises it entails. IC resilience standards also went up - now almost everything has to have 500V static resilience and 2-4 kV is not too uncommon, while 80ies ICs were severely struggling with that.

[@AntonTHPS]

Very interesting teardown/repair! Would love to see you mess around with- and hopefully fix the guts of an old analog synthesizer. Make it happen!

[@jr52990]

Do you think Ben would be up to the challenge of making a computer/movie projector out of part of the LCD screen of an old computer monitor and one of those old school overhead projectors Karen?

[@muddywaters8706]

You should get ahold of a STAX SRM - T2 (legendary headphone amp), would love to see repair work on one of those. A bit of info from a random forum: "I wonder how many treasures like this may be in an attic somewhere..... or at a swap meet..... Any idea on how many were ever made? How much did they originally cost?" "There were close to 250 units made but exact numbers are hard to come by. The prices varied quite a bit in those days since Stax changed dealers in the US quite often just before they went bust. A few of these sold for 6500$ with a SR-Omega back in 1995. :o "

[@scottt988]

I had one of these. Had it for years in my two racks of audio equipment. It eventually stopped working and was tossed into the trash. I see the price of then now and kicking myself.

[@MrYessireebob]

I love your videos Ben, I loved your PS4 teardown but will there be any future videos on the console?

[@michaelgoldmann3734]

where will this beauty go now? I would looove to have one of these to go with my restored vinyl record player....

[@TheTurnipKing]

I really want to know what makes that custom IC tick. The output looks very Atari-ish, so I figure it's probably related to the 2600 TIA? Wonder if you could get similar functionality out of an Arduino?

[@charlescothran4946]

Did you reverse engineer the thing, before you sent it back? Or, can you build a modern version now?

[@charlescothran4946]

I love DEVO!!!

[@Custompc48809]

Wow, My dad has one of these on the shelf and I see it work about 7 years ago. He might still have it.

[@greenaum]

They're valuable. Get him to give it to you. Make sure he signs something!

[@99thDimension]

Worse audio problem I experienced was with a German wire recorder. The wire came off the spool on rewind filled up half the room with many many fine wire cuts to the hands and face.

[@DeadKoby]

Although I was born in '78... I think your comment that anyone who worked to make or design this being dead is likely wrong...not to mention pretty mean. If someone was 40 or less in 1977.... it's very likely for them to be alive today.

[@AceSimGaming]

go away, he was making a joke. Political correctness is such a cancer. Your name offends me because it has death in it and I had family who died...

[@DeliveryMcGee]

Plenty of people preserve old TVs -- the old Philco Predicta and such. But it's mostly the old-radio-restoration crowd that talk about replacing dried-up caps.

[@grandetaco4416]

"That was connected before I was born" lol! I was a kid during the era this came out, I never saw one of these. We had the Atari 2600, 400 and 800 computers. I see a lot of those in this. The channel selector is really dumb seeing as the other units I mentioned just put the switch on the outside. "Everyone who worked there is now dead" Now I feel depressed.

[@danxepha4535]

I'd like to see you tear down a CED player. I've always found the idea of video on vinyl a really interesting concept.

[@ChrisdeHaan]

Loving the Detroit love! I3 shirt

[@maker_karen1785]

+Chris de Haan Thems ma peeps!

[@CurrySpices]

yeah wow i3detroit, how did she come into a shirt like that when its SO far away?!?!?!?!?!

[@maker_karen1785]

I'm from Detroit. i3 is my home hackerspace. I was president until I moved to Wisconsin.

[@coyote_den]

Wasn't the chip in this thing based on Atari's TIA? The video music and the VCS came out at almost the exact same time.

[@nickademuss42]

Did anyone point out that the knobs are actually variable resistors, not caps? And the plastic shafts keep it from shielded from static....

[@ShawnBrezny]

awesome work!!

[@colonelbastian6036]

Is this a fully analog device? It would be nice if you went into the details.

[@s.fleming2441]

ive tried to buy one of these a few times and can never find one for sale ... but this would have been very useful if I had ), and I still like watching the tare down

[@AiOinc1]

Why so much hate on vintage electronics? Lots of people save those 50s tv sets, and lots of then still have decent caps in them.

[@arthurharrison1345]

While replacing the electrolytic capacitors may be considered good practice, your presumption that they are categorically bad is incorrect. Also, why are you referring to the potentiometers as "capacitors?"

[@hydrolisk1792]

Awesome Job Ben!

[@butlergames]

Ben, any chance you'll do a RCA output demo?

[@thisjamescoker]

would love to see that

[@Redline-99]

I would like to see some repairs that a basic hobbyist could attempt to perform. Trouble shooting, basic scope usage to diagnose, power supply tracing, simple reverse engineering, etc.

[@JockMurphy]

I would love to see you make a modern version of the Atari Video Music, maybe portable with its own screen, or as a picture frame...

[@uzimonkey]

Wow, this is a surprise. I've only heard of this thing, what a bizarre device.

[@ChrisTheMeat]

any plans to work on the composite mod for this sucker? i know a few people have modded them in the past but it seems they are gatekeeping their methods ... would love to know how to get composite out of my atari video music!

[@Gigidag77]

So why didn't you add composite like you said earlier in the video ?

[@michaelturner4457]

I suspect using potentiometers with plastic shafts is part of the safety insulation(double insulation). as it doesn't have an earth. Same for the switches with plastic buttons and actuators.

[@1337Shockwav3]

What modern day op-amps did you use? Servicing one here as well, which is finally semi-producing a picture again after some work on and off (thing had no plug and was fed 220 volts). Still hoping the custom chip somehow survived. Probing it actually is the next step.

[@maker_karen1785]

+Hans “Shockwav3” Meier I asked Ben what he used. He said these, RCA CA3401, LM339N. I hope that helps. Good luck getting yours up and running!

[@1337Shockwav3]

+theHeckwithKaren Thanks a lot for the reply. I googled up on that myself already (turns out they're standard op-amps ... which I didn't exactly expect) and also found someone who modified his to work with composite. And guess what? It's working again since 2 hours :) Feeling extremely satisfied on this, since I considered the machine dead beyond repair for quite a long time. Once again, thanks for asking Ben. i.imgur.com/4FBnnDy.jpg & i.imgur.com/ewwMtS4.jpg

[@maker_karen1785]

Fantastic! Glad to see you got it working and that the IC on yours was also not damaged. I'm always happy to help when I can.

[@cgtbrad]

Just want to clarify this as I just got through repairing one of these and also found bad OpAmps. A3: In place of CA3401G I used LM3900N A4: In place of CA339G I used LM339N Best I can tell LM339N is not pin compatible with CA3401G - which was initially confusing me.

[@chrisneary8538]

the grounding came from audio signal and video grounds, saved a tiny bit on production probably

[@CPLBSS88]

Where did you get your shirt!? I DEMAND TO KNOW... please, thanks.

[@MoteofLobross]

That is cool as hell!

[@pancudowny]

Could you fix mine? I accidentally pressed two buttons in the same group and now the image generated is slightly damaged.

[@Blake-jl8lh]

So I am a young college student majoring in EE. I want to get myself a decent occiliscope. obviously price matters but I want something that will last me for a while. any suggestions?

[@Browningate]

I spy a Moto X Pure Edition _and_ a Mitsubishi rear projection HDTV. I thought I was the only one who still had that combination!

[@loganjorgensen]

If it had some feet clearance they could have mounted the channel switch out the bottom of the case without extension instead of that "poking hole" design.

[@jynx3662]

Please put the lower 3rd tid bits that pop up in a diff location, they are large and for whatever reason in editing you make them appear right over top of things were supposed to be watching work. This is in all videos.

[@SianaGearz]

What? People who worked there are likely only around 70 by now! More than half of them have to be alive.

[@acexprt]

Damn I really want one of these .

[@TanjoGalbi]

Another teardown video from Ben.... ripper! :)

[@bripbrap]

Awesome episode :D

[@youtuuba]

Why are the potentiometers repeatedly referred to as "capacitors"?

[@aliencho]

The buttons are plastic, the potentiometers shafts are plastic, so, this is why there is no need of grounding.

[@chartle1]

Taste it Dave Jones just sniffs it. =:O And how the hell do you know what a old gym tastes like?

[@relishgargler]

+Cliff Hartle How do you NOT know? Isn't getting the occasional taste of nasty gym mat a universal experience for kids in America?

[@wesleyknapper6239]

Hi Ben, just thought of a cool project to make small petrol engine genarator for creating electricity like one from a petrol powered RC car or plain ? something small enough to call it like table top.

[@notionSunday]

Enjoyed it.

[@darktetsuya]

I saw a tumblr post about this thing that had a video with it showing how it works, it was kinda neat!! I wish there was a way someone could make a pc simulator or something to re-create that effect on PCs, though. :P

[@greenaum]

PC visualisers are usually much better! But it looks like the sort of thing you could do easily with Winamp. Winamp's default visualiser is programmable, and a few people write scripts for it. If you can find the Winamp visualisation community, go tell them, one of them might do it. Doesn't even look that complicated. Ideally they'd need information on what all the effects are, what each button does.

[@matthewzepess5721]

did any other companies make these? i would like to buy one for my retro audio equipment... but dont want to spend hundreds on this exact one.

[@hanniffydinn6019]

That was fun. I was hoping for more psychedelic show than just different triangle shapes. Like some sort of feedback loop. :-(

[@Jeffball610]

I know we're supposed to leave suggestions on the forums, but I'd like to know what we can do with old CRT tvs. You have to pay to have them recycled and don't offer much current functionality. One item that has a CRT monitor that would be cool to modernize is the iMac G3. They are very limited on upgrades, but are cool. (and HEAVY!) Maybe Ben can find a way to add new life to these old machines.

[@WilliamTythas]

+Jeffrey Ball gut it and build a fish tank inside

[@Jeffball610]

WilliamTythas And then what do you do with the CRT monitor? The fish tank idea is old. I was thinking maybe a mame or emulation machine for older games. The 15" monitor isn't that big, so that may not be as fun. I'm sure you can do something useful with it other than trash the inside and use the shell.

[@GMLscripts]

+Jeffrey Ball Maybe Ben could turn a CRT into a basic oscilloscope.

[@FennecTECH]

“No ones gonna try to preserve a TV”. Shango066 wants to know your location

[@OrangeHarrisonRB3]

15:12 DEVO actually did make a video with this thing, complete with terrible 1970's bluescreening

[@danimieghem]

@6:14 you mention "capacitors with plastic shapfts" (and you did it several times) . I assume you meant "potentiometers" ? . Nice vid, though !

[@dosman01302]

I want one of those!!!!

[@DiyintheGhetto]

Makes me want a Milkshake now and a Atari Music system :)

[@kanpaifighto]

you meant potentiometers with the plastic shafts, right? You certainly would have a hard time finding a plastic capacitor :P

[@DodgeeSoftware]

I really enjoyed this video thank you ^_^