exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

So I for some reason started looking at Magnavox/Phillips stuff, I think probably because YouTube decided I should, and decided to pick up a VideoPac as they were quite cheap and I found a fairly OK boxed one:


And stamped booklet that shows it came from a long defunct store in Ipswich, so not far from me.


I was a bit concerned though as the DPD driver marked it as delivered, but it wasn't at my house. Luckily somebody walked up later on and dropped it off at mine so at least DPD got it to the right estate...

Inside it's very clean:




but like contemporary Atari's it has a metal shield so for now I've left it as is for now.


Sadly both joysticks have cable burn, but the main unit is in very good order. Internally the joystics are a bit odd and have 8 position switches:


I'm waiting on a game to arrive to see how it plays and I'll see if there are any comp mods for it. Perhaps RGB2HDMI might be an option?

Also, it's way bigger than expected, seen here with a C64 and ZX81 for scale:


No banana I'm afraid, I ate our last one yesterday!!!

It does look big doesnt it?

That 8-way joystick is rather baffling too.

I cant wait for you to write a 50 page document on that keyboard. :lol:

mrbombermillzy wrote: 24 Jul 2026 14:14 It does look big doesnt it?

Definitely is, and it's thick too!!!

mrbombermillzy wrote: 24 Jul 2026 14:14 That 8-way joystick is rather baffling too.

Looking closer each compass point is a switch, so it kinda makes sense but what's wrong with 4 switches for 8 directions?

mrbombermillzy wrote: 24 Jul 2026 14:14 I cant wait for you to write a 50 page document on that keyboard. :lol:

I've used some bad membrane keyboards in my time but this does take the biscuit just by the way it feels, which is worse than the ZX81...

Or even the ZX80.

Of all the membrane keyboards I've used I have to say that the Atari 400 is the best and surprisingly usable.

rubber_jonnie wrote: 24 Jul 2026 14:48 Looking closer each compass point is a switch, so it kinda makes sense but what's wrong with 4 switches for 8 directions?

Im still not sure.

At this point, Im half expecting the machines CPU data/address bus to have 256 lines each! :lol:

mrbombermillzy wrote: 24 Jul 2026 14:55

rubber_jonnie wrote: 24 Jul 2026 14:48 Looking closer each compass point is a switch, so it kinda makes sense but what's wrong with 4 switches for 8 directions?

Im still not sure.

At this point, Im half expecting the machines CPU data/address bus to have 256 lines each! :lol:

Not sure what I'm expecting!!!

So it turns out that the G7000 has a built in game, which runs without a cart installed, so I tried it via my UHF to HDMI adapter:

The result isn't great, but it is promising:


So it is trying to run something, gives me scope to pull it all apart for cleanup and testing now.

It seems the internet lied to me about the G7000.

My first search said it didn't need a cart and had a game built in. The 7800 does this so why not?

Turns out that was a lie and I now need to go and wait for my cart to arrive before further testing. Hopefully it'll come tomorrow.

However I do have power, clocks & /reset and there is a decent video signal at the modulator.

This arrived yesterday :)


So at some point I will test to see if it runs.

Unfortunately my workbench is covered with bits of Enterprise 64, so it'll have to wait a bit.

Some good news on the G7000 front, it works!!


The only issue is my sketchy composite mod:


Is not playing nicely with the display, which is rolling rather fast. However, its running the game, they keyboard is working, we have colour and we have sound, so I'll pull out the UHF to HDMI and see if that gives me a better result whilst I look for the best composite solution for the G7000.

So, I hit upon something interesting whilst probing around on the G7000 earlier.

I was probing pins related to the VSYNC signal, and when I started probing, I managed to get the sync signal to behave to a degree in that I had variations of different signals - PAL 60, NTSC and NTSC 44 - and the game was visible and stable:


This was NTSC 44 which was the most consistent thing it went to. Colours were off but the game was playable and the screen didn't roll at all.

I'm considering looking at the caps as I'm thinking it was the capacitance of the scope probe that caused it to stabilise.

I call that progress :)