Need help with an Odyssey 2

[kevleebob]

Hello. I am new to this forum and I recently bought an ODYSSEY 2 game system at a garage sale. It was in its box but there was no guarantee to whether it works or not. I am not a very experienced gamer and I need some help. When I put in the cartridge and turn it on, the screen has a whole bunch of random numbers and letters. I have tried 3 different game cartridges and they all do the same thing. I am wondering if I have it connected correctly. I bought a RF TV Adapter Direct Connect through EBAY. However, I not sure if the problem is having it connected wrong or if the system simply does not work. Any advice or detailed connection directions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for having this forum!

Merry Christmas!

[jb143]

There's probally people on here that can answer this better than I can but it sounds like it just needs to be cleaned. The carts are probally not making good contact. We are talking about a system thats about 30 years old here! I found one that appeared to be completly dead before but all I did was open it up and clean out all the dust and it worked perfectly.

[DarthKur]

You definitely need to clean the contacts on the cartridges with a Q-Tip and rubbing alcohol until you can no longer see any crud on the cotton swab. I have inserted less than tidy carts into my O2 before and got the exact same results that you are describing.

[PentiumMMX]

All it should need is a little cleaning to the connectors, like jb143 said. I used to own one, so I know a little bit about it

[kevleebob]

I cleaned the heck out the system and carts with rubbing alcohol. I am still getting a white screen with letters and numbers. I am wondering still if I do not have the right connection. Ideas?

[8bitgamer]

One more note on cleaning classic systems. During the era of the NES, lots of companies produced cleaning kits, and you can still find them at thrift stores and on ebay and such. They work great for the 2600, 7800, etc. The best kits had little pieces of flat plastic that you could insert into the cartridge slot.

[blue lander]

I had a similar issue with a G7400, which is similar to the Odyssey 2. I'd get a random screen of characters and numbers when I turned it on. At first I thought it was a bad connection with the cartridge, but it did the exact same thing even when no cartridge was plugged in. So I figured it as something internal. I tried replacing the RAM, but same thing. In fact, I could remove the RAM altogeather and it did the same thing.

Then I realized that the CPU in the G7400 (and the Odyssey 2 for that matter) has a small amount of ROM built into it that contains the BIOS for the system. I'm guessing that went bad or corrupt, and no amount of replacing components would fix it.

[jb143]

I cleaned the heck out the system and carts with rubbing alcohol. I am still getting a white screen with letters and numbers. I am wondering still if I do not have the right connection. Ideas?

I'm bringing this back up because there's something we all forgot to add that should be noted. Be sure to let the alchohol completely dry before trying the game. Otherwise, it's possible it could short out.

[FABombjoy]

I've tried to short out multiple systems with alcohol-soaked contacts (to see if it actually happens). I haven't succeeded yet.

[vintagegamecrazy]

Clean the heck out of the game then insert it reclean it, reinsert it and clean it several more times. You will pull tons of excess dirt off of the console contacts with that method if you don't have any other way to clean the system contacts.

[guitargary75]

I agree, it sounds like it just needs to be cleaned.