Atari 2600 Question

[Flack]

My friend wants to hook an Atari 2600 up to his regular, modern television. I know all about THESE (have one, works great).

My question is, what will happen if I got one of those cheap 2 way splitters from Radio Shack and hook both the Atari and his cable into the inputs, and hook the output into his television? Will that work? Or will he need an actual switchbox?

[ApolloBoy]

Y'know, you don't really have to use a 2-way splitter (but they will work), just use an A/B cable switch and you're set.

[Kamino]

i'd reccoment using the switchbox. i use an a/b/c switch for 2600/7800/coleco and it works great.

[MarioAllStar2600]

The switch boxes are much easier. Also the splitters stop working afetr a little while. They start gving you a terrible scratchy picture. I have gone threw 4 different ones since im 11.

[Kamino]

The switch boxes are much easier. Also the splitters stop working afetr a little while. They start gving you a terrible scratchy picture. I have gone threw 4 different ones since im 11.

...you're 11????

[The Manimal]

The switch boxes are much easier. Also the splitters stop working afetr a little while. They start gving you a terrible scratchy picture. I have gone threw 4 different ones since im 11.

What do you all mean by 'splitter'? Are you talking about say, one cable coax cable (F-connector) goes into it, and there's two or three outputs which all give the same signal as the one input coax. If so, why would they go bad? The only thing I've heard is that if you daisy chain these things, eventually you'll need a singal amplifier because it gets weaker and weaker the more you spread it out.

[DigitalSpace]

The switch boxes are much easier. Also the splitters stop working afetr a little while. They start gving you a terrible scratchy picture. I have gone threw 4 different ones since im 11.

...you're 11????

I think he meant since he was 11.

[SoulBlazer]

But I think MAS is only 15.

[Flack]

Radio Shack had the Coax > RF adapter for around $3, a coax cable for $5, and an A/B switch for $10. Total with tax was $20.28.

It's been a while since I played a real Atari 2600 for any serious length of time. God bless ergonomic gamepads. Seriously, after a few rounds of River Raid and Asteroids, my thumbs were cramping some kind of fierce!

Thanks again everyone.