Make that old, dusty Atari 2600 look like new again with this handy tutorial. I found my old Atari after over 15 years of storage and brought it back to a lustrous life. Now you can, too! Read on…
My Atari 2600 had been boxed up for at least 15 years. When I tried plugging it in, it didn't work.
After some thorough cleaning with alcohol and a toothbrush, and finished with a protective coat of Armor All®, I took another chance…could I bring it back to life?
Update: June 10, 2011: I’ve been receiving a lot of traffic lately from searches on “how to clean an Atari 2600 console” (and similar verbiage). If you’ve found me by that method, welcome! I do hope this article helps, and your comments are appreciated. Thanks for reading.
So I found my old Atari 2600 buried in my closet, along with all the original (third party) controllers and a box of cartridges which I’d bought from another hardcore Atari fan over a decade ago. You may remember me mentioning this in a previous post. No, this isn’t the one that I bought from Craigslist; this is the one I begged my dad to buy me back in 1981 for $139 from Fedco. Yup, I thought this baby was a goner, but it’s found its way back into my arms somehow or another. Maybe it knew I bought another Atari and it got jealous.
My Atari had been in a box all along.
Unfortunately, it didn’t work when I plugged it in. But after about 15 years of being buried behind all my clutter, it had gathered some serious dust. So I made it a mission to clean it and bring it back to life. The adventure was pretty darn enlightening, and I took a lot of pictures of the process. If you got here by Googling “how to clean an Atari 2600″ or “how to clean my atari 2600,” then you may find this inspirational…
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