How to Connect the Odyssey2 to a Modern TV Set
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If you decide to buy or revive an Odyssey2 or any video game console from the 1970s and early 1980s, you can still easily connect it to any TV set, including HDTVs. All you need to buy is a cable that at one end is an RF “F” connector (i.e., a screw-type 75-ohm antenna connector) and, at the other, a female RCA connector. Or you can use a regular antenna cable with an “F” connector at each end and install an RCA adaptor at one end, like we did in Figure 25.
Figure 25: Cable to connect old video game consoles to modern TV sets
Connect the side that has the “F” connector on the c
onnector labeled “antenna” at the back of your TV set, and then connect the cable coming from the video game console to the RCA female connector. The next step is to install a cartridge on the console, turn on the video game and the TV set, press the “Input” button on your TV remote control, select “antenna” from the options that will show up on the TV, and select channel 3 or 4 (whichever makes the image show up on the TV).
The final step is to increase the TV’s volume. Just keep in mind that the sound will come out of the TV’s built-in speakers, not from the speakers of your home theater system.
Another option we mentioned before is to modify your Odyssey2 to have “video out” and “audio out” outputs, creating a higher-quality connection between the console and your TV set. This tutorial shows you how. If you perform this modification, you will need to connect the “video out” and the “audio out” outputs of your console to the “video in” and “audio in” inputs of your TV using standard RCA cables, and then press the TV’s “input” button to select the TV’s “video in” input.
