Brian D. Deuel

Hahahha!

I think I'll mod my Video Pinball unit by removing the 2112 and replacing it with SDRAM and a larger crystal. Much, much, MUCH larger crystal...

I'm working on repairing one now. Non-working left flipper and no sound. I've isolated the left flipper problem to a bad resistor. I can trigger the flipper by grounding the correct pin on the selector gate IC, and jumpering the leads of the resistor does the same.

I'll try a new speaker before trying to trace that issue, and see if that works.

thegamezmaster, on Sat Mar 10, 2012 10:48 AM, said:

If the game chip is socketed (as mine is), CAREFULLY remove the game chip and spray some electronic cleaner into the socket. Take an eraser and CAREFULLY clean the pins on the chip, then replace it in the socket and see if that fixes your Breakout paddle lines problem. Regardless of if it does or not, I'd go ahead and replace the socket anyway (this is on my to-do list as well), but the procedure I outlined is one way to attempt to isolate the problem.

Official Ninja, on Fri Feb 24, 2012 11:14 AM, said:

The chip is a Quad And-Or Select Gate, and is most likely quite easy to find (or, at least, a equivalent can be cross-referenced). Check the resistor(s) along that circuit as well. You're probably right and one of the lines on the chip is stuck, but it's possible that a resistor could be causing this stuck signal.

The data sheet for the chip is here: http://doc.chipfind..../scl4019be.html

Gotta love old electronics. Easy to work on, as long as the chips aren't custom.

I would have dreams of finding coin-op prototypes or nonexistent games in the strangest places. One of the places was a castle-like campus with a library, although I can't say if it was a college or not (you know how it goes with dreams). There was an arcade in one of the giant rooms with a tons of prototypes of black and white Atari arcade games. The one game that I distinctly remember was similar to Lunar Lander, with black raster graphics on a grey screen (a la Sprint), where the player would fly around and collect objects in order, avoiding walls and enemies. The cabinet was similar to a Midway Lo-Boy, with lights on the bezel and control panel that simulated a real cockpit. The gameplay is similar to a Playstation game I played called Mystery Planet, in a Japanese collection called Serofans (70s and 80s arcade game simulations; a great collection if you can find it). I'll never forget that dream. I even wrote a PC port of the game in my dream, with the graphics as best as I could remember them, but lost the code years ago. Maybe I'll write a Dreamcast port someday...

Info about the Serofans collection here: INFO