I’ve uploaded the updated version of QuickTools 2.0 (formerly Fluke 90 Controller).
There are quite a few differences. The main ones are its quicker, has some status indicators for the Trace functions and has preliminary script support (which doesn’t work too well right now).
If anyone has the Z80 version of the Fluke 90 for sale then I would be interested in buying it if the price is right.
Today I’ve dumped the only PAL from a Fighting Fantasy PCB, a weapon based fighting game from Data East released in 1989 (the game is also known as Hippodrome outside Japan).Dump has been successfully tested in a GAL16V8 targeting device.
Another Rainbow Islands PCB to repair.
This one had issues with the sprites which were broken up and seemed to be repeating, looked very much like a stuck bit on the sprite addressing;
All tiles and background graphics were fine, so I knew it was something to do with the sprite circuit.
The first thing I did was to look at the area where the sprite data is read from the two eproms. The two 74LS244 buffers checked out fine, but one of the 74LS373 Octal Latches had an output pin stuck HI (pin 9);
So I desoldered it;
I confirmed the Octal Latch was bad in an IC Tester. So I soldered in a socket and replaced with a fresh Octal Latch;
PCB sprites now restored;
We have some new PAL dumps.In the last days Porchy dumped PALs from an unemulated D.D. Crew bootleg board (it will be included in next MAME release), devices were two unsecured GAL16V8.Thanks to him.
Today I’ve dumped the PAL from an original Cabal (TAD Corporation) and successfully tested it on a GAL16V8 targeting device.
Sometimes lightning does strike twice.
I was recently sent an Asteroids Deluxe PCB which was exhibiting corrupted vectors.
When I got the PCB, I put it on my test rig and was presented with the following in TEST mode;
GAME mode;
The symptoms were pretty much identical to the last Asteroids repair log I posted. Note however this is an Asteroids Deluxe, however it is pretty much identical hardware to Asteroids except that Asteroids Deluxe has a pure digital sound circuit via a Pokey chip (Asteroids is analogue and no Pokey).
I immediately probed the 74LS42 decoder at E6, which had two outputs stuck HI.
So I desoldered it;
Tested it in my IC tester;
Socketed and replaced it with a fresh decoder;
Fire her up again;
Now working, except that the PCB would sometimes crash or refuse to boot. I was able to determine that three of the six ROM sockets were worn. So I replaced all of them for reliability;
Now working 100%.