Yves M has joined the site so expect even more repair log goodness soon.
Welcome Yves M!
Aug 292015
Aug 292015
As Ive mentioned in my repair log of the Fluke 90 there is some useful functionality that is only available when connected to a PC.
These features appeal to me but I dont have an old PC lying around in order to use the ancient DOS program for this so I made my own.
What I do have is an RS232 to USB converter so I removed the DB25 connector and changed it for a standard 9 pin variety.
With that made up I could quickly test it was correct by firing up a terminal window and sending any command. If successful the Fluke will display “REMOTE” on the LCD.
Here is the software I have been working on the last couple of days.
Here it is all connected up to Breywood and working
Its not finished yet and certain things will be tweaked and changed and added in time but I successfully tested it today and almost everything works great.
I still need to work on the UPLOAD and DOWNLOAD functionality but the tracing works fine which is what I was most interested in.
I cant imagine many/any people wanting this program but here it is anyway. It should be compatible with all the Fluke 90 devices. There are some CPU specific commands here which are included despite the fact I cannot test them.
It requires .NET 3.5 and should work on both 32bit and 64bit machines. Available in the ‘DOWNLOADS/SOFTWARE’ section
Quick ROM ident program
General
Comments Off on Quick ROM ident program
Aug 152015
I loved the old WinROMident program for its quick usage but unfortunately it hasnt been updated in a long time.
Ive made a new drag and drop program that uses Romcenter .DAT files
It doesn’t yet support zip files, only single files.
As with everything I make it requires .NET (v4.5) installed on your computer and it probably has a load of bugs too.
Its minimal and quick which is exactly what I need.
Can be found in the Downloads/Software section
Aug 052015
Some days ago Dragos sent us some pictures of his Konami hybrid sound modules reworking.As most of you already know, this customs are used in many Konami arcade games.Specifically the ‘054986A’ is used on Lethal Enforcers, G.I. Joe, Metamorphic Force, Run & Gun, Premiere Soccer, Bucky O’ Hare, Violent Storm, Monster Maulers, Martial Champion, Mystic Warriors, Gaiapolis and Wild West C.O.W. Boys of Moo Mesa while the ‘054544’ is present on X-men and Xexex.A common fault on these customs concerns the SMT electrolytic capacitors that after some time start to leak ‘eating’ traces of the module.What Dragos did was to literally ‘undress’ the modules by removing the black paint using this paint stripper (that you can find in your country under a different name) :
https://arhitectural.policolor.ro/pdf/ro/ft/decanol-super.pdf
revealing in this way all the traces and connections on top and bottom layer.Needless to say that this is really useful for everyone who wants to troubleshoot the modules.But, here are the pictures for a better understanding.Let’s start with the ‘054544’:
A nice black repaint is what it takes after a recap…
Here is below the ‘054986A’ in all its glory:
Above, a close up of jumper wires needed to patch some broken connections
In the picture above you can see the ‘054986A’ top layer exposed.The small IC on the bottom left between the two 10uF 16V capacitors is a 78L05 voltage regulator (SOT-89 package) which powers the 4558 OP-AMP and the AD1868 DAC on the underneath of the module
78L05 (SOT-89)
Now Konami hybrid sound modules have no more secrets!Thanks again to Dragos.
Jul 182015
18/07/2015
- Added support for Atari licensed version
- SFX counter broke after exiting character menu and re-entering SFX menu
- Wrong ram associations with pcb locations now fixed.
- Holding down player 2 start during power-up enters diagnostic mode
Important: Porchy discovered that 0x1 needs to be written to 0xc308 or nothing shows up on the screen at all on a PCB. This was undocumented but now we believe the value 0x1 must be written during initialization of the screen. The latest release addresses this issue. Thanks to Porchy!
To fix: Some sounds still play after exiting SFX test to main menu.
Note: Diagnostic mode relies on good RAM and ROM for configuration data to facilitate the support of multiple Time Pilot versions in the one ROM. Do not rely on results from the diagnostic mode without sorting out issues associated with RAM and ROM first.
21/6/2015
The EPROM ( a 27c64 ) once burned with this software installs on the CPU board @ 5H and can stay in there permanently if so desired.
Performs tests of the RAM & game EPROMs on the CPU board. This supports Konami and Centuri versions of the software, bootlegs are not supported yet.
Also has a built in diagnostic mode for testing inputs, sound output and displays character & sprite tables. The diagnostic mode is accessible via DSW2. All dips must be on except for dip 3 to access the diagnostic mode of the program.
Would like to thank cmonkey for providing me with technical info which assisted me in being able to display the sprite & character tables properly. Also like to thank the MAME team for their hard work on the emulator which I used as a tool for debugging/testing purposes throughout the development of this program.
See downloads in ROM Files for the binary.
