JAMMArcade.net – Page 160

Altered Beast repair log

Mar 042015

Today I received a batch of some faulty PCBs and among them there was an original Altered Beast boardset:

Once fired up all was working fine except for the colors, they were clearly wrong (kinda pinkish):

For first I went into TEST mode.In all Sega System16 games(that support it) you can enter in TEST mode by pressing down at same time TEST,SERVICE and P1 start switches.But color RAM test was passed successfully:

Near the two 6264 color RAM @J9 and J10 I noticed a couple of 74HC273 which input were connect to data BUS of the RAMs (as they latch input data).Probing the one @L11 revealed some outputs stuck HIGH though inputs were toggling fine.Piggybacked it and colors came to normal (well, almost, sky apart) :

Time to desoldering and testing it out-of-circuit:

Replaced it and board was 100% fixed.Job done.

Updating a Chipmaster digital IC tester

General Comments Off

Feb 272015

Ive always wanted to update the software on my ABI Chipmaster as it was outdated when I originally got it. The issue is ABI like to try and extract every last penny from people that own any of their equipment and in order to do any updating then you have to buy their software and that costs A LOT!

Today I opened this thing up and found a 29LV040 chip in there which I obviously was the thing I was after. The device is in a 32 pin PLCC package and is soldered directly to the PCB.
I fired up the how air rework station and removed that chip.

After fitting a socket I downloaded the latest software from the ABI website and reflashed the ROM

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Now I have the software file Im going to pull this thing to bits in IDA Pro and see what interesting things I can find, maybe its even possible to fix the Z80 testing function that ABI cant be bothered to fix themselves.

Enduro Racer (317-0013A)(YM2151) added

Decrypted Updates Comments Off

Feb 242015

Runik has also decrypted the YM2151 version of Enduro Racer. Once again a very big thanks to Runik.

Turbo Outrun (317-0101) added

Decrypted Updates Comments Off

Feb 242015

Runik has decrypted another Turbo Outrun version.
Checksums should be fixed already.

Thanks go to Shou and Runik

Wonder 3 (Japan 910520) PAL dump added

PAL Updates Comments Off

Feb 152015

Today I converted to GAL16V8 the binary PAL dump ‘rt22b.1a’ from the MAME ‘wonder3’ set and Silvio Grazini successfully tested it on his CPS1 board.JED was added to database.Thanks both to him and the original dumper.

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