Rainbow Islands repair log #3

 PCB Repair Logs, Repair Logs  Comments Off on Rainbow Islands repair log #3
Nov 122014
 

First of all I wanna thank the people who donated me this (and other) PCB : “mille grazie” to Mr. Giuseppe (a long-standing arcade operator of my town) and his nice daughters Elena and Antonella!

Now, let’s begin with the log.

When I got  this PCB in my hands, I immediately tought it was a Rainbow Islands one:

Rainbow_Islands_Extra

But I was wrong, it actually was the Extra version (different ROMs and C-Chip).Before start the troubleshooting, I resoldered a wonky TC0070RGB module:

TC0070RGB_resoldered

Once powered on, I got a solid white screen with a clicking sound indicating that the watchdog circuit was active:

Rainbow_no_boot

There was clearly some trouble in main code execution so I started to test with my logic probe the two WORK RAMs  and I found some data lines stuck HIGH on the 6264 SRAM @IC25.I desoldered the chip and out-of-circuit test confirmed it as bad:

6264_testing

With a new RAM the board succesfully booted but graphics (tiles and sprites) were all blocky:

rainbow_blocky_GFX

 

This board (and other Taito ones on similar hardware ) uses two custom chips  in PGA package which generates sprites (the one marked ‘PC0900J’) and tiles (the ‘PC080SN’).They respectively address GFX ROMs through a couple of  74LS373 latches.Probing the 74LS373 @IC29 I found that all the outputs were absent.So I piggybacked a good one and tiles were restored but sprites were always blocky:

fixed_tiles

 

So, I went through the 74LS373 @IC18 and found it had output PIN19 stucked LOW while its input was toggling.Piggybacked this and also sprites were restored.Desoldered the two 74LS373 and they were indeed bad:

74LS373_testing

Replacing them both back this game to its former glory!

 

 Posted by at 9:09 pm

Dyna Gears PAL dump added

 PAL Updates  Comments Off on Dyna Gears PAL dump added
Nov 092014
 

‘coolmod, one of our finest members, sent in the PAL dump from his Dyna Gears PCB.Dump was obtained from an unprotected GAL16V8 device and it’s tested as working.Thanks to him for this submission.

 Posted by at 9:41 am

Testing Bubble Bobble ROM banks with Fluke 9010

 Guides  Comments Off on Testing Bubble Bobble ROM banks with Fluke 9010
Nov 012014
 

Recently I was talking to IronGiant about testing the “a78-05-1.52” ROM on an original Bubble Bobble PCB with the Fluke 9010.
As the ROM is banked we cannot test this ROM in one go.
Here is how we managed to do it.

0) Before we do anything we need to disable the watchdog otherwise this wont work properly. This is done by cutting the track on JP6 on the solder side (thanks to IronGiant for the info).

1) Take the ROM dump for “a78-05-1.52” and split it into 4 files using a HEX editor or similar. Each file should be 0x4000 bytes in size.
Run all 4 files through one of the signature calculators that can be found online and make a note of them.

2) The bankswitch lies at address 0xFB40 in the address map.
You need to write a value between 4 and 7 to select the relevant bank.
So start by writing 4 to address 0xFB40.

3) Next we need run a ROM check on between address 0x8000 & 0xBFFF.
This signature should match the first 0x4000 bytes of the ROM.

4) Repeat steps 2 and 3 a further three times incrementing the value written to address 0xFB40 each time. If all the signatures match then the ROM is good.

The ROM is different across each version of this game so make sure you compare it with the right file.
This method will probably work on the bootlegs too with some minor changes to the procedure.

 Posted by at 2:57 pm

SEGA System C/C2 PAL dumps added

 PAL Updates  Comments Off on SEGA System C/C2 PAL dumps added
Oct 302014
 

Today I’ve added to our database two of the three PALs dumps (the one stamped ‘315-5394’ is registered) coming from an original Sega Columns PCB.These PALs should be present on all games that run on Sega System C/C2 hardware.Dumps are tested and working on a GAL16V8 targeting device.Just a technical note : the PAL marked ‘315-5395’ was manually reversed by Porchy (thanks to him!) since it has latches built-in.If you want to go into that, I recommend reading this document about PLDs:

https://www.ddpp.com/DDPP3_mkt/c08samp1.pdf

 Posted by at 7:33 pm