Today I dumped the only PAL on a original Taito Puzznic PCB.Dump was reversed by Porchy into a GAL20V8 and it’s tested and working.Equation can fit also into a GAL22V10 so you can request it if needed.
Just a curiosity: this PCB is no far the smallest one I ever seen, it’s really tiny!
I’ve just dumped all the PLDs (four in total) on the Cadash PCB I succesfully repaired.All dumps are working and tested in a GAL16V8 except one which Porchy reversed into a GAL20V8 but its equations can be complied also in a GAL22V10 targeting device.Old PAL archive from unknown source was deleted from database as well.
This one came from the same lot of faulty PCBs (seven in total) as the previously repaired Growl.For the uninitiated, Cadash is an action game with some RPG elements.
Board was in good shape (it has also additional hardware for multi-link game) .
When powered on I got this screen:
There was a clear problem with main code execution so I dumped the four program ROMs and none of them matched the ones in MAME.I ran these dumped ROMs in MAME and I got a similar error (different memory address due not perfect emulation of 68000 core, I guess):
This was enough to lead me to reprogram the four program ROMs from cadash World set into 27C010 devices.And this was the winning move which fixed the board.
Yesterday I got a lot of faulty original PCBs.Among these there was a clean Growl PCB.I always like this game (and played it in MAME) where the player controls a forest ranger who must protect the local wildlife from a group of evil poachers who are driving the animals to extinction.
As said, PCB was in mint state:
but once powered up it showed garbled sprites:
I noticed that, if I press the PCB in the area near the ASIC marked ‘TC0540OBN’ @IC25, all the sprites were restored.
So ,after a quick consultation of MAME source that confirmed this ASIC as a sprites generator ( the letters ‘OB’ in the ASIC name stand for objects a.k.a. sprites), I understood this was the way to follow in my repair.Probing the tightness of the individual pins with a needle I found some lifted ones.A reflow with my hot air station at 390° and a bit of flux was enough to fix the sprites issue completely.
After my today repair job, I dumped the 24 pin PLD marked ‘054683’ from an original Konami X-Men.This dump is tested and working in a GAL22V10 replacement.Board has also another PAL marked ‘054744’ but this has already been dumped since it’s the same as Premiere Soccer and Bucky O’ Hare PCBs ( and probably some other).Starting from now we will rename all the Konami PLDs using only the device label since, as said, they are shared between multiple boards.