Snow Bros repair log #1

 PCB Repair Logs, Repair Logs  Comments Off on Snow Bros repair log #1
Apr 272013
 

Ive decided its time to make a start on the huge back log of repairs that I need to get finished.
Today Snow Bros was on the cards. It was a fairly recent purchase but as I really like the game it was first on my list.

Board boots up and passes its self tests but had big graphics problems.

Cant tell from the pictures but the screen is also flashing.

This board is tiny so I started looking for RAMs that weren’t program or sound related and shorting a couple of data lines together. There is a bank of 4 41464 RAM chips in the bottom left corner that would appear to be screen RAM.

First off I found the /OE on the left hand 2 were shorted to ground so I desoldered them. At some point a track had burnt out and was shorting against the ground pin above it. Removing this short gave me this

Much better, the colours are now sorted but the screen was still flashing and the graphics on the title screen left trails of the image. I checked the RAM chips I had removed and found a dead one.
I just went ahead and desoldered the other 2 RAM chips. Again, one was good and one was bad. I replaced these chips with an 81464 from a scrap board.

All working now. Ill have a game on this later.

 Posted by at 6:04 pm

BINman 2.5 update

 General  Comments Off on BINman 2.5 update
Apr 252013
 

Today I got around to updating my BINman program. Ive been meaning to add 32 bit deinterleave ever since I added the 32 bit interleave feature and now here it is.
I also did a rewrite of the interleave function so its more streamlined and less bloated. The downside of this is I haven’t tested it properly but the few tests I did run went perfect.
No doubt ill find any issues when I come to use it.

As usual the program can be found in the Downloads section

binman

 Posted by at 8:27 pm

Spy Hunter Cheap Squeak Deluxe PAL dump

 PAL Updates  Comments Off on Spy Hunter Cheap Squeak Deluxe PAL dump
Apr 242013
 

Thanks to a group effort from the guys over at AUMAP there is now the PAL dump available from the Cheap Squeak PCB. Not only that, they have converted it to a GAL20V8 device and tested it too.

This is a nice one to have as Spy Hunter is a truly great game. Thanks very much to those who sorted this out, its good that communities come together to help people out and also share these things with everyone else too.

Visit https://www.aumap.org for more info.

 Posted by at 5:18 pm

System 18 dumps

 PAL Updates  Comments Off on System 18 dumps
Apr 172013
 

Ive been dealing with a couple of System 18 boards recently.
Ive dumped two PLS153 chips and a PAL16L8.

PLS153’s cant be security locked to my knowledge and can SOMETIMES be converted to a GAL16V8.

 Posted by at 7:06 pm

Lethal Crash Race PALs

 PAL Updates  Comments Off on Lethal Crash Race PALs
Apr 172013
 

caius sent me some dumps from his LCR board.
One of the devices was an EP330 which we have converted to GAL16V8. Both the unprotected original and the GAL conversion are available.
The other device was a protected but has been dumped using a PAL dumper.

Thanks to caius

 Posted by at 2:41 pm