Troubleshooting Star Wars: I need help and/or docs
fbo...@my-dejanews.com
page 7/10 and *NO* page 5/12(?).
I also do not have the operators manual and the first thing the
troubleshooting guide asks you to do is to run the diagnostics as described
in chapter 2 of the operators manual!
Any help appreciated! Are these docs online? I looked through the switch
settings on wiretap and didn't see anything about test switches. Hmmmm.
Wasn't there a switch inside the cab to go to test mode? I don't actually
have a SW so I guess I'll just have to jumper it.
Thanks!
--
Franklin Bowen
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XYvids
The Star Wars Operators manual is available here:
http://www.basementarcade.com/arcade/manuals/manuals.html
The only catch is, you have to download the entire manual before you can view
it (about 11 to 15 MB).
If you can't find what you need from the operators manual online, send me your
postal address and I can send you a photocopy.
XYv...@aol.com
Seattle, WA
**************
Tempest ~ Star Wars ~ Battlezone
"What can I say? I'm a glutton for punishment!"
fbo...@my-dejanews.com
are gone. :-(
I did get into test mode this morning. It reports no hardware errors on the
first screen, but on the third screen, it shows:
'NO MATHBOX ERRORS'
'MATRIX ERRORS'
C 34A6
<some X and other characters here>
and every once in a while I see 'NO MATRIX ERRORS' flash on the screen. The
other time I ran this test, I got A ????, C ????, <empty line>, D ????,
instead of just the C 34A6. And it never flashed 'NO MATRIX ERRORS'.
The game also looks much better (than last night) and actually plays this
morning. Last night, it displayed the X-Wing fine, firing worked, but there
were no Tie fighters. Every once in a while, the Death Star would pop up on
the screen and then disappear again. But the game never progressed beyond
the Tie fighter scene.
This morning, it got past the Tie fighters and to the end of the trench.
Couldn't get past that though because I don't have a controller. See my post
in RGVAM about THAT! :-)
PS Thanks for the offer on the manual!
In article <19981009012351...@ng13.aol.com>,
Al Warner
one. Go To Jess Askey's page at:
http://www.gamearchive.com/video/manufacturer/atari/vector/html/starwars.html
That's where I got my PDF. There's also the troubleshooting guide on-line there
too!
Fix the Star Wars, it's The BEST!
Good Luck!,
-Al-
XYvids wrote:
> The Star Wars Operators manual is available here:
>
> http://www.basementarcade.com/arcade/manuals/manuals.html
>
> The only catch is, you have to download the entire manual before you can view
> it (about 11 to 15 MB).
>
> If you can't find what you need from the operators manual online, send me your
> postal address and I can send you a photocopy.
>
> XYv...@aol.com
> Seattle, WA
> **************
> Tempest ~ Star Wars ~ Battlezone
> "What can I say? I'm a glutton for punishment!"
--
====================================================================
-= Al Warner batl...@cyberenet.net =-
-= Owner of "Magic Sword", "AmeriDarts", "Stargate", "Toobin'", =-
-= "Frogger", "Battlezone", "Star Wars", "Empire Strikes Back", =-
-= "Galaga" and "Dig Dug" arcade video games. Learn how to install =-
-= a Cap Kit and see some of these games on my web page: =-
-= http://www.cyberenet.net/~batlzone =-
====================================================================
Mark DeRoller
http://www.gamearchive.com/video/manufacturer/atari/vector/html/starwars.html
if you haven't already. I apologize if somebody already posted this, my
newsserver is slow.
Mark D.
Rochester, NY
LiveWebcs
>Any help appreciated! Are these docs online? I looked through the switch
>settings on wiretap and didn't see anything about test switches. Hmmmm.
The Self-test button is
located in front of the machine. When
you open up the coin box you hsould see
an up down switch. Changing it should
bring you to test mode.
What problems are you having? I just
successfully revived a Star Wars and
know a few other people who have.
Will
Gregg Woodcock
: 'MATRIX ERRORS'
: The game also looks much better (than last night) and actually plays this
: morning. Last night, it displayed the X-Wing fine, firing worked, but there
: were no Tie fighters. Every once in a while, the Death Star would pop up on
: the screen and then disappear again. But the game never progressed beyond
: the Tie fighter scene.
: This morning, it got past the Tie fighters and to the end of the trench.
: Couldn't get past that though because I don't have a controller. See my post
: in RGVAM about THAT! :-)
SYMPTOMS: When game first turned on, no starfield background pattern
(noticable during demo display). When game is played,
everything appears normal until you select a difficulty
(deathstar). Once your ship leaves the menu, no starfield
background nor enemy attackers (tie fighters) nor deathstar
ever appear. Gameplay is otherwise unaffected (you can aim,
fire, etc).
SOLUTION: Check the four 18-pin socketed ROMs 136021-110 through -113 at
locations 7H, 7J, 7K, 7L in the middle of the main game board.
At least one of these is bad. These are 1024x4 bipolar 82S137
(Signetics) PROMS which contain the microcode for the math
box. In my case -112 was bad. Frys, Jameco, and JDR
Microdevices sell these (blank) PROMs.
--
THANX...Gregg day 972.684.7380 night UNLIST/PUBL TEXAS NOT CANADA!
wood...@nortel.com or wood...@fastlane.net
*CLASSIC VIDEOGAME COLLECTOR BUY/SELL/TRADE NON-COMPUTER (ARCADE/HOME)*
"If you quote me on this I'll have to deny it; I won't remember because
I have such a bad memory. Not only that, but my memory is *terrible*."
Mike Hutchins
I have a boardset that does the same thing... I have replaced the sockets
and swapped the proms from another star wars that I have... no luck, I put
the proms from the bad board into the other board and they work fine... If
there is anything else anyone out there can think of to fix this problem I
WOULD really appreciate it.
Thanks...
Mike Hutchins
jnh...@texas.net
Gregg Woodcock <wood...@bnr.ca> wrote in article
<6vt2ne$q...@crchh14.us.nortel.com>...
fbo...@my-dejanews.com
Hmmm. I don't think my EPROM programmer does bipolars (I have the popular
Needham's PB-10...I think that's it). And the sympthom Gregg posted isn't
always the case with my boardset. Most of the time I do see the DS and
some other objects (flashing in and out) in the TIE fighter wave. Sometimes I
can get into the trench (but not the towers. I assume they don't show up for
level 1?).
I did run the diagnostics and here is what I got one time (please note that I
get different results for this screen (3rd) with each run! Most of the time B
is missing):
MATHBOX TESTS
NO DIVIDER ERRORS
MATRIX ERRORS
A 00FF
B 0000
NNNF FNNN 55FF C 19FF
NNNF NFFF 55FF D 0BFE
NNNF NFFN 2AFE
NNNF NFNF 2AFE
So, great. What does that mean? I assume the letter and hex address (A 00FF)
are the bad location in a PROM? In looking through the documentation I can't
find how to map the letters (A-D) to a device. And what are the NNNF, etc?
If this is explained in the documentation somewhere, please just let me know
where. I haven't seen it in my browsing.
Also, the audio amp in my cab is dead so I was going to hook up an earpiece
(with a cap in series) to the board's audio out to help in debugging. That
would be P-20, 17 and U, correct? I want to check my beeps and (hopefully no)
boops! :-)
Thanks again!
In article <01bdf6c0$fe893300$2b3063d1@johnhutc>,
fbo...@my-dejanews.com
I replaced the PROMs with the ESB PROMs Clay sent me a LONG time ago and no
change. I looked at the schematics and from my recollection 74LS245s (any
buffers, actually) are the first thing I should try replacing.
PS I ran the Matrix diagnostics from the troubleshooting guide but it seems
the only way to know if they worked successfully is by using a CAT box. Am I
missing something? The screen only displays what test number you are
running, right?
In article <702hsl$egc$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>,
fbo...@my-dejanews.com wrote:
[blah blah blah]
fbo...@my-dejanews.com
test procedures described in the operator's manual), matrix errors section
(see the troubleshooting guide, just below Test 20).
But I still don't understand how to determine whether the troubleshooting
guide Matrix Processor Instructions Tests (tests 10-20) passed or failed. It
doesn't give me any flashing lights like tests 1 & 2. Do I have to take my
scope/multimeter and measure whether address or data lines are high or low?
In article <704svf$p3g$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>,
fbo...@my-dejanews.com wrote:
> Update:
> I replaced the PROMs with the ESB PROMs Clay sent me a LONG time ago and no
> change. I looked at the schematics and from my recollection 74LS245s (any
> buffers, actually) are the first thing I should try replacing.
>
> PS I ran the Matrix diagnostics from the troubleshooting guide but it seems
> the only way to know if they worked successfully is by using a CAT box. Am I
> missing something? The screen only displays what test number you are
> running, right?
--
fbo...@my-dejanews.com
>
> I did run the self test and here is what I got on the third screen:
>
> MATHBOX TESTS
>
> NO DIVIDER ERRORS
>
> MATRIX ERRORS
>
> A 00FF
> B 0000
> NNNF FNNN 55FF C 19FF
> NNNF NFFF 55FF D 0BFE
> NNNF NFFN 2AFE
> NNNF NFNF 2AFE
Finally a little light of knowledge burns in the great darkness.
If you get MATRIX ERRORS (like above), you really need to look at the
Troubleshooting Guide
(http://www.gamearchive.com/video/manufacturer/atari/vector/tech/starwars_tro
ubl shooting/starwars_troubleshooting.html) to interpret them. In
particular, there are a couple of paragraphs just after test 20 I've included
below that helped me.
==START=====================================================================
The Mathbox Tests self-test as described in Chapter 2 in the Operators
Manual, performs Hardware Diagnostic Test 15 through 20. The
Mathbox Tests display will show the option switch setting of any test that
fails to produce the correct results.
The Mathbox Tests self-test will also run the following additional tests
which cannot be run from the Diagnostic Mode, but can give useful information
about a malfunctioning PCB. If one of these tests fails, the letter of the
test will be displayed along with the data that failed.
==END=======================================================================
So underneath MATRIX ERRORS, the left 3 columns have NOTHING to do with the
right 2 columns! The rows on the left side correspond to the troubleshooting
tests 15-20. So if you have info displayed to the left of the A (column 4),
test 15 failed; info displayed to the left of B (column 4), test 16 failed;
etc. In my case (above), tests 15 and 16 passed (thus nothing displayed in
those 2 rows next to A and B) but tests 17-20 failed.
The left 2 columns show the dip switch settings (dips 8-1 left to right, N=on
and F=off). So NNNF FNNN is test 17 in the troubleshooting diagnostics. Why
they didn't use zeroes and ones like I've seen in most other places Atari
displayed dipswitch settings is beyond me. The right column of the left side
(column 3) is the result that particular test computed. Look at the
trouleshooting guide for the expected result.
The right 2 columns show results for 4 additional tests described in the
troubleshooting guide below test 20 (tests A-D). Again, you will only see
something displayed here if they failed and the right column is the computed
result. Look at the trouleshooting guide for the expected result.
<takes a big breath>
Now, what I need to figure out. I either have one problem that is affecting
multiple areas or multiple problems. 7 of the 8 failed results are bad only
in the lower byte. Unfortunately, test C also has problems in the upper
byte. So what block or component could affect only the lower byte of tests
17-20, A, B, and D but both bytes of test C?
The BIC? The subtracter? The multiplier? My guess (totally blind since I
still don't have my mind wrapped around the whole concept of the Matrix
Processer) is that it is in the addressing coming from the BIC. But it could
be the BIC itself (74191s) or the Matrix Processer Address selecter (74153s
and 74157s) or even something upstream from the BIC. If my guess is even
right!
:-(
I'll have to take another crack at eliminating everything that should
definitely be working due to successful tests (10-16) and then see what is
left over.
I hope this helps someone else.