Kung Fu Master glitchiness

[ubersaurus]

I wasn't entirely sure where to post on this one, but I have a copy of Kung Fu Master that has graphical glitching and corrupting pretty much from the 7800 BIOS screen on. It's playable, but there is corruption at various points of the screen, so it's not exactly very pretty to play. I've cleaned those pins on the cart and even took an eraser to them but still nothing.

 

I'd hate to damage the label to get into the cart, but I can't think of what else I can do from the outside. Anyone have experience with this happening? Is it even something that can be fixed?

[ubersaurus]

Oh yes, I had this same problem with a copy of Food Fight. Could it be a circuit board issue, or damage to the rom chip, or?

[phoenixdownita]

Not sure it is the same but I had a copy of Robotron 2084 that could only play the 1st level then glitch terribly.

 

It turns out it was missing a 150 Ohm resistor on the power pin of the ROM. Something that should not be required unless Atari messed up a little the bus.

I put a 330 Ohm as I didn't know the value until later, and now it's all peachy.

Obviously I had to open the cart to even try, and I tried just because I read that some Atari carts had the fix already.

 

Then again it is not always the case, so not sure if you're hitting the situation in which a 150 Ohm on the VCC pin of the ROM is going to help with your woes.

 

You can read about it here: http://www.atarihq.com/danb/7800cart/C024926.shtml

Edited April 20, 2014 by phoenixdownita

[Classic Pac]

I had the same problem when I had my 7800. It wasn't until I got one without the IO port on the side that the Kung Fu Master even worked for me. I still say it's a very buggy game, hit detection is almost no existant, and sometimes when the enemy figters attacked they lock on to your character and drain all your energy. The 7800 version is also the hardest, I had a chance to play the NES version at least I can beat the 1st level.

[Trebor]

FWIW, my copy of Kung-Fu Master plays perfectly fine on my 7800s including 3 with the Expansion Interface and 3 without the Expansion Interface.

 

I do find the 7800 to be the most challenging compared to the NES and Arcade, with the easiest challenge award to the NES port. I find a similar challenge with nailing down 'hit timings' with the C64 port as I do with the 7800 version.

[Jinks]

Biggest beef with 7800 is no jump/kicks...can not understand why..

[ubersaurus]

I don't have any other 7800 consoles, but if it's a similar problem as the Food Fight cartridge has, then I'm guessing it's an internal issue to the cart, not the console. The Food Fight was the one I had as a kid - worked fine, and then one day the graphics just started glitching up, no matter how much you cleaned it. If there's a capacitor inside the cartridge or something that I can just swap out, or even if it's easy to find a cold solder joint, that would be manageable. Just not sure if anyone here has tried to fix a 7800 cart that was acting up

 

Anyone ever taken apart an Absolute/Activision 7800 cart? How easy is it to get the label off with a hair dryer to do as little damage as possible?

[BenjaminR]

Well, reading about the games shortcomings sort of helps heal my bruised ego after being outbid by a ton when I tried to pick up a copy on Sunday, apparently, somebody REALLY wanted it:

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/331182113619?ssPageName=STRK:MEDWX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1435.l2649

 

Good Grief!! It's one of the few 7800 games I've yet to pick up because I don't see a complete boxed copy come up very often.

[KevinMos3]

Anyone ever taken apart an Absolute/Activision 7800 cart? How easy is it to get the label off with a hair dryer to do as little damage as possible?

My labels came off super easy with a blow dryer. Even Rampage came off easily, even though it looked like it was going to be a mess (because I thought the discoloration in the label was from glue hardening, but it wasn't). I was moving my boards over to standard Atari shells with nice color labels and posted about it in this forum. I kept the labels so I could reapply them if I ever wanted to.