Mezmaron

I also have the issue on the Qyx demo with the invisible Qix. Also getting the glitches with Wizard of Wor mentioned above, both with the demo and then on the full version I purchased. If you let it go in attract mode, the character name screen gets all glitchy, and the gameplay soon follows with monsters and players going through or getting stuck in walls in the attract mode and in-game if you start a game after it happens. It will also occasionally wipe out my high scores for the game on my SaveKey when it glitches out.

Thanks to your post, and also to @SainT for nudging me in the right direction!

Actually, nevermind, I got it working! I went over the board with a digital microscope and found some of the traces to be in terrible shape, and found at least 1 broken one that needed fixed, but this still wasn't enough to get the GameDrive to work. Then I came across this post: I checked for continuity between the place shown by the "MOD" text and B33 and had nothing, and also noticed this trace was also rather terrible looking from what I could see of it before it goes under the cartridge port. So, I soldered a small jumper wire between the 2 points, and it's now working!

Unfortunately, I do not have a second console to test with. I've taken the Jaguar apart and carefully cleaned the cartridge contact pins more with some fine sandpaper. Everything loads great, except for the GameDrive. However, I cannot find continuity anywhere on the board for that particular pin (B33), and the traces are way too damn small for me to follow. Does anyone with more detailed knowledge know of a good place on the board to check for continuity for this pin? With the console powered on and stuck at that loading step, would momentarily shorting out B32 and B33 effectively reset it, as a test?

Hello, I just received my GameDrive today, and can't get it to load any ROMs. It appears as though it's loading them, the progress bar fills in the whole way, then nothing. I've tried 2 different SD cards, one being a 32GB PNY branded one, and an 8GB SanDisk brand, both with the same result. I've tried formatting them and copying the files on both PC and Mac, even trying the long format instead of quick on Windows. I started out trying ROM sets of .j64 and .jag and then sought out the "preferred" ROM/images set, also with the same result. It passes the memory test. I've cleaned the contacts with WD40 electronics contact cleaner and went over them carefully with a toothbrush. My cartridges generally load fine. I figured I would start a new thread since I couldn't find other threads mentioning this specific kind of behavior- it freezes after the loading bar progresses and not before like I've read about on the other threads, and I don't get any kind of red screen. One thing that may or not be be relevant is that I have also been unable to get my Jaguar CD to work as of late, which worked fine for many years. It powers on, the laser bumps around a little but the disc doesn't spin at all, and it will say that there's no CD inserted. The CD lid switch tests out fine, and overall I'm figuring the motor is trashed on it. I thought it might be worth mentioning since I've read about some cartridge port pins being potential issues. Any help is appreciated!

Thanks, I just checked it out, great show! As for your question about how I came to have a Coleco Gemini while growing up... My dad finally got me an Atari 2600 on Christmas of 1983. I got up way early and started popping cartridges in and out of it quickly in a short period of time, checking out the games I just got. In less than a half hour of that, the system died. (I remember a cousin of mine that day busting my chops about it, saying "Have you played Atari today? Hell no!") We took it back to our local Murphy's Mart department store where he got it, and they literally had an almost 5 or 6 foot high stack of boxed 2600s that were returned for the same reason. They had none left in stock to give us, so my dad just took a refund and we went to the local Sears outlet, and that's where we found the Gemini. I think they were either also out of 2600 systems, or the Gemini was cheaper, I don't quite recall. I remember that it came with Donkey Kong and Mouse Trap. I had a lot of fun times with that system; when Activision's Decathlon came around, I learned how to take the controllers apart and bend the contacts down so that you could easily max out the power gauge in the various events with little effort. The controllers eventually became unreliable, making it necessary to prop something underneath where they plugged into the system. Ironically, though I was definitely into taking things apart to try and fix them at that point, when the controllers quit working completely we opted to send the system in for repair since it was still under warranty, and it took almost a whole year to get it back. I now know that all I would have needed to do is re-solder the controller port pins. I never did reach out to Allen about repairing my old Astrocade, but seeing this update to the thread reminded me about it, so I finally sent him a message. I also wanted to say that I'm also a retro-gaming bass player. Though my collection isn't quite as extensive as it once was, I still consider myself a retro-gaming collector and enthusiast.

Any word on when that new troubleshooting guide will be posted?

Yes, you may! Wow, thanks for that! I was just about to try searching around online for the article; great to see it again! I think when I picked that issue up, I was mainly thirsty for a video gaming magazine, and thought it was all about that. Wasn't there also a full-page ad for the Supercharger in that issue? I seem to remember that, but it could have been in another magazine from that era that I seen it in. Outside of that, the only other place I ever saw the Astrocade mentioned was in an old hardcover book I found when I first started collecting, I believe it was "The Complete Guide To Conquering Video Games". Also, thanks for pointing me to the contact info for the guys that do Astrocade repairs. I'm going to keep an eye out for that new troubleshooting guide you mentioned, and perhaps contact Allen if that guide doesn't help me. I meant to say that my old system had the "Bally Computer System" badge instead of "Bally Home Computer". It had Bally BASIC with the cassette port on it, so it was likely it was one of the ones that came bundled with that cartridge. Unfortunately at some point I dropped something on the smoke cover and it shattered, and I never was able to get it glued back together nicely. I actually thought I remembered it as saying "Bally Professional Arcade" on the badge, but I guess they never badged them like that, so I was remembering it incorrectly.

I still have some love for the Astrocade, even though I no longer own one and don't actively collect games anymore. I first caught sight of one in an early 80's issue of "Games" magazine, which was primarily a magazine for puzzle games, but had a special issue where they were showcasing what was going on with video games. (the same article also showed the Starpath Supercharger, which I think was still being called the "Arcadia Supercharger" at that point.) This was the only time I ever saw one growing up, since I live in a rural area and game systems that didn't get hugely popular were usually even less known in small towns, but I always remembered those odd controllers and wondered what they were all about. Fast-forward to the early 90's, when I was in my early 20's and started collecting old games and computers. One reason I got into it was to find the best home versions of the arcade games I loved growing up, and also to play all the other game systems and such that I didn't get to growing up since I only ever had a Coleco Gemini/2600. I came across one for cheap at a flea market with a couple of controllers and some games, the Bally Professional Arcade version with the "Bally Home Computer" tag. For the most part it worked great, although you had to be careful not to bump it while playing since you stood a chance of resetting the game or glitching out the graphics. The controller cables were also in sad shape and worn where they went into the controllers, making it necessary to have to take them apart and cut some of the cable off and re-solder fresher wires to the contacts. That was also risky business, since the boards and contacts seemed a bit fragile. The was really blown away by games such as the port of Wizard of Wor of course, and also Artillery Duel, and I also loved the unique sound effects and music it put out. I also spent a fair amount of time with the Scribble program, fantasizing about and making screens of games I wished were ported to the system and how they might look. Over the course of the 90's while I was still actively collecting and hitting up flea markets I came across a few more games here and there, along with another system that was in better shape. One of the cartridges I found was Treasure Cove, which I could not get to work for the longest time and assumed it was shot, not to mention how hard it was to actually get into the slot. One day while messing around a bit I got the title screen to come up and realized that the case was just warped in a way that wouldn't allow the pins to make proper contact. I ended up cannibalizing another cart to put the TC board in, and it worked and I was blown away by the music, even though the game was tough and got old after a while. In the early 2000's I had a perfect storm of getting somewhat disinterested in collecting due to emulation, needing some extra money, and the realization that my musty basement was going to eventually ruin my collection, so I opted to start selling. I sold the better Astrocade unit and most of my games on eBay, along with loads of other stuff I had. I hung on to the original one until a few years ago, after getting into a band where the drummer was a collector. I made him a deal on the Astrocade, tested it out, and it proceeded to quit working when he tried to fire it up when he got it home. I have it back in my possession and would love to fix it and give it back to him if I could figure out what's wrong with it; it has the black screen of death, and I can find nothing visibly wrong inside of it. (this is actually part of what brought me here- there was a comment on a post on the AtariAge Facebook page where someone mentioned someone here that fixes them?) An interesting note in my years of collecting- there was a local TV shop in my town that was around for ages, and in the early 90's the owner decided to put a few arcade games in part of his shop. One day while looking around I happened to notice buried in his clutter of TV stuff behind the counter was 2 or 3 boxed and sealed Astrocades! I practically begged him to sell me one of them, and he refused, saying he would want too much for them but would never give me a price. He said he had them since the late 70's/early 80's and was given them to sell from one of his vendors- I can't remember for sure, he was primarily a Philips/Magnavox dealer, but for some reason I think he said it had something to do with Zenith? Anyway, sadly, I wasn't in the financial shape to be able to make him a good offer, and years later he passed away. Like with many failed gaming systems, I still look at the Astrocade and think of what could have been. You would think with all of the Bally/Midway-badged arcade games at the time, they could have ported a lot more arcade games for it. Especially Gorf! Seems like part of the problem may have been being stretched too thin with the popular idea at the time of making add-ons to turn a gaming console into a home computer.

Ah, the late 90's emulation scene... good times for sure! I remember sitting on IRC in channels such as #emulate, #emu, and others, waiting for the latest MAME to be released. And then also Retrocade, with Mike Cuddy and Neil Bradley and others. And of course Conjurer was a staple on IRC. (still is, apparently, but I've not seen him do anything other than sit idle during the occasional times I drop in on the old IRC haunts to see what's up. It's amazing the old names you still see, but most of them sit idle) I remember the whole fiasco with Mindrape and Sardu and the NESticle source code. Archaic Ruins. Atmospheric Heights. JoseQ's EmuViews. Dave's Video Game Classics! I even had a site of my own for a little while, one of the early "Emulation Nation" sites. I remember when things really started rolling in emulation by mid '97, updating the site constantly to report on new versions of emulators became quite a chore, thus I gave it up. My site did manage to get a shout-out on Neil Bradley's original "EMU" emulator upon exit as one of the "official" places to get it! :-) I think MAME started out as a Mr. Do! emulator.