HunterZero

Fixing power supply issues and replacing the ribbon cable are common repairs that could be done easily. The trouble is supply of spare IC parts for the logic board, where there are several points of failure. You'd have to start hoarding broken consoles to part out. A service that parts out Intellivisions would be useful. I have an Inty that I am sure has a logic problem, but unsure if it is with GROM, EXEC or STIC, nor how to pin it down, and don't have parts to swap out to troubleshoot. - J

Peter Gunn Theme - Art of Noise

So I take it pressing reset gives a flash, then black screen again? Get yourself some DeoxIT and clean the cartridge port and power switch, and the reset button (tricky to do, you have to spray the switch through the hole in the logic board shielding). If you still get a black screen, then next thing to try is getting a digital multimeter, and checking the power supply voltages and the continuity of the fragile ribbon cable (be super careful with it!). Plus check the power supply board for cracked solder, especially around the 2 pins. Missing voltages can cause the console to black screen. Failing that, the next step is busting out the soldering iron and desoldering tool, cracking open the logic board sarcophagus, and cleaning/reseating all the socketed chips with DeoxIT. - James

Interesting! Don't forget this is a PAL console, and when the game does run there seem to be some minor timing problems with the music running a little slow. Game play is super sweet. So it might be a PAL issue that means it sometimes fails to load, I haven't tried it on my INTV III yet. - James

I don't have access to an MTE 201 I'm afraid. Unless there's someone in Sydney Australia who I can drop in on sometime who can let me use one? Those are the only carts I've tried so far. Only Pole Position played without any apparent issues. It's a later game, which is why I suspect this game may use fewer exec routines and the problem is with the exec or GROM. I think I have a baseball cart, I'll try it. - James

Definitely nostalgia. My parents weren't going to buy me a game console because the initial cost was too high. Instead I remember seeing and playing the games set up on display in department stores, seeing all the games in the catalogues, and dreaming of being able to have one. I was lucky enough to win an Intellivision with Star Strike pack in in a competition (Streets Paddle Pop ice cream Lick A Price for those interested). Then there was the anticipation of waiting for birthdays and Christmas to receive new games for it. Many hours playing Burgertime and AD&D with my sister. Since getting a new game was a rare event, and because I was proud of the games I had, I kept all the boxes and manuals in good condition. So there are those good memories that come back when I pop in a cartridge. There were always games that I saw in catalogues and in stores, but never really played. I am lucky enough to have kept all my original games and console so no need to rebuy them. So a lot of the games I have collected are to satisfy my curiousity of what the games I saw as a child but never owned are like. I'm not a completist, but because seeing shelves of boxes in stores with their art was a big part of my enjoyment, I do track down boxed copies for my collection.

The sound when you slay a monster in Thunder Castle is good. AD&D in general has good sound, especially the dragon, snake and getting the crown. The death and reincarnation sounds in Treasure of Tarmin was good too. - James

Have you gone over it with multimeter and continuity checker yet?

Here are the voltages on mine... There is a vid on youtube showing how to check. You can also try some deoxit spray in the power switch and cart slot. + 5 VDC --+ | |_| | Checks OK + 12 VDC --+ | |_| | Checks OK + 16 VDC unreg --+ | |_| | Reads 23.3V DC steady... Unregulated + 0 VDC --+ | |_| | Checks OK - 2 VDC --+ |_|_|_| Checks OK

You can check both, but I meant the 5 pin header and ribbon between power board and logic sarcophagus. Check voltage from the 2 pin connector where the blue wire plugs in to each of the 5 holes in the header pins while the ribbon and 2 pin plug are both disconnected. You should be able to check continuity of the ribbon without picking apart the logic board shielding.

Joined solder isn't a problem if they are connected by a trace. I would suggest the first thing to do is get a multimeter and check the voltages on the 5 pin header. Then check the fragile ribbon cable for continuity. Missing voltage on this cable can cause black screen. Continuity check on a multimeter can help you check suspicious cracked or bad solder on the power supply.

I'd imagine that they had the boxes, manuals and overlays printed to order in several places where it was cheaper, and put together the final boxed games with the cartridges in their USA warehouse. - J

Ahhh! I have PAL consoles... So that's why the Dreadnaught Factor I have crashes, it does exactly the same thing. I thought I had a dud cartridge. Good to know my cart is good - sad that I can't play it! - J

Tried a few more games to get a few more symptoms: Lock 'n' Chase: Title screen OK. Press any key to go to the select 1 or 2 players screen, the maze appears with the cops and corrupted Lupin sprite briefly, first tone of the music plays, then crashes to black screen and constant audio tone. Bump 'n' Jump: Title screen OK. Press any key to select players, press start. Roadway appears with a corrupted yellow blob instead of the player car sprite, with brief white noise, then the game crashes. D2K: Game usually crashes on Electronite screen, but sometimes boots fine to game select screen. When it does boot, the game starts and plays fine, but there are some graphical corruptions: On the how high screen, the left half of DK's tan face is corrupt, and replaced with random other garbage graphics from the game. Sometimes in-game sprites are corrupt or replaced with other sprites. Most common are the rolling barrels being replaced with the flaming barrel graphics, and corruption of the floating points scores. Beauty and the Beast: Starts plays, however the 1st and 4th sprites making up the biplane sign are missing on the title (C imagic) and after each level. Buford's sprite is occasionally missing the yellow body, and enemy sprites are occasionally invisible. Buford will glitch to the left while moving to the right, sometimes glitches off the left side of the building and falls. It is possible to complete several levels though. Thunder Castle: Where do we start, the most glitches of all. Intro screen usually shows OK and music starts, although occasionally the top left character is a black and red check, and the music freezes. When the title starts OK, it will cycle through the attract mode, although the music will occasionally glitch out into wrong notes. Game will start, and can be played for a short time, but the sprites glitch (eg missing parts of dragon) and usually crashes, either with random garbage on the top and bottom lines, or crashes when the bat enters or player would be energised. - James

Cartridge itself says Singapore, with square label corners, exactly like the 4th from the top in the stack of carts pictured above. Mine has no glue staining on the label that I can see. - J

The Burger Time I have is gatefold. Had it since new, it's my original copy from BITD, and know it's 100%. Manual is black/white/blue 4549-0920, says printed in Hong Kong, and the overlays are 4549-4289-G1 and say printed in USA with the egg, not the 'enter' text. - J

I played loads of Nova Blast. Became quite good at it, could clear several levels. Considering how basic Ice Trek was, I played the heck out of that - rather enjoyed the ice bridge level. And spent many hours playing White Water. Played lots of 2-player Dracula too. - J

I am sure I haven't touched those, almost certain I hadn't touched the pot on the daughterboard actually. It crashes consistently at the same place every time, which is why I'm inclined to think it's a logic/IC issue. Noticed as well the system hangs to black screen when I use pepper on Burger Time. I see a quick flash of the pepper sprite, don't even hear the white noise SFX play, then black screen. But definitely many thanks for your input so far. - J

Twiddled the knob, no difference. - HZ

Haven't tried yet. Having a new baby means finding time is tricky... - J

Hmmm, the picture looks really good though, with strong colours. Is there a proper method to properly adjust that pot? Eg, turn it one way until the picture goes out, then turn it back X turns? I'm pretty sure I didn't touch it, It's a bit hard to reach on the PAL Inty, but there is a small chance I might have. Demon Attack is definitely good, though. It works 100% in my INTV System III. I'll try a few more games with it... Beauty and the Beast, Thunder Castle, Bump 'n' Jump. I have an idea that BatB works the console pretty hard, I played the heck out of that game on this console and recall issues first appearing with that game at the same time I noticed sound problems on other games (eg, missing arrow count on AD&D). Eg, the banner trailing the plane between levels with the encouraging messages would be messed up - it appears it's made of sprites, and they're shown mixed about, although I haven't tried this cart recently. So I'm now pretty sure it's an IC logic issue. - James

OK, so I replaced that capacitor with the split shrink wrap (it otherwise looked fine), and replaced the two transistors. And... No change. If anything, the picture looks slightly sharper. Remarkably clean for an RF signal. I noticed that there's what looks to be a trim pot on the daughterboard with the PAL crystal circuitry. My younger self may have meddled with this - What are the symtoms if fiddling with this? My sister has another non-working unit that she's going to give me to try and get working, so when I have that apart, I will try swapping IC components. Unless there are any more suggestions? Or cartridges to try? Or voltages to test on the board? Or someone locally in Australia with an MTE-201 they are willing to let me use? - James

The capacitor is C40. It's a 16V 47uF electrolytic. - James

Although it's faint, you can actually see brown discolouration of the board under those two transistors. It is faint, I didn't notice it until I took the pictures. I'll pick up a replacement for that cap and transistors and see how that goes. - James

Given their proximity to the CPU and the crashing nature of the fault, I'm inclined to agree and suspect those transistors... Found a better schematic that lists them both as 2N3906 PNP Transistor. http://intellivision_2609.tripod.com/2609_schematic.JPG http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=ZT2328 - James