sebastius

Maybe they just replaced the color monitor with a black and white one, to make the repair a lot cheaper?

If you have time, could you shoot as many pictures of the Vanguard sideart and bezel as possible? I'm looking for 'straight' high res pics of those. And if you happen to have the complete book with schematics, I'd like scans of that too Thanks in advance if you have and take the time to assist the documentation for that great game (there isn't any decent picture for it online).

I think you need to check the solderings on the other side of the pcb. Ten to one you have a broken soldering or two.

Vanguard by SNK/Centuri also does speach, with a special speech chip, a memory adresser and several eproms. And I think Vanguard is one of the early ones.

European TV's have an RGB input (in a SCART plug) on them, so for us it's easy. I even do it the other way round, a game console in a Jamma cabinet. There are some subtle differences though, you need a small resistor or diode on one of the signal lines when connecting a game to a normal Euro TV. I don't know why American TV's dont come standard with an RGB input, but there are RGB to Composite video converters. And as for sound, well, the board already has an amplifier onboard, so you can simply use the cabinet's speaker.

People are speculating all over the web about the revolution, that the real blow is yet to come. No controllers have yet been seen, Iwata talked rather mysteriously, all those little hints that something great is going to arrive on our doorsteps with this new console.

If you can find all the bits and pieces for it, it'd be an easy matter of installing everything in the right place. Cabinet looks to be in an OK shape, but to pay 390 dollars on a restoration of hell...

Start off with recapping the monitor, that will do a whole lot for the screen. Also check all solder joints etc. After that you'll be wanting to check deflection transistors. And beyond that (but I don't think it'll come to that) it's a board problem. So start your checking top down. Recap, reflow. Replace Transistors. Repair Board. Call out for pizza.

That one actually runs on an emulator based on the MAME code. Oh and Tengen once made a PC version of the original arcade game. At least, I remember playing it, but I can't give you any more details about it.

Basically, you can play anything that says 'JAMMA'. And even older games, but with a Jamma converter. Everything will work just the same, maybe with some monitor adjustments. Be mindfull of one thing, that some games use a vertical monitor (rotated 90 degrees).

Well, what seems to be the problem? [/The Doctor]

Looks familiar, i've got a similar problem with a capcom game I've got (Carrier Airwing). The problem was that I couldn't reach the chips on the bottom board with my logic analyser, so I replaced the bottom board and the game worked fine again. Your problem is not a Bit-Rot one, maybe RAM, but I suspect RAM adress decoding or the buffer from the ram to the video portion which has an enable line. Maybe the buffer is faulty or the circuit that drives it. Good luck!

You guys have demo's? No such thing here in the Netherlands...

I think i am the owner of the oldest board in the city of The Hague (Netherlands). I have an Olympic Video Tennis (pong clone), dated around 1972. There aren't any public arcades anymore here, just collectors. I only have boardsets, not dedicated cabinets. The oldest are: Olympic Video Tennis, Rally-X, Vanguard and SkyLancer.

Windows, the Lindows guys lost.

I wonder if the internals of that chip are known anywhere. It would be cool to remake it in a FPGA or something.

If you're willing to part with the really broken board (as long as the board is intact, no broken bits etc), i'd be happy to take it of your hands. I've been looking for a good project.

Where in the NL's are you located? Because here in The Hague there are two electronics shops that are really good. If all else fails, try Reichelt.de, a german webshop. But mind the minimum order quantity.

Dis-assemble the cabinet. Gives you the opportunity to clean it and to move it.

That's a GREAT place. But the games are in rather crappy shape. StarWars plays nice though. It's on my wishlist for another vacation

Replace the sockets. That should do the trick.

That sort of behaviour is really sad. It blackens my heart... A StarWars cab... Of all things available to hack, they hack a StarWars cab.

If you have a few hours, after i get some sleep (it's 00:30 am here and i'm tired as hell), i'll type you a little Pong repair 101. In the meantime, i'd like you to take some high res quality photo's of the board, power supply, control panel (inside) and the TV set. Things like modifications, connectors etc are important.

Wonderfull, a complete working game for 7 euro's and some time Wish i could get one of those... And it's still usable for Mame, if you use a arcadeVGA like videocard and just make a conversion harness between the game and Mame.

What the heck, only $ 29,99? I paid 49.99 EUROs for that one, which amounts to 63.82 dollars! Damn...