Bomber Man Cartridge Compatibility - Help Wanted

[Ikrananka]

Hoping someone can help me with a bizarre issue I’m having with my Bomber King cartridge.  The cart works fine on my unmodified CV and 1^st gen SGM.  I can also dump the cart successfully with my AtariMax and that rom image plays perfectly on my Ultimate SD.  The Bomber King cart also plays fine on my Phoenix.  However, when I try and play the cart on my F18A modified CV with the same 1^st gen SGM, all I get is a black screen.  Now I wondered if there was something wrong with my F18A modified CV so I did some tests that all passed fine:

 

• Play Bomber King rom using my Ultimate SD – OK
• Play a wide range of other carts – OK
• Play a wide range of other carts that need an SGM – OK
• Play Risky Rick to see if it allows me past the first level which it does – OK
• Tried a brand new (5^th run?) SGM – black screen still

 

I also ran a bunch of diagnostics on my CV and it passed them all.

 

If I try the Bomber King cart without an SGM then I get a blue screen with a single line of white scrambled characters.

 

So, it would seem that my modified CV plays everything I’ve thrown at it except for Bomber King.

 

There is perhaps a compatibility issue between the Bomber Man cart and an F18A modified CV.  So, if anyone has both of these I'd be most grateful if you could test this yourself and let me know if it works for you or not.

 

Thanks

[zaphro72]

Hey @Ikrananka I am no help here really but didn’t you have same result on your F18A Colecovision with Dead Tomb? Or did Collectorvision confirm it is indeeed only compatible with the Phoenix?

[digress]

1 hour ago, Ikrananka said:

Hoping someone can help me with a bizarre issue I’m having with my Bomber King cartridge.  The cart works fine on my unmodified CV and 1^st gen SGM.  I can also dump the cart successfully with my AtariMax and that rom image plays perfectly on my Ultimate SD.  The Bomber King cart also plays fine on my Phoenix.  However, when I try and play the cart on my F18A modified CV with the same 1^st gen SGM, all I get is a black screen.  Now I wondered if there was something wrong with my F18A modified CV so I did some tests that all passed fine:

 

• Play Bomber King rom using my Ultimate SD – OK
• Play a wide range of other carts – OK
• Play a wide range of other carts that need an SGM – OK
• Play Risky Rick to see if it allows me past the first level which it does – OK
• Tried a brand new (5^th run?) SGM – black screen still

 

I also ran a bunch of diagnostics on my CV and it passed them all.

 

If I try the Bomber King cart without an SGM then I get a blue screen with a single line of white scrambled characters.

 

So, it would seem that my modified CV plays everything I’ve thrown at it except for Bomber King.

 

There is perhaps a compatibility issue between the Bomber Man cart and an F18A modified CV.  So, if anyone has both of these I'd be most grateful if you could test this yourself and let me know if it works for you or not.

 

Thanks

I personally noticed a graphic glitch when running bomb n' blast on a standard colecovision with f18a upgrade while the SGM was plugged in. The glitch goes away if the sgm is removed. Bomb n' blast did not require it anyways.

 

I remember some similar problems with mecha 8 & 9 with the sgm plugged in on that same colecovision. The glitches went away when the sgm was removed. I have no idea which upgrade was interferring or how.

[Kiwi]

Are you using the regular power supply with the CV F18A mod?  Maybe the chip isn't getting enough voltage power.  My Colecovision acts up if there's not enough power to the graphic chip.

[Bmack36]

Did you replace the C3 capacitor on your F18a CV? I think it needs to be changed to 10uF to delay startup so the F18a has time to startup

[Ikrananka]

15 hours ago, Kiwi said:

Are you using the regular power supply with the CV F18A mod?  Maybe the chip isn't getting enough voltage power.  My Colecovision acts up if there's not enough power to the graphic chip.

This CV has a modern internal power supply that is only about 5 years old so I doubt it's a voltage issue.  Just strange that only this game has the issue.

[Ikrananka]

15 hours ago, Bmack36 said:

Did you replace the C3 capacitor on your F18a CV? I think it needs to be changed to 10uF to delay startup so the F18a has time to startup

I have changed that cap.  The CV in question plays F18A enhanced games fine.

[Ikrananka]

Does anyone else own this cart and have an F18A modded CV?  I'd be most grateful if someone could test theirs.

[Ikrananka]

16 hours ago, zaphro72 said:

Hey @Ikrananka I am no help here really but didn’t you have same result on your F18A Colecovision with Dead Tomb? Or did Collectorvision confirm it is indeeed only compatible with the Phoenix?

It has been confirmed that Dead Tomb will only work on a Phoenix.

[digress]

57 minutes ago, Ikrananka said:

Does anyone else own this cart and have an F18A modded CV?  I'd be most grateful if someone could test theirs.

I have an original f18a modified colecovision. I tried bomberking cartridge and it didn't work on mine either. I got the f18a full screen message with colourful border waiting for vdp signal screen.

 

upon reset i get a blue screen with 1 line of white jumbled text

 

I tested it in the phoenix (the cartridge) and it worked fine. So i 've now noticed a number of carts that have incompatibilty with original colecovision modifed with f18a. So it's probably that cap replacement issue mentioned. I believe they work fine from the ultimate sd cart.

 

bomber king

bomb n' blast

mecha 8 & 9

[Ikrananka]

22 minutes ago, digress said:

I have an original f18a modified colecovision. I tried bomberking cartridge and it didn't work on mine either. I got the f18a full screen message with colourful border waiting for vdp signal screen.

 

upon reset i get a blue screen with 1 line of white jumbled text

 

I tested it in the phoenix (the cartridge) and it worked fine. So i 've now noticed a number of carts that have incompatibilty with original colecovision modifed with f18a. So it's probably that cap replacement issue mentioned. I believe they work fine from the ultimate sd cart.

 

bomber king

bomb n' blast

mecha 8 & 9

Great - thanks for testing.  That is the same behaviour I see with Bomber King on my F18A CV.  At least I now know that my CV isn't failing somehow - phew.  It's definitely a cartridge hardware / F18A incompatibility issue as the rom of the game plays fine on the same CV using an Ultimate SD cart.

 

I'm 99% certain that I changed the reset cap to 10uF so I don't believe that is the problem.

Edited January 16, 2021 by Ikrananka

[phattyboombatty]

On 1/16/2021 at 10:56 AM, Ikrananka said:

Does anyone else own this cart and have an F18A modded CV?  I'd be most grateful if someone could test theirs.

Sorry I didn't take notice of this earlier. Apparently, I just got around to inserting the Bomber King cart into my F18a-modded Adam.

 

My results are the same as @Ikrananka and @digress. I get all the tiles loaded onto the screen in a colorful array of garbage. I do not have the C3 capacitor mod.

 

Just throwing in my results to confirm that this is an issue.

 

Edited July 10, 2021 by phattyboombatty

[Ikrananka]

1 hour ago, phattyboombatty said:

Sorry I didn't take notice of this earlier. Apparently, I just got around to inserting the Bomber King cart into my F18a-modded Adam.

 

My results are the same as @Ikrananka and @digress. I get all the tiles loaded onto the screen in a colorful array of garbage. I do not have the C3 capacitor mod.

 

Just throwing in my results to confirm that this is an issue.

Thanks for confirming.

[Ikrananka]

On 1/16/2021 at 12:46 PM, digress said:

So i 've now noticed a number of carts that have incompatibilty with original colecovision modifed with f18a. So it's probably that cap replacement issue mentioned. I believe they work fine from the ultimate sd cart.

 

bomber king

bomb n' blast

mecha 8 & 9

I just double-checked my carts for these games and the only one not working for me is Bomber King.