AskJacob

Sold, thanks!

Since getting a decent scope, this poor guy has sat on my shelf unused... Time to move it on. Dick Smith Electronics K-7337 assembled by me a long time ago. I will re-calibrate it before shipping - although it isn't a high performance device with 4 digit display. I will throw in a probe to go with it. It needs a power supply of ac or dc 7.5v to 12v (it has an internal 5v regulator supply) - i used to just use the bench supply for it. Happy for a beer + postage. what does a beer go for at the pub these days? Call it $5? SIideways pic because lazy:

Sure, it could be OK. If you are basically just wanting a glorified logic probe, where you are checking if pins are toggling etc and comparing levels, looking for noise. You can certainly use a 10mhz scope for a lot of that stuff, especially on older boards that have lower clock speeds than modern ones - as this was pretty much the tech at hand at the time. I sold my old scope for $35 about 10 years ago if that helps you get your head around the price for one of those "boat anchors" 😄 Finally, if you are wanting an analog scope for the cool factor, then just get one! If all else fails you can just hook it up to the stereo and use it as a visualizer 🙂

with an analog scope, be careful regarding the bandwidth. The higher you try and measure, the dimmer the trace will be. 5mhz will be hard to see, and 10mhz will be guesses. So with that in mindm you want to aim your analog scope bandwidth around 2x higher than the kind of signals you want to measure. I started with that exact scope pictured there - and got frustrated very quickly with it trying to work with digital stuff. If you can get your hands on a cheap digital scope, like a Rigol 50 of 100mhz model you can get all your bases covered. Neat things with the DSO are on screen measurements of voltages, frequencies and stuff, and even a memory for trace capture. Cost more, but get more functionality - may be worth seeing what is out there 2nd hand too.

fair enough. The sound one is newer though. I might as well just read them and actually check if they are different...

@wiredougthanks, I found that set and it has the same versions in the other sets I found floating around. So it looks like 2 of my roms are versions not really "out there". cheers

I know this is a bit of a tough question considering there isn't a lot of these out there, but does anyone know/can point me to where to find the most current ROM for this machine is? When I try searching I find a mess of "romz" sites, and the ones I can find on say vpinforums don't match mine. From my poor research I found a lot of the roms in different sites seem to be: CPU V1.8 VOICE V1.2 SOUND V2.1 My machine has: CPU V1.6 VOICE V1.2 (same) SOUND V2.4 While I am not in a rush to update or change my machine, I haven't seen these other rom versions anywhere - so should I image them from a "preservation/documentation" perspective? If so, where should I upload them to once done? Cheers

@wolfy I just remembered: do you have the flasher pcb in your machine? For some reason it seems to be missing from some machines - probably scavenged for other AG machines as they all seem to use it. Labelled PCA-007. If yours is missing I am pretty sure I have the files somewhere to knock one up as I made one a few years ago for someone who was missing one...

@Boots thanks - that is a decent manual. Looks like they had a bit of fun using a "spooky" font as well. I would have liked to see how their games would have developed if AG could have kept going for a few more years.

that's much better @wiredoug - my ag soccerball manual covers the PCA-001 board only. Does the one you have cover the 009 instead?

@wolfy Ah, right. I just looked at the manual but it is for the 001 mpu board, and they sure moved a lot around in the revision. Based on my game, you are missing (from left to right in your pic): 1. 65C22 VIA 2. Populated already (should be a 8255) 3. 65C02 Processor 4. 27C512 game eprom 5. 6264 RAM 6. Populated already (should be 8255) 7. Populated already (should be 8255) 8. 65C22 VIA Those boards look really nice. Let me know if you want to offload one of them - I can replace the corroded one have 😄 Pics of the manual (that aren't too useful as it refers to the earlier MPU): oof this pic is blown out, sorry. Additionally, the parts list and the board designations don't match up at all. Weird manual.

nah, no aplogies needed. I am currently dealing with 3 MPU boards that are battery damaged and not currently working 😕 Only 1 was my fault (or duracells if we really want to get picky) - the rest were as bought... honest Below is the trace damage I found beneath the coin cell holder:

a stab in the dark here, but could it be accessing the site via a desktop, pad and phone or some combo of multiple devices causing the login requests? I only use my desktop and it has never asked for a login after the first round. Not a solution saying "use only desktop" - but it may give another avenue to search for the issue? 🤔

the original coin cell holder was green with corrosion. While coin cells are much less likely to leak, when I got the machine there was no battery installed, and the cell holder was in poor shape. I have replacement coin cell holders, but it just never seemed to be a priority... the aa "pack" was originally a temp thing. I also note that the "pack" is duracells. Something to be taken care of while i have it open for service....

@wolfy I just had to clear off and check mine. It has a 009 mainboard in it. Just took a handful of ugly pics. Let me know if there is more specific stuff you are after. Cheers