The Three Stooges, I mean Bezerks. Blowing life into them again....

[level42]

But I think it's not the end about this "model" of stickers......hold your horses on buying alternatives a bit.......

[level42]

Some good news for Ully: I just fixed one of the spare BSC boards. This one gave 4 beeps when booting. I suspected the RAM and indeed the very first RAM I replaced (2114 on B1) fixed the problem ! Perfectly working now, and this board has 0 acid damage !

I still have another non-working BSC (3 beeps), gonna try exchange some RAMS on that one too....

[Superully]

sounds great, andré! have you already rented the trailer for all your repair stuff you're bringing along?  remember, i'm paying the bill ... 

[level42]

No need. The Oktavia is big enough and (very much to my regret) I don't have a hook for a trailer....also it would limit my speed too much

What I _will_ do is remove the full working panel from my Berzerk and bring it for testing. This will look like "Chasing ghosts" !  

But hopefully with better results in the end !!! 

[Muerto]

Great to hear!!! the last one is about to come to life again! 

[Superully]

some news that aren't that good:

had a great game of berzerk going yesterday, lost a man out of stupidity, shouted out an extremely loud F*** because of that and as if the machine had heard my cursing, the voices stopped all of a sudden. all the sounds were still there, bot no speech.

turned the game off and on again - same result. put in michael's replacement board (since my original board with the "scratchy voices" is at andre's place and i was already running my replacement board), no speech there as well! another F*** was necessary!!!

is it possible that THREE speech board have did in such a short time?

[Muerto]

no ully, it´s just you sending out bad karma! 

[level42]

Do you still have the SCSI ribbon cables ? Try one between the speech and sound board. And maybe also between the sound board and the one above it.

[Laschek]

Maybe you just blasted your eardrums because of your shouting and the sound works fine, you just can't hear it?  

But that's arcade life, I guess everyone has experienced such things. It's part of the hobby, it happens all the time, one has to accept that.

[level42]

The voice board from Muerto was fully working when I dent it and should work. That's why I'm suspecting the ribbon cables.
Please try that Ully. If not, you can move over some chips between the boards....

[Superully]

i'll give it a try this afternoon with either different ribbon cables or the scsi cables!

[Etienne MacGyver]

or do i need to put the mame rom and speech samples also in my ftp for you ? 

[level42]

or do i need to put the mame rom and speech samples also in my ftp for you ? 

Are u nuts ? 

You think with the slightest set-back we give in and mame a classic machine ?

No sir ! This belongs to the hobby. Buy a classic car and you know you will be on the road-side with troubles every now and then.
Some are luckier than others, some keep running without a problem, some will keep giving headaches.....but  we won't give in ! 

[Superully]

sorry, forgot to post my results, thx for reminding me andré

- first thing i did was exchange the two flat cables (sound board and voice board) with my new scsi cables - no change, no speech
- exchanged the voice generators (the big chip) of the two boards - no change, no speech
- exchanged the voice roms (two chips) of the two boards - no change, no speech
- tried the chips in various combinations - no change, no speech
- switched the scsi cables for different ribbon cables - no change, no speech

result of my tests: NO CHANGE, NO SPEECH

one thing i remember from when the speech failed during gameplay: the sound of the laser fires got definitely louder. at one point when i was doing some testing today, the laser fires suddenly weren't that loud anymore, as if the speech was trying to "break through", but then the sounds got louder again ...

fact is: both boards are definitely NOT working - sorry michael ! andré, you said that voice generator chip can be reordered, but it isn't cheap, right?

any other suggestions?

[level42]

Do you still have another sound board ?

Try that ! From what you tell it might be the "mixing" of the sound sources.