SEASON 07 - FIXING THE THEATEREPISODE 02: A Real Live One!
Starring : Darth NunoLet's 'power on' that stuff once again...See all these lights
Yeaaaaaaaaaah!!!! 
After replacing the connectors coming for CPU1/CPU board into the correct RAM board plugs... there's
life here!
So, for the first time after ...almost 6 years of hibernation...
the Galaxian Theater boots!!!!
Magical moment... the game is waiting for the LD signals (DISC WAITING message)...
Yes!!! Yessss! Yeeeeeeeess!
Re-animated!
'One eye open' only so far, but definitively breathing now!
Ok, because ...
... I didn't took pictures for the next 'fix' I've done, so let me explain it. As you can see on this picture
The words 'DISC WAITING' are written in BLACK. (Note the others 'black garbages' on screen are just 'screen burn' on the tri-tubes projector)
These words are supposed to be written in 'WHITE'. After the game boot, the attract mode starts. I noticed that all the enemies - or in general way all the graphics 'real time' computed by the PCBs were ...'BLACK'. For example the enemies on screen looked like black shadows, same for the cursor gunners, and all the things 'real time' generated by the boards. It's like if all the graphics were coded in one bit, so one color only : black! (the other 'state' would be the 'transparent' color)
There's a special board inside the theater called the 'V-MIX' board. Let me quote a short description I've previously written about that board :
In very short, there are two laser disc players sending the left + right signal (via BNC) into a special board (along all the boards that run the game) called 'V-MIX'. These two laser disc players produce the background of the game (CGI graphics, at the top of the technology back in 1994).
In addition of the background image (left+right), there are 2 set of boards in charge of computing the enemy ships and all the mechanic of the game. Why 2 set of boards? Well one set per screen! Left and Right! So each set of boards are sending the images processed (via usual RGB signal) into the same 'V-MIX' than the one used by both laser disc players. Do you still follow? 
OK, so the purpose of that unique 'V-MIX' board is ... to mix the images sent by the LD player and the images sent by the two set of boards, and produce two final video signals to send to the 2 projectors. The input of the projectors are 4 BNC for a native RGBS signal coming twice from the V-MIX board. 
A true piece of technology at the time!
SO that V-MIX board seems to have an important role, and I would say it'll be the more concerned one regarding that 'one bit real-time gfx resolution'? Let's remove it ...
...and replace it with a spare one I fortunately own... let's try now!
Damn it!
Damn it! Damn it! 
Woowoow... it looks better now!
Hehe, now you can also see the message 'DISC WAITING on the right screen/projector' because it was previously written black... on black!
Oh well, you may ask, why the right screen background is not blue like the left one? Remember what I said in the previous 'episode', the right projector seems to have a problem on the blue tube... so instead displaying the blue background, it displays ...nothing, or almost nothing in the blue tone...
OK, so now the game boots... and I can 'credit' games. See the different ways to start games right here :
Ready to fly? Here's the gunner entry!
As you can see, the two pictures coming from two projectors are not correctly 'aligned'...
...but I am so happy and I can not wait any longer! I want to try it now!!!! YYeehhhhaaaa!!!
Jesus! I can't believe I've just played my first ZOLGEAR game since ... wooooww!
Ok, a quick tour in the setup menu... I'll come back on this l8ter...
It's time to see what are the working LD players I own... After trying two or three LD players I got from the operator/seller, labeled 'not repair'
, let's see if the spare *working* ones I bought for this project are still doing the job in 2013!
Hey... something is coming on the right screen? huh?
Lights off please!
yes...YES....
YESSSSS Ok, now let's fix the projectors alignment/colorimetry...
Hey...for my archive, the first score for my first 'Zolgear' game
The video set up is done, now let's play my real first game in 'good condition' and check if everything works fine...
Stay tuned guys!
Oh, and of course all the content of this episode available right here :
