Ric-o-chet

[Etienne MacGyver]

Something I noticed (and forgot): The instructions say first side to score 15 points wins. Is that the same with the original Pong ?

you can select 11 or 15 as ending score.

Remember Ully's famous "SW2" on the Rally Board ?

https://www.dragonslairfans.com/smfor/index.php?topic=2222.msg26301#msg26301

posted by Lacheck, who is suddenly a guest here ??
did he leave ??

[DarthNuno]

posted by Lacheck, who is suddenly a guest here ??
did he leave ??

Yes, his choice... 

[ckong]

....  So you kinda' got two games from them now

or kinda' four: gyruss, phoenix, pleiads, ric-o-chet. 

I disassembled the CP yesterday and I have never seem so much dirt on it, I don't want to know what it all is, but it is gross!  I will post pictures later.

The game came without the keys so I will drill out the back door lock today and have a closer look at the internals. I am curious about the game board, I did notice a switch on it (11/15 game?).

There was also a small 'delivery note' inside mentioning the address of a bowling alley in Charleroi, I guess that that is the place where chris found the cab, it never had another owner. 

[Q*ris]

There was also a small 'delivery note' inside mentioning the address of a bowling alley in Charleroi, I guess that that is the place where chris found the cab, it never had another owner.  

Yep, I confirm that's the haunted place

[ckong]

I continued cleaning the game today. It involved of course taking the game apart.

I drilled out the lock on the backdoor to get easy access to the internals. First thing I saw was the Motorola Solid state 21" TV:



I took it out and cleaned the outside and inside. Lot of electronics on the inside.





Then I cleaned the control panel, which was really needed. The result was a 'like new' CP:

Dirty:



Partial cleaned and disassembled:



Clean and assembled again:



I will disassemble and clean the controls tomorrow.

Then I disassembled the frontpanel with the marquee and I cleaned all parts of it:





The marquee, front and back:





To answer André's question about the 11 or 15 points, you can seth the game to both wins. Notice the black sticker on the back of the marquee, the frontside of the marquee shows on that spot the number 15 in a small window. The other half of the sticker has 11 written on it. Here is the switch on the pcb:



Some more pictures of the pcb:









This is strange, the pcb seems to be a paddle battle pcb, a 2-player pong clone from 1973. But it is inside this ric-o-chet cab from 1975!!    And ric-o-chet is a 4-player game! The wiring in the cab is also for 4 players. Can anyone explain this?

More pictures from the internals:









The main isolation transformer has only connections on one side, I always thought that isolation transformers have connections on the incoming and on the outgoung side. Obviously not.



I guess incoming is 230V, see the unconnected plug, on which once probably the power cord was connected. Am I correct? This power cord is not present in the cab. 'Outgoing is 115V, which goed to the other board with all the little isolation transformers, for 115V, 6V and 24V. The TV runs on 115V AC.

At the end of the day the cab is pretty naked:





I will dress her up tomorrow, after cleaning the control pots.

[Superully]

nice cleaning effort, erik, looking so much better already. i just love those strange pong clones. both your ricochet and my rally are a piece of art imho!!!

[level42]

Yes I agree with Ully (Woohoo!).

Strange thing about the board.....but maybe they exchanged the EPROMS with an upgraded software version and exchanged the processor for a faster one ?















 

By the way I LOOOOOOOOOOOVE that TV !!!!! sooooo American with the rotary dials

[ckong]

One part that remained to be cleaned is the control assemblies.

This is how the CP looks on the bottom side, after removing the two protective metal plates:



Cleaning of the controls in progress.



And clean, at least the left one. I just used some car scratch remover. There are still some little spots on it on the photo, but I got rid of them later on. In the meanwhile all four of them are clean and shining in my face.  



OK, time to test some elctronics before my first attempt to power the game. I disconnected the TV, the controls, the coin door and marquee electronics and the game board. Then I made a new power mains cable and:

1. check fuses on continuity > check, all fuses are OK  
2. check incoming and outgoing voltage of the main power supply. > check, incoming 220V, outgoing (to the other trafo's) 112V  
3. check the voltage on the TV power cable. > check, measuring 115V  
4. check the coin door and marquee electronics for 6V > check, after connecting the marque and coin door electronics I was greeted by  4 bright lights (after replacing the old bulbs for new ones)  



5. Connect the TV power cable, take a deep breath and put the mains in the wall socket. > Yes, neck glow is visible  



6. check the front of the TV for life. > Yes, it is alive.  



7. Connect the game board, take another deep breath and check what is happening. > Barchem, we have an image, however, not that good:



Where are we now? Well, after fiddling a bit with the horizontal hold, this is the result at the moment:



video: http://youtu.be/60wnyOZHO8g  (the camera had trouble to focus)

It seems that the game board is working (at least partial) and that it is indeed Ric-o-chet, not paddle battle (because of the present horizontal lines on top and bottom of the game screen). The game doesn't credit, but that could be a wiring issue or something little like that, will check it later.

The TV gives a very bright image, but also very unstable. That doesn't wonder me, the TV is almost 40 years old. I will check the other pots on the chassis later this week, to see if it gets better. If not, then I will need a lot of technical input from you guys.   Or maybe replacing it by another B&W TV is the easiest option,yet very undesirable.

Will be continued.

[level42]

I'll give you a hint for the TV: cap-kit ! 

[ckong]

Yes,  I know.  I will make an inventory of all caps and order new ones.

[level42]

Hopefully there arent too much "weird" caps in there. There might be bipolair one's in there so you'll have to be extra carefull with your investigations

Anyway, you're already further than a completely dead machine which is awesome.
It's also awesome that the machine was picked up from the original location that it has been in from about 40 years ago.....that is just very very rare to happen !

[Q*ris]

Great news, there's life in this machine
FYI, if it helps somehow, here are pictures of my 2 Paddle Battle PCBs.

[level42]

Is it easy to get the TV out Erik ? Maybe you can bring it when we're going to the concert of the best band in the world ?

[Superully]

Maybe you can bring it when we're going to the concert of the best band in the world ?

didn't know you were a marillion fan as well

[level42]

If I hear "Kayleigh" one more time I'm going to:

It's not a bad song, it's just been overplayed, like so many great songs.

Funny thing: I actually saw Fish (is that his name) perform BEFORE the best band in the world at some festival in the south of Holland many years ago.