:: Rolling Thunder Roadtrip ::

[funkycochise]

news about mys chip.
they have arrived :

 
Yes arrived, but not at my house yet.
But at the house of the guy able to flash the "rolling thunder" content of it.
For information, purchase done on monday, arrived in France today.
I forgot to mention it comes from canada.

Nice packed, very serious and very fast in my opinion.
Cherry on the cake (for me), the guy out there speaks french (quite important for my 'weak english' fellows)

It's a question of small days now, to make my game board alive again 
can't wait. 

dazza, sorry for off topic.

Pierre.

[Dazza]

Who did you order from? They sound like a good unit and it's always good to remember places like that for future reference.

[funkycochise]

Who did you order from? They sound like a good unit and it's always good to remember places like that for future reference.

the one you provided 

[Dazza]

Ahh cool!

I'm looking forward to seeing that most precious board being brought back to life! 

[funkycochise]

Well, i've got to close the chapter regarding my prom troubles

this morning, in my mailbox (in fact, a week ago)



quick, what's inside :



tadam :



I take back my rthunder pcb, asleep since all this time :



the brunt chip is still on location, time for remplacement :

both chips, side to side :



time for replacement on the mother board, this time I take care about the  sens  :



Fine, but what does it give once powered on :




Yeah, marvellous, I can at last play again rthunder

Epilogue :

- Despite the prom successful fix, I have now graphics garbage while playing (transparent door, wrong color). I don't know what it's coming from.
if it's game eeprom's faults that are quite ill or if it's worst. To go ahead I would need another board to make eeprom swaps.

- I go ahead also on the sound problem, seems that the amplifier chip isn't well soldered.

- A big thank to midiphilou, without him and his skills, that fix wound't have been possible 


Thank you for reading, and Dazza, again, sorry for off-topic 

[DarthNuno]

Thanks Pierre for your update on this... and ... Wooowwww... a really good progress 

Too bad for the missing graphics...



I keep that last picture... a good opportunity to have that RT background without any sprites for future 'ArcadeLifeStyle' montages 

Keep your motivation... I'm sure that board will be 100% working one day 

sorry for the off topic Dazza 

[Dazza]

Well thats some cracking progress! 

Your board starts up, mine is as dead as a dodo. I have a lead for a new board(s), just waiting on a confirmation while they are being tested. Hopefully I can get my baby back up and running soon!

Oh yeah, Bruno what is the best material to get my Marquee printed on? Most places seem to do stickers, wheras the original is a type of thin plastic.....

[funkycochise]

One step forward.

Even if it's not exactly the same behavior, if I fill rt1_8.7s file from rthunder.zip with some 0x00
I get the same garbage graphics, just like the pcb.



See those transparent yellow doors.

Now, if I remove the chip from the pcb and boot it up, I don't really get the same behaviour than on mame.
the chip i'm talking about is the one labelled RT1-8, not the one shown by my finger :



PS : same song : Dazza sorry for off-topic 

[DarthNuno]

Oh yeah, Bruno what is the best material to get my Marquee printed on? Most places seem to do stickers, wheras the original is a type of thin plastic.....

I've good contact with a local printing company. The boss (he works alone in fact ) even came into my game room in order to see what I'm looking for, regarding some upcoming projects. He's waiting for a new printing machine. Once he'll have it, I'll see with him the best material to use for our reproduction artworks... so stay tuned 

[Dazza]

Some progress...

I managed to source a Rolling Thunder PCB with known sound problems. It arrived yesterday and was quite possibly the WORST packing ever for a PCB  . One sheet of bubble wrap that wasn't even wrapped round the board with the sound daughterboard just placed on top to rattle around during transit



I know the sound is faulty so decide to plug it in without the daughterboard attached. It gets further than my existing faulty board, cycling through the sprites on power up but resetting itself  



However, I can now successfully get into the self test mode..... Hmmmm. Ok, lets try attaching the daughterboard from my existing faulty board. The sound should work on that one. Here it is all attached  



Ok.... lets give it a whirl. Fingers crossed...  



YES YES YES!!!! IT WORKS!!!! The sounds also works perfectly.... Hurray  

[EDITED' Now using Google photos rather than Photobucket ransomware]

[DarthNuno]

YYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSS !!!!!!!!

Start the training now 

 

[Dazza]

Thought I'd run through it just to see how what the transition to joystick would be like.

Not too bad, I completed it on my first go, scored a measly 350k. I wasn't going for score though, was just running though to see if all the levels were ok, plus the dip switches were set to only allocate 120 seconds which make level 8 a bit of a challenge if you don't start it loaded up with ammo (I did but stupidly died half way through) ...   

[vib_ribbon]

looks really odd how all the chips on that board is spaced out like that...

game on!! woohoo!!