You know it never ceases to amaze me that all that stuff that huge logic board dose is now done in discreet chips. It really shows the lengths & creativity engineer's had to go to make computers capable of delivering this stuff Love these videos.
They made it to be understood as well. Not like today's "just buy another" mentality of consumerism - we're just training everyone to swap parts and understand nothing.
I know, it fascinates me too, but every bit of re-packaging and downsizing that goes on today makes everything completely irreparable. There are zero easy ways to diagnose and repair SMD based boards. Everything now is built to be replaced if it stops working and only if its still in production. This makes me pretty sad about the whole thing. I'll be able to keep this TRON boardset working long after you've replaced say your LED TV another 5-6 times when it just stops working. The reason these were built this way was to keep them running in the arcades they were in instead of mailing everything in and waiting weeks while it lost all its viable income. Now, buyers go to shows like EAG and the vendors ask how many spare PCB sets they'd like to buy at the same time as there's no field repairs, its gotta go back to Japan. Indicating that its not IF it breaks down, its WHEN - planned failure. The results of bullshit ROHS rules for production meaning use of lead free solder which is just completely rubbish and more toxic than leaded.
James! So glad I came across this vid. My Tron is behaving exactly the same way! All sprites are missing. I spent the weekend pulling each ROM and reading/verifying them (and applying the FreePlay hack), and found nothing wrong! Strange thing, in my case, is that my ribbon cables were all tattered and rotting, so I've replaced them with 5 all new cables from ArcadeShop. Since replacing those, my sprites have "ducked out". Maybe I received a single bad cable? Also, sounds have completely stopped since doing this. Are those data lines over the same connection? Maybe multiple bad cables? Anyway, this gives me something new to focus on. Thanks again for the insight!!
Double check you haven't offset one of the cables. If you read the schematic, you'll find that Midway did a great job protecting the primary data bus from the interconnects via LS245's - so the D0-D7 becomes BuD0-7 on the main board which then becomes BSD0-7 on the sound board and other signals on the video board. If you're still having trouble then send me the set and i'll fix it for you.
@@retrogamesparty I've just finally returned to this boardset, and still trying to get it working. Unfortunately, it would be pretty cost-preventative to mail this set across the pond to you. Any other thoughts you'd have on the same original symptom? ie, any specific chips that the sprite data moves through that I could probe for data signal or lack thereof? I'm happy to buy replacement chips to try out, if I knew which ones could be the culprit.
I love it. It has so many functions I don't make use of doing this job but it's nice to have effectively a 4 channel logic analyser. We've got a few of them now and have had the firmware hack done on them. Wish they could stream the display video out over the ethernet port so I could capture it for use in the videos.
Retro Games Party : Hi: Thanks for taking the time to reply, I made the mistake of buying a Siglent digital scope when one of the suppliers had them on sale. Not my finest choice, it does the job but doesn't do anything particularly well. Hey ho: Might eventually bite the bullet and buy a Rigol. Have a good day & keep up the good work.
What would you suggest is my problem if I’m missing the sprites but also have no cursor for use of the joystick. I can’t scroll through the service menu or play.
Service menu icon uses a sprite if I remember right. You have one of three possible issues: One or both of the 2114 RAM's on the video board are dead - the game does not check these rams on startup. The buffer control chip (an LS245) between the CPU and the sprite RAM on the video board is not working or the signal allowing the data bus to traverse to the RAM is not changing. The count chain that reads the bytes from the CPU accessible RAM and makes the line buffers is not counting properly. Either get out the schematic and look at where it says "START HERE" on the video board and follow that chain or get in touch via the website and i'll fix it for you.
I'll admit that I understand little of what you are doing James, but it's great watching a master at his work.
You know it never ceases to amaze me that all that stuff that huge logic board dose is now done in discreet chips. It really shows the lengths & creativity engineer's had to go to make computers capable of delivering this stuff Love these videos.
They made it to be understood as well. Not like today's "just buy another" mentality of consumerism - we're just training everyone to swap parts and understand nothing.
I know, it fascinates me too, but every bit of re-packaging and downsizing that goes on today makes everything completely irreparable. There are zero easy ways to diagnose and repair SMD based boards. Everything now is built to be replaced if it stops working and only if its still in production. This makes me pretty sad about the whole thing. I'll be able to keep this TRON boardset working long after you've replaced say your LED TV another 5-6 times when it just stops working.
The reason these were built this way was to keep them running in the arcades they were in instead of mailing everything in and waiting weeks while it lost all its viable income.
Now, buyers go to shows like EAG and the vendors ask how many spare PCB sets they'd like to buy at the same time as there's no field repairs, its gotta go back to Japan.
Indicating that its not IF it breaks down, its WHEN - planned failure.
The results of bullshit ROHS rules for production meaning use of lead free solder which is just completely rubbish and more toxic than leaded.
Welcome back!
great game and really nice cabinets too
I currently have three Tron boards. I knew mine wasn't working, but the two I got also won't work, but it must be my cab psu 😢
James! So glad I came across this vid. My Tron is behaving exactly the same way! All sprites are missing. I spent the weekend pulling each ROM and reading/verifying them (and applying the FreePlay hack), and found nothing wrong! Strange thing, in my case, is that my ribbon cables were all tattered and rotting, so I've replaced them with 5 all new cables from ArcadeShop. Since replacing those, my sprites have "ducked out". Maybe I received a single bad cable? Also, sounds have completely stopped since doing this. Are those data lines over the same connection? Maybe multiple bad cables? Anyway, this gives me something new to focus on. Thanks again for the insight!!
Double check you haven't offset one of the cables. If you read the schematic, you'll find that Midway did a great job protecting the primary data bus from the interconnects via LS245's - so the D0-D7 becomes BuD0-7 on the main board which then becomes BSD0-7 on the sound board and other signals on the video board.
If you're still having trouble then send me the set and i'll fix it for you.
@@retrogamesparty I've just finally returned to this boardset, and still trying to get it working. Unfortunately, it would be pretty cost-preventative to mail this set across the pond to you. Any other thoughts you'd have on the same original symptom? ie, any specific chips that the sprite data moves through that I could probe for data signal or lack thereof? I'm happy to buy replacement chips to try out, if I knew which ones could be the culprit.
Nice to see you back making videos, just a quick question: How do you find the Rigol scope to work with ?.
I love it. It has so many functions I don't make use of doing this job but it's nice to have effectively a 4 channel logic analyser. We've got a few of them now and have had the firmware hack done on them. Wish they could stream the display video out over the ethernet port so I could capture it for use in the videos.
Retro Games Party : Hi: Thanks for taking the time to reply, I made the mistake of buying a Siglent digital scope when one of the suppliers had them on sale. Not my finest choice, it does the job but doesn't do anything particularly well. Hey ho: Might eventually bite the bullet and buy a Rigol. Have a good day & keep up the good work.
What would you suggest is my problem if I’m missing the sprites but also have no cursor for use of the joystick. I can’t scroll through the service menu or play.
Service menu icon uses a sprite if I remember right. You have one of three possible issues:
One or both of the 2114 RAM's on the video board are dead - the game does not check these rams on startup.
The buffer control chip (an LS245) between the CPU and the sprite RAM on the video board is not working or the signal allowing the data bus to traverse to the RAM is not changing.
The count chain that reads the bytes from the CPU accessible RAM and makes the line buffers is not counting properly.
Either get out the schematic and look at where it says "START HERE" on the video board and follow that chain or get in touch via the website and i'll fix it for you.
Thanks :-)
If possible to speak a little slow .
No all the people know English like you
Thanks
Of course, I will try to but my mind hits a buffer overrun because the output device is too slow and I lose my train of thought :)