I thought it was time for me to try repairing boards. I probably don’t have much of a knowledge about it outside of reading a bunch of logs, nor do I have half of the equipment, but we all have to start somewhere! The plan is to build both up as I go.
Writing this here will help me to stay accountable and hopefully receive some tips and advice
So got this Captain America and the Avengers from Data East for a low enough price, disclosed as booting but with issues, mostly sound.
It came in full of dust, and dead flies/cobwebs/egg sacks. Yikes. I brushed most of it off and will definitely Simple Green and wash it as soon as possible. This is after brushing it
I noticed already some dirt and corrosion that I will have to look into once cleaned up
Booted it to do an initial check, and almost no image with a big loud buzz.
Pushing gently a bit on the EPROMs randomly managed to get me an image and eliminate the buzz! But the colors are wonky (missing).
Sometimes, the image gets garbled and pressing a bit on the board fixes it
Adding a credit to leave the attract mode, the sound plays good, music and SFX!
It seems like the debug is enabled though, and I will have to lookup the dip switch settings.
At least the game is alive and responsive. The fact that I can have sound, image and controls seems to be a good thing.
Next step will be to remove all the chips, give it a good cleaning overall, clean the sockets and legs and do a visual inspection to see all that can potentially be broken (traces, legs, etc).
To be continued!
Writing this here will help me to stay accountable and hopefully receive some tips and advice
So got this Captain America and the Avengers from Data East for a low enough price, disclosed as booting but with issues, mostly sound.
It came in full of dust, and dead flies/cobwebs/egg sacks. Yikes. I brushed most of it off and will definitely Simple Green and wash it as soon as possible. This is after brushing it
I noticed already some dirt and corrosion that I will have to look into once cleaned up
Booted it to do an initial check, and almost no image with a big loud buzz.
Pushing gently a bit on the EPROMs randomly managed to get me an image and eliminate the buzz! But the colors are wonky (missing).
Sometimes, the image gets garbled and pressing a bit on the board fixes it
Adding a credit to leave the attract mode, the sound plays good, music and SFX!
It seems like the debug is enabled though, and I will have to lookup the dip switch settings.
At least the game is alive and responsive. The fact that I can have sound, image and controls seems to be a good thing.
Next step will be to remove all the chips, give it a good cleaning overall, clean the sockets and legs and do a visual inspection to see all that can potentially be broken (traces, legs, etc).
To be continued!
Last edited: