marauder666 Posted March 15, 2022 Share Posted March 15, 2022 (edited) If you've ever seen the threads me and Juansolo have posted you'll have noticed the complaints about the inconsistency of PAL 7800s, especially crashing with a Dragonfly, mainly in Ballblazer. This one is different, in fact, never seen this revision before. It's a 29th week 1989 board, but some of the Fairchild branded logic ICs are for mid 1986. Never had one with Fairchild ICs before. Rockwell CPU, its usually a UM branded one on PAL machines. No issues with this CPU, unlike on some NTSC machines. The RAM is from an unknown manufacturer, dont recognise the logo, its Japanese and the part number seems to indicate Epson. Label on BIOS EPROM, showing more details than just part no. Zero ohm resistor to select it, is mounted vertically on right side of board, usually its angled. Never had that before. No bodges on the back of the board. Soldering is really good, easy to unsolder with no pad damage, some PAL machines have an almost corroded solder on them, and its a real pain to deal with. Had the DF running Ballblazer for hours today, turned it off, restarted, ran for hours again. This hasn't happened on any of the 7800s I've had before. Only weirdness was auto starting Frenzy from the Dragonfly when a Zipstik was plugged in, auto fire off. Didnt happen with a 2600 stick, or the 7800 pad. Need to check that on the NTSC machine. Something about the Zipstik??? Who knows. Zipstik is working fine on the XL, values as expected in the simple basic program. Edited March 15, 2022 by marauder666 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+-^CrossBow^- Posted March 16, 2022 Share Posted March 16, 2022 Did I ever send you guys the gerbers for the SMD version of the chroma fix? It is less than 1/4 the size of the TH version. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
juansolo Posted March 16, 2022 Share Posted March 16, 2022 Nope, only have the original. Quick unrelated question for you. Was watching a Coleco video of yours recently and noticed you had some sort of joystick mod on the controllers. Do you have any details of that? Looking to getting one in a bit and the controllers are dire, was thinking something like that and maybe bodging some tact switches in underneath might make them useable. Also completed pic of above machine. I was ->this<- close to buying it from Cleggy... Just because it was so unusual. All round a much better quality PAL machine in every respect from any we've come across before. Even down to the PCB just being much more nicely made. But it not having issues with anything at all was just unusual. PAL machines are very hit and miss. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+-^CrossBow^- Posted March 16, 2022 Share Posted March 16, 2022 2 hours ago, juansolo said: Nope, only have the original. Quick unrelated question for you. Was watching a Coleco video of yours recently and noticed you had some sort of joystick mod on the controllers. Do you have any details of that? Looking to getting one in a bit and the controllers are dire, was thinking something like that and maybe bodging some tact switches in underneath might make them useable. Which video? I actually use standard CV controllers when playing CV games. I will try and remember to send you guys the gerbers for the SMD version but keep in mind it is tiny stuff. I actually had the boards made up so I wouldn't have to worry about trying to solder that fine pitch stuff myself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
juansolo Posted March 16, 2022 Share Posted March 16, 2022 This one. First shot shows it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+-^CrossBow^- Posted March 16, 2022 Share Posted March 16, 2022 Oh! That is a standard CV controller that I removed the disc topper and replaced it with a screw on ball top instead. They weren't cheap though. I want to say that ran me about $10+shipping for a pair of them and they still have a seam on them that I can feel when using them and not a huge fan of. But, I will state they make using it and playing games much better! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
juansolo Posted March 16, 2022 Share Posted March 16, 2022 That's interesting. I think it'd be pretty easy to replicate that with an arcade ball, a long bolt and a bit of plastic tubing... Just (as in about an hour ago) got a PAL CV, gonna do all sorts of stuff to it as experiments (plan is to swap out the RAM so I can run it with a 5v supply, RGB mod it, and attempt to make the controllers better...). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+-^CrossBow^- Posted March 16, 2022 Share Posted March 16, 2022 1 hour ago, juansolo said: That's interesting. I think it'd be pretty easy to replicate that with an arcade ball, a long bolt and a bit of plastic tubing... Just (as in about an hour ago) got a PAL CV, gonna do all sorts of stuff to it as experiments (plan is to swap out the RAM so I can run it with a 5v supply, RGB mod it, and attempt to make the controllers better...). Where are you planning to source for +5 only ram? Cause in the states we are thin on sources for them at the moment. Might have to resort to using different ram completely and made other modifications. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
juansolo Posted March 17, 2022 Share Posted March 17, 2022 Got some coming from eBay, I'll let you know how we get on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
juansolo Posted March 22, 2022 Share Posted March 22, 2022 (edited) Well it works. Ignore the old composite mod (nothing to do with us), that'll be coming out shortly as it goes to RGB. RAM came from an eBay seller this side of the pond so no use to you really. The machine itself was a mess. We've actually got 4 CVs in for a guy we do a lot of work for. 2x NTSC and 2x PAL. He sold me one of the PAL machines for buttons. It was a bit scruffy and had what looked like a soft drinks spill on it from years ago and the solder is particularly corroded/bad. It also didn't have a great picuture compared to the others even though it had previously been comp modded. Cleaning it up initially killed it. But some work on the solder and swapping the caps not only brought it back, but improved the picture no end. The solder was horrible to remove. It took me the best part of a day to pull the RAM and clean it up (it's where the brunt of the spill was). While I was at it I also desoldered, cleaned and re-soldered the video chip. Just to make sure that when I do RGB it, I have nice new solder to go at. The RAM mod was a bit of a pain because, as usual, the instructions were for an NTSC machine. So a lot of probing later and we're rocking. I've fettled in a barrel DC jack. Just wating for bits to land now before I can finish it. Also got some alternative balls on the way that might work. Might take a little more effort to fit, but significantly cheaper than the ones from the GB of days past if they work. Edited March 22, 2022 by juansolo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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