Asteroids Deluxe harness to Asteroids Harness

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Am I correct that with a couple of pins swapping I can make an Asteroids harness out of an Asteroids Deluxe Harness ? It seems they only swapped some pins between sides right ?

The only differences I see:

10 is Hyperspace on Asteroids, Shield on AD but that doesn't really make a difference I guess....

Swapped:
N-12
P-13
S-15

That's all right ? Why on earth did they actually bother ? Trying to prevent upgrading Asteroids machines with just a AD board ?

Or are there differences on "other sides" of the harness ?
 
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There are differences in the audio circitry of the AR boards between the two. I seem to remember posting an analysis of it a while back.
 
The audio differences are on the game PCBs, they both use AR1 boards for amplification. All you need to do to play one is to swap the input lines around.
 
Thanks. Yes the list is this:

Asteroids:
START1 | N | 12 | COIN C
START2 | P | 13 | COIN L
ROT LEFT | S | 15 | ROT RIGHT

Asteroids Deluxe:
COIN C | N | 12 | START1
COIN L | P | 13 | START2
ROT RIGHT | S | 15 | ROT LEFT

So these need to be swapped.

The audio connections are still the same so any changes on the PCB are irrelevant I'd say.
 
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I had an Asteroids PCB in my DLX cab for a few months without swapping any pins.

- Swapped the rotate buttons on the control panel.
- Press Start to coin the game up.
- Drop a coin to start the game.

Job done.

Edit: ah. Didn't know about the ROM hack. That sounds interesting.
 
The audio differences are on the game PCBs, they both use AR1 boards for amplification. All you need to do to play one is to swap the input lines around.

The audio differences are on both the game PCB and the AR boards... they go together.

The "AR1" in Asteroids is a -01 (dash zero one) type. The AR1 in Asteroids Deluxe is a -03 type. There are a few differences between them. See for yourself (partial schematics attached). Aside from the presence of the "audio disable" line on the -01 (which is of no consequence, as neither Asteroids nor Asteroids Deluxe use it), the primary difference is the presence of resistors R15 & R16 in the inputs. They effectively forms a voltage divider in the AD input circuit (presumalby due to a higher source level from the game PCB). Other changes include a different value for input coupling caps (C6 & whatever on the other channel) from 10uF to 0.22uF, and a different output coupling cap (C9 & C10) from 1000uF to 3300uF. These latter changes will effect the frequency response characteristics.

So, while one can certainly interchangably use AR1-01 and AR1-03 boards with Asteroids or Asteroids Deluxe; expect the have to significantly adjust the volume level (due to the difference in input levels), and hear things sound a bit different (due to the different frequency responses).
 

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I think there's one other major difference between the 01 and 03 AR1's, the 01 uses a different connector to all other AR's for the audio out section, it's 4 pins in a line instead of in a square block, so there are some minor harness changes needed.

Dan
 
The audio differences are on both the game PCB and the AR boards... they go together.

The "AR1" in Asteroids is a -01 (dash zero one) type. The AR1 in Asteroids Deluxe is a -03 type. There are a few differences between them. See for yourself (partial schematics attached). Aside from the presence of the "audio disable" line on the -01 (which is of no consequence, as neither Asteroids nor Asteroids Deluxe use it), the primary difference is the presence of resistors R15 & R16 in the inputs. They effectively forms a voltage divider in the AD input circuit (presumalby due to a higher source level from the game PCB). Other changes include a different value for input coupling caps (C6 & whatever on the other channel) from 10uF to 0.22uF, and a different output coupling cap (C9 & C10) from 1000uF to 3300uF. These latter changes will effect the frequency response characteristics.

So, while one can certainly interchangably use AR1-01 and AR1-03 boards with Asteroids or Asteroids Deluxe; expect the have to significantly adjust the volume level (due to the difference in input levels), and hear things sound a bit different (due to the different frequency responses).

Great info!!
 
I installed an Asteroids PCB in an Asteroids deluxe, had trouble getting any volume level.

With Darren's info, I pulled resistors R15 & R16 and the volume is now great!

I have terrible background noise left to fix. :(
 
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