Bally Cheap Squeak issues

ELutz

Well-known member

Donor 2011
Joined
Nov 3, 2007
Messages
7,825
Reaction score
766
Location
LOUISVILLE, Kentucky
I'm finishing up a Lady Luck. One last issue is sound....or lack of. Does anyone know the LED flash code? I'm getting three flashes, with the LED hanging on at the third flash. I'm really not for sure what the LED is supposed to do on the Cheap Squeak sound board. I Googled, but found very little on the Cheap Squeak. I have no sound in game play. If I push the sound board test button, I do get sound. Any thoughts? Thanks!

Edward
 
Edward, if my old memory serves, first flash is CPU running, second and third are rom checksum and fourth would be ram (internal to the cpu). Stuck on third makes me wonder if third passed or failed? Can you dump the roms and verify them? How's the rom sockets and cpu sockets?

D
 
Your answer lies here... http://www.pinrepair.com/bally/index3.htm#sound

No fourth flash indicates possible bad U12.

Sadly the pinrepair guides don't really cover the -45 Cheap Squeak boards. Do they? I've never really seen much, if anything, in there about them. The Bally and 6803 guides looks to cover the Squawk and Talk and Sounds Deluxe boards (-51/-56 boards), which are different beasts indeed.

Cheap Squeak is a 6803 based board, Squawk and Talk is 6809 and Sounds Deluxe is a 68000 if I recall.

Cheap Squeak doesn't have a U12 on it I don't think.

D
 
Edward, if my old memory serves, first flash is CPU running, second and third are rom checksum and fourth would be ram (internal to the cpu). Stuck on third makes me wonder if third passed or failed? Can you dump the roms and verify them? How's the rom sockets and cpu sockets?

D

The IC sockets (seem) good. I swapped in a known good processor...no change. The ROMs checksum-ed good. There's not much to this damn thing, but i've never had to mess with one. I'm curious about the DAC. I'll replace the sockets.

Edward
 
Sadly the pinrepair guides don't really cover the -45 Cheap Squeak boards. Do they? I've never really seen much, if anything, in there about them. The Bally and 6803 guides looks to cover the Squawk and Talk and Sounds Deluxe boards (-51/-56 boards), which are different beasts indeed.

Cheap Squeak is a 6803 based board, Squawk and Talk is 6809 and Sounds Deluxe is a 68000 if I recall.

Cheap Squeak doesn't have a U12 on it I don't think.

D

Yeah, no U12 on the -45.....and yeah, almost zero info out there about it.

Edward
 
The IC sockets (seem) good. I swapped in a known good processor...no change. The ROMs checksum-ed good. There's not much to this damn thing, but i've never had to mess with one. I'm curious about the DAC. I'll replace the sockets.

Edward

My Spy Hunter has the same sound board I believe. Any measurements or info I can help you with I will...
 
Edward,

This one had me curious I guess. I went back and looked at some schems and notes.

As you know, the board is pretty simple, CPU boots, loads data from the U3 and U4 proms via U2, with U5 handling OE, outputs data to the DAC at U6 which in turn sends analog to the audio amp section. The rest of the board is support for the cpu and so forth (clock, rst, Vcc, etc.)

That the board outputs audio with the test switch tells a lot. Any fault with the CPU, ROM, DAC or analog circuits should either give you either no audio at any point, or messed up audio both in-game and with the test button.

Just like on the MPU board, the First LED flash might be quick. Very quick. So quick it might be hard to notice. Maybe the board is getting to the fourth and leaves the LED on (wish I had one here to check). If it is the fourth, that's all of them on a Cheap Squeak and the board has correctly booted.

Where's that leave things? Well, there's no sound call input buffer on the Cheap Squeak. Sound calls from the MPU to the Cheap Squeak go directly to P20 - P24 on U1. Since you tried another 6803, we can assume the problem isn't there. That moves the issue off the Cheap Squeak over to the MPU side of things. I thinking the issue is either interconnects/wiring between the boards or an MPU PIA related type issue (I don't have MPU schems handy and I don't recall if there's any logic/decoder in the chain on the MPU or if sound select is right off a PIA)

Good luck!
D
 
Last edited:
Running with what Zoot just said, had a similar problem with a S & T. The test button produced sounds and the game did nothing. I understand that the boards are different, but I think they are fed from the same location on the MPU right? I found that one of the PIA's on the MPU was bad, and replacing it restored the sound during game play.
 
What about the jumpers? Are your jumpers all in the right position?

The jumpers are for eprom strapping. The 6803 needs to load the boot code from one of the eproms at startup (don't recall which eprom has the boot code).

I would assume if the board was strapped, or jumpered, incorrectly, it would not be able to load the boot code and the LED would be locked on solid from powerup (no flashes at all).

D
 
Thanks guys! You all are giving me plenty to run with. As for the jumpers...I'm sure they are correct. This board was working.....and then one day was silent. Thanks again!

Edward
 
Back
Top Bottom