Galaga, worst game ever?

telmnstr

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Some time ago I bought a Galaga and a Ms. Pac Man set from the local craigslist.

Since then. I swear, Galaga is the work of the devil. My guess is the boards are just built *really* bad?

Original boardset had been worked on before. Started off with a normal RAM error (video PCB or some such). Finally it quick working that far.

Bought a new boardset off of ebay. Sure it was for a cocktail, switched the monitor around, only the boot screen is upside down, I'll figure it out later. Lasted about 5 days. Power cycled the machine a few times (gave it a minute or two) while working on an automation system, and now it's throwing a 2H error.

A: Looking around I see a high demand for the boards, I assume this is because they are garbage.

B: Do any of those chinese made "all in one" boards do Galaga, and allow you to set it to only run Galaga? I'm thinking a Galaga emulator board might be needed, since the originals seems to fail?

Is it really just me? Or do these board sets have low quality that results in lots of failures?

For some time I thought about trying to put all of the chips into a cad program and chunk out a new PCB that holds the original chips. A single board with better quality sockets and what not. Think this would solve it?

My unit has an aftermarket switchmode power supply, as well.
 
Can't say for sure. But when I got mine, I pulled all the socketed chips, cleaned them, and replaced any bad sockets. I've been up and running for several months. Daily use too. No problems.
 
If by "worst game ever" you mean "no fun, too repetitive, boring" - then, yes it is....
 
The sockets are notorious for being bad on Galagas.
I would replace all the sockets,clean the legs on the chips and put them back in. Then try it out.
You might try to clean and reseat the chips before replacing the sockets just to see if that works.
 
If by "worst game ever" you mean "no fun, too repetitive, boring" - then, yes it is....

mod, would you say Crystal Castles is better? :) I love Galaga, glad that we have the 20th Anniv. one, I know it's not true, but it's emulated, and it's modern hardware.

OP:
I've never experienced one of these myself, but from what I gather any sockets, or the fuse holders, all that sort of stuff goes bad. you have to consider these are almost 30 years old. they exhibit all kinds of strange software or CPU abnormalities too, fortunately these and the Pacs symptoms are all well documented with pretty easy solutions I guess.

there's lots of repair services out there too, on KLOV in particular I'm sure there's some people that do them. stay away from those scam artists on ebay.
 
I put together a kit, but haven't yet listed it on my website. It has all new 24/28/40/42 pin sockets and replacements for all of the resistor packs.

The sockets on Galaga are shite... the tall flat resistor packs are horrible intermittent pieces of crap... You need to replace those and clean the custom chip legs to see if you have any other problems. If not, you could end up chasing your tail trying to find the problems.
 
Galaga just has a lot of parts that age badly...

Single wipe IC sockets - lose their springyness and the contacts oxidise.
Custom chips in the sockets are a type whose legs go black with oxide.
Fragile resistor networks that are very easily damaged, when bend the legs crack, they may work ok when straightened but only until that oxidises.
Ribbon cables - always a bad idea, again the contact gets worse over time if they are never removed and reseated.

Horrible boards to work on as you have to put in hours of work to rule out all of the above.
 
Okay. Back on the first boardset that never worked, I did all the cleaning of the chips. Wire brush low speed dremel, etc. Verified all of the eproms using roms downloaded for MAME, etc.

Haven't begun to work on the new one, yet. I did notice on my original board one of the sockets had been replaced with the type that has a full metal cup around each pin versus cheap plastic single sided one.

I remember reading about those resistor packs, but mine didn't have the ones as described on the web sites. Mine had those that look like more modern ones, and no signs of resoldering.
 
The sockets you describe are called Machined Pin sockets - the best socket type you can get, not cheap which is why the were never used on original boards. Sounds like your board has been repaired in the past, in theory a lot of the gremlins should be gone. Tho you are still left with the ribbon cables, always worth a good reseat of those.
 
B: Do any of those chinese made "all in one" boards do Galaga, and allow you to set it to only run Galaga? I'm thinking a Galaga emulator board might be needed, since the originals seems to fail?

Yeah, the 48-in-1's and 60-in-1's have Galaga, and you can disable every game but one, and it'll boot straight into that game with no selection menu.
 
I can't say it's the worst game. but I like its prequel Galaxian a little better in some ways.

I'm just sick of other people thinking its the only "arcade game" out their. Once I showed a friend Gyruss, and he though it was a sequel to galaga( ha!:) ) . There are so many other better games out their people have never heard of. That's probably another reason that drove me into this hobby.
 
[QUOTE=only the boot screen is upside down
Isn't all galaga boot screens upside down I have had a few and all of the booted upside down.
Not sure but I don't think thats your problem.
 
Galagas are very time consuming to repair. Once you take care of the obvious you can get down to business. Those custom chips are very finicky and I have found that freeze spray and a heat gun are helpful to scout out any marginal custom chips. Also don't forget to check the ribbon cable - I have found that they are folded and pressed against the back of the PCBS and over time the insulation gets pierced by some component leads that can short to the wires inside. You can rule that out by bowing the cable outside the boardset. I also recommend adding a fan on the boards in the cabinet. You don't need a noisey one or a lot of airflow, just enough to get the ambient air moving. Getting rid of the metal case (nice oven) is even better. Once you do get the boardset repaired properly, they will work for quite a long time again. My best advice for Galaga aficionados is to have a spare working boardset or a 48 in 1 set to play only Galaga with an adapter as a backup. They are over 25 years old now. It's amazing that they are still running at all as they have exceeded their useful designed running life by over 20 years and semiconductor technology was still in its infancy back then.

Best,

Bill
 
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