Gauntlet Dark Legacy not booting

[Paladin]

If you still need it, here's a link to a writeup I did on creating a compactflash conversion for Gauntlet Legends. Just replace the compactflash with a hard drive, and the rest of the instructions should be fine.
http://home.comcast.net/~dark.paladin/gauntlet/flash.htm

 

[demogo]

If your video card and/or hard drive are bad you will get an error number on the LED.

I don't think this is a hard drive issue. If you watch the boot sequence carefully, it begins and the LED number will increment as it hits each system. The hard drive is one of the systems it checks so there has to be a ROM in control at that point.

If the LED never changes then I don't think it's a hard drive issue.

 

[mfrohs]

Ok that makes sense. I wish I could find some sort of chart for what the LED numbers indicate. It is showing an 8 with a dot in the lower right from the time it turns on.

I thought of one thing that might be an issue?? The GDL board has a jumper for positive or negative sync, but I have no idea which these monitors are. I'm going to go play with all of the jumper settings for a while. The CPU board jumpers are very confusing, I'll attach a picture. The settings it came with were... J1-4 (2&3), J5 (1&2) and J6 only has 2 pins... not 3 like the chart indicates.

 

[mfrohs]

IT WORKS! As usual with things like this I have no idea what finally did it, but I was playing with all of the jumpers and dip switches and it finally just came up. It's hard to tell what the problem was because some of the CPU jumpers were in a different position than they came in while I was messing with the I/O jumpers, and I moved the CPU jumpers back and it worked. I'm a little bit curious, but not a whole lot because it works! Thank you guys so much. I probably would have just cried myself to sleep and sent it back otherwise, hah.

If anyone is interested in the switch or jumper settings I am using right now, or want pictures or anything just let me know. Again I'm no expert but I now have settings that let GDL run in a cyberball cabinet. Woohooooo!

EDIT: Time to hook up the fans.

 

[demogo]

Ok that makes sense. I wish I could find some sort of chart for what the LED numbers indicate. It is showing an 8 with a dot in the lower right from the time it turns on.

I thought of one thing that might be an issue?? The GDL board has a jumper for positive or negative sync, but I have no idea which these monitors are. I'm going to go play with all of the jumper settings for a while. The CPU board jumpers are very confusing, I'll attach a picture. The settings it came with were... J1-4 (2&3), J5 (1&2) and J6 only has 2 pins... not 3 like the chart indicates.

> I wish I could find some sort of chart for what the LED numbers indicate.

You and me both. I don't think anyone has managed to ever produce one here.

There's no way that the sync not matching your monitor is going to keep the board from booting. You just won't get any video.

Have you checked the manual for both GDL and the GDL conversion kit jumpers? That may be different. It's certainly worth checking.

 

[demogo]

IT WORKS! As usual with things like this I have no idea what finally did it, but I was playing with all of the jumpers and dip switches and it finally just came up. It's hard to tell what the problem was because some of the CPU jumpers were in a different position than they came in while I was messing with the I/O jumpers, and I moved the CPU jumpers back and it worked. I'm a little bit curious, but not a whole lot because it works! Thank you guys so much. I probably would have just cried myself to sleep and sent it back otherwise, hah.

If anyone is interested in the switch or jumper settings I am using right now, or want pictures or anything just let me know. Again I'm no expert but I now have settings that let GDL run in a cyberball cabinet. Woohooooo!

EDIT: Time to hook up the fans.

Congrats!

Now you'll find out whether you have the GDL board or the GDL conversion board. If it's the former your buttons won't work correctly; if it's the latter they will.

Edit: You should take a picture of the jumpers and add it to a message here in this thread so you can further the collective KLOV knowledge and help the next person out down the line. When someone has this same problem in a year or two and they find this thread they will want to know what your jumper settings were.

 

[mecha]

Congrats!

Now you'll find out whether you have the GDL board or the GDL conversion board. If it's the former your 8 way joysticks won't work; if it's the latter they will.

lol

if that's the case, I have an extra 49-way board. don't have extra 49-way joysticks though, both Blitz and Sportstation cabs are occupied.

glad you got it to work though. did you happen to pull up a manual anywhere? I'll dig one up on arcarc, I hope.

 

[demogo]

GDL doesn't need the 49 way boards; just the sticks.

Getting the non-conversion GL/GDL boards to work properly with 8 way sticks is its own adventure that it took me quite a while to solve.

 

[mecha]

oh, interesting. it's built directly into the board? why on Blitz/Showtime does it still need the separate board then, or do you not know?

every time I read about Gauntlet Legends or Dark Legacy I think that they have to be very fun games to play. I wasn't a fan of the old old Atari ones though.

 

[demogo]

oh, interesting. it's built directly into the board? why on Blitz/Showtime does it still need the separate board then, or do you not know?

every time I read about Gauntlet Legends or Dark Legacy I think that they have to be very fun games to play. I wasn't a fan of the old old Atari ones though.

I think the support for the 49-way joystick must be on the main boards. It has to be; there aren't any additional joystick boards.

I like GL and my kids really like it a lot; it's a hit whenever they have friends over. Think of the classic Gauntlet games with nice, updated graphics and some extras and you'll be in the ballpark. I have yet to enter the cheat code that will turn the Valkyrie nude.

My GL cabinet now also houses NBA Jam which is also a very popular game here.

 

[mfrohs]

I think the support for the 49-way joystick must be on the main boards. It has to be; there aren't any additional joystick boards.

I like GL and my kids really like it a lot; it's a hit whenever they have friends over. Think of the classic Gauntlet games with nice, updated graphics and some extras and you'll be in the ballpark. I have yet to enter the cheat code that will turn the Valkyrie nude.

My GL cabinet now also houses NBA Jam which is also a very popular game here.

That's what mine is now too, GDL and NBA Hangtime. It's a great combo!

So, you were right, my buttons don't work! Well that's not entirely true, the start buttons work fine but nothing else does. Does this mean I'm going to have to use the GUN1 and GUN2 connectors? If so I might need some info on how you switch between NBA Jam and GL.

My 8-ways seem to work ok after I set the jumper on board.

 

[demogo]

That's what mine is now too, GDL and NBA Hangtime. It's a great combo!

So, you were right, my buttons don't work! Well that's not entirely true, the start buttons work fine but nothing else does. Does this mean I'm going to have to use the GUN1 and GUN2 connectors? If so I might need some info on how you switch between NBA Jam and GL.

My 8-ways seem to work ok after I set the jumper on board.

Yes, your symptom is exactly what I'd expect from a GDL board that was set to use the 49-way optical sticks -- the 3 buttons won't work but the start one will.

The good news is that it's possible to make the non-conversion GL (or GDL) work really well with 8 way sticks. The bad news is that it carries the buttons on bizarre, non-standard wires even with the 8-way switch turned on and a clean solution to just make it work is non-trivial. The ugly solutions like hacking the wiring harness wires together wouldn't have worked either because I ended up with significant interference between the wires.

 

[Mitsurugi-w]

And BTW the additional 49-way board is used for players 3 and 4. If you are on a two player cabinet you wouldn't need it.

 

[demogo]

And BTW the additional 49-way board is used for players 3 and 4. If you are on a two player cabinet you wouldn't need it.

You mean on blitz/showtime?

 

[mfrohs]

Yes, your symptom is exactly what I'd expect from a GDL board that was set to use the 49-way optical sticks -- the 3 buttons won't work but the start one will.

The good news is that it's possible to make the non-conversion GL (or GDL) work really well with 8 way sticks. The bad news is that it carries the buttons on bizarre, non-standard wires even with the 8-way switch turned on and a clean solution to just make it work is non-trivial. The ugly solutions like hacking the wiring harness wires together wouldn't have worked either because I ended up with significant interference between the wires.

Hrm that's what I was afraid of. I wonder if it would work with diodes in place on a hacked up wiring harness solution. Otherwise it sounds like some molex plugs to switch between the jamma harness and the gun1/gun2 connectors?

 

[mfrohs]

Ok I'm going to try a setup to swap the player buttons between the jamma harness and the gun connectors. Please tell me if this wont work / is going to break something.

I found out with some adjusting the power cable for a floppy drive will fit right onto the gun1/2 connectors. I just happen to have a lot of those and hard drive power cables, so I'm going to use the hard drive power connectors as a type of molex swappable plug, and have one set go to the jamma harness and one to the gun connectors.

Here is a terrible diagram to illustrate:

GDL Setup
 (floppy conn)  (hd conn)
 GUN1[]-----------[]------------[] Plr 1 Buttons
                                 
JAMMA[               

NBA Hangtime Setup
                (hd conn)
 GUN1[         ---[]------------[] Plr 1 Buttons
               |             
               |          
JAMMA[----------

Sorry it's really, really late. Just spent the past two hours trying to figure out why the board quit working again. I think the jamma edge connector is about done.

 

[demogo]

Hrm that's what I was afraid of. I wonder if it would work with diodes in place on a hacked up wiring harness solution. Otherwise it sounds like some molex plugs to switch between the jamma harness and the gun1/gun2 connectors?

> I wonder if it would work with diodes in place on a hacked up wiring harness solution

Yes it would. It would be a real mess but it could be done that way. I opted not to pursue that route because I didn't want to hack the harnesses to hell and back and had doubts about how it would hold up over time.

> Otherwise it sounds like some molex plugs to switch between the jamma harness and the gun1/gun2 connectors?

I did something like this on the p3 and p4 controls but found interference on enough other lines that I just made the molex connectors carry the 8 way sticks as well as the buttons.

For p1 and p2, you need the jamma harness because it's carrying almost all of the signals you need to the CP, so you can't just switch it out with a molex connector. I opted to create small PCBs that routed all of the signals onto the board, filtered them with diodes, and then routed them off the board back to the CP. It works great, no switching of molex connectors are needed for p1 and p2, it doesn't involve hacking any of the cables up (so it can quickly be restored back to stock parts), and it's a stable solution that should hold up.

I also made a set for someone else here on KLOV that was dealing with the same situation. Here's what the finished products looked like for p1 and p2; it's plug and play!

 

[demogo]

Ok I'm going to try a setup to swap the player buttons between the jamma harness and the gun connectors. Please tell me if this wont work / is going to break something.

I found out with some adjusting the power cable for a floppy drive will fit right onto the gun1/2 connectors. I just happen to have a lot of those and hard drive power cables, so I'm going to use the hard drive power connectors as a type of molex swappable plug, and have one set go to the jamma harness and one to the gun connectors.

Here is a terrible diagram to illustrate:

GDL Setup
 (floppy conn)  (hd conn)
 GUN1[]-----------[]------------[] Plr 1 Buttons
                                 
JAMMA[               

NBA Hangtime Setup
                (hd conn)
 GUN1[         ---[]------------[] Plr 1 Buttons
               |             
               |          
JAMMA[----------

Sorry it's really, really late. Just spent the past two hours trying to figure out why the board quit working again. I think the jamma edge connector is about done.

In theory that would work for p1/p2, yes. You'd have to manually switch p1 and p2 connectors whenever you switched games though, and you'd be hacking up your original harnesses to do it.

 

[mecha]

so what you're really saying is..... go buy some 49-way joysticks, and be done with it?

 

[demogo]

so what you're really saying is..... go buy some 49-way joysticks, and be done with it?

Honestly, the path of least resistance is to go buy a GDL conversion kit set of boards because it's already set up to use standard Jamma wires for everything. If you have one, you're golden.

If you have the original non-conversion GL/GDL boards that were set to use 49 way joysticks, you're gonna have issues when you try to use it with anything else.

The issues can be nicely overcome but it's a PITA to do it in a clean, non-destructive way. I sweated the details for a *long* time before I figured out my solution.

Most of the battle was figuring out the cleanest, nicest way of solving the issues, the rest was the soldering, crimping, assembly of new control harnesses, figuring out which wires had to go where, carefully testing it, etc.

The kit I produced for the other guy here on KLOV turned out to be a pretty elegant plug-and-play solution. My proto setup I use here works great but is less pretty because it was my first real attempt at soldering.