Ghostbusters Repair Log , PCB Info and Gondomania Interchangeability

TimePiloteer

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Ok, not really a full repair log, but…

I've been working on a Data East The Real Ghostbusters pcb for a client who has been very patient. The symptoms were a screwed up title screen, and lots of messed up sprites (background tiles were OK).

I narrowed the problem down to a surface mount chip on the video pcb, TC17G042AF at 12M, with good active inputs but dead outputs (I used Gondomania schematics as a reference).

Not having the tools for SMD work or the replacement chip on hand I was going to send the board back. But then I did a little reading and found some info that the Gondomania video pcb was very similar. I have one in my multi-rotary cabinet, so I pulled it just to see if this was true. I swapped roms on the video pcb, plugged it in to the cpu pcb, and the title screen and most of the sprites were fixed. This also helped me to isolate the SMD chip as the culprit above, as it had same active inputs but also active outputs.

The owner of the board and I then decided to split the purchase of another Gondomania PCB off eBay to pillage the video PCB, fix the Ghostbusters, and give me a spare 1/2 working set as a backup to my Gondomania (and maybe someday get around to replacing that SMD chip).

The new PCB arrived, but it was an older version of the board style, and was missing some jumper locations. The video PCB worked but had a lot of missing background tiles.

I ended up adjusting jumper settings on my original Gondomania video pcb to fix the Ghostbusters, and used the newly acquired video pcb to get my Gondomania back working.

It turns out there are different revs of the CPU and Video PCBs for Ghostbusters and Gondomania, so I am going to use this thread to document those as best I can. Here goes…
 
The CPU board I worked on was DE-0273-1.

IMG_8075 (Small).jpg

It has a few modifications from the factory on it. A cut trace between D and E and row 12:

IMG_8076 (Small).jpg

Bodge wires from a 74LS32 at E7 to various points (mine had the jumpers on the bottom of the pcb, but there are pictures online of sets where the jumpers are on top).
IMG_8080 (Small).jpg

And the socket at D7 has a pin bent out and soldered to a via directly:
IMG_8078 (Small).jpg

There is also a jumper, JP1 that is bridged.
IMG_8079 (Small).jpg

Another board set I sold a while back after repairing had a later version CPU board, DE-0273-3, which you can see on my For Sale post:

It did not have the JP1 jumper, the cut trace, or any of the bodge wires.
 
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The Ghostbusters video PCB I was working on is labeled DE-0259-1.

It has a jumper between two vias above the Deco VSC30 chip at 11 B:
IMG_8066 (Small).jpg

It has a jumper near the crystal, JP5, with pads 2 and 1 bridged:

IMG_8060 (Small).jpg

It has jumper JP1 bridged and JP2 open:
IMG_8061 (Small).jpg
And JP3 bridged and JP4 open:
IMG_8062 (Small).jpg
It also has a factory bodge wire between two chips at 3B:
IMG_8067 (Small).jpg

The bad SMD chip is here:
IMG_8065 (Small).jpg
 

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The newly arrived Gondomania video pcb appears to be an earlier revision, DE-0259-0, and was not compatible with Ghostbusters CPU pcb.
IMG_8069 (Small).jpg

It does not have jumper JP5 near the crystal at all.

JP1 is open and JP2 is bridged, the reverse of Ghostbusters.

Same JP3/JP4 setting as Ghostbusters.

The bridged trace and bodge wire between 3E chips and above the VSC30 custom are not needed (those locations are already bridged).

Additionally there is no auxillary power connector CN3 (though this does not affect its operability).
 
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My original Gondomania video PCB is a later version, DE-0259-3. It has all the JP jumpers, and does not need the 2 additional jumpers.

IMG_8064 (Small).jpg

JP5 was not bridged anywhere (open), and had JP1 open and JP2 closed, and JP3 closed.

I ended up using this video PCB to fix the Ghostbusters, and got it fully working by swapping JP1 and JP2 on it, and bridging JP5 pads 1 and 2. JP1 must enable 27512 eprom address spaces since all the Ghostbusters video roms are 27512, and Gondomania has 27256.

Hope this helps anyone in the future that is working on these boards.
 
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