Gorf board testing-newbie question

skramarck

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I stumbled onto a Gorf board set on ebay. This board set was purportedly pulled from a working Gorf decades ago and stored. I bought this expecting for it to not work, and no surprise, it doesn't work. The game powers on, turns light blue, then black squiggles...nothing more after that...no blind play, coin up, etc. The boardsall look clean and in relatively good shape, but I wanted to know the best way to test them without damaging anything.

I have a working Gorf boardset. Is it safe to swap the boards one at at time to see which ones do and which ones don't work? What I don't want to happen is to turn my one working Gorf board into a dud by doing something that isn't safe.

My hope is that if I can figure out which boards are not working on the recent purchase, I can endeavor to get them repaired.

Thanks again for any help!

Steve
 
I have a working Gorf boardset. Is it safe to swap the boards one at at time to see which ones do and which ones don't work? What I don't want to happen is to turn my one working Gorf board into a dud by doing something that isn't safe.


Steve


I have had many Gorf and Wizard of Wor games and have swapped the boards to determine where to start on a project many times. yes you can mess stuff up, but it's the quickest way to start finding whats wrong.... after you do these things first:

1. Check the power on the power supply (most likely you have already done this)
2. Carefully pull the boards. label position and direction they face because they can be put in backwards. I have seen this many times (and it's a good time to do a visual comparison with your working one to make sure they were right in the first place). After you get the boards out, unscrew the board on the bottom of the cage. Get a stiff nylon brush and carefully clean out the connectors. They get filled with crap, and about 75% of the time clear up a slew of problems if not fixes it.
3. replace the connector board on the cage.
4. using a big red rubber eraser and carefully go over the edge connectors on the boards to clean them up. Don't use a file or sandpaper (yes people have done this). Be careful to check the edge connectors to make sure the traces are secure first... sometimes they get burnt or delaminate and using an eraser can tear them. If one is bad there are remedies, but most likely you will be replacing the card.
5. Place the boards back in the cage and try it. If that doesnt work, start swapping.

From my experience with similar problems you describe, if this doesn't fix it, you have a rom or Z80 issue.
 
Mark your original working boards prior to pulling any from the cage. Swap one board at a time and mark them working until you find the culprit.
 
Was able to test all 6 boards.....4 work with no issues (including the one with the voice). One of the ram boards has some horizontal yellow lines (faint) but is playable. The other board, was missing all 8 of the 2114 chips and the CPU board is missing the 6032 heatsink.

Where are the best places to get these items? It looks like I got a decent deal on these boards and they actually might work completely once I score these chips!

Steve
 
If the cpu board is missing one of the 40 pin customs you are going to need to scavenge one from an original board.
 
Just missing the 18 pin (I think) 2114s (All 8 of them) and the heatsink for the other board. The chips are all present on that board, just not the sink.

I'm unsure what my issue is with that one RAM board that is causing the yellow lines, but that is a problem for another day.

I'm heading off to class now, but I will p/m you in the near future to see what you have available.

thanks again....the folks on this site are extremely helpful and it making my immersion into collecting much easier!

Steve
 
Not all of them had the heatsinks on the custom chips. They realized they were having problems with the customs going bad and added heatsinks sometime mid-production.
Its just a TO-220 heatsink they glued on the chip. I had a bunch of nos ones but have used/sold them all.
 
I've worked on dozens of GORF board-sets and personally found a high failure rate of non-heatsink equipped 40 pin customs.

If you have the heat-sink, you're usually going to be in good shape.

That RAM board with the faint yellow lines, that's probably a single failing RAM and will likely set off the collision detection during game play.
 
@Major Havoc- PM sent regarding heat sink...

@Mike Doyle- thanks for the update on the ram issue. The ship does not die, so the game is playable. What is the best way to test those rams, or do I just need to replace them all?

ordering the 2114 chips right now from the link that was provided....thanks again!

STeve
 
I can send you a test rom that will test your video ram.
Franklin, if you have a heatsink drop it by the house and I can send it to him with the rams. If you cant make it by let me know and I will come get it.
 
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Sounds good, you can pay me my finders fee on the tempest too :) HaHa
I should be home around 7:30 this evening. We can check out that bridge rectifier too.
 
Perfect timing on this thread. My Gorf took a dive last week. I had replaced the entire board set last year with one from QuarterAcrade. So, I was able to swap between the two sets and get a working set together. The non-working one does have the yellow lines and the collision issue. So, this is helpful info on how to possible get two working sets together.

Thanks.
 
Necro. :)
2. Carefully pull the boards. label position and direction they face because they can be put in backwards. I have seen this many times (and it's a good time to do a visual comparison with your working one to make sure they were right in the first place).

Is this statement correct? I am working on a GORF board set, and I have always heard you could swap the boards around. I have them arranged in the only orientation they will fit due to having to fix several custom chips by inserting them into machine pin sockets and soldering all the legs (broken and unbroken) to the socket. This makes the chips taller and will only fit with behind certain cards. My current order is as follows from front to back (front is the open face of the cage and back is the side with the power connector): CPU BD, PATTERN BD, GAME BD, ROM BD, RAM BD, RAM BD.
 
Necro. :)


Is this statement correct? I am working on a GORF board set, and I have always heard you could swap the boards around. I have them arranged in the only orientation they will fit due to having to fix several custom chips by inserting them into machine pin sockets and soldering all the legs (broken and unbroken) to the socket. This makes the chips taller and will only fit with behind certain cards. My current order is as follows from front to back (front is the open face of the cage and back is the side with the power connector): CPU BD, PATTERN BD, GAME BD, ROM BD, RAM BD, RAM BD.
I never tried to put them in backwards. I just follow the @Charles Kline method of card placement. though I was doing that before I knew he existed I think, but I'll just say it's his way. lol and also you want the CPU board to be the outermost one because heat and just being made by AMI is the reason those Astrocade customs die.
 
I never tried to put them in backwards. I just follow the @Charles Kline method of card placement. though I was doing that before I knew he existed I think, but I'll just say it's his way. lol and also you want the CPU board to be the outermost one because heat and just being made by AMI is the reason those Astrocade customs die.
Thanks mecha as always very much. Do you have a link to view his arrangement?
 
Thanks mecha as always very much. Do you have a link to view his arrangement?

it's for Space Zap but mostly applies to the other Astrocade games
 
because the connectors in the base have a key, there is no such thing as installing the boards "backwards". I mean, I guess you could somehow do it but you'd really have to be a moron. I've never heard of it nor seen it done.

As it relates to the order of the boards, the two smaller ram cards are interchangeable (same board) so their order does not matter. As for the four larger boards, their order also does not matter. Each of the connector pins (1-100) are the same in every position so order does not matter.

That all said, I always put the CPU board in the front position to help with cooling. If using all 6 boards I put the Game board (with the headers) in the next position, also to help with cooling the I/O customs. For the remaining two boards (Rom and Pattern), do whatever makes you happy.

If you are using a High Score Saves board and thus removing the Rom board from the cage and running a total of 5 boards, then I put the Game board in the 3rd position from the front and leave the second position empty to assist with airflow to the customs.

Basically, you cannot screw this up
 
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