PC on working Robotron ROM set

Lanky Kong

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What's an acceptable/fair price for a working Robotron ROM set? I'm building up a robotron and I have a chance at a set but the price seems high for me (especially since it's untested).
 
I just bought a couple of used boards from ebay for around 20 apiece (i think)

in my opinion 15-20 is plenty high.
for 1 they probably have old roms so you'll have some expense in getting new ones burned if you want solid patched blue roms.

and 2, the ribbon cable is probably shot even if it works. so that's an expense in ordering one and a tedious job to replace.
 
ROM Chips set not ROM board

I just bought a couple of used boards from ebay for around 20 apiece (i think)

in my opinion 15-20 is plenty high.
for 1 they probably have old roms so you'll have some expense in getting new ones burned if you want solid patched blue roms.

and 2, the ribbon cable is probably shot even if it works. so that's an expense in ordering one and a tedious job to replace.

Thanks for the information, but I am not talking about the ROM board but the ROM chips. Sorry, I left the word chips out.

What's a reasonable/fair price on a working set of Robotron ROM chips?

From what you have replied, it sounds like I've almost avoided getting taken for all I'm worth.
 
oh! here is from the technical>digital eclipse section on my site-

the rom chips aren't bad to buy, see link below. but then you'll need to find a "KLOV friend" who you can ship them off to, burn them, then send back.

I see our resident Berzerk mastermind is now burning roms, I'd hit him up for services. he seems real cool.

For persons attempting to burn fixed Roms for a real Williams arcade machine.
Each ROM file corresponds to an EPROM on the game- numbers 1-9 are the same
The MAME files A, B and C correspond to EPROMs 10, 11 and 12.
If you already have the blue ROMs, then only EPROMs 5 and 11 have to be replaced
2732 Roms are available from- http://www.epromman.com/
You can obtain Rom burning services from various online locations, or seeking out members on the KLOV forums
 
The seller in this case is someone who has pulled a bunch of rom chips off boards with the mistaken assumption that they are worth $10 each because that is what some people charge for a new programmed chip.
 
you know what I find unusual. the robotron manual states that the old orange roms were replaced with blue for production machines.

but every loose rom board I've ever found has orange roms. Just what machines actually got original blue roms. must not be as common as the william's manual states.

I have 4 sets of orange roms now. I'd be curious to know if those original roms could be reprogrammed on a machine. that might be a nice thing to do with otherwise junk parts....
 
you know what I find unusual. the robotron manual states that the old orange roms were replaced with blue for production machines.

but every loose rom board I've ever found has orange roms. Just what machines actually got original blue roms. must not be as common as the william's manual states.

I have 4 sets of orange roms now. I'd be curious to know if those original roms could be reprogrammed on a machine. that might be a nice thing to do with otherwise junk parts....

The original rom board in my dedicated cab had yellow roms with a red/orange line marked through them then next to the "A" someone wrote in a "B", i didn't get a chance to check the high score when i first booted it so i'm not sure if they were reprogrammed as blues or not.

I was lucky enough to get a stack of boards off a semi local forum user as i was missing the Main board from my cabinet, lucky for me there was a set of blue roms and some other needed parts in there as well. (some parts available in my fs thread) (sorry shamless plug).

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i also noticed something about rom sets that is contrary to what i read online.
they state that the yellow/orange/red (whatever color that is) will boot to a default difficulty of 3. which is true.

but my patched blue romset also boots to difficulty 3 after you do a factory reset.

What's the truth on the blue vs orange difficulty default?
 
i also noticed something about rom sets that is contrary to what i read online.
they state that the yellow/orange/red (whatever color that is) will boot to a default difficulty of 3. which is true.

but my patched blue romset also boots to difficulty 3 after you do a factory reset.

What's the truth on the blue vs orange difficulty default?

sean's site says that yellow/orange/red should be difficulty 5 and blue is 3 (which thanks you reminded me that i read that and need to go change that to 5).

http://seanriddle.com/willrom.html
 
Well, it looks like I am glad I came here. I'll out myself and say I was looking at paying $125 for a set of Robotron ROM chips. I don't think that will be happening now.

This was the ebay auction he stopped that he'd be selling me the chips from:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Williams-Ro...379?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item337734f4f3

Two questions, is that even a complete set of Robotron Chips? He's missing chip 4-B and 7-B, correct? Also any william's experts out there able to identify the other williams' chips?

My last question would be, what's the difference between these robotron chips and the "blue" chips I keep seeing mentioned?
 
Well, it looks like I am glad I came here. I'll out myself and say I was looking at paying $125 for a set of Robotron ROM chips. I don't think that will be happening now.

This was the ebay auction he stopped that he'd be selling me the chips from:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Williams-Ro...379?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item337734f4f3

Two questions, is that even a complete set of Robotron Chips? He's missing chip 4-B and 7-B, correct? Also any william's experts out there able to identify the other williams' chips?

My last question would be, what's the difference between these robotron chips and the "blue" chips I keep seeing mentioned?


yup 4 and 7 are missing, the lower chips are ram chips (which everyone replaces with the cooler faster 4126's or w/e they are)
 
i also noticed something about rom sets that is contrary to what i read online.
they state that the yellow/orange/red (whatever color that is) will boot to a default difficulty of 3. which is true.

but my patched blue romset also boots to difficulty 3 after you do a factory reset.

What's the truth on the blue vs orange difficulty default?

I thought blue was also supposed to be 5.....Perhaps the Jrok board should really be set to 3 instead of 5! :)

What does twin galaxies say the difficulty should be set at for marathoning??

C.
 
I thought blue was also supposed to be 5.....Perhaps the Jrok board should really be set to 3 instead of 5! :)

What does twin galaxies say the difficulty should be set at for marathoning??

C.

just checked the blues i just put in and they are set to 5 and not 3
 
just checked the blues i just put in and they are set to 5 and not 3

Okay so I repeat my question, what's the difference between the orange/red/yellow chips and the blue chips?

-------

Since, I seem to have attracted a few people with a far higher Knowledge: (Robotron) than I, I'll ask another question.

What would a good price be for:

1 Robotron Cab (assuming nice shape w/ side art)
1 blank Robotron Control Panel (no art or joysticks or buttons)
1 Robotron Marquee (pretty good shape but needs white stuff cleaned off plexi/glass)
1 Robotron Bezel (supposedly rough condition)
2 Williams Power supply boards (both are the same)
2 Williams ROM boards
1 Williams Video/Decoder board (does robotron use a unique one or same as joust, etc?)
1 Williams interface board (same question here as above)
2 Williams Sound boards
1 Incomplete set of Robotron Chips (missing 4-B and 7-B)
------------------------------------------------------------------------

What would a good total price be for all of that?

If I am going to go through the hassle of piecemealing a Robotron I'd like to get a great deal.
 
Maybe $125 bucks if it looks nice? Does it even have a monitor in it? Have all the metal accessories been stripped off the cabinet, if they have then I would just walk away from the deal altogether (I have a hunch they might be, since the guy was selling williams' coin doors on ebay recently).

I would leave all the boards there, as neither one of us are williams board repair gurus, don't have a working setup to test them on and I can't exactly say I would trust a bunch of loose untested boards from someone who pulls rom chips because he thinks they are valuable. Jroks new replacement williams' board is coming this fall, and I would just wait on that, I plan to use his board to replace the 19 in 1 I am running now.

The different colors are different software revisions, robotron had several different revisions during the production run.

We do already have two robotron cabinets in storage, so this one would have to be nice or a deal in order to be worth messing with. (one is a working Altered Beast conversion with full altered beast art, and the other is a tekken tag conversion with no board, marquee or bezel, but appears to have intact robotron sideart under the paint).
 
Two questions, is that even a complete set of Robotron Chips? He's missing chip 4-B and 7-B, correct? Also any william's experts out there able to identify the other williams' chips?

My last question would be, what's the difference between these robotron chips and the "blue" chips I keep seeing mentioned?

the rom thing is easy. download a robotron.zip that you'd use in mame and double click it to open. see all those files. those are each of the rom chip content.

I wrote it above but you didn't catch it. :) 12 chips.

--------------from Sean Riddle----------------
Each ROM file corresponds to an EPROM on the game- numbers 1-9 are the same
The MAME files A, B and C correspond to EPROMs 10, 11 and 12.
If you already have the blue ROMs, then only EPROMs 5 and 11 have to be replaced
-----------------

old roms had a reset issue with the fancy attract mode (according to what i read online)
blue roms fixed the fancy attract mode bug.
not until way after the golden era, digital eclipse fixed the firing in the corner glitch, and that's what you hear called the patched blue roms.
I talk about it on the site and list the location on sean riddle's site where you can download the patched blue rom zip. read the mame section under technical.

is it TMI, yet? ;)
 
you asked about board variations. you really need to spend some time on the technical page on my site. http://www.robotron2084guidebook.com/?page_id=67
you'll find a link to a great website that talks at great length about board variations including pictures.

I have read almost every thread on multiple sites over the past year and compiled the best knowledge from lots of sources. there is the core of every question you might ask. :)
 
ok. followup on the roms. i looked closer at one set of my orange/red striped roms, and noticed the -A was overwritten with B in marker. the markings were just faded out so i didn't notice before. rom number 1-b, 2-b, 7-b, etc. where they were originally printed with 1-a, 2-a, etc.

What does the -B signify? blue roms?

and on the topic of your piece meal stuff above. try to pay no more than 400 total for any complete williams cab project because you are looking at putting nickel and dimes into it which will price it out of sellable quickly. you'll be in 550 or 600 before you know it. (same idea as a pinball that needs shopped, expect another 300 minimum to get it spiffy).

in hindsight, i wish i'd found a gutted robotron with monitor then bought a JROK. it'd been so much cheaper and trustworthy.
 
The "A" or "B" designation was for the TYPE of eproms

"A" was for 2532 eproms
"B" was for 2732 eproms

The rom board can be jumpered for either type.

"B" eproms are FAR more common (10-1) than "A".

In fact, I've never seen "A" eproms on Robotron
(...and I've probably seen 20+ rom boards )

In fact, I've only ever seen "A" eproms on one Joust rom board.

I'm guessing "A" eproms "may" have been used in early runs,
but since 2732 eproms (B) were likely cheaper and more abundant,
they became standard in later runs.

----

BTW, I can provide you with a fresh set of Blue roms for alot less than $125.

I also have some cool Robo hacks.

http://www.hobbyroms.com/wmspause.html

E-mail me at info AT. hobbyroms DOT com

Cheers,
Steph
www.Hobbyroms.com
 
There were a lot of question flying around here so if I miss a few, TDB.
In no particular order:
(1) If you want a new set of Robotron ROMs burned, Steph is your man (www.hobbyroms.com). They will work and if you know what you want, (hint: BLUE ROMs w/Diagonal shot fixes & no high score limit fix), he can set you up at a fair price.
(2) The Blue ROMs were the last set burned by Williams (Blue refers to the label color). They have the latest "official" bug fixes.
(3) The Orange ROMs were the second release. They were never released with orange labels. The labels were yellow but somebody ran a red marker across them and over time it faded to orange. The B was penciled on because they didn't want to wait for another run of the stickers from the printer, plus they had stacks of the A labels.
(4) There are Robotron ROMs that were burned on type A ROMs (2532), but they were very rare. Williams switched to 2732s because they were unable to get 2532s in quantity (did Pacman or Ms Pacman use 2532's?). As Steph said the ROM cards can be strapped either way.
(5) Most of the 'ROM's are actually EPROMs (Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory). If you pull the labels off they can be erased and reprogrammed. Most of the time.

If probably missed a few questions, but it's late and I'm tired.

ken
 
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