Peter Packrat owners - Help needed

Silverunicorn

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Hi again!

We were trying to get to the bottom of the "NO CARTRIDGE" message on the PPR daughter board I have.

Any Peter Packrat owners out there able to look at their daughter card to see if mine is missing any ROMS or chips?

Here are the pictures of my (non-working) daughter card. If someone could compare this to what they have I would be most appreciative.

Left side -

5306407616_c576b3e618.jpg


Right side -

5306407690_8abafb2159.jpg


Lower Right -

5305816087_98ba072541.jpg


Upper right -

5306407762_d83c615942.jpg
 
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Upper Left -

5305816165_a6bb224627.jpg



Lower left -

5306407982_f393be4442.jpg


Slapstick chip closeup ( all are labeled the same) -

5306408148_d47626c2a1.jpg



Thanks for any assistance! Just starting with the easy stuff first, LOL

Chris
 
Okay, in looking at other PPR boards online, it appears that everything is at least populated correctly on the board I have now.

Any other reason it would give a "no cartridge" message? the screen pulses as well when it is displaying this message. Voltages are correct. Other daughter cards work fine (Roadrunner, Roadblasters, Indiana Jones).


Not sure where to go from here. If a ROM were bad, I would imagine it would show a ROM ERROR and not a no cartridge message.


Thanks again!

Chris
 
For the record, all chips were reseated. Verified all pins looked to be in good shape. We double-checked on another System 1 motherboard, and ran into the same "No Cartridge" error. LED CR3 blinks in-time with the red-flash/No Cartridge message.
 
did you also clean the edge connectors? I figured that you did, but just thought that i would ask..

anyway, linked below is a post where the member had a marble madness that would not work on either of his motherboards (but they had roadblasters and IJ working fine).

is peter packrat a daugthter that needs a specific version of a motherboard?

I know that the Roadblasters that I sold to EagleTG had a different motherboard than the one that i have for my Indiana Jones (both were originally RB, but Eagle's is an older version than the one that I use for my IJ).

I would be more than willing to try the cart with my motherboard.

btw, one pet peeve of mine with the System 1 design is that i hate leaning over and swapping out the carts. i dont have much of a need anymore, but i may end up building extension cables.
 
did you also clean the edge connectors? I figured that you did, but just thought that i would ask..

anyway, linked below is a post where the member had a marble madness that would not work on either of his motherboards (but they had roadblasters and IJ working fine).

is peter packrat a daugthter that needs a specific version of a motherboard?

I know that the Roadblasters that I sold to EagleTG had a different motherboard than the one that i have for my Indiana Jones (both were originally RB, but Eagle's is an older version than the one that I use for my IJ).

I would be more than willing to try the cart with my motherboard.

btw, one pet peeve of mine with the System 1 design is that i hate leaning over and swapping out the carts. i dont have much of a need anymore, but i may end up building extension cables.


The edge connectors look really good, but I personally did not clean them. Would alcohol be best for that?

EagleTG's motherboard is Revision B and mine is revision D

The motherboard I got with the PPR board produces a garbled screen, so I think there were 2 issues going on with that game before I got it. I don't recall the revision of that board, but it looks different than the other 2 :(


I would like to thank Todd for fixing the mess that was the Indiana Jones control panel, so I have at least one game to play in the cabinet :)

Chris
 
did you also clean the edge connectors? I figured that you did, but just thought that i would ask..

I did not, but only because they were spotlessly clean. It's definitely something to try.

anyway, linked below is a post where the member had a marble madness that would not work on either of his motherboards (but they had roadblasters and IJ working fine).

is peter packrat a daugthter that needs a specific version of a motherboard?

I've also read about this before. I don't have an answer, especially considering that the PPR motherboard we have is very different than the other two.

I know that the Roadblasters that I sold to EagleTG had a different motherboard than the one that i have for my Indiana Jones (both were originally RB, but Eagle's is an older version than the one that I use for my IJ).

I would be more than willing to try the cart with my motherboard.

btw, one pet peeve of mine with the System 1 design is that i hate leaning over and swapping out the carts. i dont have much of a need anymore, but i may end up building extension cables.

We'll see, if we get completely stumped it might be worth a ride over to your place to try the PPR cart out. I appreciate the offer.

And I totally agree, the cart design is inconvenient to say the least.
 
I would like to thank Todd for fixing the mess that was the Indiana Jones control panel, so I have at least one game to play in the cabinet :)

You know what's funny about the hack-job that was the wiring on that control panel? Usually once you dig into it, the re-wiring makes some sort of sense. That one, made absolutely NO sense. I'm completely baffled as to the reasoning behind some of the choices whoever re-wired that made. For example, a perfectly functional quick-disconnect crimp connector connected to an opposing crimp connector, crimped to a wire and soldered to the SAME SIZE quick-disconnect-compatible switch terminal!!!????! And that same process was repeated on each of the directions of the joystick!!

Aside from the overall question of WHY HACK FACTORY WIRING like that to begin with!!?

For the record, Indy control panels are NOT common ground. There is a separate "ground" for the buttons, and another "ground"/common for the joystick. Whoever had previously hacked this control panel thought they could just tie all of the grounds together. Once we separated it and wired it all properly, the controls all worked perfectly.
 
That's the SLAGS, not the Slapstick...

I don't have a PPR, but I thought that MM was the only one that didn't have the 6502 and TMS5220 (or is it just a 6532) populated on the cart... I'd say you're missing parts.

Oh, my bad. I though the SLAGS were the Slapsticks. Where are those on the board?

I thought I was missing parts originally, but there's a working set on E-bat that looks populated the same way as the one I have, so now I'm thinking the one I received was complete.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Peter-Pack-Rat-...102?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item255ffb2f3e

Chris
 
Slapstick is at 17A... 20-pin chip...

SLAGS are just gfx data shifters and sprite priority...

Ah, okay. That you for that information. I was not sure of which they were, but I do remember reading that I was not to do anything to them, LOL. Now I know what NOT to touch.

Have a great New Year!

Chris
 
That's the SLAGS, not the Slapstick...

I don't have a PPR, but I thought that MM was the only one that didn't have the 6502 and TMS5220 (or is it just a 6532) populated on the cart... I'd say you're missing parts.

Thanks for the clarification Hudson... I was suspecting the missing parts as well, but as Chris mentioned there is one for sale on eBay (listed as working and shown working in the pictures) that is missing the same parts. I snagged a pic off of the auction, and hosted it independently... Here it is:

PPRBoard.jpg


We even tried populating those two sockets with the TMS5220 and 6502/6532 (or whatever it is, I don't recall either). It made no difference, so I'm guessing it's OK that those chips are gone.
 
Ok, here is a picture of my PPR board.

http://www.arcaderestoration.com/graphics/ppr/pprpcbbig.jpg

You should check for cut traces, bent pins, etc... The area I would start with is the upper right as that is where the Slapstick and the program EPROMS are.

Cut traces could be under the chips themselves if someone pried out a EPROM or other socketed chip.

If you have an EPROM burner, pull the program EPROMS and verify them.
 
I don't have a PPR, but I thought that MM was the only one that didn't have the 6502 and TMS5220 (or is it just a 6532) populated on the cart... I'd say you're missing parts.

PPR doesn't use those chips either. They are used for speech which PPR doesn't need.

Re: Motherboard revisions
PPR is probably the simplest of the System 1 carts. It should run on every working motherboard. So, your problem is with the cart.

If you've got some time, you can swap all the PPR chips into another working cart (not RoadBlasters). You need to include all the Eproms, Proms (2), and the Slapstic chip. Also, make sure that you adjust the jumpers as needed.

Doing the chip swap would tell you if it's a board problem or an Eprom issue. If the Proms are bad, the game plays but doesn't interpret the colors right (and looks really messed up).

Bad Slapstic chips give various errors. I don't know if that would cause a "No Cartridge" error, though.

Good luck
 
Most RoadBlaster Carts are setup for larger Eproms then PPR uses.

There is an early version of the RB cart that has an Eprom in almost every slot that would work for MM, IJ, PPR, or RR. I've only ever seen it once, but lots of the later version.
 
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