rare UNIVERSAL cosmic critters

baz

Active member
Joined
Aug 13, 2010
Messages
358
Reaction score
55
Location
north melbourne, vic, Australia
i have here a universal cosmic critters , a supposedly space invaders variant.

its the same hardware and structure as my galaxy wars artic / ATW that user andykmv is currently trouble shooting.

i dont believe these are original roms , does anyone recognize this board and which universal game should be on this board ?

she is running a 8080A cpu , uses space invaders type ram and is B&W
i have gone through all of universals games and im a bit stuck.

would this board be the same as Cosmic Guerilla ?
i can fully confirm its not a cosmic monsters as i have the board set here.

board pic is attached with the sound board.
 

Attachments

  • p1010001w.jpg
    p1010001w.jpg
    69.9 KB · Views: 32
  • p1010002pv.jpg
    p1010002pv.jpg
    67.5 KB · Views: 24
blah i think i have figured it out.

this board is in fact a cosmic monsters.
it looks like someone may have done a rom hack.

anyone have cosmic monsters pinouts please ?
could use schematics too.

i would ever be so grateful and appreciate anyones time and help.
 
now offering $10 usd via paypal for these pinouts.

i know i know i sound a lil desperate.

i could always reverse the pinout location on the space attack 2 board and figure out where the ground , 5 volt etc etc go.. but i dont really want to take any chances.

the cosmic monsters is far too difficult for me to locate the pinouts as she needs the sound board connected to go through the power on reset just like a space invaders.

and iknow certain wires go from main board to sound board.. this is why trying to located the pinouts manually is so difficult :(

i have recently tracked down several sources that have the cosmic monsters manuals.. but sadly non of them have the schematics or pinouts.
 
I have one that runs !

I will get to this for you, video of bootup and I will try to buzz out all the connections.
It sounds like you need the basic's to get it tested, power and video pins.
Mine seems to be running Taito Roms using 2708 chips.
There are 3 or 4 stacked on an extra board, guess they had not heard of 2716's LOL
 
I will get to this for you, video of bootup and I will try to buzz out all the connections.
It sounds like you need the basic's to get it tested, power and video pins.
Mine seems to be running Taito Roms using 2708 chips.
There are 3 or 4 stacked on an extra board, guess they had not heard of 2716's LOL

thats great! that will help greatly! :D
 
Quattrohead are you referring to cosmic critters / cosmic monsters or space attack 2 ?
im not sure lol

really appreciate your help and time , means alot :)
 
Cosmic something LOL.
Here are a few video's of it doing things.
http://www.youtube.com/user/quattroheadusa

aha! that's fantastic quattro! many thanks for the videos of the operation and of the cabinet/motherboard.

what these videos tell me is this.
1. the first screen display baz got on turning on the cabinet when it was received was very similar to the NO CPU view. slightly diff pattern but similar enough.
2. the display we get with NO ROM, with or without CPU has some similarities to the NO ROM 1 view, but we dont get the fat lines, only lots of skinny lines that break up depending on which ram set is in use.
3. on baz's Galaxy wars/cosmic monsters pcb there is an ic hack on an ic next to the dip sw. it may have been a lazy repair of the ic underneath the hack as there were no signs of a hack on your pcb.
4. the cpu is in a no op state on baz's board regardless of whether it is in or not (cpu works fine in an L shaped SI) so i need to look closely at the rams, addressing ics, ram output databus etc etc. basically a check everything process that i have started.

do you have a DMM with a frequency measurement setting ? if you do, i would be interested in getting measurement of frequencies at specific pins of a ram and the CPU.

many thanks again!
 
I have a scope and know how to use it LOL. Let me know what pins you want to see.
I think the Midway repair guide for the L boards should help out as it seems Universal made an electronic rip of the Midway boards, its just trying to suss out where the actual chips are on the board.

I have an idea for my sound fault, I am going to use a phone techs tone finder to listen to various LM3900 and try to work out their location compared to the Midway locations.
 
I have a scope and know how to use it LOL. Let me know what pins you want to see.
I think the Midway repair guide for the L boards should help out as it seems Universal made an electronic rip of the Midway boards, its just trying to suss out where the actual chips are on the board.

I have an idea for my sound fault, I am going to use a phone techs tone finder to listen to various LM3900 and try to work out their location compared to the Midway locations.

yes i have put together an ic layout guide for the cosmic monsters pcb as part of preparing for the repair. also a partial mapping o the ics against the midway schematics. i can send u a copy in pdf, tiff/jpg/bmp etc or visio 2003 formats if you want it.

i like the audio pickup idea - thats good!

i had better get my DSO Bitscope (multichannel) setup (been slowed down with a sore leg) and get back to you. some video or pics off the scope would be great, prob get 2 channels of data if yours is a dual channel with triggering, just need to work out what to trigger off for each pin/ic to test!

whoo hoo!:D
 
damn quattrohead thats a really nice cosmic monsters table.

i think its great you were able to run the space invader's multi ic on it :)

first time i ever seen one on a non L shaped board and also first time i seen one in color.. im highly impressed lol
 
Back
Top Bottom