Rastan video issues

Tenn_pin

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Right now, this is a quest to repair this board! I have ordered an EPROM programmer 3 EPROMs, and an eraser. Evidently there is an issue with the EPROMs, not a sync issue as I thought it was in my last thread. Thanks to Jason for sending me in the right direction. Can someone tell me where to get the program download for the EPROMs? This aspect of the hobby is my new facination so I am trying to learn as much as I can about burning the info. I ordered the I-PP3USB pocket programmer from Transtronics. Seemed like good guys over the phone and I loved the tag "we answer our phone" on the web site. They gave me the help I needed, so maybe I will be able to get this game up and going.

R
 
First,

Go download ROMIDENT. You run it from an MS-DOS box on your Windows PC.

Simply read the EPROMs, save them one at a time under the name "unknown.bin" to the directory you put ROMIDENT in, then run ROMIDENT by going to the DOS box, moving to the directory that ROMIDENT is in then running it by typing in:

ROMIDENT unknown.bin

And it will return info on the ROM/EPROM you just read and saved.

Here's what it returned for a Bubble Bobble ROM when I was working on a board the other day:

C:\DOCUME~1\Owner\Desktop\ROMIDENT>romident unknown.bin
ROMIDENT v2.1
Thierry Lescot, 1998/99.

DAT file revision 3727.
UNKNOWN.BIN [32c8305b] = A78_06.BIN from Bubble Bobble (Taito)

This will help you determine which ROM set you need to download. Simply look up the name of the game in the MAWS database. There are different regions for some games and this will help you ID the proper file to download AND which ROM image is bad. Look for the ROMs that ROMIDENT cannot identify AND that you cant find the checksum for when doing a Google search with that data.

The way to do this is to search google for the ROM Checksum which is the number in the brackets returned by ROMIDENT - AND - searching only the http://maws.mameworld.info site. Use these keywords as an example:

32c8305b site:maws.mameworld.info

The "site:" parameter restricts Google to only look at the MAWS site for information.

Once you find the ROM set name you need to download then go to one of the ROM downloading sites on the web to get it.

(hint: Search for the name of the ROM set given by the Google search you just did. In this case, "bublbobl1" was the set I needed, so I downloaded "bublbobl1.zip" by doing a Google search for the file name and finding the site to get it from.)

(caveat: Not all unknown ROMs are bad ROMs. Sometimes, rarely, you will find a different version of a game that ROMIDENT and MAWS doesn't know. If in doubt, download the .zip file and try to program a replacement ROM if you think you found the bad one)

Once you get it, open the .zip file and extract the appropriate ROM image to program into a replacement EPROM.

Enjoy!
 
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Right now, this is a quest to repair this board! I have ordered an EPROM programmer 3 EPROMs, and an eraser. Evidently there is an issue with the EPROMs, not a sync issue as I thought it was in my last thread. Thanks to Jason for sending me in the right direction. Can someone tell me where to get the program download for the EPROMs? This aspect of the hobby is my new facination so I am trying to learn as much as I can about burning the info. I ordered the I-PP3USB pocket programmer from Transtronics. Seemed like good guys over the phone and I loved the tag "we answer our phone" on the web site. They gave me the help I needed, so maybe I will be able to get this game up and going.

R


If you have any questions about the programmer or programming in general, stop by the arcade sometime with the programmer and I can (hopefully) put the software on the computer there and show you how to do it.

It's REALLY not hard at all, a lot of people just get confused at first... but once you program one EPROM, you pretty much know how to program them all.

Besides EPROMs, remember that bad sockets can make it look like bad EPROMs. That can be checked with the burner though. Rastan should be... what, 27512 or 27010 chips I'd imagine? Lucky they're newer chips, the old ones can suck sometimes. Anywho, shouldn't that big of an issue to get the board looking good again.

caveat: Not all unknown ROMs are bad ROMs. Sometimes, rarely, you will find a different version of a game that ROMIDENT and MAWS doesn't know. If in doubt, download the .zip file and try to program a replacement ROM if you think you found the bad one
That's where MAME comes in handy... sometimes. You can get the MAME .zip ROM package, and substitute the roms in question into MAME. If the rom is bad (graphics rom in this case). Then MAME should show you pretty much the exact same thing that your machine does. If it does, then you've got a bad chip. Erase it, reprogram it, and it should be good from there.

Actually, lemme look up the game information real quick.

http://www.solvalou.com/subpage/arcade_roms/R/rastanu

That place has helped me countless times with figure'ng out which chips I should be looking at.

I'm not sure how Rastan boots up, but I'd imagine there is some sort of checksum going on, and if there was an issue with the CPU roms (actual game) then it would bug out and not play at all (or reset, freeze, etc etc)... if it plays with graphic issues, then I'd focus more on the GFX roms on the site. The rom files should be named based off of chip locations or the actual stickers on the chips.

I'd start by pulling the graphics EPROMs, reading them, verifying them in RomIdent (or WinRomIdent) and going from there. If all the EPROMs test good, then I'd start replacing sockets. After that, if there's still an issue... well, then that would suck. But hopefully it's a socket or EPROM issue (although we're rarely that lucky). But it's always a good starting place. Next stop of the "shotgun express" would be the RAM, then the CPU, then it's off to the schematics for the stuff that really sucks.

Again, I just REALLY hope it's a ROM/Socket issue.
 
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Thanks

Finally got a minute to get online. Thanks for the details in your replies. The little details will help when I begin on this venture later this weekend.

Wm, I was going to call for advice on the programmer, but time just got away, and if I did not get it ordered last week, I would still be waiting to call you :) Thanks for the offer and you know I will call or stop by when I get stumped. I am going today to buy a laptop. Sandra has taken over the one we have, by reading all of that vampire related crap, and I am too lazy to go upstairs to the desktop. Plus, it is a long way from the garage to the bonus room and the LT can stay in the garage.

R
 
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