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.