Space Firebird..

Marc_NJ

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Anyone familiar with Space Firebird?? I have one that I have been trying to fix for a while now.. I have had the machine for 15 yrs, and have had it working at various points in time, but it is broken again now.

I have a spare set of boards, but they are of "unknown" sources. Don't know if they worked. However, if I swap the video or audio boards, the problem remains the same. If I swap CPU boards, it still does not work but the problem is different.

One CPU board does nothing. Screen is blank.

Other CPU puts the stars on the screen, I can give credit, start a game, and I hear all of the sounds but the the screen just has some odd looking lines for the "bullets". No good guys, no bad guys on the screen.

I did swap the socketed ROM chips from one board to another, no change.

Block diagram shows "Character generator memory" is on the video board (5K and 6K), but swapping video boards has no effect. I am thinking I have a problem with the RAM, or some other logic.

This is not a popular game, so I am sure it is a long shot.. but, what the heck?

Thanks
 
I have a working boardset.

I would be happy to help troubleshoot it... Not sure how.

If you want, you can send it to me and I can take a look at it.
 
Looks like its a ROM issue. Do you have access to a ROM burner?

No, but I swapped the ROM's with a spare (non working) CPU board I had laying around. Problem did not change, leading me to think the ROM's are OK.

I also pulled a RAM out of the spare board, and tried to piggy-back... Problem remains unchanged.

Using my oscilloscope, I see plenty of action on all of the address and data lines.
 
No, but I swapped the ROM's with a spare (non working) CPU board I had laying around. Problem did not change, leading me to think the ROM's are OK.

I also pulled a RAM out of the spare board, and tried to piggy-back... Problem remains unchanged.

Using my oscilloscope, I see plenty of action on all of the address and data lines.

Have you swapped out the z80?
 
Have you swapped out the z80?

Funny! I did swap them yesterday and noticed that the "donor" board that came form an unknown source had one of the pins bent on the Z80. I put it in my board with the pin fixed, and it made no difference.

I wondered...

I put all of the parts back in the "donor" board with the pin on the CPU fixed, and that board now works perfectly!! So, I have a working game again, but would like to eventually fix my CPU board.
 
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