Star Wars has no bad guys. What the heck?

jehuie

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So this Star Wars I picks up plays and it looks good until it's time for the bad guys to come on the screen. But they aren't there. No star field, no bad guys. Just my guns moving around and I can fire into the void. Then after a while it dives down onto the Death Star but it's all empty there as well. No graphics...just my guns shooting into nothingness. I can grab a video if it's helpful.

Any ideas where to start? Voltages look good. Cleaned the legs off all socketed chips and cleaned up edge connectors. Where would you look next? Thanks!
 
Cleaned them up and reseated them and it worked. If you do a search on these forums there are a few people that have had that problem. I think one was a bad socket for one of those PROMS.
 
Cleaned them up and reseated them and it worked. If you do a search on these forums there are a few people that have had that problem. I think one was a bad socket for one of those PROMS.

Well I did pull them all and did the Tarn-X cleaning trick. That's worked wonders for me in the past. These all looked pretty clean to start with. I reseated them all though and it's still doing it. I suppose I could swap in the ones from my other Star Wars and see if that helps.
 
Well as it turns out, I can't swap out the ones from the other Star Wars because it has an ESB kit in it which uses different proms. And apparently I stored the originals in a location that is so secure that even I can't find it. Errrrrr.

I guess I'm on the hunt for a set of these. Or perhaps I should swap out the sockets first to see if that's the problem. I already tried reflowing the solder on them and that didn't change anything.

Edit: Oh, I just read somewhere that the ESB proms are compatible with Star Wars as well....merged proms? I guess I'll try swapping them in after all. Maybe after I get the kids to sleep.
 
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Thanks Tronfreak....you were right! I swapped over the proms from the other game and it plays perfectly. Any idea where is a good source for new SW proms? I'd like to order a set now.
 
If you can get one of those Cowgill "De-Prom" Boards that would be ideal. They cut down the heat generated in the cage as those PROMs get hot. Hard to get them though. I am trying to find one also... lol
 
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I have a similar problem with my Star Wars - no star field, though I do have amorphous blobs that represent the Tie Fighters however. All other vectors are perfectly formed and are accurate - just the Tie fighters are incorrect (and occasionally missing altogether as well).

I was told to cycle the atari logo'ed ROMs (the slim ones - x11,x12,x13,x14 if I recall correctly). I swapped them and I have the same issues. Were those the PROMs you were referring to?

Thanks.
 
I have a similar problem with my Star Wars - no star field, though I do have amorphous blobs that represent the Tie Fighters however. All other vectors are perfectly formed and are accurate - just the Tie fighters are incorrect (and occasionally missing altogether as well).

I was told to cycle the atari logo'ed ROMs (the slim ones - x11,x12,x13,x14 if I recall correctly). I swapped them and I have the same issues. Were those the PROMs you were referring to?

Thanks.

Sounds like you've got other mathbox issues... those proms just control the state machine.
 
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