Tempest - Something Weird?? Board or Monitor?

rainman154

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So my Tempest has been working fine. I just moved it about 1 foot to the right and now I am having problems with it. It looks like the spot killer comes on, but check out the pics.
I can hear all the sounds and play, but it's super small and compact. The white also seems to be pretty damn bright. Is this the board or monitor??? It has to be the game board.

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But everything else is normal looking....

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I agree it's got to be a board issue. I suck at board repair but I've had good luck on Tempest fixing quirky problems by just making sure the pins are all clean on the chips and the edge connectors and making sure the cables are all on tight. Fixes a lot of quirky behavior.
 
Brad, I'll kill you. ;-)
No, I can't figure it out, but it pisses me off as people tomorrow will want to play it. Damn Tempest!
 
I agree, it isn't the monitor. You have a scaling issue on the board.

Step 1: Pull and clean all connectors. Reseat them, and try again.

Step 2: Pull and clean up all chips, one at a time noting the orientation. Reseat them, and try again.

If that doesn't do it, you'll need to either start looking for a blown transisitor in the video output, or for a shorted cap.

What is strange is the logo and other stuff looks good, but the game plays small. Am I seeing this as you are seeing it, or is EVERYTHING small?
 
Step 2: Pull and clean up all chips, one at a time noting the orientation. Reseat them, and try again.

I recommend Tarn-X for cleaning the legs if they have black gunk on them. I just sit them in a shallow pool of Tarn-X for a few seconds and it comes right off. But be careful since it's highly flammable. I got killed doing this once and then everyone got mad at me.
 
Yes, everything else looks fine. Just the game play is small. What is weird, is that is was working just fine. Moved it about a foot over to the right so I could put Black Widow next to it (becasue all vectors should be together) aaaaaand this happens.
I'll try and reset all the chips. Hope that fixes it.
 
On the AUX board, you should see 4 large ALU bit-slicer chips, make sure they are seated correctly. Failing that, swap the 4 ALUs around and see if anything changes.

You have spares? They can also be found on a Battlezone AUX board.
 
every time I move my Tempest like that I have to check the wire harness because it will partially pop off the board at the lower edge making the screen go crazy.
 
Was able to put it in test... got an "M"... which means Math error. Not sure what to replace though.
I went through and reset the chips, and now the screen just blinks. I hate Tempest.

If it was working before and started throwing a mathbox error, it's likely that the board interconnect cable needed some massaging to get a good connection. But now it's resetting, which means you have other problems. I'd double check that the chips you pulled got reinstalled in the right orientation.

Is test mode reporting a ROM error now?
 
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