TRON Repair

studiopaul

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Picked up a worn tron.

Game powers and plays ...but has a few problems.
need your help

1.I cant see TRON figure in game..but see his gun and can play level.
2.Tanks are not shown
3.Bikes not show..but see the light beams left behind where bike should be.

looks like a common fault in character generator.
Any suggestions where to look?

Thank you
 
first things first if the interconnect cables that go in between the boards are original, toss em and replace em.

bob roberts sells a close replacement but you have to make them fit.

Im actually waiting for another klover to make me a set, as i am not happy with the bob rob ones. DOnt count bob out though, he has some great stuff he really does, great guy to deal with too.
 
Sounds like it's a problem with the video generator board (outside board on the stack). Try regular stuff like re-seating chips and cleaning/replacing the interconnects like cadillacman said.
 
looks like the cleaning and re-seating did not remove the problem.
tried to run the test, but cursor is missing in test mode also.

The error is showing as no bike, no tron, no tanks, no cursor.
 
I buzzed mine out with ohm meter all seamed good.

I feel I need to identify the chip character generator that performs the cursor graphic..maybe bad needs replacing?
 
well, it's good to clean all the socketed chip legs and reinstall them. that's what i do. replacing the cables is always a good thing. they are very brittle and don't always make a good connection. you can put a meter and run continuity set on ohms to see which wires aren't making a good connection. as far as testing voltages, you should have 5 volts at a rom on the boardset (ssio board, the outermost board) is the easiest to test on. check here rather than on the power supply as tron and other mcr games generally have voltage drops between the p/s and pcb.
 
There is a detailed description of how the Video Generator board works here, beginning on pdf page 7:
http://arcarc.xmission.com/PDF_Arca..._Midways_MCR_II_&_III_Systems_(July_1983).pdf

All of the backgrounds are generated on the CPU board (the middle one) which sounds like it's working fine. The only ribbon cables that would make a difference in this case are the ones going from the CPU board to the Video Generator board.
 
replace the 2 2114's on the video gen board, and also make sure the sockets are making good connection. Also could be caused by one or more of the 4 93422's that are closest to the 2114s.
 
Swapped out the 2114s = same problem
buzzed out ribbons all test to be conductive
re seated and cleaned chips again


looks like the graphics for tank, tron, (moving items via joystick)are far right of screen..?
swapping out 93422s see what happens..

Swapped out the 93422s looks like the same issue..im thinking this is more game go graphic output??


.looks more like game x-y overlays off..any way to align these?
 
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Im gonna put my money on the shift registers or adders that add the foreground section in, or if everything is offset, could be a stuck line in the v timing.. Been a few months since I worked on an MCR though.
 
any suggestions on points to test.trying to look at board with a scope..

I noticed at start up of game, the spinning cone has torn blocks and missing blocks at the top where you enter after shooting the rotating wall.

pressing credit button makes it slightly erratic on start up..little bit of a flash when selecting the player 1 etc..

Is that normal? seems that there are always a bleed of graphics to the right of the screen.
 
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