CHICKEN RESTORE LIKE A ROBOT (Berzerk) *IT LIVES*

[ChadTower]

Just picked up one of my grails on saturday... This sucker will be getting the full restoration treatment.  Not immediately but possibly over the winter.  I'm going to need some suggestions, though, so I'm starting the thread now.  I searched the archives and didn't find any Berzerk restorations.  If I missed any, let me know.





I can get more details pics of whatever folks want to see.  Right now it's working nearly 100% but is flaky.  When I first got it it would only run about 40 minutes, then would crash, and after that would fail in boot.  I cleaned off the ribbon connectors, reseated/cleaned RAM, bumped the power supply voltage from just under 5v to ~5.2v (the manual recommends anywhere rom 5.0v to 5.25v).   Those things seem to have made it better as last night it ran for 2+ hours without a problem.  I'll keep an eye on that, and if it fails again, I'll take some more steps to bulletproof the boards.

The high score backup battery has been removed as that is commonly a source for destroying Berzerks.  It's one of the main reasons there are so few left.

Right fire button doesn't work... need to see if that's just the button or something on the boards.  Probably either the button or wiring to it.

As you can see from the pics, this is in pretty good shape.  Bezel is decent, some flaking, and I will be taking that out soon to clean and seal with Triple Thick. 

CP has a lot of paint cracking but most of it is still there.  It appears to be a reflective paint.  Any suggestions for an approach on this?  It's mostly basic shapes so it could be masked and sprayed... or maybe a stencil could be made for a repeatable process.

What you can't see in these pics is that the base of the cab needs to be cut off and replaced.  Below the floor panel is pretty degraded and the cab is front wobbly. 

[2600]

Here's one resto that I recall seeing:

http://www.zinfer.com/berzerk.htm

Your sideart seems in good condition, but just in case:

http://www.oleszakcreative.com/store/shop/item.asp?itemid=79

Also, I think Spaeth has a multi kit for this as well.

[2600]

Another link I came across when I was searching for Prok's site.

http://www.rabbibob.com/index.php/Arcade_Cabinet

[ChadTower]

Cool, thanks.  I can't see the first project url from here so I'll check that out later.

I definitely don't need to restencil... but I do need to figure out the best way to touch up the black.  There is something in the paint - it's almost hammered.

[2600]

I've heard Stern Cabinets are like that.   There were a couple Stern Restorations on KLOV and someone talked about that.  IIRC, one person used the paint you would put on a truck bed.

[ChadTower]

Oh God Rabbibob's page is a MAMEd Berzerk and has links to MAMEd Berzerks.  It's like an accident scene.   

He even put an XArcade on it. 

An Xarcade.

[2600]

Hmm, pretend I didn't post that.

[RayB]

Looks like all it needs is:

- A Wash

- Repaint speaker grill

- That's it.

[ChadTower]

Hmm, pretend I didn't post that.

 

Spaeth does indeed have a multikit for this... it is actually a replacement for the whole ZPU board.  I emailed him sunday and he does have a few in stock.  My ZPU is working at the moment but I could see myself investing in his ZZPU in the near future.

Ray, definitely needs new T Molding... the buttons are just about done, they're all nicked up.  Stick needs to be rebuilt but works as is.  I'm probably going to redo the coin door and the edges around the T molding need touchup.  Really, it's all minor stuff, except for the structural part at the bottom.  Right now it's front tippy if I don't keep something under the base in the front.  It has no leg levelers and appears as though it's been sitting on the ply base for a long time. 

[Zeguna]

Awesome. Berzerk is loads of fun. 

[RetroACTIVE]

Awesome! BERZERK is one of grails as well!  I have a Stern Scramble that I want to restore but  am having difficulty getting anyone to scan the side art so I can re-stencil.  Your artwork looks good!  Does it have the original funky joystick?.. I think it was an optical stick but I can't recall.

I've heard Stern Cabinets are like that.   There were a couple Stern Restorations on KLOV and someone talked about that.  IIRC, one person used the paint you would put on a truck bed.

They have horrible paint jobs... artwork is cool but the paint jobs definitely on the mucky side.   If I were to restore... I would definitely not want it "that" authentic... I'd opt for the clean route.

BTW you can lightly sand down the texture of the cabinet without damaging the artwork... then lightly touch up with color match since BERZERK is really a simple art.  ...Then put a clear coat over it.

[ChadTower]

Awesome! BERZERK is one of grails as well!  I have a Stern Scramble that I want to restore but  am having difficulty getting anyone to scan the side art so I can re-stencil.  Your artwork looks good!  Does it have the original funky joystick?.. I think it was an optical stick but I can't recall.

It was an optical stick but they didn't last very long.  The IR sensors pointed up and collected dust as the grommet degraded so they would fail quite a bit.  Stern sent out balltop leaf replacements pretty quickly.  Those original joysticks are really hard to find now but I'm good with the original factory replacement.

[SavannahLion]

Oh God Rabbibob's page is a MAMEd Berzerk and has links to MAMEd Berzerks.  It's like an accident scene.   

He even put an XArcade on it. 

An Xarcade.

That was ---smurfing--- hideous. As soon as that guy wrote:

Unfortunately the bracket connectors on the monitor are slightly smaller than the CRT's, so there are some gaps. Hopefully I can work on this.

I knew the cabinet was done for.

[ChadTower]

Yeah... I wasn't reading too closely and then I saw the pic of an XP desktop coming from the monitor... 

This game is now officially dead.  14v on the 5v test point, no boot at all.  Worked just long enough for the seller to get out the door.  I'm going to get this one working fast, though, and reliably.

[arcadefever]

Very nice  can you believed that i never played the game 

good luck for the restoration 

[ChadTower]

I'm having a bit of trouble finding anyone I know as reliable to take on the boardset right now for repair... definitely don't have time to try and tackle it myself for a while... I'm tempted to drop a dedicated MAME in it as a temporary measure.  Nothing changed irreversibly, just a reliable engine running the game and maybe Frenzy.

[WunderCade]

That's a very nice machine. The artwork is looks like it's in great condition.

Can you translate this? Is it an inside joke?
"CHICKEN RESTORE LIKE A ROBOT"

[ChadTower]

That's a very nice machine. The artwork is looks like it's in great condition.

Can you translate this? Is it an inside joke?
"CHICKEN RESTORE LIKE A ROBOT"

It's a quote from the game.  CHICKEN FIGHT LIKE A ROBOT!

[WunderCade]

Hehe....needless to say....guess who's never played Berzerk.

[Level42]

Wahaahahaahaha.....

Even the Atari 8-bit computer version had this 



OK, it had to freeze the screen during playback of the samples, but this was pretty amazing for a home system back then.

[ChadTower]

Berzerk Voice Enhanced for the 2600 does it too... that's even more amazing.

[Level42]

Really ? Wow. But that has to be using extra hardware (in the cart).

[ChadTower]

Nope... nothing I know of other than maybe a bankswitched eeprom for more space.  It does the speaking (you can barely call it speech) between levels when it can focus all resources on it.

I tried a google for an example for you but can't see most of the links from here.  Here is the page for it on AtariAge and I think this is a link to a review on Stageselect.

[Level42]

Wait a minute......that's released in 2002 !! Not fair !

With enough memory, bank switching and ANY hardware that can produce some sound, you can do this.....

[ChadTower]

True... it's still an achievement, though.  I think there's a pretty low upper limit on just how much bankswitching you can do on the 2600, though.  There's only so much ROM to go around even doing it that way.

Man I love Berzerk.  I really have to get this one moving.  Maybe I'll get a bench MAME setup going with it this weekend.  If I can get the bathroom done first I should have time to redo the base, too. 

[Rabbi Bob]

Unfortunately (as pointed out on the web page), the box I found had been left outside and had become home to something that chewed up the internals pretty well.  I'm sure by now that if I hadn't picked it up when I did the entire unit would have been destroyed by this time, but I guess if you're a purist it would have been a better death than what I did to it.

Good luck on the restoration CT. 

[ChadTower]

Unfortunately (as pointed out on the web page), the box I found had been left outside and had become home to something that chewed up the internals pretty well.  I'm sure by now that if I hadn't picked it up when I did the entire unit would have been destroyed by this time, but I guess if you're a purist it would have been a better death than what I did to it.

Actually, a real purist would restore it anyway.  There are quite a few examples around here of games that were worse off that weren't MAMEd.  I don't blame you for doing it - I just wouldn't do it myself.

That said I'm taking a bit of a patch approach with mine for the short term.  A dedicated MAME setup is almost done - just Berzerk and Frenzy with no mods to the cab.  Pics and process will be posted when it is in.  That should buy me time until I can find the bandwidth to fix the original boards.

[Axe]

Wow, i am going to feel really bad in a few weeks...

I have a Berzerk cab coming in on trade, and i am planning on Mame-ing it 

In my defence it is completely STRIPPED.... the only way you can tell is the worn artwork on the sides.

To be honest though, it is for classic games, no crazy massive control panel or anything like that...a nd it WILL have Berzerk runningon it...

[shardian]

Wow, i am going to feel really bad in a few weeks...

I have a Berzerk cab coming in on trade, and i am planning on Mame-ing it 

In my defence it is completely STRIPPED.... the only way you can tell is the worn artwork on the sides.

To be honest though, it is for classic games, no crazy massive control panel or anything like that...a nd it WILL have Berzerk runningon it...

If it is completely stripped, make it 100% Berzerk on the outside, but MAME on the inside. You can play alot of games with an 8-way and a button. There is no need whatsoever for extra admin buttons on a MAME cab.

[ChadTower]

If it is completely stripped, make it 100% Berzerk on the outside, but MAME on the inside. You can play alot of games with an 8-way and a button. There is no need whatsoever for extra admin buttons on a MAME cab.

That's pretty much what I am doing until I can get the Stern boardset fixed.  This one will run only Berzerk and Frenzy, though.

[ChadTower]

Okay, finally have the chance to update with actual progress.  I have an old PIII motherboard running dosMAME and glaunch with just Berzerk and Frenzy.  Took me a while to get the sound to work - or so I thought - even though MAME would run just fine.  Same issue with both games so I assumed it was a soundcard config issue even though I'm using a real SB16.  Turned out that I didn't know both Berzerk and Frenzy require samples, and even more obscure, Frenzy uses Berzerk's samples.  So when I finally dropped in some Berzerk samples both games started playing with sound.   

At first I was going to use FreeDOS, but in that sound card confusion, I switched over to SpyStyle's boot install CD.  That worked pretty well, though looking back, I probably had it working with FreeDOS and the samples were the problem.  FreeDOS is pretty cool, though, as it has networking, tons of UNIX type utils, mp3/media players, etc.  Lots of modern capabilities in a real DOS environment including a GUI if you want it.

Video is an ATI Rage 3D I had lying around - I'll use Arcmon to drop it to 15khz once I'm ready to put it in the cab.  I hacked up my own VGA breakout cable.  Probably chose one that is harder than it had to be as this one looked like it was isolated 15 different ways.  Here's hoping I didn't short half the contacts with wandering strands.

<placeholder for breakout cable pic>

Thanks to Peale for software advice and Gehrig for supplying me a bunch of SB16s and the keyboard I'm hacking.

As for the keyboard hack... this keyboard isn't matrixed.  There is actually a separate set of contacts for every key on the keyboard.  I figure that at least removes the need to map the matrix and I can create keystrokes by shorting the two contacts on the backside of the PCB so no problems there.  I have all essential game functions mapped in MAME - up, down, right, left, fire, p1, p2.  (P1 + P2) is escape to front end and coinup will be wired to the coin mech.  The only tweak needed in glaunch was changing the enter game key to fire.

[ChadTower]

So, here's one wiring point I haven't quite figured out yet.  I want the keyboard hack to be a drop in replacement - no changes to the CP wiring other than changing the molex housing (I don't have an exact match for the old one).  The easiest way, if I didn't want a drop in, would be to wire up each button separately to the keyboard.  Can't do that as a drop in, though.  Looking at the CP wiring diagram I see the CP is using a common ground:

CP side connector is J7

What I am still trying to figure out is the best wiring method, here.  I assume that since each key has its own contacts, one of those two is ground.  Is it safe to assume that I could connect all of those grounds to pin 12?  I'm thinking a barrier block glued to the keyboard PCB, each separate ground wired to the same terminal (or two shorted ones if there are too many for one screw), and then that common ground connected to pin 12 in a matching molex.  Then a separate connection for the other side of each of the CP switches in the barrier and run from there to the appropriate pin in the molex (pin 7 for right, pin 6 for left, etc).

It's extra trouble but this way but it maintains as much originality as possible and allows me to drop repaired boards right back in with minimial disruption.

[jfunk]

Crazy.  My dad apparently has a Berzerk cabinet that's been converted to a Silk Worm.  Has the stenciled sideart MINUS the "Berzerk" at the top.. 

I don't know that he'll be doing a resto on it anytime soon, though.  Silk Worm is alright..  It just starts repeating a level once you get far enough.. 

[somunny]

Great game!  Looking forward to watching the progress.   

[ChadTower]

Poking around some more tonight... I don't think this keyboard is going to work.  Even though the PCB is the size of the keyboard and every key has its own dedicated switch there does seem to be some sort of matrix going on here.  It's all laid out on the PCB in traces going everywhere, though, and I don't think I'm going to spend the time mapping this sucker out.  I'll find another keyboard that is a little easier.

[shardian]

Ipac VE. $20 and 2 minutes of wiring = DONE. If you need to justify the money, skip lunch a few days and have cereal. 

[ChadTower]

Ironically, I have an Ipac 4 sitting around, but don't want to use it.  I think at this point I might just have to go with your suggestion.

I can't seem to ID the specific connector on the CP harness.  Asked at KLOV, got a specific answer, but after googling the item it clearly isn't correct.  I'm going to have to re-pin that connection and swap housings to something I do have.  I ordered a whole variety of Molex .062 housings and an extractor tool last week, which would be perfect, but I'm a complete d-bag and forgot pins.     I do have some larger Amp Mate N Locks left over from the Tank II (which I really need to get back from the shop).  It's overkill but it will do the job nicely.

I did sorta want the keyboard hack but the common ground wiring may be a blocking factor on that anyway.


EDIT:  Bah.  Ipac VE appears to be USB only.  This is a dosmame setup.

[SirPeale]

You're going to fix the Berzerk anyway, and the IPAC4 is just lying around.  Use it and reuse it in another project when you fix the berzerk.

[ChadTower]

You're going to fix the Berzerk anyway, and the IPAC4 is just lying around.  Use it and reuse it in another project when you fix the berzerk.

I was just coming to that conclusion about an hour ago after I discovered the Ipac VE isn't dos compatible.  At least it's incentive to get the boards fixed sooner than later.

[ChadTower]

Replaced both CP harness connectors with new Amp Mate N Locks last night... new pins, too.  Couldn't seem to get the pics off my wife's camera this morning, though, so I'll get a pic up tonight or tomorrow.  Next up is whipping out the Ipac4 and wiring it up.

New CP harness connectors - both sides