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Author Topic: Help needed : TAB.AT Virtual Pinball dead...  (Read 8893 times)

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penrhos

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Help needed : TAB.AT Virtual Pinball dead...
« on: December 30, 2018, 04:37:10 pm »
I've picked up a TAB.AT V-pin. It was purchased from eBay as faulty so no surprises that it didn't work at all when it arrived.



The PC was completely dead but a new CMOS battery and PSU have brought it back to life however the hard drive is corrupt (or something odd is going on).
I can get the PC to boot and the software starts to launch - then it crashes with a runtime error. The original HDD makes a terrible clicking noise when running so I've cloned it to a fresh drive to preserve what is still readable.
It's a P4 with 512Mb ram, running Windows XP Embedded, has an ATI 9600Pro, gameport, CCTalk-50 card and a printer-port security dongle in the back.

The trackball is wired to the PS2 mouse port and there's a small accelerometer PCB connected to a rubber mount wired to the game port (X & Y analogue inputs) that handles "Tilt".

All the coin mech, start, plunger and flipper buttons are wired to the CCTalk-50 PCB via a DB-50 connector.

No matter what I try with the HDD I cannot get the software to run past the splash screen before exiting with the same runtime error message.
I have checked the log file the software creates when launching and it is reading the serial number from the parallel port dongle so that's working OK, so I can only assume the OS or software is corrupt.

At this point I have two options:-

1) Re-wire the DB-50 and DB-15 to an A-Pac or teensy and run Pinball-X etc...
2) Find someone with a restore/upgrade disk for the original HDD.

So before I gut the insides and go for option 2 - does anyone have one of these that works? If so does anyone have a restore disk or can image up the C:\ drive?

Rebuild thread is here : http://www.ukvac.com/forum/tabat-videopinball-repair-upgrade_topic367408.html

If I go with option 2 I'll post up my progress here - it's currently in this state....

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penrhos

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Re: Help needed : TAB.AT Virtual Pinball dead...
« Reply #1 on: January 12, 2019, 11:31:04 am »
After a quick repair to the dvi port on the video board for the screen, quieter cooling fans (swapped the old ones for 80mm AKASA PC ones) and a few hours soak-test to ensure all is OK and it's now in this state....