I still go BERZERK !

[Level42]

...when I watch this picture. I love it



It's amazing to find ONE Berzerk over here at all, let alone THREE ! I've never seen a Berzerk for sale over here. The only one I know to exist in Europe was Luigi's machine.

Just reserving some space for my restoration here.
I've powered up all the cabs. None is working. All monitors do seem to work fine though. 2 give "garbled" pictures, 1 is black.

I've dug around the KLOV forum and found some bits of good information there, plus this very nice repair log:
http://www.wowway.com/%7Eookpik72/brl.html

So first thing to do was remove all the ZPU boards from the machines and get rid off those  batteries that have killed so many Berzerks.
Desoldered them. Interesting trivia: one side of the battery desoldered really easy (at 400 degr. temp). but the other side was much harder to get flowing easily. Must have to do with the polarity and/or the acid.

Next I neutralized the acid with vinegar (I used the "cleaning vinegar" sort, not the one you use on your salad). You can actually see it reacting with the acid at some places (f.i. between IC legs) because of the bubbles !! After some time I rinsed the part of the boards that were effected with water and then dried with my wife's hair dryer.

So far, I've seen three flashes/beeps on one of the boards which apparently means that the ZPU board is actually working (although it could still have some problems). My next step will be buying a SCSI cable to hack up and use it instead of the old ribbon cables, even if it's just to rule that possible cause of trouble out. I'll also try a PC power supply instead of the original (for testing at least) because I've read that the original Stern PS is not very good.

Some more pics:
















About the last pic....could there be a minty CPO under that stuff ?

About the envelope with the docs......I couldn't bring myself to open it.
It looks so sweet that it has been untouched for almost 30 years....

[ckong]

Wow, those cabs still look awesome after so many years. You won't have to do that much at all on the outside, it will mostly be internal/electrical restoration I guess. About the enveloppe, put my address on it, and a stamp and send it to me. I promise that I will not open it 

[Spyridon]

Those look great.  At least you still have two original sticks in there.  Outsides are in great shape.  I'm assuming you will fix all three and sell off two.

[ChadTower]

There is an ATX-Stern adapter out there if you hunt it down.  That might help.  I never had a power supply problem in mine, though.

It was the transistors in the battery area that were my problem.

Those are some great looking cabs.  I'm still holding out marginal hope that my bat stick will arrive someday.

[HarumaN]

I hate you...   

[StuDaBaker]

Bolted on ashtray! LOL! That's totally ugly and awesome at the same time! I can see some dude sitting on a bar stool in front of that thing with a row of coins on the glass with a cig hanging out his mouth and another burning away in the tray.

[hatrick]

Awesome! I scored 2 non-working Berzerks this year and got them both working pretty easily. I sold one and kept one. It is one of my favorite games now.
The problems I experienced were bad connections at the cables and bad RAM. That is all it took to get both of mine going.
If I can be of any assistance, let me know. BTW, mine were serial numbers #250 and #10xxx (Ten thousand something) Quite a spread between the two, and it was evident in the quality of the stenciling on the sideart. The #250 machine had a much better stencil job than the later one. I kept the later one, however, since the cab was in better shape.

[Level42]

Great !!!  Any help is welcome ! You didn't have any battery corrosion ?

Serial numbers of the machines two are in the 2000 range, one is in the 3000.
The stenciling is far from perfect, the logo doesn't really allign (at least on some of them).

[hatrick]

Suprisingly, I didn't have any major acid damage on either board even though the batteries were still in them. I did immediately remove the batteries once I got the game home.
I left the battery out of the one I sold, but on mine, I added a 3.6 volt rechargeable cordless phone battery mounted at the bottom of the pull out board tray with Velcro.
You have a real advantage having multiple machines, you can swap parts all day long to narrow down the culprit. Having 2 machines side by side made my troubleshooting job a breeze. 
I replaced the original RAM on the VFB-1000 board with 4116. The nice thing about that is you only need to fill rows 9 & 11, so you only need half as many chips and no modifications to any traces or anything.
What monitors do you have? one of mine had a K4600 and the other a G07. I kept the G07 since it's a more common, and better monitor in my opinion.

[Level42]

Yes indeed having more machines (and boards) around is great to fix them all hopefully...

Already did some work. Since it's very technical I put it on KLOV forum (I hope on Mark chiming in....although he might just be testing new ZZPU boards right now ! ). Here it is: http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=109967

The one machine that I checked from the back has a G07 (see pics) which I'm happy with (hope the others are the same).

About the RAM: I've seen more people replacing the 2114's with 4116's but what I wonder about: On Williams machines everybody tries to get rid of the 4116's because of their heat production and unreliability. I've got a big stack of 4164's here, would they work with some modification ?

[Spyridon]

Looks like cnlmoore is going to do another run of Berzerk panels.  He is also going to do Frezy.  He is asking for emails to get on the list.

[ChadTower]

Watch out, there is also someone out there passing those off as NOS on ebay.  The "NOS" panel I got is clearly not stainless steel.  Fortunately the price wasn't too much higher than what cnlmoore wanted for the repro originally so I wasn't too ticked off other than the principle.

[Level42]

I guess stainless steel would sky-rocket the price of this baby.

We need a much better pick though, this isn't going to sell it


Great timing !!

Oh, I opened the envelope ! Felt  like....... well uhm....touching somebody never touched before

As expected, it was the manual in there and the drawings. It's always great to have the schematics on large size.
There were also instruction cards in both English and Spanish. (Dutch and French on the cabs now).
The really interesting thing is that the manual looks to be a very early revision. It's not like the file I found on the Aracade Archive. The front looks hand-drawn, the texts inside are clearly typewriter stuff (plus hand-written texts all over the place.
The trouble-shooting section is extremely basic (two beeps = RAM on ZPU board, that style).

Also a schematic of the G07, no full manual.

I checked, and ALL monitors work, which is a plus. On one cab, I have no 5V unregulated. Forgot to check if it was the fuse though DUH 
Will do so tomorrow.

[ChadTower]

If it helps, the repro is pretty good, it looks like the screening is well done.  There is no flex in the panel despite being aluminum.  If your CP is trashed, it is worth the repro cost.  If your CP is decent I'd say keep your original.

[Level42]

Well mmm, I think at least I will replace mine. I prefer a minty CP and it's not like you can ALWAYS buy these...

I guess two of the three machines had "ok" panels, but a good share of cigarette burn. The third one (with the cover) is a goner. I just uncovered it and it's heavy damaged. (Pic a bit later).

Aluminium is fine with me, a lot lighter for shipping across the pond !
There's some huge wood behind it anyway so it won't be a problem.

[RayB]

There's some huge wood behind it anyway so it won't be a problem.

That's what she said!

[RetroACTIVE]

There's some huge wood behind it anyway so it won't be a problem.

That's what she said!

ba-da-bum-bum-bum.. chisssshhh!

[Level42]

Heh  


Here's a better pic of Chris's repro.




He says it will be stainless steel though, just like the real thing, so Chad, maybe you got a different product....

What I find strange is that the repro has "blank" parts, where my original machines have white paint (like on the big arrow around the joystick)

[Level42]

Just learned there were two versions, one with the white, one bare metal.

I think I actually prefer the bare metal.

[ChadTower]

There's some huge wood behind it anyway so it won't be a problem.

That's what she said!

in-da-bum-bum-bum.. chisssshhh!

fixt


yeah, I know, but it was way too good to ignore!

[Level42]

Hey guys, give me a break, you all know my native language isn't English......

[RayB]

Hey guys, give me a break, you all know my native language isn't English......

It's 6502 assembler.

*badum bump* pssshh!

thank you thank you, I'll be here all night.

[ChadTower]

I'll be here all night.

At least he warned us!

I'm not wearing pants!

My Pants

[RayB]

AWESOME! 

(Sorry for the thread-wreck Level42... your Berzerks are still awesome too)