Gorf Restoration

[Nephasth]

The only difference I've seen is after a few waves the galaxians still set before dropping.  You notice anything else?

First level colors are wrong. Enemy speeds are too fast. Speech is garbled to all Hell. Space Rank lights light up in wrong order. Brought this up to HighScoreSaves, and all I got was "Eh, nobody else is complaining".

[Scottacus]

Ouch, sound like you've got a bad board/ROM. 

Mine has worked flawlessly for the past four years with the only difference being that the Glaxians re-rack after the first two waves and I think the native ROM has them just continuously fall after the second wave (if my memory from years ago is correct).  At any rate it can't be too far off because I can usually at least make Space Warrior on a three ship machine when I find them at gaming conventions.

[Nephasth]

Game plays fine without the kit installed.

[Scottacus]

I was referring to the ROM chips on the high score board.  I'm sure all of the native boards in your rack are just fine.

[Nephasth]

They sent me a second to try out. Same results.

[Scottacus]

I had problems with the sockets on the high score board because I think the board had round pins and the Gorf board expected the standard thin flat pins so I used splines to CA glue the round pin socket into a thin flat pin one as shown here.  Any chance poor seating of the socket was the cause of your problems?

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,149186.msg1555858.html#msg1555858

[Nephasth]

Hmm... I'll have to look into that. Thanks!

[Reggs]

@Nephasth Its a while since I used the highscore board but I recall having a similar problem.
Have you removed the single ROM\RAM board that has the game ROMs on it?
NOT the 2 smaller RAM boards, the ROM\RAM board that has the game roms on it.
The highscore board replaces those roms with its own code so you get a horrible random conflict if you leave that board in the rack.
I thought I had a faulty kit until it dawned on me that I wasn't following the instructions.

@Scottacus - Your cooler is a great solution btw. I perch mine on top and more to the side after removing the side panels for better flow.

Just some advice from someone who has worked on Gorf boards for the last 10 years or so -
Never ever run the game without fans and a decent cooler fin on it.
The CPU board which contains the Z80 and the custom Data and Address chips gets hot as hell.
The Data chip generates all of the video timing and video signals, the system clock and lots of control signals for the entire card rack. It is absolutely run to breaking point which is why it gets so hot
and eventually fails.

As you will probably know by now, once that Data chip goes that will be it. They are becoming extremely rare these days.
I have even run an experiment by generating a separate 1.78Mhz Z80 clock signal on a board with a Dead data chip on it and you can hear the two IO chips play sound and the Votrax SC01 voice chip working even with a dead Data chip.
Of course you have absolutely NO video as thats what the Data chip spends the majority of its time doing.

 

 

[Scottacus]

Thanks Reggs for the info!

Where can you find those special low profile heat sinks that these narrow racks need?  Do you have any lines on spare 0066-117xx chips?

[Reggs]

No problem.

I'm actually in the UK so I use Farnell or RS Components. Mouser or DigiKey I guess for the US.
You can buy them (small self adhesive ones) from Ebay equally as easily. I've stuck 3 small self adhesive ones on to a Data chip in the past.
The Address chip and 2 x IO chips are fine with just top fans as you have them, as they only get luke warm even without cooling.

You should keep the CPU board on the outside though, then the cooler fin height is not so much of a problem.
I think the Highscore board can be an issue though as it has a large footprint but mine squeezes past ok.

Great restoration btw, Gorf is my absolute favorite game 

[Reggs]

Sorry, Data chips can only be scavenged from old Astrocade units or arcade games, Wizard of Wor etc
I haven't come across a working one for a few years now unfortunately 

[Nephasth]

@Nephasth Its a while since I used the highscore board but I recall having a similar problem.
Have you removed the single ROM\RAM board that has the game ROMs on it?
NOT the 2 smaller RAM boards, the ROM\RAM board that has the game roms on it.
The highscore board replaces those roms with its own code so you get a horrible random conflict if you leave that board in the rack.
I thought I had a faulty kit until it dawned on me that I wasn't following the instructions.

Hmm... Yeah, I removed the ROM board (saved so I can convert back), and pretty damn sure I followed the directions to a "t"... but this was almost a year ago. I'll have to take a closer look at the game when I get some time. Thanks for the info!