Re: Bubbles Sounds

Also, defender used a different style board as compared to the later Williams vids so
it is unlikely that you actually have 'defender' sounds. Lots of sounds are used between
many of their games so it can be easy to get things confused.

If you do indeed have a bubbles sound rom installed but the sounds coming out don't
quite sound right then you may want to check the following...

1. Put the game into sound test. You will see that it plays sounds like this...

   Sound line 1
   Sound line 2
   Sound line 4
   Sound line 8
   Sound line 16 (doesn't do this one)

   Now I think that sound line 16 *is* actually used in the game else you would
   be limited to only 15 sounds (16 or Hexidecimal $F or binary 11111 is no sound
   command)

  So during the sound test you should be able to see 4 of the 5 sound lines pulse
  to verify that they are actually working correctly. If not, suspect the PIA on
  the motherboard.

3. There are also two DIP switches on the sound board, make sure these are set
   correctly for your game. They effect the high order command lines of the sound
   board. If they are incorrect, you will get a different range of sounds.

4. If you look at the schems, you will also see that this sound board was built
   to be very versatile. This board was used in just about all the video games
   and in a large section of their pins as well. Since these boards are so
   abundant, there is a chance that this is not the orignal board. So, you need
   to verify that the sound ROM jumpers are correct (there are settings for both
   2716 and 2532/2732 EPROMS). All the vids used XX32 EPROMS while the pins used
   smaller 2716's. I doubt this is your problem tho since when these jumpers are
   incorrect, you rarely get a running sound CPU. BUT.. there are also some
   jumpers that effect the sound command inputs. Get a schematic of the sound
   board and study these to make sure they are all correct. New Williams schems
   such as Sinistar have more info printed on them as compared to the older
   schems (stargate,robotron,joust).

5. Sound commands come from the CPU motherboard and are sent to the sound board via
 5 command lines. It is *very* common on these sound boards for cold solder joints
to develop underneath the molex connector. The problem is not that the pin gets an
intermittent connection with the PCB but more that the plate through 'cylinder'
actually develops cracks around itself and the traces on the board. Particular to
the sound command connector, there are traces that only connect to the pins on
the top side of the PCB (directly under the white plastic of the male side molex)
So, even if you solder the hell out of all the pins on the bottom of the board,
there will still be a cold solder joint on the top side. You need to remove
the whole PCB side molex connector and then resolder the plate through column to
the top side trace. It is difficult to get the molex out of the PCB sometimes and
it can be easy (unfortunately) to ruin some traces on teh PCB doing this procedure
if you are not very careful. The pins and the plate through have a pretty tight
connection even without old solder being in there. I have had this problem on
lots of my pins. A good way to see if this may be a problem before going through
the agony, is to put the game in sound test and then twist the connector in multiple
directions and see if your sounds start changing, this would suggest a bad solder
connection.

Whew, long winded, but I hope it helps. Post more info when you get it.

jess
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Received on Sat Dec 16 10:00:46 2000