Troubleshooting

Can someone confirm or deny that the DACs in Atari color games, let's
say Star Wars at least, are setup to produce a change in "current"
rather than a change in "voltage" at their output?

Can someone describe what the "analog switch" is supposed to do in the
context of the vector output circuitry? Which analog signals is it
switching, and to where?

Ok, last question for now. I have 4 Star Wars boardsets that all
exhibit the same strange (to me at least) phenomenon. That is, they all
render some of the letters in some text crookedly. I notice this
particularly heavily when it draws the letter "A" in RED. The left side
of the "A" is curved outwards. I get this same behavior on my WG
monitors, and my Amplifones, all capped and operating normally. I don't
see this problem with my Tempest on either monitor. I've checked this
with a scope in XY mode, but the text was too small for me to tell if it
was perfectly straight or not. The lack of Z axis control and hence the
retrace lines did not help the clarity any. ;-) Otherwise, I wouldn't be
bother y'all with this question. So, is this a board set problem, or is
this just the way it is? It's been so long since I've seen another Star
Wars machine operating, that I just don't remember.

Thanks,
Joel-
Received on Mon Jan 19 08:14:15 1998