Re: What does a lone "P" indicate in ESB self test main/1st screen?

----- Original Message -----
From: "Scott Brasington" <arcade@brasington.org>
To: <vectorlist@synthcom.com>
Sent: Wednesday, October 02, 2002 9:20 AM
Subject: Re: VECTOR: What does a lone "P" indicate in ESB self test main/1st
screen?
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Gregg Woodcock" <woodcock@sisna.com>
> To: <vectorlist@synthcom.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, October 02, 2002 9:09 AM
> Subject: VECTOR: What does a lone "P" indicate in ESB self test main/1st
> screen?
>
> > I am working on an Empire Strikes Back that will not do anything but
> > watchdog reset (no picture) unless in self test. In self test I (now)
get
> > 16 high beeps but a screen-bunding green rectangle with a small white
"P" in
> > the lower left corner. It used to have a few low tones and an "R" too
but
> > replacing the bad RAM fixed that. Will somebody with a manual check
this
> > for me?
>
> On many atari games, the "P" in selftest means bad POKEY.
> Usually the diag involves back to back query of the random
> number generator and if the result is the same (small delay
> between) then it assumes the pokey is bad and turns on the
> "P". Atleast this is how centipede, millipede, asteroids
> deluxe work.

Man this is depressing. I can't seem to get any useful responses for myself
when I post to vectorlist anymore! Anyway. I did a little experimenting
with my stack of unknown (were-bad) condition PCBs and hit the jackpot right
off the bat! It turns out that a P (for both ESB and Star Wars) in self
testindicates a failure of the AVG chip which has been cracked and TTL'd by
multigame.com. I will be putting in an order shortly. The *really* strange
thing is that this failure causes a beeping monitor yoke in game mode with
no picture or game sounds/function. That's right, the yoke beeps as clearly
and ryhtmicly as a quiet alarm clock!

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Received on Fri Oct 18 20:56:49 2002