RE: Weirdly Deformed STAR WARS -- The Force is not yet with me :)

Umm, Star Wars doesn't use AM2901's.. Perhaps you mean Tempest, BZ, Red
Baron, or Cube Quest?

Anyhow, check the four mathbox proms. One of them is probably bad
(probably not 110)

JB

-----Original Message-----
From: solarfox@texas.net [mailto:solarfox@texas.net]
Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2003 7:16 PM
To: vectorlist@vectorlist.org
Subject: VECTOR: Weirdly Deformed STAR WARS -- The Force is not yet with
me :)

On Sun, 26 Oct 2003 21:25:56 -0500, you wrote:

>I'd suggest taking a stab at realigning your X and Y linearity
controls.
>Once you adjust those properly, your diamond pattern will display
crisp,
>even shaped diamonds. That will go a long way towards correcting the
output
>your're seeing. Your test screen looked like the BIP was OK, but go
back
>and check it carefully to make sure it's really in alignment.

        Which it wasn't, actually, but the BIP and X/Y linearity
controls are
now about as good as they're going to get. (Any remaining
nonlinearities
are, I'm pretty sure, due to the WG's pincushioning.)

>A friend, or a mirror is very handy here so you can see the display
>as you adjust the controls.

        Having the monitor out of the cabinet and sitting on the floor
in front
of you works pretty good too. :)

        Anyway -- the controls are now adjusted, and the display looks a
bit
better than it did, but objects on the screen are still deformed.
However
-- NOW, the machine is giving me Mathbox errors in self-test (which it
wasn't doing, before -- go figure). The errors I'm getting are as
follows:

DIVIDER ERRORS:
NNNN FFFF 4000 4000 4000 4018
NNNN FFFN 5555 4000 5555 555F
NNNN FFNF 2AAA 4000 2AAA 2ABF
NNNN FFNN 2AAA 2AAA 4000 4024
NNNN FNFF 5555 5555 4000 4006

NO MATRIX ERRORS

        Am I correct in deducing, after having looked over the
schematic, that
the problem is somewhere in the collection of 74LSxxx chips which make
up
the divider section, and that my PROMS and AM2901's are good, since I'm
only getting divider errors and not matrix errors?

        If so -- does anyone here understand the mathbox's operation
well
enough to tell me exactly which chip is to blame, or should I just
shotgun
all the 74LSxx's in that section and hope for the best? :)

------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
"In ancient times, they believed that there were only four kinds of
matter:
Earth, Water, Air, and Fire. Nowadays, of course, we know that there
are
actually four states of matter: Solid, Liquid, Gas, and Plasma. Thank
God
for progress!" ---(Kelvin Throop III)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
solarfox@DON'TMESSWITHtexas.net (Gary Akins
jr.)
http://lonestar.texas.net/~solarfox
------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----

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