Today my donor machine came for the rebuild of Golden Award. (It needs a lot of work
to make it nice, but it has the all important black frames which is the key I think)
I
used the reel deck from that to put together the reel deck for Razzle Dazzle.
I did
ponder having a game on Gold Mine, but the thing was in a poor state. It would have
taken me so long to un-stick all the stuck switches and sort it all out, it wasn't
worth the effort. The reel bands were all melted and disfigured and although it did
try and boot, I can't take on another project until RD is finished. So the donor
machine is staying the donor machine. The glasses are good though, so maybe Gold
Mine can be brought back to life another day (the program card was with it). I'm
pretty sure it was a Fortune Numbers before it became Gold Mine. The program card
has the remains of the original label, but the original loom, as far as I can see
has been changed.
So we're on the final stage now pretty much, the cabinet and glass
is done, the ROMs have been de-protected and are enroute. The reel bands are done
and the reel deck is built and installed.
This just leaves the wiring and testing.
Once
I have it booting, I'll be on with the lamp and switch loom. I can finally see it
taking shape!
The ROM card has arrived and it's ready for the first test run. Initial
boot, with just reels and alpha, then with lamps and switches. I have a fault...
12v meter alarm, but I expected that. For now, pull the black plug and it does boot
into attract...
Well I knew it would boot because the prog card was pre-tested and so it was a dead-cert!
I
did suspect that the meters would be an issue, but again, I'm not phased by this
at the moment.
What does phase me is the loom arrangement and that is the focus now.
There is a lot to do and it will take some time to perfect the arrangement.
(Massive
thanks to Chris for the prom card, I owe you big time)
I spent yesterday mapping the Royal Exchange lamps to a diagram of the Razzle Dazzle
layout. Unfortunately for me, I hadn't fully understood the complexities and the
difference of the two looms.
Whilst RE has the same number of lamps as Razzle Dazzle
and the loom is the same shape, the lamps are not fired in the same order. I knew
this as it was pointed out by quite a few people on here when they looked at the
two machines in the emulator.
I did not consider, however, that not all the lamps
in the RE looms would be enabled and driven by the RD program. What this means is,
although the lamps are there, they do not light.
I mapped 43 lamps before I realised
something was wrong, the missing lamps are dotted around the loom, so for instance
when RD flashes 2 nudges, 4 nudges, 6 nudges, 8 nudges and UL nudges in attract,
I should see 5 lamps flashing, but I only get 4. One is missing, the lamps are there
but not enabled.
I have 2 options, either carry on with the donor loom and add the
missing lamps or create the loom from scratch using the wiring diagram.
At the moment,
I am undecided which way to go?
It may actually be quicker and neater to make a new
loom. I've looked at the circuit diagram and I [think] I can understand it. It's
different to MPU4 in that the drives and selects are on the same blue plug, but all
the information is there.
I need to think on it.
