Robotron Resurrection » Robotron

Settings now saving correctly

BP — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 01:12:46 +0000

Thanks to Bob Roberts, the Robotron is now working pretty close to 100%. I replaced the CMOS RAM chip on my spare CPU board, and now it is in good shape. Here is a picture of the handiwork on the CPU board, and a picture of the high score screen after I played the first game with it working…

Now, the move joystick is a bit wonky, and as you can see from the picture of the screen, I think I need to get a cap kit.

The machine lives, but is still sick

BP — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 01:04:23 +0000

On a lark, I took a spare CPU board that I got off of eBay, popped one of the RAM chips off the CPU board in the machine, put it in the empty socket on the spare board, wired the spare board in the machine, and flipped on the power:

OK, so the machine seems to boot up now, but it is still not without problems. There are three things I need to address:

The spare CPU board does not have the 3 AA battery clips, it has been modified. I suspect this could be why I get the message “Adjustment failure, restore factory settings by opening front door and turning game off and on”.
The one player start button does not seem to work.
The monitor has some interference at the top and on the right side.

But all in all, I am happy that for the first time in about 10 years, Robotron sounds can be heard throughout the household.

Current status, 12/16/2008

BP — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 14:54:15 +0000

OK, here is the current status of the Robotron.

I plug it in and turn on the power switch. I hear the hum of the power supply as the machine fires up, the 3 LEDs on the power supply board all light up solid, and the numeric LED on the ROM board flashes with a “u” or a “c”, depending on how you look at it. There does not appear to be any kind of numeric pattern to the flashes.

The screen just displays a green screen with a strange pattern.

I have posted a video to YouTube that shows the LED on the ROM board and the screen. Here is the video of my sad Robotron:

Also, I have posted some pictures to Flickr of the inside of the machine, if you would care to look:

Oddly enough, one time when I fired up the game, the monitor still looked as it does in the video, but the machine was repeatedly playing the sound that it makes when you are at the high score entry screen.

I have the game’s instruction manual, and a set of the drawings for the game. (Not that I can make any sense out of the drawings, I have a very limited knowledge of electronics. Please keep that in mind if you make any suggestions.) In the instruction manual, it tells you that if the rug pattern does not appear, that one of the first things you should do is check the fuse F2 on the power supply board. I did this, and the fuse appears to be good as I got a tone on the continuity checker for my volt meter. However, on a whim, I took the fuse out of the board and touched the probes to the empty clips, and received a tone. Is that supposed to happen?