Found a free Warlords "cocktail" today

[98PaceCar]

There should only be one way that each of the connectors can plug in on the transformer block. The wires with the 'eye' on the end (they should be green) are ground and should be placed on the studs that stick out of the top of the transformer block. There are small nuts that hold them in place.

As far as the actual board repair, the first place to start on any Atari board from that era is to replace the sockets with new ones. That will fix probably 80% of the problems you see on these boards. If you aren't comfortable doing the repair yourself, I'd find someone that can. Do the simple stuff first and hopefully save yourself some headaches!

[SkiDragon]

Ok, I probably wont get any more parts back at this point, so I have to look into getting new ROMs. Apparently they are/were EPROMS, 24 pins. I dont know anything more about them. Of course, I can get the ROM image, and I think I may be able to get some 24 pin EPROMS of some sort, but I have no idea how to burn them. I also wonder why there are TWO chips, and not just one.

Ill also have to get some buttons. I took a look at where they were, and they seem to have 5 wires going to them (which were cut off). What kind of button has 5 wires?

[SkiDragon]

On the power brick there are several color-coded loopy things. I have heard that these determine what voltage you get. I want to make sure that the correct color is plugged in. Does the main power cable plug into the side? Because, there is another very similar looking connector on the top, that is unoccupied. What does the coin return look like, how many plugs does it have? Since I wont be getting that back, how do I work without it?

[SkiDragon]

The missing Roms are labelled "Read Only Memory- Graphics" in the atari manual, assuming its the same as the stand up version.

[98PaceCar]

I would get a hold of the Warlords rom set from MAME. From that and the schematics, you should be able to figure out which images to burn. I *might* have a spare board laying around that I can look at if you will give me the labels off of the board for the chips that are missing. I'm not certain if I still have a spare, but I need to dig in my parts pile anyway so I'll look for it.

[SkiDragon]

I got the files. The first six:

037155.1d
037156.1e
037157.1h
037158.1j
037153.1k
037154.1m

correspond to chips that are still on the board. The last file:

037159.6e

should be what I am looking for, but that is only one file, not two. The instruction manual (for the stand-up machine) gives "037159-01" as the part number for both the chips (E6 and F/H6). There is also:

warlord.clr

but I have no idea what that is.

ROM files are:
Size: 2.00 KB (2,048 bytes)
Size on disk: 4.00 KB (4,096 bytes)

[SkiDragon]

Ok, I got the chips, plugged them in to the corresponding spaces, plugged everything else in, and plugged the machine in to the wall. All I got was a big green square that slowly appeared over the course of 30 seconds or so.

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~adona...chip/green.bmp

Also, the LED on the PCB lit up. What course of action is best to take now? Remember, I am missing the coin return and action buttons. There are a couple plugs inside that arent connedted to anything. I assume these would go to the coin return. Also, there is a jack on top of the power brick that is unused.

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~adona...chip/brick.bmp

What should I try to do now?

[Time]

http://cgi.ebay.com/Warlords-PCB-Wor...QQcmdZViewItem

Here is a board for you. Might want to give it a try.

[SkiDragon]

I am reviving this after so long, because I recently pulled this out of storage and in fairly quickly found and repaired the main problem that seemed to prevent any video output (a few years ago I managed to test the monitor so I knew that wasn't the issue).
After that, I have probed around and checked things. I acquired an EPROM programmed, and verified that all the EPROMs were programmed correctly. I now get this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2I8F7rUcWps

Actually, it takes a while for that to appear, because upon power up the 6502 microprocessor seems to just sit there and do nothing (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cRJkezfgrs), even though it is getting a clock signal. Then, seemingly at random it will decide to start up. But as you can see in the first video, the game is not playing, and the sound does not correspond to anything it should sound like. I am guessing bad video RAM, but that doesn't really explain the 6502 issues, and I also probed every RAM and ROM chip to verify at least that none are totally dead.

One thing I notice is although Warlords seems to always be quoted at running at a CPU frequency of 1.512MHz, the clock signal it receives is actually half of this, and this matches the schematic also, which seems to show the 12.096 clock divided by 16 though a 4 bit counter, to go to the 6502. At least if I'm remembering how clock dividers work correctly. Am I just confused about the nomenclature of CPU frequency, or is it quoted wrong online everywhere? I'm contemplating buying a replacement 6502.

I was going to ask on http://forums.arcade-museum.com/ but they apparently require approval of another member or a donation. Does anybody have an account over there that can "recommend" me?

Thanks.

[Niku-Sama]

just out of curiosity is the 6502 soldered to the board or is it socketed?
I imagine its a dip 40 pin version?

[Nz17]

You might want to try asking in the "Restoration" sub-forum here. Those guys there are friendly and have a lot of technical knowledge.

I'm rooting for you!

[SkiDragon]

Hey, thanks for the input. I managed to make an account over at http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=338232
Feel free to check on my progress if you'd like!

EDIT: I acquired a new 6502 processor, and that seemed to resolve the remaining problems I was having! I still need to restore the controls in order to really test the game, but the game seems to be working fine otherwise!

[Niku-Sama]

cool, be sure to show us the final project when you are done