How to tell if an Atari Slapstic is dead??

[98PaceCar]

Like the title says, I'm trying to debug a Gauntlet board I picked up and am wondering if the slapstic has died on it. All it does is gives me about a quarter screen of garbage, then reboots. If I disable the watchdog, it will stop rebooting but does not display anything.

I thought that you could at least boot a Gauntlet board without a slapstic, but I wasn't sure. Anybody know if this is true or if there are any other issues that might cause this? All the voltages seem good at the molex on the board. Well, the +15 was a bit high, but that should only be used for sound so no biggie there.

[DogP]

I've never tried, but I think I've read that before... although if the chip is dead, it could probably do lots of strange stuff. If you suspect it, I'd just do this mod: http://www.ionpool.net/arcade/gauntlet/hacks/slapstic.html ... and you might want to check out http://www.ionpool.net/arcade/gauntlet/main.html if you haven't already.

Also, make sure the CPU is the correct one. I got a board that someone had replaced the CPU with a 68000 instead of a 68010, which would start to boot, then reset.

DogP