Re: Tech: Star Wars on a test bench...

> OK. So here is the situation. I have a Star Wars boardset that I
> pulled from a playing-blind game many moons ago. I want to test it out
> to see if it will play blind (no monitor or scope). All I have is the
> "cage" with the boards in it (they are all there).

If you don't have either a monitor or an X/Y oscilloscope, this project may
be for naught because you need to see what the X and Y video outputs are.

> What is the best way to start making connections to it? (Of course,
> if it can be tested this way.)

I'm about to work on a similar project and I've got the schematics, and I'm
planning to just make a connector to plug into the edge; hooking up a power
supply to it that way (soldering) will simplify things.

> I read somewhere that someone tried testing a Dig-Dug (or similar
> Atari game) by just connecting power to the test points on the board,
> but ended up damaging it. So is that considered unsafe? Would I be
> better off building a connector for it?

It is possible to just alligator-clip a power supply to an average
motherboard for bench-testing purposes, but that makes it susceptible to
accidental bumping while you're poking around, and can therefore lead to
accidental shorts and stuff. This is particularly true with vector-graphics
games, because the motherboards need so many voltages and alligator clips
that it's easier to make a dedicated harness if you're testing several
boards of the same type. You're better off making a connector, as that type
of connection is more reliable and cleaner.

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Received on Tue Jul 29 18:13:39 2003