Dotmation big bang piggy bankin

[rokgpsman]

I was just wondering if the eproms are bad. Are these eprom files available?  I have a eprom burner.

That's why I asked earlier in Reply #8 if you had an eprom burner. You can pop the sound eproms off the mpu board and check them with your eprom burner, do a read and get their checksum. Just doing a read will tell you if they are working, since that accesses the data in the eprom same as the mpu board does, and the checksum will tell you if they are the right ones or not for your game.

Big Bang Piggy Bankin'
CPU BOARD Sound Eproms:
u17   27c040   cksum=B000   
u18   27c040   cksum=9100
u30   27c040   cksum=8A00
u31   27c040   cksum=D000

eprom type 27c4001 is equivalent to 27c040

[newkid3]

Pics

[newkid3]

Couple more

[rokgpsman]

I had one of mine where the top board had some swelled caps and the sound on all effects was very faint, no matter what volume I had it set at.
Switched out the board and worked fine.
Maybe check that too.

Yes, the audio amp is on the I/O board in the card cage and over the years the capacitors can dry out and degrade, mostly affects the electrolytic types. Since some of the sounds work ok I'd think the audio amp is ok but there may be other things on the I/O that select individual sounds (not sure), and that is what he has going on, certain sounds do not occur but others are just fine. Swapping out the boards would be a quick way to narrow down the problem if he has replacement boards or another machine available.

[newkid3]

I do have a magic lamp dotmation machine i could through these piggy roms on that board and try it in the piggy machine. I will do that tomorrow to see if there is any difference. Thanks

[rokgpsman]

I do have a magic lamp dotmation machine i could through these piggy roms on that board and try it in the piggy machine. I will do that tomorrow to see if there is any difference. Thanks

That would be a good way to prove if your Piggy machine mpu board and the I/O board are good. If the same sound problem happens with the boards from the Magic Lamp installed in the Piggy machine you'll know the Piggy mpu and I/O are likely ok, that something else is the cause, like eproms or something. And if the sound now works correctly you'll know one of the Piggy boards is bad. You can try the I/O board first, it will be faster & easier since there are no eproms to move around. You might want to mark the boards so you'll know which machine they came from, it is easy to mix them up in the heat of battle.

Also, when you remove the boards look for any bent pins on the 2 large board connectors that plug into the backplane.

Something to be aware of-  the backplane board (the board the mpu and I/O plug into) has a special small eeprom that stores info about the current game software in the machine on the mpu board. If you power up the machine and it has game software on the mpu that is different title than what is stored in the backplane eeprom there is a mismatch and then the machine requires a CLEAR process. You'll get a message on the front display. This shouldn't happen if you just take your Piggy roms and put them on the other mpu board and install it into the Piggy machine. But if you take a mpu with the Piggy roms and install it into the Magic Lamp machine to do some troubleshooting then a mismatch will happen, since it's backplane eeprom would still have Magic Lamp stored as the current game but the mpu would have Piggy roms.

Not to confuse the issue, just wanted you to know about this.

[dale]

Don't forget to check the Jurisdiction jumpers on the IO board. I have a Magic Lamp that is NJ Jur and two 3 coin BBPB, one is Stand Jur and one is LV Jur ( Elvis Pig).

[newkid3]

Dale are you talking about the dip switch settings for jurisdiction? I took the 6 chips out of magic lamp cpu board. Then i put the 6 chips out of bbpb board into magic lamp board. I put the magic lamp board with the bbpb chips in it into the bbpb machine. When i turned it on i got the game change 2 error code. I put the chips back in the original bbpb board and put it back in and it booted up fine. Does this tell anyone anything?

[dale]

Hope I didn't confuse you but the jumpers are on the lower left side of the IO board and important. The dipswitches are usually all on off. After you get game change2 you need to press the RED diagnostic button. I thought you might need to clear the board first........

[rokgpsman]

Dale are you talking about the dip switch settings for jurisdiction? I took the 6 chips out of magic lamp cpu board. Then i put the 6 chips out of bbpb board into magic lamp board. I put the magic lamp board with the bbpb chips in it into the bbpb machine. When i turned it on i got the game change 2 error code. I put the chips back in the original bbpb board and put it back in and it booted up fine. Does this tell anyone anything?

When you get a "game change 2" error this is just the machine telling you that it sensed a change, from you installing a different mpu board.

You just need to do what they call a "Soft Clear" to clear the ram on the mpu board just installed. You do the Soft Clear by pressing the Diag/Setup button on the front of the card cage. After a few seconds the machine will finish clearing the mpu ram. Then you press the Diag/Setup button again. Watch the digital display on the front of the machine and you will see the messages it shows.

[newkid3]

All of the dip switches are off. When i get the game change and then hit the switch i get need clear. I dont have the ram clear chip so i could not do a full ram clear. I was wondering if the same chips being in 2 identical boards in the same machine. With it showing game change does that mean the 2nd board i am using is maybe operating different? When i say operating different. I mean maybe accessing something the first board is not doing properly.

[rokgpsman]

Did you press the Diag/Setup button a second time? You have to press it once, then wait a few seconds for the machine to do its Soft Clear thing and press it again. I think when it says "need clear" in this case it is asking to do a Soft Clear.

If you can't get it to do a Soft Clear then yes a Hard Clear will be needed if you want to proceed with using that mpu board in the machine, and that requires the WMS CLEAR chip be installed on the mpu board. The CLEAR chip is handy to have, if you are going to be working on dotmation machines you probably need to get one.

You can try leaving the original mpu board in the machine and swap the I/O board only. Like Dale said you may need to reset the jurisdiction jumpers on the I/O board if they are different between the boards.

The dipswitches on the I/O board are only for setting up a progressive situation, they aren't used on any dotmation machines as far as I know, at least not in home use.

[newkid3]

Ok just put chips back in 2nd board. When i put it in and turn the machine on it comes up with game change. I then hit the diag button and it goes instantly to need clear. I read in the manual if you get this error you have to do a hard reset of ram. I am pretty sure that is what i read.

[rokgpsman]

When it goes instantly to need clear do you press the Diag button and then a few seconds later press it again? Takes 2 button presses to do a Soft Clear.

If that doesn't work then you are probably right about needing a Hard Clear. They look like this, come in different denominations for the game you use it on, like quarter, nickel, dollar. The quarter one is the most often used.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/WMS-40x-Ram-Clear-Chip-with-instructions-Williams-Dotmation-or-non-dot-/252058863944?hash=item3aafe10948%3Ag%3AKLgAAOxyRNJSd~WQ&nma=true&si=vUwZ%252B15p2Mq1j5C8a%252Bs42Tt%252FBB0%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

[rokgpsman]

...With it showing game change does that mean the 2nd board i am using is maybe operating different? When i say operating different. I mean maybe accessing something the first board is not doing properly.

The second mpu board has Magic Lamp game data in its battery-backed up ram chip, that data does not match the data in the little eeprom chip on the backplane. So the machine senses this and asks for the ok to do a Soft Clear. The Soft Clear clears the memory and syncs the backplane eeprom and the mpu ram to the same. Shouldn't have to do a Hard Clear in this case, but if you want to or you can't get past the "need clr" message then you may have to.

[newkid3]

Ok that makes sense. it just goes from game change to need clear. After that it does not matter what i do it will not do anything.  i guess i will have to order the ram clear chip for it. Wait wait wait. Thanks for the help. If anyone thinks of something else that could cause some sounds not to work please let me know.

[newkid3]

Ok i got a ram clear chip and cleared the ram. Put the original chip back on the board and everything is the same on the known working magic lamp board as it was on BBPB missing the same sounds. So it is not that. Anyone know what i should do next? I really want to get all sounds working on it. Should i read all of the eproms. Is there some way they can be compared?

[rickhunter]

If you read the sound eproms, calculate a 16 bit checksum and compare them to the ones posted earlier, that way you can see if your sound data is good or not.

[newkid3]

New to this. How do i calculate a 16 bit checksum? Thanks

[dale]

Did you try to change out the IO board? If I read correctly you changed out the CPU board. The IO board has been known to cause a lot of quirky problems and is a very easy change.

Dale