February 1988 (5)
and lift the pin from the pad on the
board. Check the pin for an output after
cutting it. Don't be too surprised if the
signal is good all of a sudden. If the
signal is still bad, change the IC and you
should be in business.
If the signal becane good when the pin was
lifted, you will have to continue your
journey down that bus line to the next
corrp:>nent. Don't forget that you may have
problems with a trace between one
component and another.
Now we all have a little better
tmderstanding about "bus" lines. We know
that they are really a group of separate
lines that have to be traced separately.
We know that we don't need a ticket and we
can't ride this kind of bus.
But, nost of all, we know that we can
troubleshoot and repair a "data bus" or an
"address bus" if we have the right
equipnent and the know-how.
Seriously, bus problems are probably the
100st difficult thing to troubleshoot, and
if you successfully repair a board with a
bus problem, you can start calling
yourself a technician. Do it!
Standardization (AlllA I 85 seminar)
By Todd Erickson
SUmnit Amusement
st. Paul, MN
Ten to fifteen years ago our industry
could make 100ney on $40-$50 per gane
gross. It was not necessary to have a
$75-100 average income/gane as it is
today. Insurance premiums were reasonable,
too. Pinball coils were under $2.00.
Today, the average cost of operating a
game is about $10-$12/week, not including
depreciation. Coin jams are a good 25% of
our service calls. System ganes help us,
and kits do too. But, we still need
further relief in operating costs. This
can be done by analyzing our costs.
We will find that alot of 100ney is being
wasted on non-standardized features. A
real pain is changing locks. Now, I must
stock 3 different sizes of locks and many
100re cams. Off/on switches are nice
STAR*TECH Journal
service calls for breaking in new
enployees.
(Data Fast should be congratulated for the
volurre control on their KARATE CHAMP game.
It took me over 10 minutes to adjust the
volurre on this gane ! )
Coin meters, or a_plug for one, is also
handy. These features were all agreed upon
at the first standardization forum.
Dan Van Eldren from Atari, Frank Ballouz
from Nintendo, Joe Dillon from Williams
and Steve Blattspieller from Bally and
myself were in attendance leading the
forum. These four features were agreed
upon by all:
* 7/8" locks standard
* off/on switch located top right cabinet
* volurre control inside the coin door
* coin meter provided
These points are the easiest to begin
with, it seems.
The nost intX>rtant thing the industry
soould consider is a coin door that works!
This will be a major task of retooling. We
must be able to clear anything from the
coin entry that can be inserted. This will
eliminate at least 80-90% of the service
calls. This can be equated to a 20% plus
increase in gane sales.
The list goes on to pinballs. We need a
current foldback circuit to eliminate the
solonoid fuse blowing. We don't really
need 6-12 different coils for pinballs.
The flippers don't need EOS points and
secondary windings. solid state flippers
are going to be a welcome change.
All playfield rubbers soould have the size
printed right on the playfield. The right
and left parts soould be labeled, also.
Initial standardized bookkeeping for the
various totals for both pinballs and
videos are going to help. A real time
saver would be a standard license holder.
If the Nintendo buttons were eliminated in
favor of the standardized US button, it
would be easier. The list goes on to many
100re items.
Priority must be placed on what can be
done the easiest and be the nost helpful
to the industry.