STAR*TECH Journal
•
December 1987 (3)
Premier
Power Supply Regulators
Data East GHOSTBUSTERS
New Program
By Sam Cross
Godwin Distributing Co.
North Little Rock, Arkansas
By Neal R. Zook/customer Service Manager
I've had to replace two power supply IC's
on Premier pinballs recently. If you are
not familiar with it, I'm talking of the
IM338 regulator that is nounted on the
black heat sink.
SUBJECT:
Program updat~.
I don't know why they don't nount this
supply in a cooler part of the game as
this heatsink is way too hot during normal
operation for all but a store window dl.III1IT¥
to keep his hand on, but the designing
engineer seems to like to run power supply
corrponents at their absolute current and
temperature lin1its, as have ALL Gottlieb
pinballs AND video power supplies.
Data East USA
San Jose, California
SYMP!tMS:
.
A progratraning error has been detected in
THE RF.AL GHOSTBUSTERS video game.
During a multi-player game, this error can
cause one of the player images to get
stuck on a ladder or in a wall in scene 2.
'Ihe player will be stuck until he is
killed by an enemy or the Scene Timer runs
out.
SOLUTION:
My thanks to this engineer, for I'll have
plenty of work to do for a long time.
A As an added note, these IM338 chips can
W fail in two main ways:
1. 'Ihey can open up and supply very little
current and likewise the voltage is very
low, or
2. 'Ihey can slowly peter out, dropping the
output to 4.5 volts and lower, which
results in erratic game operation.
A third, but less likely, failure is to
short, applying unregulated voltage to the
logic, a bad condition to be sure.
Data East has generated a program update
that will correct this problem. 'Ihe
updated Eprorns need to be installed on the
top pcb.
IDENI'IFICATION:
(DE-0273) in location 1D and 6D, and are
labeled "DZ01-3b" and "DZ04-l"
respectively. 'Ihey replace the existing
Eprorns in those locations.
Data East is shipping updated Eprorns to
all of the distributors who have received
the earlier version garnes.
Wl'E:
Due to the irrpa.ct this problem can have on
earnings, this update should be considered
MANDA'IORY and installed in your garnes as
soon as possible.
*
A
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STAR*TECH JOURNAL, December 1987, Volume
9, Number 10. Copyright (c) 1987 by Star
Tech Journal, Inc. ALL rights reserved.
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