Star Tech Journal

The disc is best checked for flatness by
placing it on a smooth, flat surface, such as
a mirror or a pane of glass. Try to slide a
dime underneath the inside and outside
edges. If a dime will slide, the disc is warped
beyond the 3mm tolerance and should be
replaced before it causes you any focus
headaches.
7. Do not operate the disc player outside its
environmental specifications. The big
concerns in laser games are that temper-
ature be between 45 and 95°F, and humidity
does not exceed 80% non-condensing.
This means extra care will be required
during winter cold and summer heat. Some-
times disc players will require hours of
stable environment before condensation
has dissipated and operation returns to
normal. If a disc player or laser game is
moved from cold to hot, or vice versa, give it
plenty of time to become thermally stable
before even attempting to run it.
Bill Turner is Customer Service Manager for
Electro-Sport, Inc. He supervises Electro-
Sport's repair department, field service
seminars and schools, trade show
appearances, and generation of training
materials and manuals.
COLOR
BURST
VIDEO
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Next time, the focus will be laserdisc player
theory and safety in preparation for the big
moment, opening the disc player. Those
N.A.P. manuals are available from:
N.A.P. Consumer Electronics Corp.
Product Services
Technical Publications Dept.
P.O. Box555
Old Andrew Jackson Highway
Jefferson City, TN 37760
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8. Try not to let the jargon, or the special
requirements, get you down. These eight
points should clear up perhaps 40% of the
usual disc player complaints. Soon, by
reading these articles, you will be able to
strip a disc player, diagnose the faults with
its innards, and leap tall buildings!
The above list of guidelines is by no means
exhaustive, but short of actual repair, you
should find the guidelines applicable to all
laser games, and that the use of these guide-
lines should make a large dent in the number
of laser game service calls you are performing.
Make sure your operators have a good under-
standing of what's required to keep these
laser games running, and we'll all be happerl
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HORIZONTAL
SYNC PULSE
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Drawing by ES/ staff
HORIZONTAL
BLANKING
PULSE
FIGURE 1: POINTS TD KNOW ON THE VIDEO WAVEFORM
and they cost about $12 plus shipping.
MANUFACTS
ATARI CLOAK AND DAGGER TROUBLESHOOTING PROCEDURE
TROUBLESHOOTING WITH
THECATBDX
TROUBLESHOOTING THE
MASTER AND SLAVE PCB
PRELIMINARY PROCEDURE
1. Turn off the electrical power to the game.
2. Remove the PCB assembly from the EMI
cage.
3. Connect an extension harness from the
game harness to the EMI PCB edge
connectors.
4. Connect a jumper from the WDDIS test
point on the Master PCB to ground.
' 5. Connect the CAT Box 50-pin cable to the
PCB under test (TOP of connector to
component side of PCB).
6. Remove the 6502B microprocessor from
its socket on the PCB under test.
7. Connect a jumper across test points PHO
and PH2 (Master PCB) or RHO and RH2
(Slave PCB).
8. Apply power to the game and to the CAT
Box.
9. Set the CAT Box switches as follows:
a.
b.
c.
d.
TESTER SELF· TEST
TESTER MODE
R/W MODE
Checksum Switch
OFF
R/W
(OFF)
Off
10. Press the TESTER RESET pushbutton.
TROUBLESHOOTING THE
ADDRESS LINES
1. Perform the Preliminary Procedure under
Troubleshooting the Master and Slave
PCB.
2. Connect the Data Probe to the CAT Box.
3. Connect the Data Probe ground clip to a
ground on one of the PCBs under test.
4. Set the CAT Box Switches as follows:
a BYTES
b. PULSE MODE
c. R/W
...
1
UNLATCHED
WRITE
5. Enter address AAAA with the CAT Box
keyboard.
6. Set the R/W MODE switch to STATIC.
Continued on page 26