Got a Bally Star Trek that's driving me nuts. Board will do first flicker, and nothing else. Checked the ROMS with my chip-burner, and they match the file. Brand new 6800 chip. I've got all the jumpers to three 2716's. That's 1-5, 2-4, 7-8, 10-12, 11-25, 13a-14, 16a-18, 31-32, and 33-35. What the heck am I missing?

Quick flash, then off.

I thought U8 was checked by flash...three? Another flash.

Ok, I'm dumb, what's CE? I've got good continuity on my pins, from bottom to top of chip on u1 and u2.

Oh, chip enable, duh. Will go whack at it a bit. Where did 2 blinks come from? It's a flicker.

I've got a probe and multimeter, btw. I just didn't know what to look for. Should the chip enable lines just flicker high for a moment, or stay high?

*Shrug* I might as well burn the chips on 2732's. Can't hurt anything and it takes 3 minutes. I just put 'em on the smallest chip that would fit.

Update: Enable lines are high, although sometimes as low as 4.25 volts. Went commando on the thing. Replaced u2 socket, burned 2732 rom and jumpered to that. Still the same result. Starting to suspect the reset line, because now every third time I give it power, it locks on the LED.

Oh, every mpu board we have from this era has battery damage. This one isn't bad, though. But pin 40 and pin 2 are both high.

If I've measured all used sockets as having full continuity, you really think I need to do them?

Oh, I can solder without pulling pads just fine. So now, I pulled out a board from our working strikes and spares, to make sure the chips were good. And now that board doesn't boot anymore. I hate these things.

Um, took u6's socket off and it's clean as a whistle underneath. I get what you're saying, but while you can fix a person's smashed hand by doing an arm transplant, it doesn't teach you anything about the anatomy of the hand. So stuff like thedefog is saying is what I'm looking for.