(Topic ID: 278160)

Disco Fever rom issue

By raysco

3 years ago



Topic Stats

  • 9 posts
  • 3 Pinsiders participating
  • Latest reply 3 years ago by Tuukka
  • No one calls this topic a favorite

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    #1 3 years ago

    I am struggling to get a Williams Sys 3 Disco Fever running. The machine has been dead for over 20 years and there were a lot of parts missing off all the boards including the ROMs.
    I have repaired a number of Williams 3-6 boards over the years but this one Is bugging me and it seems to be rom based.
    If I run the Leon’s rom in U17 everything works, I can do a full test including driver board outputs ( after repair), however if I install all Disco Fever ROMs the board will not boot, it locks up with two solid LEDs. I believe there is an issue with ROMs, there is a thread talking about the World Cup prototype/production rom. Currently the machine runs partly, it has the U14 and U20 ROMs for Disco Fever but will not run with U17, burnt twice and checksum ok. If I run it with the World Cup U17 rom I can get the machine into diagnostics but all the switch assignments are wrong.
    Can anyone shed any light on this weirdness ?
    Are the Disco Fever ROMs ok?

    #2 3 years ago

    The ones in the pinmame romset are. There was issues with some of the romsets when williams had them posted not sure if that had ever been worked out when planetary took the website over but if you compare the pinmame ones from ipdb to the ones on planetary that should tell you.

    Also try another known set in there to see if it's your roms or something with the board.

    #3 3 years ago

    Thanks,
    These ROMs came from Ipdb and second time from planetary. I am a member of vpforums so will download theirs.
    As an aside, I was hoping you would answer this, I think you did the last thread

    #4 3 years ago

    If I run a set of Flash ROMs, I never have a boot issue, everything just seems to work

    #5 3 years ago

    That's really odd then. I know the DF roms on ipdb work because there exists a one-off in the world that does funny things with the flippers and that file was used to create it.

    #6 3 years ago

    I will try U17 from ipdb again.
    Pinwiki has a reference regarding the World Cup white flipper rom U17 works in all other white rom machines. This is my current configuration but it seems to be quite random as to whether it works or not.

    #7 3 years ago

    Most of the differences in the world cup rom vs. other white rom games is meaningless garbage however there is a patch for something in the middle of the garbage. Whether it actually uses that patch or not I don't know. It looks like leftover data from whomever dumped the roms in the 70s - the rom itself is not full unlike the later yellow, green, and blue OS romsets. Green and blue are 100% full there, I don't remember if the Yellow ones are but they might be.

    They actually did a really good job for the time of utilizing every byte available (Baly did too, their OS roms are usually 100% full too)

    #8 3 years ago

    The different white flipper rom applies to World Cup only. Disco Fever runs fine with the "standard" flipper ROMs, including the set found in ipdb.

    The Leon test ROM does not do a very thorough RAM test, so it might be possible you have a RAM error even though Leon's test passes. If you get two solid LED's in test with original ROM's, while the board passes Leon's test, suspect a CMOS RAM (5101) failure.

    #9 3 years ago
    Quoted from slochar:

    It looks like leftover data from whomever dumped the roms in the 70s

    The garbage part is included in checksum verification, so it is originally in the ROM.

    Some other Williams ROMs also have interesting data at end of ROM, which is unused. I don't remember what game it was, but the ROM had large part of assembler symbol table as ASCII text at the end.

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