I joined the club!

Not my first pin: I owned a TZ and ToM years ago before they went up in price, and sold them back in the day as well which i regret.

I'm kind of a sad panda as after moving the machine to my place, the pc does not seem to boot up properly, and as such the playfield does not come on.
A bit of background, i've been in pc hardware since the 90's so i know my stuff, but reseating the RAM and Prism card did not seem to help.
It still has the original PSU but voltages are good and it makes no noise, i know i need to check the caps, and replace the PSU as a safety measure soon.
Mainboard looks pristine, no bulging caps in sight. All cables seem to be connected properly as well.

I guess i need to re-check everything, but just a quick question, does the PC boot from Prism if the LPT cable is not connected?
Must the lpt cable be connected in order to boot up from Prism? What lights should i see on a working card and/or power board?

Got it to work after reseating the ram and prism card Now i need to replace some lamps and adjust switches and we should be good to go!

Yep i know, it wasn't clear from my post.
I first got the PC up & running without the prism card, on a VGA screen and i went from there.

Looking to update to applejuice 's latest, i seem to be missing the service port, and the cable is loose on the bottom in the back.
Can i just plug that cable to a compatible XP/98SE PC?

Regarding the game, i guess i need some sleeves and more checks on wiring/switches etc,

Q: Ball stop upper left: Is this one binding or does it drop by itself after completing a mode?
I sometimes need to flipper a few times to make it drop, is this by design?

Todo list:
- The right drop target does not seem to rise/drop (this also seems to be the hardest shot to hit for me..)
- Bottom one of the three pop bumpers seems dead.
- Left slingshot hardly triggers, right one nice & strong.
- Ramp flap damage (looks fixable with some tape on bottom for now. I guess i'll order a new one with bracket, no rivet tools.)
- Beer strip needed on ball catcher (the metal irritates me as it cause the screen to not reflect 100%, same with some of the ramp switches up top right.)
- Fix feature lights below saucer (i hope it's a loose connector / cold solder joints as this seems common.) I'll take it out and check/reflow the lamp section.
- Upgrade to 2.21

General:
I love the mirror effect and think it's a shame that it's not used in other games more. Too bad pinball 2000 died.
Having played ToM and TZ this game is much more accessible for my wife & daughter, the ruleset is easy and no need to do any tasks to trigger a new mode, just the same 4-6 shots, post area, center flap ramp. Rinse & repeat as next mode/feature starts automatically. Am i missing something or is there depth in the ruleset that i need to explore more? Secret combo ramps/shots things?

I've got mine mostly working now, fixed a few common problems (drop target not dropping, ramp switches and a few lamps/flashers).

Now i need to replace the skip ramp flap.
Its bent and has a tear in the left middle. Didnt check this when buying :/
It seems to be made of flimsy black plastic-like material, is that original? Or just very thin metal sheet?

Anybody in Europe with the complete bracket+flap so i don't need to worry about rivets? I found a company in UK that will rivet it to an existing bracket, anybody have experience with them? (Pinball.co.uk)

Thank you for all the work you did on the new software, i will update soon. Still on 1.1 now (!).

I actually built pc's for customers during the end of the 90's and 00's and have an XP laptop to maintain some old plc stuff, but i can't find my null modem cable anywhere. So I'm waiting on a new one. I might go the cmd route with fupdate as well. I know my way around any old or new pc tech .

Need to sort out the skip ramp though.
Do you maybe have one ready to go with bracket? I am unable to rivet.

Still need to fix a few intermittent switches and dead flashers, a chewed out pop bumper skirt and so on. My left martian doesn't always go down as well With the fixes i already did the game does play a lot better and its so close to being done i can almost taste it

Confirmed, i have these same blue crimped things under the slings. Noticed them when i removed the ramp to add new sling rubbers.

I was cleaning out the bottom of cab today and besides some rubber and a few misplaced bulbs i managed to find this lodged in one of the corners.. Anybody know where it goes or what it is?

20200822_225521 (resized).jpg

I checked and it fits below there. No idea why it got removed from the game on mine. Looks to be original at least, the holes match perfectly and its got some wear so it was indeed installed at some point. I think i got the screws in the vacuum cleaner somewhere as well Thanks for pointing it out!

Did anybody ever reproduce a set of insert decals? I have a few with bleeding edges, like the martian eyes between the flippers for example.

Thanks Applejuice, i'll upgrade this weekend, can't wait
Your work is truly appreciated!

What magic is involved in getting the machine to keep date and time properly? I have:

Replaced and checked the mainboard battery. (Was dead.)
Replaced and checked prism battery. (It was 3.0v)
Mainboard and prism have no damage, nothing leaked.
Did a full factory reset, then set the clock. Played a few games and let it run for approx 4hrs.
It will run ok as long as the machine is on.

On poweroff i am back at Jan 1 2010 12.00

It will keep the year but not the month day and clock.
I dont get it. Whats the magic trick?

No freezes noticed here. I can play games fine. I've been debugging the clock problem for some time now and have had the machine on for quite a long time to see if it would help store the time/date . I would suggest to check the fan on the Cyrix CPU and/or temperatures. Maybe underclock it?

As for my time/date problem, can somebody with an original Pin2k computer + serial cable please check one thing for me?
Connect the serial to a PC and start up a terminal, using putty for example, 9600,8n1 on whatever com port you use on the PC.
Turn on the machine and watch for the boot up messages to finish. There should be similar lines to this on the bottom:

[code]
*** NonFatal: 1 Jan 1999 12:00:00
*** NonFatal: Last[XPid -1 APid -1 (none)] Current[XPid 0 APid -1 (prnull)]
*** NonFatal: Retrieve Resource (get & Failed, ID=

Allegro version information here
Game Information here
Type[PRODUCTION_BUILD, ALLOW_SCORE_CREDIT]

[Wednesday, 1 January 2020 12:00:02]
%
[/code]

Now if i deduct from this it seems to get Jan 1999 / 12:00 from somewhere (mainboard? But battery is good!)
The year appears to be stored in the Prism flash.. and combined with the mainboard date of Jan 1 + Time 12:00
The machine then makes it Jan 1 2020 2 seconds later.

I'm wondering if people with a working clock have a different date where i have "*** NonFatal: 1 Jan 1999 ..." at bootup.

It seems to point to a broken clock on my mainboard for some odd reason? Or something i don't yet understand.

I pulled the prism and booted w/ VGA. That's odd, CMOS error - Battery low
I checked the battery i replaced and it was at 3.1VDC.. Rebooted, but again CMOS checksum error.
Swapped in a new no-name brand from the wife's Christmas light battery collection and saved bios settings. Rebooted and power cycled but no CMOS errors this time. Set the clock from the menu, and power cycled after saving it. Clock now works!

Side note, the clock font is now in RED and it was in BLUE before, if that's any indication

I didn't know you were using Pinbox/NuCore.
You should get rid of the screensaver using "sudo apt-get remove xscreensaver" from a terminal / ssh session and it will be gone forever.

Question about the new power drain feature that was recently introduced.

In general i noticed my game had a sort of 'low' bang on the left flipper after rebuilding both of them. The right one seems to have a little more bang for its buck. However since i owned the game i never had the 'hold' coil test working for the right coil. It worked on the left one, but not on the right. The right flipper would stay up. EOS and everything checks out OK on both by the way. I figured this was in the way the coil on the right was wound, or something like that.

Now my left flipper hold died during power drain. I guess the transistor was on its way out and finally gave in, i ordered a few new ones. Coil measures out OK, no shorts, diodes i need to check but no shorts on any of the windings, left+right coil measure the same (133/4 Ohm).

Question: Does the power drain effect run for both flippers or does it pick a specific one? (Always the left one for me)
Question: Does an aged transistor affect the 'bang' of the flippers? The right flipper just seemed a bit different in the noise it makes as it activates and smacks the rod into the coil stop
Question: What could be the cause of the right flipper not going up on the hold test?

Wow, that's some pretty heavy wear on the SOL hole there. There's a protector for it, but i'm pretty sure it will not cover the left side of the damage. Bondo or other wood repair , sanding & painting a bit i guess. The skip ramp can be replaced, it looks like the SOL upkicker metal sheet work also needs some attention.

The right inner loop plastic is also damaged, a transparant flap used to sit on top of the drop targe there. (This can cause airballs which in turn could damage an insert if it lands wrong.)

The red lane guides are the least of your worries and can be easily replaced with new ones.

I hope the rest of the cabinet is in better shape and stuff like the monitor and PC works, no leaky caps or battery damage etc?

applejuice You're doing the lords work, really looking forward to this! Thanks so much!

It's a bit of hit-and-miss with LCD, mine came with a Consumer Dell 19" but i upgraded it to a Eizo CG 21" and this matches the ramps perfectly. These are also industrial/professional monitors with good blacks and RGB. These are still possible to find on second hand sites, and i really wanted a square screen instead of 16:9 widescreen.