Sherrill, NY
Folks I have a head scratcher
See Attached Video
I installed a L3 Rom on My PZ
To upgrade from an older Revision
and this is how it acts
So I put my old chip back in and boots fine etc
Any ideas ??
Thanks
(Topic ID: 267104)
Pretty sure it is trying to test Capt B Zar’s head during those freezes . I’ve noticed my machine’s attract mode lights stutter ever so slightly when his head movement is tested Each time the game is first turned on. I suspect the test would time out at each stage of his head doesn’t move, or the associated switches for sensing position are broken
Your head didn’t move at all on power on. Is it broken?
Just unplugged the Capt B Zar motor on my game and power it on. It showed the exact same lengthy freezes as your video. Given that, it is safe to say those freezes can be attributed to the head not working.
Hopefully your new motor control board takes care of things.
Okay gotcha
I’ll swap chips back in the am and unplug the motor board or maybe I’ll just wait for the delivery of the new board
Will up for your with results
But question
Why does it work on the P5 without issue
Perhaps a better more involved head diagnostic and it’s making the game work harder ?
Thank you for checking your game for confirmation 
I’ve never played with the P-5 ROM, so I don’t even know if it does a head test when first powered on. If it does, then a ROM disassembly would be necessary between the two versions to see why they behave differently. I do hardware and software professionally, so spending off hours looking at 6809 assembly doesn’t sound too fun right now
If I had to take a guess, we are dealing with an early WPC machine where the programmers were still coming up to speed on a new architecture. As such, it was easier to throw in a test that completely blocked everything while it was waiting for feedback (disabled interrupts or the kernel treated the task as high priority).
Bottom line, probably not worth the effort of investigating if you get the head moving and the issue goes away. Better use of (y)our time would be to open your favorite beverage and “blast off through the ozone”!
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