F-15 Strike Eagle arcade game

[Phil Bennett]

I repair arcade PCBs as a hobby and recently fixed this game that I acquired last year. This was certainly one of the more challenging repairs I've undertaken. Hopefully some of you will enjoy reading this long, rambling repair write-up on this somewhat rare and unusual game:

https://philwip.com/2019/09/11/pcb-repair-f-15-strike-eagle/

[xrunner]

Most impressive work! 

[Zucca]

cool

[shakalnokturn]

Any explanation on why you'd have several bad PLD's?

I like the AMD and Kyocera logo together on the Am29C323, what's the story behind that?

[Kjelt]

Wow great job and perceverence, looks like the Gals are loosing their programming charge just as eproms. They should have used Pal chips however they were not build to last 30+ years I guess 

[Phil Bennett]

Any explanation on why you'd have several bad PLD's?

I like the AMD and Kyocera logo together on the Am29C323, what's the story behind that?

I'm not sure exactly why the GALs had failed. They were Lattice parts manufactured around 1990, were clocked at 16MHz and had been operating at 5.25V until I decreased the PSU output to 5.0V. Bitrot would have been a reasonable explanation but these parts appear to be electrically damaged; my device programmer wouldn't even attempt to read them so I can't even erase them. I've observed similar failures with other hardware/GALs.

I never noticed the Kyocera logos before; well spotted. My guess is that Kyocera manufactured the ceramic packages used by AMD's ICs.

[Whales]

Hmm, voltage addiction?  Try reading/erasing/etc them with VCC=5.3V or a bit more?

Make sure to measure and/or limit current.  They might seem dead and (unlike the working GALs) you might feel free to experiment with them a bit more, but it's worth trying to keep them in one piece for future tests you might come up with.


Great post by the way   I'm very jealous however -- you have (A) socketed chips, (B) spare parts and (C) an in-built per-build debug interface.  I don't think I'm every going to be able to repair my dreamcast.

[wraper]

I like the AMD and Kyocera logo together on the Am29C323, what's the story behind that?

Likely has something to do with ceramic package. https://asia.kyocera.com/products/semiconductor/