In this earlier post, I drove myself partially insane while poorly troubleshooting a consistent restart issue with a new to me ICB PCB board. I went down all sorts of side quests that were adjacent to a (known at the time to possibly be wrong) assumption that the issue was related to ROM / EPROM problems. It seemed logic related, damnit!
While the 2nd PCB was off being worked on and tested, I decided it was prudent to re-do my edge connectors. I noticed occasionally the other PCB would resolve itself based on tension on the edge connectors or that certain problems would come up related to fiddling with the edge connectors.
ICB has three 18/36 edge connectors. I lack the finesse and patient to push each pin out of the edge connector and I planned to re-pin it anyway, so I clipped the old connector and one at a time re-crimped and installed into new connectors. This was tedious / time consuming. I put down a soda flat to catch trimmings and listened to a portion of an audio book in a couple crimp sessions to get the work done.
If this is something you need to do, here are some parts links to save you time..
Gold, leaf pins & AMP Connector:
AMP Leaf Pins
AMP 18/36 Edge Connector
Crimp Tool: Ratcheting Crimp Tool
Another, definitely cheaper and probably faster way to go about it would have been to use an 18/36 solder-based edge connector.
But, this machine had 18/36 gold-leaf populated AMP connectors so that is what I went back with.
Turns out, it was a dip switch.
..
…
yep.
…
(sips Whiskey)
..
a…dip.. switch..
So, apparently a machine that isn’t equipped with a ticket-dispenser will trigger a CPU watchguard restart at the ticket-dispense thresholds.
¯\(°_o)/¯
So, my game actually works now. I only feel Level-8 stupid for spending countless hours down a ROM burning rabbit hole over a problem that ended up being a dip switch setting / game power bug. At least now I know I have solid power, good connectivity and a working PCB. It will be nice to actually get some game play in.. :) John at El Dorado did me a solid by selling me an un-obtanium board in stellar condition and hand-holding me through troubleshooting of this newly discovered “feature” of these Taito boards. If your game reboot consistently after counting bonuses - make sure don’t have a dip switch accidentally enabled related to a ticket dispenser.