Inspired from the recent posting on converting a Gravitar/Black Widow
to a Tempest/Major Havoc, I've decided to document a similar conversion
to and from Asteroids Deluxe. This is a simpler conversion than the
aforementioned Tempest hackery, but you should still read everything
first and be sure you understand what you're doing before proceeding.
Although I can't guarantee 24-hour delivery, I'll also try to respond
to any questions you may have...
Credit goes to Rick Schieve and Steve Ozdemir for letting me use their
"Gravitar to Tempest Conversion" document as a template.
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| ADAPTER TO PLUG ASTEROIDS DELUXE BOARD INTO ASTEROIDS HARNESS |
| (and vice versa) |
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COPYRIGHT 1993
CREATED BY: Doug Jefferys
CREATION DATE: April 13, 1993
STANDARD DISCLAIMER:
--------------------
The author hereby grants permission to reproduce and distribute this
document for personal use, subject to the condition that the document
(along with any copyright and disclaimer notices) is not modified in
any way. The opinions expressed within this document are those of the
author only and not necessarily those of the author's employer. This
document is provided for informational purposes only. Although the author
has made every effort to provide accurate information, he cannot guarantee
the accuracy or usefulness of any of the information contained herein due
to the complexity of the issues involved. The author takes no responsibility
for anything arising as a result of anyone using the information provided
in this document, and the reader hereby absolves the author of any and all
liability arising from any activities resulting from the use of any
information contained herein.
GENERAL OVERVIEW:
-----------------
The information in this file can be used for either converting from
Asteroids to Asteroids Deluxe, or from Asteroids Deluxe to Asteroids.
For the sake of this discussion, we shall limit ourselves to converting
from Asteroids to Asteroids Deluxe.
Asteroids and Asteroids Deluxe happen to have almost identical wiring
harnesses. For testing purposes, either board may be used in either
harness; the game will power up correctly and you'll be able to use
the self-test switch to test the board.
Playing the game, however, will be difficult. You will find that the
left and right rotation buttons are reversed, and that pressing start
will add credits to the machine, and putting coins in will start your
game. If you're dealing with a cocktail (sit-down) unit, you may also
find that the display is upside down and/or backwards for one (or both)
players.
The hard way to solve the problem is to find an Asteroids Deluxe machine,
take it home, rip out its wiring harness, and spend a long time playing
around with connectors every time you switch games.
The easy way to solve the problem is to make an adapter -- something you
can glom onto the end of your Deluxe board to let you play Deluxe in your
Asteroids cabinet.
Plug the adapter between the board and the harness as follows:
ASTEROIDS ASTEROIDS
DELUXE -> Adapter -> WIRING
BOARD HARNESS
The "adapter" is nothing more than two female 44-pin edge connectors
wired together with some pins crossed, and a "male-male PCB". The pins
to cross are as follows:
DELUXE ASTEROIDS
------ ---------
N 12
12 N
P 13
13 P
S 15
15 S
As with the Gravitar/Tempest conversion, the "male-male PCB" is merely a
piece of PCB with straight traces on both sides. It is used as a "gender
bender" to allow you to attach the (female) edge connector of the old
wiring harness to the (also-female) edge connector of your adapter.
I haven't tried going the "other way" (turning a Deluxe cabinet into an
Asteroids machine), but the information provided here should be more than
enough to tell you what you need to know.
INGREDIENTS:
------------
One Asteroids machine (avec board).
One Asteroids Deluxe board (sans cabinet).
Two 44-pin female edge connectors.
One male-male PCB as described above.
DETAILED INFORMATION:
--------------------
A 44 pin edge connector has 22 pins on each side. The "parts side" is
labeled with letters, and the "solder side" is labeled with numbers.
Some letters (e.g. O, Q, I) are not used, as they could easily be
confused with numbers.
"---" denotes a straight-through connection between the two connectors.
"***" denotes a place where you'll have to switch wires.
ASTEROIDS | | ASTEROIDS
DELUXE BOARD | | HARNESS
-------------------
| |
| P20 | J20
| -----| |-----
| GND | A |---| A | GND
| +5V | B |---| B | +5V
| | C |---| C |
| COIN CTR-L | D |---| D | COIN CTR-L
| AUDIO 2 | E |---| E | AUDIO 2
| COIN CTR-R | F |---| F | COIN CTR-R
| | H |---| H |
| PLAYER1 | J |---| J | PLAYER1
| DIAG STEP | K |---| K | DIAG STEP
| SELF TEST | L |---| L | SELF TEST
| Z OUT | M |---| M | Z OUT
| COIN C | N |***| N | START1
| COIN L | P |***| P | START2
| COIN R | R |---| R | COIN R
| ROT RIGHT | S |***| S | ROT LEFT
| FIRE | T |---| T | FIRE
| X GND | U |---| U | X GND
| Y GND | V |---| V | Y GND
| RESET | W |---| W | RESET
| 36 VAC | X |---| X | 36 VAC
| +5V | Y |---| Y | +5V
| GND | Z |---| Z | GND
| | | | |
| GND | 1 |---| 1 | GND
| +5V | 2 |---| 2 | +5V
| | 3 |---| 3 |
| COIN CTR-C | 4 |---| 4 | COIN CTR-C
| AUDIO 1 | 5 |---| 5 | AUDIO 1
| START2LED | 6 |---| 6 | START2LED
| PLAYER2 | 7 |---| 7 | PLAYER2
| START1LED | 8 |---| 8 | START1LED
| SLAM | 9 |---| 9 | SLAM
| SHIELD | 10 |---| 10 | HYPER
| Z GND | 11 |---| 11 | Z GND
| START1 | 12 |***| 12 | COIN C
| START2 | 13 |***| 13 | COIN L
| THRUST | 14 |---| 14 | THRUST
| ROT LEFT | 15 |***| 15 | ROT RIGHT
| INV Y | 16 |---| 16 |
| X OUT | 17 |---| 17 | X OUT
| Y OUT | 18 |---| 18 | Y OUT
| INV X | 19 |---| 19 | INV X
| 36 VAC | 20 |---| 20 | 36 VAC
| +SENSE | 21 |---| 21 | +SENSE
| -SENSE | 22 |---| 22 | -SENSE
| -----| |-----
| |
-------------------
TROUBLESHOOTING:
----------------
Visual Check:
- As the swapped pins (N, 12), (P, 13), and (S, 15) are all
vertically above one another, you should have something
approximating a "cage" of wire between the pins, with the
exception of three sets of "bars" which cross to the "other
side" of the cage.
Safety Check:
- Check *EVERYTHING* for shorts, etc... before plugging it in.
Go over it and look for little bits of solder that went to the
wrong place, strands of wire, *anything* that could cause trouble.
If you've got a multimeter with a continuity checker, use it.
The five minutes you spend now may just save your machine later.
- Solder is brittle and can crack easily. If you've soldered wires
directly onto the edge connectors (as opposed to using a crimp tool
and inserting pins into an empty connector), be careful when installing
your adapter, and try not to wiggle things around too much.
- When switching between games, power off your machine and let it
sit for *AT LEAST* 30 seconds before unplugging the harness and
switching boards. The big capacitor in the power supply can still
supply enough power to damage your board if you yank the harness
out too early. Maybe I'm just being paranoid, but do you really
want to risk your board in proving the point?
Reality Check, or
What to do if Everything Appears Upside Down or Backwards:
- The basic idea here is to play around until the INV Y and INV X
connections get set up to operate properly depending on whether
or not PLAYER1 or PLAYER2 is up. Depending on whether you're
installing into a cocktail machine or not (and whether you're
converting from Deluxe to Asteroids or vice versa), the actual
connections required will vary.
- For example, my Asteroids machine is in the "cocktail" cabinet.
Pins 7 and 19 are shorted on my harness; this is how the video
gets inverted along the X axis when PLAYER2 is up. I had to
short pins 7 and 16 in order to also invert the Y axis in order
to defeat the automatic left-to-right inversion built into the
Asteroids Deluxe game (which expects to be played in a cabinet
with a mirrored reflector...)
Happy Hacking!
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