Monday, April 30, 2012

Having trouble with Thayer's Quest

So I hooked up my Thayer's Quest boardset to my Dragon's Lair cabinet tonight and it's not booting up. I used to have this working and the boardset has done nothing but sit in a box for 5+ years (actually probably closer to 10 years) so I can't imagine that something is damaged. I took a few pictures of my setup. Hopefully someone can see what I am doing wrong. The scoreboard doesn't get initialized either, it just comes up as you see.

1 comment:

  1. Hi Matt,

    First things first, the basics. First touch something with your hand that is Field Grounded. That will Ground any Static Electricity that you might have. With the Power OFF, or even with the Logic pulled outside of the Cabinet, carefully press down on any Chips that are plugged in the Logic Board on both Boards. Press on All Connectors that connect both Boards together, Unplug and Replug in the Rom Board and carefully press on the Rom Chip, as well. Then Plug the Logic back into the Cabinet.

    FYI. The Laser Disc Player nor the Key Board needs to be plugged in to get to the Initial Start Up, Which should be the Logic saying, "Thank You; Initializing System". And 00 should be displayed at the Bottom of the Score Board / Timer Display. If there is Garbage on the Display or a bunch of Numbers with Dots here and there and without the Logic saying, "Thank You; Initializing System", then it has NOT Initialized.

    Be also aware that pressing the Reset Button usually does nothing, if this is the case. It only seems to be able to reset when it has gotten pasted the Initial Start Up. And seems to do nothing if it has not.

    I have had a similar problem with my Thayer's Quest Logic where is won't initialize, this is one reason I would like to Test it out with DEXTER, to see if there might be a problem with the Logic or not once it gets going. For me, once it gets passed the Initialization of the Game, the LD Player then starts up with the Logic Saying, "Disc Spinning Up; Please Wait", and the Games begins the Attract Mode, the game seems to play perfectly fine after that. But I have not run it for more than an Hour or so. Haven't had the need to run it so long, so It won't wear out my Laser Disc Player, if I can at all help it.

    If it still does not initialize, try these two things that seem to work for me. Don't ask me why, but they just do. Just keep the Power ON for about 5 Minutes or so, sometimes the Logic will out of no ware just Auto Initialize. I do hear some sort of Click Noise like some sort of Relay or something just before the Logic saying, "Thank You; Initializing System". Or if this still did not do the trick, then after it has been ON for over 5 Minutes, turn the Game OFF for about 10 Seconds, then turn it back ON, and see if it then Initializes. For some strange reason, one of these two tricks always works for me. Not sure why, but they do. Sometimes it takes a time or two, but I've always been able to get my Game working after doing one or the other. After getting it to initialize, I can use the Reset Button, or even turn the Game OFF and back ON again, with no problems. I only seem to get this Initialize Problem when it has been OFF for a time.

    Don't know if this will help or not. But if it does, let me know. I would like to find out how this Logic really works. It seems to work very differently then any other Laser Disc Game Logics, that I have seen and it seems to do very strange things at times.

    To get to the Logic Saying, "Disc Spinning Up; Please Wait", you do need to have the LD Player connected or DEXTER hooked Up and Running if this is the case. My problem with DEXTER if after it gets to this point, it then Auto Resets and Re-Initializes from the beginning into an Endless Loop after this.

    Yours Truly,

    Tony M. Victorino

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