Wrote him an E-mail the next morning. When I got to work, I found a reply. Called him and he told me that "I wouldn't want to leave there without it". CONvinced my father-in-law to drive me down to the shore with his truck to "look" at it. February 19, 1998, it was sitting in my garage! |
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I couldn't believe it. Now, it was SERIOUSLY DEAD. It lit up, but the "Spot Killer" light was lit on the monitor's deflection board. This is a safety circuit to prevent the monitor from getting any burn. It also is a warning that you are getting no signal to the monitor. When these monitors are working properly, they make a chatter noise. There was no noise. I was worried about the monitor being bad. |
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I flipped the test button. Nothing. Hmmmm. Tried it again. Heard some faint noise, VERY faint. Beep, Beep, Beep, Beeeeeep. Tried it again. The same. What could this be trying to tell me? I went out to the Battlezone page and downloaded the manual. Uh-Oh. Bad RAM at A1. Went looking for a new boardset. Nothing. Paul Frazee of Crazy Frazee tells me about a company called Eldorado games who will swap the boards for some cash.
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Did the board swap with Eldorado, life! Well, sorta. The game was in Spanish. Adjusted a few dip switches and it was in English, but it was really looking bad. It was displayed with the top half of the screen showing the game and the bottom showing a bright horizontal line. Uh Oh, Monitor problems. It's not like you can go to the local appliance store and get a new Vector monitor to replace it. So, It would have to be fixed. Again Paul Frazee offered me some advice that one of the big problems with these monitors is cold solder joints at the pins where the various cables attach. Moving the wires would show things differently on the screen. I figured if I was going to remove the boards, I might as well do a Cap-Kit. Ordered a Monitor Get-Well Kit from Zannen (806)-793-6337. Paul sent me instructions on how to discharge the monitor's tube. Followed directions and the monitor works great. The game runs great! |
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