Choplifter

[Lurch666]

Just got Vaminos choplifter PCB working.

It appeared to be doing it's self test but wasn't displaying the 'IC CHECK' text,just a blank screen.

After a while it would start flashing (which it does during the self test) but then returned to a blank screen and would not do anything else.

Expecting it to be stopping with an error I looked around the eproms (IC4,5 and 6)that hold the text to see if I could get it to display the text properly and show which chip was stopping the PCB from booting.

IC26 (LS273) was looking a bit strange on my scope and my slice was showing a few errors so decided to swap that one but it made no difference.

Then I started to check backwards through that bit of video circuity and the slice found IC24 (LS155) showing very bad outputs.

Didn't have any spare (pretty rare chip since I couldn't find any on my scrap PCBs) so a quick order from the silicon ark,swapped it out and got text.

Not only text but it booted right up into the game. So the self test was failing because it couldn't access the ram and roms for the graphics. With that sorted the game now works.

 

[pooman2084]

Brilliant, well done!

 

[chris2922]

Nice work, love that game.
Mainly for nostalgic reasons. It’s rock hard!

 

[Lurch666]

I really don't like choplifter.

Even though I spent a year fixing my bootleg choplifter just because I don't like failing to fix things.

 

[pooman2084]

It was mesmerising back on the day with parallax scrolling, great animation and speech!

 

[Vamino]

Awesome job mate.

I used to love the C64 version of Choplifter, and Fort Apocalypse to a lesser extent. I used to play Sega Choplifter in the local arcade but it was rock hard, probably set to hardest, now knowing that the arcade used to set the other games to hardest too. Once it's back in my mitts I'll give it another bash to see if I can get somewhere.

The soundtrack is nice too.

 

[trev1976]

I really like choplifter , I remember it being damn hard though.

 

[TheDaddy]

I think choplifter was one of my first repairs (Bootleg) , I aint a fan but hate it when folk convert them to Wonderboy ! . Nice repair Lurch. Every time I see a repair it makes me want to get back in my room and start again.

Dave.

 

[blast processing]

It's more of a console than arcade game, Sega made some odd computer/console to arcade ports.

Gotta love the SMS version, absolutely awesome.

 

[qjuk]

Nice repair.

Ironically, it was only the other day I was looking to get some LS155’s myself. I noticed some on Aliexpress but generally don’t like getting logic chips from China as they are so hit and miss. Completely forgot about looking on Silicon Ark

 

[Shinydaz]

It's more of a console than arcade game, Sega made some odd computer/console to arcade ports.

Gotta love the SMS version, absolutely awesome.

Totally agree, the sms version was great.

Nice fix, I have a sega bank panic on the bench this week, another fun game.