John's Arcade Forum - Classic Arcade and Pinball Collecting and Restoring Discussion Forum - RETRO MAME - Nintendo Vs Forum

So I have room on Arcade Row for one last machine… and I BELIEVE the circuit breaker can handle one last machine.
I wanted to make sure I got a game I LOVE.  That is 1982’s Pole Position by Atari.  (this is my 4th Atari Title in my collection).

I waited to see if one would come available, I eventually posted my OWN ad looking for one… I WANTED a fixer-upper not a showroom condition restored one.  
Was contacted the next day by an Arcade HOARDER.  He has a WAREHOUSE FULL of arcades, pin's, a corvette, a mustang and a Jaguar!
I brought my wife so she could see I am a “connoisseur of classic arcades” and NOT a hoarder!  After she saw this guys warehouse…  She felt a little better about supporting/condoning my hobby.  

We hammered out a fair price for the game, he was happy it was going to a collector and not a flipper.
It took us 45 minutes to move around games, skiball tables and ticket dispensers before we could wheel it out the door and load it on my truck.

My buddy came over helped me carry it into the house and picked the locks so I could make sure it wasn’t a home to raccoons or pandas…  My wife gave the green light to bring it in the house.  She ACTS like she hates the Arcades, but every time she "LETS" me get one she wants pictures to show the guys at work so she can be told how she is the best wife ever - I'd never admit it, but she actually is!

At present only the coin mech’s light up…  But It does accept power and the ‘magic smoke’ has not escaped the circuit board.
She needs a little love… But Pole Position WILL drive again!

(http://netropolis.smugmug.com/Temp/i-JqRPkvn/0/M/20150406_190300-M.jpg)
(http://netropolis.smugmug.com/Temp/i-gbrmD5N/0/M/20150406_222956-M.jpg)

very cool! i absolutely love my pole position. i got lucky and my repair wasnt too technical. good luck!

Great find! One of the many on my list of must haves.

It appears before THIS Pole Position went into storage back in the late 80's - the previous owner 'bullet proofed' the PCB using John's Method of test point usage and edge connector by-pass...  Good; Saves me the trouble.

I have some Voltage issues though!!

First off - there is ONE ancient switching power supply...  the older circuit board variety is below the PCB cage and as a couple molex's attached.
I checked the +5 on the switcher and it was ALL over the place so I switched it to a brand new one I had... but - that one...  it seems can only go to about 4.3V according to my Fluke... that is as high as the knob will let me go.

That's a bad switching Power Supply right?  I am only asking because it is brand new.  Am I missing something?

add more power wires to your supply. Pole position needs 8amps and you need quite a bit of cabling to keep the voltage drop down.

So it came to me during the day today - my new power supply was set to 220!  (switch at the bottom) I flipped that and with a little turn of the knob I am at +5.02...

Here is my current problem...  
1) is this bad!?!?!  (hooped board?)  *Note: the word OVER is 'burn in' which is the least of my worries at the moment
2) Is this edge board REALLY needed?  John mentioned in a video that pacman boards have some kind of RF Freq dampening board that isnt necessary.
So should i remove this or is it needed?  (see pixs)

(http://netropolis.smugmug.com/Temp/i-HmbfSgr/0/S/20150409_185341-S.jpg)

(http://netropolis.smugmug.com/Temp/i-9jcpcPb/0/S/20150409_185445-S.jpg)

you don't need that edge connector board. its called a filter board and it isnt required. I would try it without but dont throw it in the trash.

Finally saw the screen picture.

You need to go around every atari custom chip and remove it gently. inspect the legs and probably clean them lightly with a brillo pad. there is a high likeliness that the legs on the 52xx IC are broken or possibly another custom.

Ian,

Thank you!  I am on it!

Chips make me nervous!  but I will do my best!

I will report back as soon as I am done!

to simplify your job here. don't worry about the video board at all. the issue currently lies in the CPU board. everytime i have seen that screen you see its because the 52xx chip has broken legs.

The 52XX Legs were fine... VERY dirty!  but intact.
I did a close look at every chip all legs are in and all are attached.  *we'll see if thats the case after I pop off and back in each one!
FINGERS CROSSED
I cleaned that one chip and I have a NEW screen!!  NOT a game... but it is changing.
I am going to go an clean each chip on the cpu board.

I have also removed the Filter board

I will take a photo of that I have when I am done.
GO JETS GO!

I thought this was a Racing Game... More like an emotional Roller-coaster!

I pulled cleaned and reseated each chip on the CPU side...  I re-hooked it up every 4th chip so I would at least ahve an idea which one it was.
Yep - it was one of the last 4 chips. After that and cleaning the edge's where the connector goes and the edges for the little card that connects the boards... I got the following that ran in a loop - it seemed to be a boot-up loop...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxvSbCOpvis (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxvSbCOpvis)
As I tried to figure out how to upload it on my phone, the loop seemed to get longer and longer and after about 30 minutes it was fine!  After I figured out where the coin-up button is, I played several games!

and then I decided to do something dumb...  turn it off! 

Now when I turn it on... it says either RAM 21 or RAM 24
Those are on the CPU side? 

At least she is alive - cranky but alive.

2 New questions...

1) the RAM Error 20/21/24 that has something to do with the chips I pulled yes?  OR is it possible the edge connector?

2) PRESENTLY I have a Switching Power Supply at the back wall of the cabinet the one on the side it powers both boards with the +5
Should I have one for each board???
 
3) Once I have it reliably booting up...  is there a trick to stretching the picture to fill the monitor?  I always have about 1" of blank monitor around the perimeter of the screen.

There might be hsize and Vsize pots on your monitor. take a peak at the pots on the back and see what you have.

I got really really good news and a bit of bad news for you.

You fixed your CPU board.

the little bit of bad news is you have bad ram chips on the video board.

These are 2114 ram chips that are located on the video board. you will have to desolder them if they are not already socketed and put new ones in its place.

In the manual on page 2-4
http://www.arcade-museum.com/manuals-videogames/P/polepos.pdf

there is a chart that shows what ram error means which chip. If you turn the game on and it says RAM ERROR 21 then 7F is bad. It is possible that the ram addressor chip is bad instead. I believe the chip is at 7E. Give 7E a nice look over. you might want to pull it out and gently clean the legs first, check for broken ones.

YAY!!! CPU!  BOOO VIDEO BOARD!

I am at work at present so I wont know if I have to buy a soldering iron until I get home. 
I am crossing my fingers that they are socketed because I don't want to cut my soldering teeth on POLE POSITION!

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction though!  I will look at hopefully fixing this when I get home!

If they chips are hooped I may get a replacement board. 
I know a guy who has one for sale that is good!

But one thing is for sure... if I get it working again, I am just leaving it ON until it stops working!  HA!
Thank you again Ian! 

WELL after pulling, cleaning and reseating every chip on the board, assuring the power to each board was perfect, and other general Arcade trouble shooting...
I have thrown in the towel on Pole Position...  I am sending it to Eldorado!  I called and they fellow there sighed when I said "Pole Position" - So I guess the legends are true the PP is REALLY hard to keep running.  I tell you as soon as that PPClone that Adam is creating is available for anyone to buy...  Working original board or not, I am ordering one!

I will post an update when Eldorado sends it back and I get her up and racing!

Good luck! I had errors too and it ended up being a bad socket for one of the Z80 processors on the CPU board. 

UPDATE:

The same fellow posted an ad and is apparently looking to unload his entire warehouse full of stuff.
I contacted him, he remembered our Pole Position sale, and I am setting up a time to go take a look at the whole place.
At the time I had blinders on for Pole Position so beyond that one machine I didn't look too carefully at anything else.

I asked him about a few 'grail type' games but he can't even remember what he has in there.
So wish me luck - a real warehouse raid!!    I hope I do better than John did during that one where he made off with a water damaged $25 Ms Pac...
I wonder what he did with that.

Well it was slim pickins...
there wasn’t much there, lots of Jamma-ized games not even KLOV has ever heard of - no interesting cabs of note lots of empties.
plus a ton of Skeeball and punching bag games... a REALLY nice Jaguar, a 77 Vette and a 80's mustang.
this caught my eye - I already have it's ugly younger sister - Badlands.  But this is the one I have always wanted!

It has water damage near the bottom, I am going to have to cut and replace some sections - but I am not too worried about that part.
the PCB's not working is what scares me.  Fingers crossed that after I pull and clean all the legs on all the chips that she fires up!  Ok "fire" is a bad choice of words.

Without Further Adieu...  I present Atari's Championship Sprint.

(https://netropolis.smugmug.com/Temp/i-74dkLcg/0/S/20151002_204342-S.jpg) (https://netropolis.smugmug.com/Temp/i-Db8mRWd/0/S/20151002_204331-S.jpg)

Nice find, don't look so bad, how about inside the cab!!

Love this game!
Keep it up!

Hope it works out of the box for you. That is a huge boardset, and sadly likely not going to work :(
Monitor probably won't work either :(
BUT, i really hope it does. that is one of my favorite games of all time.

Reseat everything, including the board to boards. The power supplies that are used in those games have a lot of really bad quality caps. The good news is they are switchers and easy to replace with new stuff.

The Cabinet was ROTTEN!!!  From about shin down - but like you this is my all time favourite.
I ended up removing everything - labeling every wire at both ends so I can pit it back together.
I cut 2 feet off the bottom of the cab, and recreated everything from scratch. 

I didn't bother 'doweling' EVERYTHING back together, I did a few parts but I also used screws. 
I was SHOCKED to discover when I put the back door back on, the cabinet was SQUARE!  WOW.
Right now it looks pretty rough with the screws and the seam where the old meets new.
After I bondo the seams and screws and paint and add the T-molding I am certain it will look great.

There was NO power supply in the cab - the board looks VERY clean - but I am going to be pulling and cleaning every leg on every chip...
the monitor is a big Wells Gardner - not sure if that's factory or not. 

I am determined to get it going!!  The Seller said, it did actually work not too too long ago but he pulled the PS to get another game going that he liked better - I will take that with a hopeful grain of salt. 

I will post all the pics I have taken when I get the bondo going bc right now it looks pretty amateur hour.
FINGERS CROSSED.

Originally it should have been a K4900 medium res or I think there is another medium res that was used but I dont know what it is off hand. If the game worked then that is a great sign. Get a switcher and get it going!

Just a thing, I would replace the power supply and maybe give it a go. If it looks clean don't risk breaking anything!

Yes!!! That's the plan I am going to get a switching PS, give it a whirl first...
I will start pulling and cleaning IF I get any issues.  There is not a single burn on either board I thought that was a feature on all Atari boards!  :)
The monitor looks good too - dirty but good.  I am going to use my compressor and blow off the dust first.
a few days I will have a thumbs up...  or a thread begging for direction!  :)