Atari Pole Position PCB Repair - It has a Z8000 AND a Z80??? - Let's Check Out The Schematics!

[@johngriffith9598]

Well I guess I'm just a true 80's geek. The surge of joy I felt when the game booted up for the first time surprised me. And oh those wonderful sounds. Thanks for making my Saturday morning!

[@LyonsArcade]

We try to make people enjoy it, thanks for watching John!

[@Nunya_Bidnez]

Nerding out with Joe is now a staple of my week. Let's do this Joe. You guys can fix anything.

[@djmips]

I love when you do the flashbacks with the suspenseful music! Usually to some goof-up... You're too funny and humble (sorta)

[@LyonsArcade]

Thank you djmips we're just having a good time :)

[@macdaddyns]

So in the end it was a bad CPU socket, good work! This game was one of the hardest for me to master. Attract mode got pretty annoying during a world record attempt on Joust. I had to let my game bleed off for a bit while I ran to the other side of the arcade to unplug Pole Position.

[@LyonsArcade]

Beep .... Beep.... Beep.... BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[@AllanSitte]

Greetings from Wisconsin! I remember when I first saw this game in the arcade back in the early 1980s. Compared to other games of the time, this machine looked so much more polished. Of course, I was never very good at the game as it was apparent it would take many coins to practice the controls. But it was fun to watch people who did have the time and money to get good at it. I also remember the arcade owner having to move the 3 new machines he had to one far side of the room because of the noises the game would make. Apparently, the Pacman fans were not happy hearing all the engine noise while they played. The problem was the Pole Position fans wanted them to be loud while they played!! Thank you for taking us through your efforts and thought processes on all the games you repair. This is the kind of stuff one can only learn from others... and by doing it.

[@LyonsArcade]

Great memories Allan, thank you for watching!

[@jjohnson3600]

LOL! I used to play this all the time at the local 7 eleven when I was a kid. Got pretty good at it!

[@LyonsArcade]

It's such a great game, when it's working :)

[@drewd1726]

Alright my man….love your channel. Andrew from Oregon here…have the Asteroids with a half screen. Still haven’t tried re-soldiering my video board….doing the divorce thing. As soon as it’s up and running…this bachelor pad will have an asteroids machine again…hooked up to an external amplifier and speakers. My only regret….I didn’t do this several weeks prior to booting the wife…would have driven her insane. Bleep…Bloop…bleep…bloop…bleep…bloop..bleepbloop….Pew Pew Pew…loudly. Woulda put in 12hr days playin’ just out of spite. Appreciate your work. I’m actually learning schematics, chips, etc etc. Thanks for doing whatcha do.

[@LyonsArcade]

Thank you Drew you’ll get that sucka up in no time!

[@RideWarrior92]

I just wanted to pop in to say thank you for your knowledge given in all of your pinball/arcade repair videos. watching your videos and your process of starting at the power cord and moving through the machine step by step is what gave me the confidence to retore a Bally 1977 Captain fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy Home Model that has been in the family since 1977, and hasn't worked for over 30 years. it was truely a fun project and for anyone else who doesn't think they can fix their's, yes you can! I have post a video on my channel, if anyone is interested, but again thank you to Ron and everyone at Joe's classic video games, and my dad says thanks as well! the smile on his face as he plays his childhood machine made all of the work worth it. Have a great day everyone!

[@LyonsArcade]

Wow that's awesome RideWarrior92, i'm going to go check out your machine! I just fixed a Captain Fantastic but I haven't played the home model... great job, don't thank me, you did it! See you on the next video!!!

[@gonecoastal4]

What a saga! good to see the ole girl back in action. I shouldn't tell how many quarters I spent back in the day on this one. Great job!

[@brianwiles8129]

I love troubleshooting and it's a lot of fun to be looking over your shoulder while you troubleshoot. I think I like your videos featuring circuit boards the most because it's such foreign territory for me. Thanks for doing what you do. Sorry if it's bad KZbin etiquette to comment on old videos. I ain't from around here. (Edited to say I'm surprised there's no final video for this!)

[@LyonsArcade]

You can comment on any video you like Brian, thank you for watching :)

[@tonytavary3388]

Great job getting it running! I'd heard stories on how brutal getting a (often) broken Pole Position back to working order would be. Awesome to see one running again. Now just don't bump it or look at it funny!

[@LyonsArcade]

I'm willing to push my luck :) I might even move it to the other side of the shop!

[@tonytavary3388]

You're a brave, brave man ;)

[@pabloluchi3595]

It took a lot of work, but you did it! It's fixed now! You are great, Ron! So nice to hear the game starting up again! Regards

[@LyonsArcade]

Thank you Pablo, i'm glad you enjoyed the video!

[@neil1637]

Fabulous fix and great commentary and out loud thinking and explaining. Got a couple of faulty boardsets to look at next year and soaking up as much reference material as possible.

[@LyonsArcade]

They can be fixed, i'm going to start buying Pole Positions again, we went years without working on them! Thanks for watching Neil!

[@alanletterman]

I actually programmed Z80 and the Z8000 CPUs when I was much younger. The Z8000 is a strange animal but is roughly a 16 bit version of a Z80. The Z8002 is a 40PIN DIP version.

[@LyonsArcade]

Thank you Alan!

[@freedomvigilant1234]

I heard the Z8000 was not as successful as the Z80. Was it compatible with the Z80 from an instruction viewpoint?

[@alanletterman]

@@freedomvigilant1234 It was similar much more than compatible. The registers were very flexible. It was crushed by the 8086 and the 68000

[@freedomvigilant1234]

@@alanletterman Yup, Zilog never capitalised on the success of the Z80, which was incredibly powerful. I remember ringing Zilog UK in the Nineties to ask if they could provide any data sheets etc, and the lady who answered the phone was not very enthusiastic, as I remember. :) I recall Rodney Zak's Z80 Assembler book as well, with over 400 pages of information on the Z80.

[@CallousCoder]

I didn’t like either. I was more into the 6809 and 68000

[@T200026]

One of the best things about these videos is you playing them after...😆 Great repair.

[@LyonsArcade]

Thank you Alan, we appreciate you watching man!

[@theoldbigmoose]

Phenomenal board level troubleshooting Ron!

[@bobbybuick]

whenever i boot mine im always waiting for that BOOM .I know it booted .did almost all the exact same mods to mine when i bought it .been running for 5 years solid now .Installed a memory for the high game ,rebuilt the brick, power supplies,and edge connector mod .running at 5.15V

[@LyonsArcade]

I think they put that boom just to scare us into thinking it didn't boot, lol

[@bobbybuick]

@@LyonsArcade i enjoy watching your repair videos . i have 2 board sets in mine PP1 and 2 manually switch over.I added a molex connector for the bypass harness .I think im going to buy the "Pi -Position" board and just put it on the shelf just in case ,while its in stock ...thanks Ron for sharing

[@mdouglaswray]

Dude! That's some good repair work AND excellent play! 😀

[@LyonsArcade]

Thank you Doug we appreciate that!

[@andyjackson3891]

Nice one Ron! One of my faves from back in the day. Keep making these wonderful videos - they're amazing to watch. Thanks again!

[@LyonsArcade]

Thank you Andy, glad you enjoyed it!

[@yowl00]

You said your videos are long, but that's the way I like them 😃

[@LyonsArcade]

Thank you yowl00!

[@derofromdown-under2832]

An excellent fix for a complex problem Ron... WELL DONE!!! 10/10

[@dolphinswimming4823]

Yes very very well video with original PCB from 1982, with two CPUs Z8002 16 bit and one CPU Z80 8 bit. Arcades machines often had several processor.

[@LyonsArcade]

Thank you for watching Dolphin!

[@naytch2003]

Those lucky customers coming into the shop and seeing Ronnie service a machine..when I was a boy my uncle was an electrician and loved watching him wire up a light switch and power point..I've been interested in electronics ever since but my parents never encouraged me they were too busy fighting

[@Sleepdroidstudios]

I have to nudge right up to 5.2V on mine all the way across the boards to get them working smoothly. Any less and it's error city with different errors numbers popping up like crazy, resetting at random times, etc.

[@LyonsArcade]

That's fine man run it just like that, as long as you're not above 5.3 or so you shouldn't have anything give you issues, I have seen SOME boards though (Like Neo Geos?) that like it down around 4.9! But it may be because it's lowering the -5 at the same time or something, and the ram like it better. Some of these designs are just more power hungry, these may like 5.2 better..... Thanks for watching!

[@herrbonk3635]

@@LyonsArcade Lovering the 5V usually does not make the -5V more negative. The reason is probably some gate or register that is late but "just in time" in swithing from 0 to 1 (slowest in both TTL and nMOS) and being detected as a "one". It therefore becames critical, perhaps for the whole machine. Lower VCC voltage lowers the detection threshold, while higher voltage makes the circuits faster, so it depends on what aspect is limiting at this critical spot.

[@senilyDeluxe]

The Pole Position boardset I've been fixing for the past 2 weeks only had a bad Z80 socket and a bad 7C PAL (and a bad watchdog LS161), when I replaced that PAL, it came up with no problems, picture's perfect. Now I gotta take another look at a non-Atari PP2 which runs the self test in an endless loop and comes up with no errors, but the game never starts.

[@LyonsArcade]

That's pretty much exactly what this one was doing, it'll run self test if the Z80 is working but if you are having problems with one of the z8000 circuits it'll reset like you mentioned, Good luck with it!

[@senilyDeluxe]

@@LyonsArcade Gotta be the sockets then, I've tested the CPUs in other boardsets and they're ok. (they are - you guessed it - those cheap Atari single wipes)

[@miken966]

Funny how that audio brought back a bunch of memories... Damn I'm old.

[@derekv6479]

The game that sparked my love for driving fast!

[@LyonsArcade]

It's really a masterpiece....

[@calmarsh7853]

Nice use to love to play pole position. Great to see your hard work pay off.

[@LyonsArcade]

Thank you Cal, we appreciate you watching man!

[@sadasulna6056]

Awesome stuff. Ron is such a nice guy to hang out with, I only wish I could afford (and have the space) for some old arcade hardware to tinker with myself but this is the next best thing.

[@LyonsArcade]

Thank you Sadas that’s very nice of you to say see you on the next video!

[@CastleMisha]

4:38 but THATS the reason i subscribe 😎 please don’t shorten them we love em’ you are an electronics surgeon 😃

[@gregoryschmidt1233]

Really enjoyed this series, not leastwise since I was in high school when this game was released. I like the complicated jobs like this. It's like reading a whodunnit! (It was Colonel Ramchip in the billiard room with a bad diode!) I find the schematics fascinating, although I wouldn't have a clue without our intrepid guide. Thank you for all the time and editing to put out these videos.

[@LyonsArcade]

Thank you Gregory I'm glad you enjoy them :) The best is when you find out the problem it feels satisfying...

[@guardshack9865]

The graphics were considered so good in 1982, that this was the first 50¢ game I saw as a young teen in the arcade.

[@fred_derf]

The memory map is just showing you what the various memory locations are used for. So 4800-48FF (hexadecimal) is used to store the data for the road. There are also some "special" emory locations, for example A400 is the CPU1 enable, so writing to A400 will enable CPU1, it's marked W for write, so you can write a value to it but you can't read a value from it (well you probably can but it will likely just be a random number).

[@NivagSwerdna]

Nice game. Good fix to find that chip that had been swapped around by someone sneaking into your shop when you were looking the other way. Love that game .. glad you didn't have custom chip issues

[@LyonsArcade]

Thank you Nivag we appreciate you watching like always!

[@peter486]

ah this is part two right? wonderfull. thank you

[@LyonsArcade]

Thank you for watching Peter!

[@swettyspaghtti]

Oh wow great job man!

[@LyonsArcade]

Thanks!

[@nickyborrisino]

Pole position easily has one of the most beautiful looking cabinet design and best looking steering wheel.

[@melanatedmusings6147]

This is certainly the most complex arcade game I've seen you fix. But I enjoyed the ride. Namco rules!

[@sixtoes2313]

Just "Bookmarked" Amazon link.. Not to often do I buy from AMZ, But sometimes they have what I need. ...... Thanks for the video's Ron !

[@LyonsArcade]

Thank you Six Toes we appreciate that!

[@dvv45]

Hey from Iowa you can fix anything!

[@LyonsArcade]

Hey Dan!

[@paulcochran1721]

We had a sit down version in our dorm when I was stationed in the UK. Lot of memories, but I was always bad at the game.

[@fred_derf]

Before anyone get's too picky about voltages, the z800x is spec'ed to run at between 4.75 and 5.25 volts.

[@LyonsArcade]

It seems like the ram chips are always the most picky about the voltage... sometimes some games will boot but they'll have glitches until you get the voltage where the ram likes it...

[@robertbox5399]

Thank the lord for 4 layer PCBs nowadays. Them old chips aren't like modern CMOS where anything from 2V up to 6V are fine these days. Some modern stuff works down 0.8V, but it has to be within 0.05 or else.. Great work as always.

[@Sidman723]

You should probably look into some kind of head-set type camera mount. At least that way you can use both hands when you are working on the games. Just an idea.

[@EsotericArctos]

The sense mod is something that may be beneficial because the edge connectors are dodgy as it gets older. You are right with jumper wires from one side of the board to another though. There is plenty of copper on the board, not to mention the fact that copper is the same as when these were brand new and the worked absolutely fine without jumper wires when they were new. No reason to suddenly need jumper wires now unless the copper has been eaten away :). Running very slightly about 5V can compensate for some of the components becoming grumpy with age. Some will argue that may shorten the life of components as well. There are always multiple opinions.

[@LyonsArcade]

I never thought about it lowering their life expectancy but that makes sense.... get it I said sense..... Thanks for watching Brendan!

[@EsotericArctos]

@@LyonsArcade Your humour is like mine. Laughed at the sense joke :)

[@dnbreyen]

This is great Ron! Congratulations on it’s return from death’s door! Love the music, brings back memories. Prepare To Qualify!

[@kasuraga]

You know what, seeing all the trouble of getting pole position running makes me appreciate the arcade techs at Castles and Coasters. Back when I worked there we had a fully functioning pole position cabinet in use daily. I worked there for a while but got fired for a really stupid reason (I think they genuinely were just trying to find a reason to fire me cause of the kind of bullshit i dealt with there lol) It was a lot of fun though learning how to do basic maintenance on them. That place has a butt load of pin ball machines. It's kind of funny but I totally forgot what the pole position cabinet looked like till I saw it and remember pulling all the glass off and cleaning it all out every week, then play it a bit to make sure it's workin

[@MrVectrex]

Awesome video as always Ron. And you say that you´r not an expert! Well i´m impressed what so ever.

[@danielleclare2938]

Games like this are why I like pinball... going the other direction in time do you ever get those baseball games? It was 10 cents in my day for a baseball game pinball was a quarter.

[@LyonsArcade]

We do get them in from time to time, the closest thing to that, that we've filmed here on the channel is a Pennant Fever (or Two!).... you can see those here if you want Daniel, thank you for hanging out with us! - kzbin.info/www/bejne/gmnPd6msZ5maeKc

[@DAVIDGREGORYKERR]

There are NAMCO Pole Position boards which might work also there is a FPGA versions of both Pole Position PCBs as someone has reverse engineered the PCBs.

[@LyonsArcade]

Unfortunately the Namco version of the board is pretty much identical with the same faults and problems.....

[@TurnFullCircle]

Just wonderful...to see again....wow...the sound gave me goosebumps! thanks for this....Cheers

[@natedavis3943]

Brightness looked fine to me.

[@myob214]

Where do I get that cool "workbench"you have the board sitting on?

[@LyonsArcade]

Craigslist lol

[@ocsrc]

What does ROM 7 mean ? Where it says that on the screen ?

[@tracyr5594]

Good job on the repair! Hope you find a buyer.

[@justjoe942]

I was never any good at this but did enjoy watch those who were; I probably left a few of those cigarette burns though.

[@Mike-B-Jackson]

The only arcade board I fixed myself was a CPS1 A board. Sound wouldn’t work no matter what B board I put on it. Figured it must be in the sound circuit. Replaced the Z80 responsible for sound, no luck. Replaced a crystal and something else, still no luck. Still figured it had to be the z80, so on a hunch (and because I installed a socket so it was easy) I swapped in another Z80. Still no luck. Still on the same hunch I swapped in yet another Z80. And guess what it worked. These damn chips hahaha

[@MasatoKay]

You da man! I got the shirt and big lady! Thank you so much!

[@LyonsArcade]

Very cool Masato, glad you got it in :)

[@CooChewGames]

Really enjoy the videos... have you ever considered using a head-mounted GoPro or something so you can use both hands?

[@LyonsArcade]

Think how goofy I'd look with a camera strapped on my head :)

[@douro20]

I wonder if it's possible to put a Namco ROM set on it rather than the Atari one?

[@LyonsArcade]

I believe yes you can…

[@fidiko1]

Nice fix

[@LyonsArcade]

Thank you Fadi!

[@ovalteen4404]

I suppose one use for the memory map, is that you remove the processor in question, then tie its address lines according to each section, and then test that the appropriate select line on the destination chip is active.

[@Petri547]

This one brings lots of memories from my youth. I remember arcade games like PacMan, Hyper Olympics, Hyper Sports, Pengu, Zaxxon, Galaga, Dragon's Lair, Indiana Jones, Bosconian. Happy Halloween!

[@SpearM3064]

At first I thought the fan on the Pole Position was making a lot of noise, like the bearings were starting to fail. Turns out it was just a neighbor with a leafblower! 😂 I'm glad it was just a socket with oxidation. Even after 30 years of experience fixing computers, the sockets are still one of the last things I would suspect. (I don't do board-level repairs on anything that's still under warranty. I usually just replace the board, and ship the board back to Dell or HP or whomever, and _they_ do the board level repairs. BUT, anything that's under warranty isn't going to have an oxidation problem anyway...)

[@richardperry5880]

Well done joe 👍🇬🇧🇬🇧

[@LyonsArcade]

Thank you Richard Perry!

[@DAVIDGREGORYKERR]

The ZILOG Z8000 is going to be unobtainium so you need a FPGA version of the ZILOG Z8000.

[@LyonsArcade]

Luckily you can still get some NOS Z8000's so it's not too bad yet... Thank you for watching David!

[@wackyworldofwindios3476]

Good morning Joe

[@LyonsArcade]

Good Morning Windios!

[@BTom16]

Nicely done. Congratulations.

[@dolphinswimming4823]

Imagine the ZX Spectrum from 1982 with two CPUs Z8001 (Zilog Z8000 is a family of 16-bit microprocessors comprising of 4 processors with slightly different features: Z8001 can address up to 8 MB. The memory on Z8001 is divided into 128 segments up to 64 KB each), and on CPU Z80...

[@SiaVids]

Great Job, It reminds me of a Sega Rad Mobile machine that I rescued. 😎

[@yesitreallyisme]

It happens to the best of us Donnie.

[@cargoman7045]

Reminds me of late 80s at Godfathers Pizza. Great!

[@LyonsArcade]

I never had the pleasure of eating at a Godfather's Pizza, from what I understand I really missed out! Thanks for watching Cargo Man.

[@katilynnschwab2485]

Here it comes joe classic arcade

[@coinman1972]

Sounds right on.

[@RS2000XPACK]

another great game saved :) excellent video :)

[@LyonsArcade]

Thank you RS2000XPack!

[@RS2000XPACK]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/rGOToIRsrquanJI

[@brandonfuzi3436]

Gorgeous machine

[@Xoferif]

Surprised to see an AMD-branded Z8002! I thought practically nothing used that series of CPUs ('cept Pole Position cabs), never mind it being worth license-building them.

[@herrbonk3635]

I heard the millitary, oil industry, aviation, etc. used Z8000 quite a lot. Being faster than the 68000 and 32016 series, they would probably have been more popular if only the 8088 and then 286 hadn't been chosen by IBM for the PC. That changed everything in that segment, as we all know.

[@patrickfivetrick9202]

Like magic!! Is there any chance to see the man behind the voice. You never show yourself. Just asking??

[@stevenmoffitt1643]

Where do you buy your replacement chips?

[@theodorethompson9032]

Today i'm soldering in a left thumbstick on my xbox elite controller. I've done this before but now i have a better soldering iron. Wish me luck... hahaha

[@LyonsArcade]

You can do it man as a matter of fact you prob already did 😎

[@ronalddebruin9009]

I've played this game sooooo much.

[@ocsrc]

What is the game behind it, with the yellow stacks of blocks ?

[@DAVIDGREGORYKERR]

If the board is kapoot compile the schematics into a new PCB using ALTERA PCB Creator.

[@dkd1228]

Atari has decent technical documentation.

[@quintonquill]

great detective work.

[@memyopinionsche6610]

Is the same complexities of pole position is inherent in the cockpit version? Or or is it just as finicky as the upright.

[@Axess-sv8nq]

Great work, man! 😎👍

[@LyonsArcade]

Thank you Axess2084!

[@SteveJones172pilot]

So the socket for the CPU is what you replaced here?

[@LyonsArcade]

Yes!

[@marceloabreu669]

.. parabéns pelo belissimo trabalho... voce realmente é uma pessoa muito especial.. e talentosa.. obrigado por sempre oferecer otimos e detalhados videos.. .. U R THE BEST .. :) ..

[@msegelquist]

One of my favorites 🏁

[@artursmihelsons415]

Great, that backward installed CPU didn't fried some logic chips - that will be wild goose chase..

[@LyonsArcade]

On this particular board everything runs off 5v so luckily I guess we just sent 5 volts where it didn't want to go, but since they're all operating off 5 volts unless you somehow screw up a clock line or something I guess it doesn't mind!

[@artursmihelsons415]

@@LyonsArcade I just checked datasheet - very good designed chip.. That mistake send 5V to clock input and ground to interrupt input.. 😂 No big deal because other pins are low current.. One time I inserted Dallas real time chip opposite way because socket was wrongly soldered in - I fried Dallas chip and one output from 74HC138 demultiplexer..

[@dodgydruid]

Interesting factoid about the Z8000 is it was very very close race between the Intel 8088 and the Zilog Z8000 that would be used in IBM's first PC. Intel of course won the race but I wonder how the PC architecture would have looked if IBM went with the Zilog which in itself was very popular for Unix workstations but of course fell by the roadside due to the rise of Intel and the Motorola 68000 which was faster, more capable and cheaper made the Zilog almost redundant in the last knockings of the 70's.

[@LyonsArcade]

They seem to have done pretty good with the Z80 though! Thanks for watching Watson!

[@yuwish6320]

The fact you were getting random characters on the screen is often indicative of a memory issue. It means the CPU is either pulling data from the wrong address, or the data in the address is unintelligible to the CPU. Could also be the data is being improperly processed. Bad contacts = incorrect memory addressing.

[@LyonsArcade]

You would think that but that random character screen I think it does as it boots even if it's working properly....

[@yuwish6320]

@@LyonsArcade I saw that at the very end. I'm surprised it does that. I guess PP really is special.

[@mohemmad-alshaery]

Well done

[@davidhollfelder9940]

This game was very cool. But, as most games, it ate a lot of coins to get good at. Back in the day, I couldn’t afford to play them much.

[@raywood8187]

I bet fixing this put your pole in the right position!

[@robertcurtis3815]

What does a night out on the lash look like with the Ron, Joe and Donnie brothers I wonder?

[@rich9412]

Bad sockets seem to be a big problem.

[@LyonsArcade]

Especially when they're all over it! This one though was battery damaged I think so hopefully the rest of them hold on. Thanks for watching Rich!

[@MaximRecoil]

I like how every car in the race is rigged with high explosives wired to hair-trigger sensors all around so that even the slightest rubbing of tires with another car makes them both go up like Hiroshima. Pole Position is the _real_ Death Race 2000.

[@stphinkle]

Again check the accelerator circuit. I don’t think it should be saying FF when you atre not depressing the pedal. It may explain why you crashed on some turns and the engine sound issue.

[@LyonsArcade]

You saw I fixed the engine sound issue, right? Or did you skip that part....

[@stphinkle]

@@LyonsArcade You should check the pedal 00-FF in the test mode. I think FF may mean it is sensing it was depressed when it should not be. The potentiometer may need to be cleaned on the pedal, or there might be an issue with the A-D converter chip.