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PCB Repair: Crazy Climber

Problem

Four-pixel-wide vertical bars covering the screen every four pixels.

Inside the cabinet
On the test-bench

Diagnosis

Suspect an issue with the character video circuit. MAME was useful for identifying which ROMs store the character data, helping me to quickly identify the relevant part of the schematic:

Character ROMs and shift registers

No sign of damage or prior repairs to this area, so let’s probe some 74194’s with the logic analyzer.

On go the probes

7K looks reasonable. Data in, data out:

Shift register at 7L

7H appears to have its outputs stuck high:

Shift register at 7H

Fix

Replaced 74LS194 at 7H.

Craziness restored!
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