Some sprites are missing, but still in the game. For example, when you throw the Pepper, it is not drawn on the screen, but it still stuns the bad guys. One or two of the bad guys are also invisible, so Peter Pepper can effectively get killed by nothing!
Game does not draw garbage where these graphics/sprites should be, they are just never drawn at all, and they do not disrupt the background graphics (i.e. they are completely transparent) so I do not think that it is a ROM or RAM problem.
Not knowing too much about this kind of problem, my first guess is that the specific sprite(s) are not getting their data placed in the appropriate spot when it comes time to draw the required sprites. For example, they are not getting selected by a latch that determines if it should draw the sprite’s colors, or draw the background (in transparent parts of the sprite). So into the schematics I go…
Solution: None yet.
Update #1: Well, fat lot of good that did. I could only find schematics for Burgertime, and not even the cassette version (which the Cook Race hardware seems to follow) for that matter. This one is starting to collect dust on the shelf.
Update #2: David Widel said on his web page (www.widel.com) that he was looking for a Cook Race board. I contacted him about it and he said that he would be interested in it so I gave it to him. Better to further the arcade/multigame cause than to have it sitting on my shelf collecting dust.
Purchased described as “dead”. Started by creating a JAMMA adapter (I hate creating adapters, it is tedious work). Well, the description was correct – she is dead alright: screen has static garbage and required some tweaking to sync correctly on my test bench monitor.
Watchdog is barking, disabling it has no effect on the screen’s contents. Board already had some previous work done in it, solder-side contains more than 20 jumps to connect some RAMs back onto the bus. The Parts side shows the missing/removed/blown traces being jumped.
Started by checking the daughterboard, seems OK. Next I remove, socket and replace the 74LS245s on the board because word has it that they tend to be the cause of most problems, the Galaxian Trouble Shooting Logic Board manuals lists similar symptoms connected to those chips, and the Fluke 9010 troubleshooter says that the address lines are tied. Other than that, I cannot come up with a good way to check them! 
Gotta wait for some replacement sockets and chips to come in…
Continue reading »
Board 1
Flashing “
1” in corner of screen. Took a look at the
Pac-Man troubleshoot by picture guide and that pointed me to “
4R video RAM bad”. Swapped it, no good!
Tried swapping other RAMs, no change either. Started pulling all socketed chips and found a bent pin on the ROM at 6E! straightened it, and reinserted, Pac lives once more.
That will teach me to try the simple checks/fixes before the more complex ones…
Solution: Fixed bent pin on a ROM chip.
Board 2
Game would boot normally, but would then start getting random lines/glitches through the screen after running for a couple of minutes; they did not otherwise effect gameplay. Immediately suspect video RAMs, start hitting ‘em with the freeze spray and sure enough, got a bad one. Replaced it, and all is well!
Solution: Replaced bad RAM chip.