Pole Position II Video Driving Game from

Here is an upright model Pole Position made by Atari in 1983.  This was converted with new eproms to a Pole Position II. These games can be tricky to repair.  The CPU/Video board set on this game can be a lot of fun to repair.  Back in the 80"s we had a Cat Box made by Atari to help debug these beasts.  A Cat Box is a device that replaces the CPU chip on the board (a Z80 here) then uses a probe to search nodes anywhere on the pcb.  The Cat Box measures time in sync cycles from the cpu socket to every node in the board.  A 4 digit signature is derived that will be the same on all game boards of the same design at any particular node.  This tool is great for finding very hard to find failures and also a good way to run a shop with less skilled technicians.  Of course nothing beats good oscilloscope skills. 

This game had the NiCad battery leak as shown in the pictures below.    The chemical destruction of a few resistors and a zener diode was the result.  Turns out the CMOS static ram was bad also, the game would not save high score data.  The big transformer assembly in the bottom was blowing the 25 amp slow blow fuse.  The fuse sockets, bridge rectifier and the associated wires/connectors were replaced.  The lower back cabinet frame was pushed in.  The gas peddle was sticking due to lack of lubrication.

Fun game to play!  Brings back memories of our early days!