So I found a dead Gorf on Craigslist.  It was an older ad, but was still available when I inquired.  Dude I picked it up from had done some pretty impressive restorations on some other games.

Anyway – it was dead alright.  Shows a blank screen that looked overly blue due to how the monitor was adjusted, no starfield was visible.  Slid the test switch over and power-cycled, but this made no difference either.

The previous owner had mentioned that he had done some work on it.  I saw some of his other previous work on other boards of his and while not perfect (some cold joints, or not enough solder in some places leaving “pits”), it was not horrible and definitely no worse than what I was doing when I started out.

Anyhoo, starting with the power PCB – the previous owner said he had already replaced the caps, but I wanted a second look at it, JIC.  On the solder side of the board, some larger traces has been lifted off the board during some previous repair work (I do not think it was his, maybe someone before him?).

It looked like the someone used a serious soldering gun to do the work, because there were scorch marks on the board(!) and flux was all over the older work too.  Continuity was where it was supposed to be, so I guess that while it was ugly, it worked. Continue reading Dead Gorf →