Atari Firefox Part 2: Fixing the "Unfixable" Amplifone Raster Monitor

Remember that Atari Firefox laserdisc game we picked up a few videos ago? It's back.

Atari's Firefox and TX-1 machines came standard with Amplifone Raster monitors. They were the only machines produced by Atari for which the monitor was standard, though some I, Robots and few Crystal Castles machines came with them equipped.

They were notoriously prone to failure due to the defective "red dead" flyback transformer, which could (and would) start fires. Thus, many of these games were consigned to the arcade graveyard, and few survive today. Today we're attempting to fix the unfixable Amplifone raster, and try to preserve this little piece of arcade history.

We performed modifications to the monitor which were developed by KLOV's mhavoc, also owner of gamearchive.com. Credit goes to him for this fix, and we would have not been able to do it without him. Details here:

https://forums.arcade-museum.com/thre...

You can find information on the Amplifone raster on his site here including the Atari part equivalency list we mentioned in the video as well as the Amplifone raster manual:

http://gamearchive.askey.org/Video_Ga...

For additional parts used in this work, we either bought things like the flyback from ArcadePartsAndRepair, or from eBay for some of the harder to find items.

As far as the success of the repair goes, the monitor is functioning. It seems that the game produces a stronger/better sync than the TPG does or did, so it was easier to lock on. Some of the work done, like replacing the PLL may not have been necessary. Hopefully there'll be a solution found for a little bit of image waviness, but for now this is perfectly functional.

Video Chapters:
00:00 Intro/Overview
05:25 First Test
06:18 Replacing the PLL
11:05 Back to Testing!
13:16 Final Late Night Test... Is it Actually Working?!?