Clay Cowgill's Sega G-80 Multigame R.I.P.

SaminVA

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Hi everyone,
Anyone who has been collecting arcade games for a wile like me and has a SEGA G-80 vector game probably has heard of or even might have one of Clay Cowgills Sega G-80 Multigame kits.For those of you that have never heard of this kit it was an attempt to make a kit that could be installed in a Sega vector game that would allow you to play all 5 of the Sega vector games. Star Trek, Space Fury, Eliminator, Tac/Scan and Zektor.
http://www.multigame.com/sega_mul.html
The Kit did work and you could now play all 5 games and switch between them with its on screen menu with a push of the player buttons. It only had one drawback. In order to get speech and sound support for each game you had to turn the game off, open up the back of the game and remove and replace the speech and sound cards for the game you want to play which was a real pain and some of these boards were hard to find. Those of us who had bought the kit had always hoped Clay or someone would make a all in one sound board so we would no longer have to swap the boards but years passed by with no new sound board. Their was one person that did put together instructions to add speech support but I never tried that mod.
http://westnet.com/~chris/arcade/SegaSpeechHack/Multi-Sega-Speech-Hack.htm
I installed Clay's MultiSega kit in my Star Trek Asteroids conversion cabinet back in 2001 or was it 2002?
Well I put the game into storage in the garage waiting for the multi sound board which never happened. Fast forward to 2010 I heard about a new MultiSega MultiSpeech/Sound project by Vector Labs
http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=136617&highlight=multigame
Well this was great news, a new Sega MultiGame with full speech and sound support. Sounded to good to be true but it's true. I bought one and I am ready to install it into my Star Trek game but this means I will have to uninstall Clay's MultiSega kit so before it's out with the old and in with the new I thought I should take a few pictures and some video showing how Clays kit worked because I did a search and could not find any video so here it is. I hope it's not to boring. As soon as I have the new Vector Labs kit installed I'll make another video.
 
I still have Clay's kit in my Star Trek upright...running fine for all of these years, but of course I'd love to have the sounds, too.

As I understand it, these new kits require you to have all of the sound cards to work with multisound? The cards can be plugged into the card cage at the same time, and the kit allows you to switch between the sound boards as needed.

Unfortunately, I don't have the extra sound cards (just have the one that covers Star Trek and Tac/Scan) so I hope that a future version will be released that doesn't require the extra sound cards...I'll buy that in a heartbeat!!

A big kudos for the folks working on this regardless...it's great to see these games preserved, one way or the other :) .

Jon
 
I still have Clay's kit in my Star Trek upright...running fine for all of these years, but of course I'd love to have the sounds, too.

As I understand it, these new kits require you to have all of the sound cards to work with multisound? The cards can be plugged into the card cage at the same time, and the kit allows you to switch between the sound boards as needed.

Unfortunately, I don't have the extra sound cards (just have the one that covers Star Trek and Tac/Scan) so I hope that a future version will be released that doesn't require the extra sound cards...I'll buy that in a heartbeat!!

A big kudos for the folks working on this regardless...it's great to see these games preserved, one way or the other :) .

Jon

That sounds like a problem. There are only so many sound cards to go around. If you have all five sound cards you might as well have every boardset.

In other words, very few individuals could benefit from the kit as you described it, if the goal is to have audio for all five games.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.
 
Won't be a problem once Vector Labs releases the mutli-sound board.

I had a Clay kit in our Star Trek a long time ago and ended up giving up hope for a sound solution after a couple years and sold everything. I once again have hope and will be installing the VL kit this weekend(finger's crossed). :)
 
I still have Clay's kit in my Star Trek upright...running fine for all of these years, but of course I'd love to have the sounds, too.

As I understand it, these new kits require you to have all of the sound cards to work with multisound? The cards can be plugged into the card cage at the same time, and the kit allows you to switch between the sound boards as needed.

Unfortunately, I don't have the extra sound cards (just have the one that covers Star Trek and Tac/Scan) so I hope that a future version will be released that doesn't require the extra sound cards...I'll buy that in a heartbeat!!

A big kudos for the folks working on this regardless...it's great to see these games preserved, one way or the other :) .

Jon

The plan is to have a new sound card that can play the sounds for all the games. Apparently this is phase II of the project. I've ordered the kit and read through the installation manual.

Getting the other sound cards is not easy, but it's possible. Just recently an eliminator sound board sold on Ebay.
 
Yes as it stands right now you will need all 3 sound boards,Star Trek,Battle Star and Eliminator or Meatball.
You need one working speech board only for 2 chips which you remove and install on the new multi board. So the speech board is not used in the cage. You only need the G-80 CPU, the 2 XY boards and the 3 sound cards. The speech board is now built into the multi Sega board. If you don't have the sound cards soon Vector Labs will release one card that will take the place of all 3 sound cards. That's how I under stand it as of now. I now have all the sound cards and I am in the process of installing the kit. Hope to finish it this weekend.
 
Well I enjoyed seeing Clay's kit. Thanks for doing that. I have a non-working Star Trek that has kicked my ass for 10 years (not full time ass kicking but never have had it working) so I passed on Clay's kit. I really do miss my TacScan though so I am in for a VL kit even if I never get my Star Trek borads and GO-8 fixed. Look forward to a video of the VL kit for motivation.
 
I wouldn't think that's too far out of line considering:

a) the new deal is $175

b) these old original ones were $99 but are no longer available
 
I wouldn't think that's too far out of line considering:

a) the new deal is $175

b) these old original ones were $99 but are no longer available

a) the new deal is $175
If you got the Vector Labs kit for $175 you must have got the insiders deal.
I paid $195 shipped and it's worth every penny. :D
b) these old original ones were $99 but are no longer available
It's been a wile but Clay's kit was $99 but I don't remember if that included shipping or not, it has been a few years, and wile it's true it's no longer made, with the New Vector Labs kit why would anyone want one of Clays kits. I might donate mine to the Smithsonian Institute but I drought they would want it. Still it is part of video game history. :rolleyes:
And who knows, maybe one day Clay will finish what he started just to prove he can do it.
 
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