Gauging Interest: Cinematronics Exorciser Boards for 20 bucks?

SteveJ

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Gauging Interest: Cinematronics Exorciser Boards for 20 bucks?

I recently contacted Cinematronics/Vectorbeam guru Bill (wysiwyg2) about purchasing a Cinematronics Exorcisor board, and he said he just sold his last one. However, if there is enough interest, he is willing to order another run of the boards.

Some Background:
If you have a Cinematronics game:

+ Star Castle
+ Armor Attack
+ Rip Off
+ Solar Quest
+ Tail Gunner
+ Star Hawk
+ Space Wars (or Vectorbeam Space War)

and want to repair the CCPU, the Exorcisor is probably the only way to troubleshoot the board properly. Bill has created a replica of the original Exorcisor, and instructions on how to use it. (http://www.biltronix.com/cinexor.html)

Bill has been selling these for $100 (and worth it, if you do Cine CCPU repairs). The amazing thing is that he is willing to sell the bare boards for $20 + ship, and supply a parts list for the components. So basically, you can build your own for very little money. At $20, this is a crazy good deal.

He has also said he will build them for the standard $100 price.

I wanted to share this with everyone, because I think it is an incredible bargain. Bill is very generous with his time and talent, and If you've seen his web site, you know the quality of work he does.

So please, if you have interest in the bare boards or completed boards, please go to the link (http://www.biltronix.com/cinexor.html) and read up on it. You can let me know via PM or by responding to this thread. "Critical Mass" is only 7 buyers (board or complete), so chime in and grab this bargain!

I will gather responses over the next few days and forward them to Bill.

NOTE: I posted in this forum (vs. the FS forum) because there's nothing to "sell" yet... I'm just seeing if there is enough interest to warrant another run of boards.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong, but even if you get one of these, you also need another piece of equipment to read the results? I'm too lazy to track down the email Bill sent me, sorry.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong, but even if you get one of these, you also need another piece of equipment to read the results? I'm too lazy to track down the email Bill sent me, sorry.

You are correct, you also need a signature analyzer.
 
More stuff

Yes, you need a signature analyzer and some custom leads that Bill shows you how to make on his site.

Basically, the Exorcisor generates test signals that cause the CCPU to respond in a predictable way. Then you use the Signature Analyzer to compare the test signatures against the known good signatures.

I bought my signature analyzer on ebay for $48 + shipping, They seem to sell for around that.
 
Bill has taken David Fish's design documents (based off the original) to produce his PCB. Didn't bother to ask permission either. Documents have been on ionpool.net for years.

FYI.



I recently contacted Cinematronics/Vectorbeam guru Bill (wysiwyg2) about purchasing a Cinematronics Exorcisor board, and he said he just sold his last one. However, if there is enough interest, he is willing to order another run of the boards.

Some Background:
If you have a Cinematronics game:

+ Star Castle
+ Armor Attack
+ Rip Off
+ Solar Quest
+ Tail Gunner
+ Star Hawk
+ Space Wars (or Vectorbeam Space War)

and want to repair the CCPU, the Exorcisor is probably the only way to troubleshoot the board properly. Bill has created a replica of the original Exorcisor, and instructions on how to use it. (http://www.biltronix.com/cinexor.html)

Bill has been selling these for $100 (and worth it, if you do Cine CCPU repairs). The amazing thing is that he is willing to sell the bare boards for $20 + ship, and supply a parts list for the components. So basically, you can build your own for very little money. At $20, this is a crazy good deal.

He has also said he will build them for the standard $100 price.

I wanted to share this with everyone, because I think it is an incredible bargain. Bill is very generous with his time and talent, and If you've seen his web site, you know the quality of work he does.

So please, if you have interest in the bare boards or completed boards, please go to the link (http://www.biltronix.com/cinexor.html) and read up on it. You can let me know via PM or by responding to this thread. "Critical Mass" is only 7 buyers (board or complete), so chime in and grab this bargain!

I will gather responses over the next few days and forward them to Bill.

NOTE: I posted in this forum (vs. the FS forum) because there's nothing to "sell" yet... I'm just seeing if there is enough interest to warrant another run of boards.
 
IBill has been selling these for $100 (and worth it, if you do Cine CCPU repairs). The amazing thing is that he is willing to sell the bare boards for $20 + ship, and supply a parts list for the components. So basically, you can build your own for very little money. At $20, this is a crazy good deal.

Bare boards for $20 is a bad deal.

The bare boards aren't the expensive / time consuming component of the system.

Price out the DIP IC test clips for starters and price out all the other stuff you need to buy to get it together, and the $100 for a tested/working finished product will probably look more attractive.
 
...and why he didn't include a signature analyzer in the design (steal the schematic from the cat box) is beyond me... that'd make it far more useful.
 
questions

I will ask Bill for how much the parts cost.

As for whether it's a good deal or not, that's pretty subjective. I know that if I went to my local electronics store (Orvac or Fry's), they'd charge me 10 bucks for a blank board + 9% sales tax. I'll gladly pay an extra bit for a custom board and the parts list.

From what I understand, the signature analyzer algorithm is patented by HP, and haven't found any public source documents on how to implement it. Does anyone have a source for this?

Either way, I'm not making any money off of it, so it's cool with me. :)
 
...and why he didn't include a signature analyzer in the design (steal the schematic from the cat box) is beyond me... that'd make it far more useful.


It's not like I didn't think of designing a custom signature decoder and display to go with the CinExor board. In fact, I had been thinking about building the display right into the board and implementing the entire thing with a single chip Xilinx CPLD.

All I originally wanted was an Exorciser setup so that I could repair and maintain my own boards and machines. I tried to purchase one for a couple of years and then gave up and decided to build my own. Like someone previously stated, the schematic has been available online at several websites for many years so there was nothing stopping me from making one of my own.

I looked into buying an HP signature analyzer on eBay and I ended up buying a working HP5004A for only $4.95 plus $25 shipping. I couldn't beat that.

Since I had not owned a signature analyzer previously, nor a CAT box, and since the sig. algorithm for the HP unit is not documented and since the original Cinematronics users guide instructions specifcally calls for the HP unit, I had no way to know for sure what it would take to build a working signature analyzer in terms of CPLD programming. With this in mind, I decided to save myself a lot of time and effort and simply buy the HP5004A and route the PCB for the basic Exorciser.

Once I had a new CinExor board up and running and the HP5004A working with it, I considered revisiting the idea of packing the Exorciser circuitry and also a signature analyzer into a Xilinx CPLD. Since I already had a working setup, I didn't really need to persue this part of the project. I haven't ever received any requests to produce one either. The CinExor boards did finally all sell but it took 18 months to sell the 8 extra boards that I had assembled. With that in mind, the market seems simply too small and the project too specialized for me to bother producing a CPLD version, especially considering the fact that I don't really need it. In fact, most people who are into troubleshooting and repairing arcade machines in general already own a signature analyzer anyway and so the Exorciser circuit board is really all that most buyers need.

Bill Boucher
http://www.biltronix.com
 
Bill has taken David Fish's design documents (based off the original) to produce his PCB. Didn't bother to ask permission either. Documents have been on ionpool.net for years.

FYI.


I don't know David Fish. Did he work for Cinematronics? If he did and if he still owns the rights to the design, he gave up those rights when he released the documents into the public domain. If he didn't work for Cinematronics and produced drawings from an original box as you said and then released them into the public domain without permission, then that publication of proprietary information could be considered a crime pursuable by the legal owner of the material which is Cinematronics. The schematic drawing did not claim any rights to the design and no warning was included to prohibit its use toward reproducing a physical board.

The schematic drawing that I downloaded from somewhere online (wasn't ionpool btw) had the author name blacked out. The original manual did not specify an author, only that it was owned by Cinematronics. With the information that I had available at the time, there was simply nobody to ask permission from to use the information.

Since then, someone on a forum mentioned something about David Fish having produced the schematic and a parts layout drawing. I looked into it as best as I could and confirmed that at least one other website claimed that the drawings were in fact drawn by David Fish. To reflect this, I immediately amended my webpage to indicate David Fish as the original author. This I did as a courtesy.

As far as Cinematronics is concerned, I supposed that I could have asked them for permission to sell some Exorciser clones, that is assuming that they still exist at all and are available for contact and would care at any level whatsoever. Since the design is 30+ years old and has been in the public domain for almost as long, I really didn't think that anyone would mind. So far, Cinematronics has not contacted me to the contrary. They are welcome to do so.

Does anyone think that David Fish would be upset to learn that someone found the schematic drawing (that he generously provided so many years ago) useful? I seriously doubt it. May I take this opportunity then to public say "Thank you David Fish. Your contribution to the arcade preservation hobby is much appreciated." If anyone here knows David Fish, I invite you to direct him to my page so that he may email me if he has a problem with anything that I've done.

Nowhere on my webpage do I make any sort of claim, directly nor indirectly, that the Cinematronics Exorciser nor the related documents are of my own design. The page openly states that the original circuitry and documentation and the rights to it are (or were) owned by Cinematronics. My only claim is that I produced the new reproduction board and that I have made it available to the public in the interests of preserving the original machines. If Cinematronics was still in the business of producing and selling the Exorciser, I would have simply purchased one of them. I wouldn't be reproducing them.

When I started the project, I had no intention of selling the CinExor boards. I would have produced the CinExor PCB for myself regardless. I could have breadboarded it. I could have CPLD'd it. However, I chose to route a new PCB. I thought I would do the arcade hobbyist community a favor by offering the extra PCBs to those who, like myself, wanted to repair their own games or boards. On the plus side, selling the extra boards allowed me to offset the cost of producing a couple of boards for myself. In the long run, everybody wins. I pretty much broke even on the money which is all I ever wanted.

The many additional hours that I spent researching the project, routing the PCB, sourcing the components, soldering all of the boards together, testing the finished boards, packing them up, producing shipping quotes for everyone, creating the detailed web pages to support those who bought a board, providing links for many components, producing the many detailed photos for the web pages and so on... took a whole lot of extra days of hard work that I simply did not have to volunteer for. Those that purchased one of the boards also received a complimentary set of documents designed by myself that I believe add very useful information to the existing original documentation.

I am not selling the CinExor boards to make money. Frankly, I have much more important things to worry about. I sell the boards because people come to my web pages and they ask very nicely for them. In fact, I was sold out of boards and I had no intention of selling any more. Recently, several people have requested a board so I caved in and order some more. So far, I have purchased a few hundred bucks worth of boards plus components and I haven't yet received a dime. I am taking all of the risk here, nobody else, and I'm doing it because I like helping out those who are trying to repair and preserve their games. If I fail to sell them all and I lose a bit of money, then I've lost a few bucks and I simply won't make any more of the boards. It's not a big deal.

Bill Boucher
 
Bare boards for $20 is a bad deal.

The bare boards aren't the expensive / time consuming component of the system.

Price out the DIP IC test clips for starters and price out all the other stuff you need to buy to get it together, and the $100 for a tested/working finished product will probably look more attractive.


I wouldn't be too quick to underestimate the complexity and practical value of the board. There are approximately 17 DIP patterns averaging more than 14 pins each that must be correctly interconnected. That's obviously more than 238 separate connections. In my book, that's a fair amount of work. Just download the schematic and judge for yourself. If someone wants to build it by hand then they can go right ahead.

Everyone should be aware that putting together a complete Exorciser setup is not an extremely simple task that you can accomplish in a single day. Unless you get very lucky by obtaining an original Cine box and an HP5004A signature analyzer very cheaply, you can expect to spend a fair amount of money to get a complete setup all together and working. You'll also have to spend some time and have some patience to learn how to apply it before you will begin to succeed in troubleshooting and repairing CCPU boards. A project like this has to be something that you genuinely want to do and are interested in doing otherwise it simply will not be worth the effort.

To anyone considering putting together their own Exorciser setup, I highly recommend that you download all of the files at the end of my CinExor page and read through them. Read the entire webpage thoroughly and click on all of the related links within it in order to see what other information and parts are available. Try to get a good idea of the scope of the project and then decide for yourself what you want to do. You can buy a blank PCB, an assembled PCB, or nothing. You can use the provided information to build the entire system from scratch if that is your preference.

To be crystal clear, when you buy the complete CinExor for $100, you get the assembled and tested circuit board. You do not get the wiring harnesses or the DIP clips or the widgets. This is all stated very clearly on the CinExor web page. There you can find many photos and links to direct sources for the DIP clips, parts for the widgets and connectors, and so on. Building the wiring harnesses and widgets is very time consuming. That's okay if you are building a set for yourself but I have no desire to start duplicating them for a living. The hookup wire, DIP clips, wire shielding, connector housings, and crimp terminals really add up but it's mainly the labor that bogs things down. If I had to build and supply all of that as well, I would not be able to sell the kit for under $250. Frankly, making between roughly $50 to $100 for all of that work is simply not worth my time so I do not offer such a package. To be honest, only one customer so far has asked for such a complete kit and he offered to pay for it but I turned him down. Most people, including myself, greatly prefer to make their own harnesses anyway in order to save themselves some money. After all, if they have the knowhow and equipment to replace electronic components such as IC's then they can certainly solder some wires together.

Anyone who doesn't believe that a professionally manufactured application specific circuit board (blank) is worth $20 (+shipping) is of course welcome and encouraged to download the original design documents and build their own. I am offering the blank PCBs for those who want to save some of their time and end up with a professional grade board that is a known working proven design.

The boards that I sell as completely assembled include screw-type wire-to-board terminal blocks, gold flashed machined sockets for all chips, and brand new ICs. Unlike the original Exorciser, the CinExor includes a power indicator LED, durable terminal blocks for HP5004A and power, and the choice of dual-row headers or DIP sockets for the cable attachments. The dual-row headers are also gold plated. The cost to me for all of the parts plus the PCB is about $50. By the time I solder it all together, set up my equipment on my bench and test it, participate in the necessary emails with the customer, weight it, pack it, generate the shipping quote and the shipping label, and drive it to the post office, I have a lot of my personal time invested. If I set the price any lower than it is, it would definitely not be worth my time and effort to produce the board.

One last thing I want to say...

I am not nor have I ever been in any sort of competition with anyone. I only provide my webpages (and a few small products) to the public as my personal contribution to the coin-op arcade machine hobby in general. That said, if someone else decides to route their own version of the Exorciser board and starts selling it, that's just fine with me. That goes for my other items as well. As far as I'm concerned, the more people that positively contribute to the hobby in a way, the better. Anyone who restores, repairs, and maintains classic game machines and their circuit boards and also goes out of their way to help others do the same gets an A+ in my book.

Bill Boucher
http://www.biltronix.com
 
Last edited:
CinExor PCB's will be available soon

Last week, I placed an order for a small number of new CinExor PCBs. They should be available for sale in about two more weeks.

Anyone wishing to purchase a board must go to my webpage and click the appropriate link to directly request one. I will not accept orders through the public forum. If you have any further questions, please go to my website and send me a direct email.

Bill Boucher
Homepage: http://www.biltronix.com
CinExor page: http://www.biltronix.com/cinexor.html
 
Bill,

THANK YOU for doing this. I'm glad to see more and more people taking time from their busy lives to work on reproduction projects. I hope to see more stuff like this coming from you. Good luck!!

Dave
 
I just want to drop in here real quick. I don't own a Cine game, and I really have no clue bout what this is or for. However, I do want to thank Bill for the offer, as well as Davia for the post. Its people like you guys (and a few others here on the board), with the knowledge and abilities to help us less versed in this deep of technical expertise which really helps keep this hobby going. I see posts like this get made - a kind offer to help the community, only to get "other posts" trying to point out why its a bad deal or wont work, or isn't a perfect design, etc.
So THANK YOU and others who contribute!! Please dont let the nay-sayers dampen your generosity - as there are a TON of others who appreciate it!!

Again, I am not in for the boards - but I do appreciate the thoughtfulness to share, and help fellow members.
 
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