What circuit boards would you like to see reproduced?

Lindsey

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What circuit boards would you like to see reproduced?

Seems like it's all been done at this point but I'll ask anyway. What pinball circuit boards would you like to see that are not already out there?
 
I'm most interested in the replacement System 80 soundboard (GSound) that Mark Clayton was working on. It seems that it may never see the light of day now.

I guess that's a little different than what the question was asking, but besides the GSound board what is currently on the market seems to take care of most of what I would need in the future.
 
I'm most interested in the replacement System 80 soundboard (GSound) that Mark Clayton was working on. It seems that it may never see the light of day now.

I guess that's a little different than what the question was asking, but besides the GSound board what is currently on the market seems to take care of most of what I would need in the future.

Actually, sound boards are about the only main boards that are not being reproduced for most pins.
 
Supercharger magnet contoller board for HSII Getaway is one that needs to be reproduced

We are working on this board right now. I expect finished product in about two months. Keep an eye on the website for it.

At this stage we will be using MOSFETS instead of the TIP's for coil drivers but haven't yet finalised things.

Happy to have any input on design changes at this early development stage.

Sound boards are VERY difficult due the parts that were used - mostly they were very specialised, low production run chips that are now next to impossible to find.
 
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Actually, sound boards are about the only main boards that are not being reproduced for most pins.

I'm just saying that besides your typical Gottlieb or Williams replacement Power Supplys or MPUs already offered by Rottendog, Ni-Wumpf, etc. the only other thing I was interested in was the Gottlieb GSound.

But now that you mention it, I'll remember to do my research before picking up any game with a missing soundboard or something like that.
 
I'm just saying that besides your typical Gottlieb or Williams replacement Power Supplys or MPUs already offered by Rottendog, Ni-Wumpf, etc. the only other thing I was interested in was the Gottlieb GSound.

But now that you mention it, I'll remember to do my research before picking up any game with a missing soundboard or something like that.

Pretty much any game prior to WPC Williams machines with the DCS sound will have a couple of impossible to find chips on them. They used the 55516 chips all the way up to TZ I think. I've found a potential option or two, but haven't had a chance to do any testing yet.

-Hans
 
replacement boards

how about the atari superman pinball boards........hard to find and not to many people to repair them
 
I actually toyed around a bit with the idea of Atari boards. The issue I kept coming up against was that I just couldn't totally nail down the full schematic on them for the CPU board. The atari style schematics are a disjointed mess, and there's some oddball stuff to the clocking circuit on Atari's where it changes processing speeds on the fly. That, and I don't know if I could hit the magic 50 board number to get it to break even financially. At least in a Superman, you could make the boards smaller, which would save a good amount of overall cost. There's a lot of wasted space on those boards, such as the extra half dozen prom sockets that are never used.

I'll have to ping one of my Atari contacts again about the concept, he may be able to give me a nudge to figure it out better.

Displays for Superman wouldn't be too hard to do though. I'd just need to get my hands on one for the dimensions and such. Selling about 12 sets would be the break even point on them I think.

-Hans
 
I actually toyed around a bit with the idea of Atari boards. The issue I kept coming up against was that I just couldn't totally nail down the full schematic on them for the CPU board. The atari style schematics are a disjointed mess, and there's some oddball stuff to the clocking circuit on Atari's where it changes processing speeds on the fly. That, and I don't know if I could hit the magic 50 board number to get it to break even financially. At least in a Superman, you could make the boards smaller, which would save a good amount of overall cost. There's a lot of wasted space on those boards, such as the extra half dozen prom sockets that are never used.

I'll have to ping one of my Atari contacts again about the concept, he may be able to give me a nudge to figure it out better.

Displays for Superman wouldn't be too hard to do though. I'd just need to get my hands on one for the dimensions and such. Selling about 12 sets would be the break even point on them I think.

-Hans

I've actually found the Atari manuals to be pretty good. They talk a lot more about the electronics in technical terms than most. There's a lot of "theory of operation" stuff. I can see what you mean about the schematics. They're split into sections across a bunch of pages so it's hard to get your head around the whole thing at once, unlike most early SS pinball MPUs which fit on one page.

Of course, if you were going to do a reproduction you would need to trace out an original MPU, or at least have a hard look at the schematics with one in front of you. I wouldn't really trust those schematics to be totally accurate. It never became a mature pinball system and it was pretty hacked together from the start. That would be a lot of tedious work.

The biggest problem I see with the original Atari system is the massive size of the board. The minimum size for a reproduction is also huge to accommodate all of the edge connectors. The original Atari MPU is actually a good candidate for reproduction in FPGA because it's basically just a crap-ton of off the shelf logic. You could reproduce it in a really small footprint but again, the board has to be huge.

The second series looks to be a lot easier/cheaper to do but it was only in 2 game so there's very little demand.

The short version of why we don't see reproduction Atari boards is that there's no money in it. It would be a ton of work for little demand.

My $.02
 
I've actually found the Atari manuals to be pretty good. They talk a lot more about the electronics in technical terms than most. There's a lot of "theory of operation" stuff. I can see what you mean about the schematics. They're split into sections across a bunch of pages so it's hard to get your head around the whole thing at once, unlike most early SS pinball MPUs which fit on one page.

Of course, if you were going to do a reproduction you would need to trace out an original MPU, or at least have a hard look at the schematics with one in front of you. I wouldn't really trust those schematics to be totally accurate. It never became a mature pinball system and it was pretty hacked together from the start. That would be a lot of tedious work.

The biggest problem I see with the original Atari system is the massive size of the board. The minimum size for a reproduction is also huge to accommodate all of the edge connectors. The original Atari MPU is actually a good candidate for reproduction in FPGA because it's basically just a crap-ton of off the shelf logic. You could reproduce it in a really small footprint but again, the board has to be huge.

The second series looks to be a lot easier/cheaper to do but it was only in 2 game so there's very little demand.

The short version of why we don't see reproduction Atari boards is that there's no money in it. It would be a ton of work for little demand.

My $.02


Yeah, I agree that the gen1 boardset is just too damn big to be economical. You'd be looking at a $400 board probably. I'd probably be a bit of a douche and put .156 headers on it, ditch the edge connectors, and say "you wanted a board? This is what you got."

But yeah, it's a low priority idea. I'd make 50, sell 3, and move the boxes for the other 47 around for about 6 years trying to sell them.

-Hans
 
Yeah, I agree that the gen1 boardset is just too damn big to be economical. You'd be looking at a $400 board probably. I'd probably be a bit of a douche and put .156 headers on it, ditch the edge connectors, and say "you wanted a board? This is what you got."

But yeah, it's a low priority idea. I'd make 50, sell 3, and move the boxes for the other 47 around for about 6 years trying to sell them.

-Hans

I get the thought of make the board close to same size so original harness/connectors will reach...but it wouldn't be 'original' that way, so if not-original is fine, why not make a small footprint board and require extension cables?
 
I get the thought of make the board close to same size so original harness/connectors will reach...but it wouldn't be 'original' that way, so if not-original is fine, why not make a small footprint board and require extension cables?

Oh, not a problem at all with the Superman/Hercules board set. Easy to shrink both the CPU and Driver boards on that one. Could probably shrink them both around 50% or better without any compromises.

The Gen1 set is a bit different, as it's all edge connectors, which determine the minimum size of the board..... and there just ain't much room to downsize it with the number of them on there. You could change to header pins, and then you COULD shrink the board, but that means people will have to do a LOT of cutting/crimping to change the wiring harness. Not a problem for some people, but not everybody is willing or capable to do that, so it cuts down on the customer base. Leave it with the edge connectors, and you have to keep the board big, and that raises cost..... which cuts down on customers.

The technical side of it, and actually making them, isn't overly hard in this case. I'd just ditch the edge connectors and put in headers.... people want the board, they'll just have to learn to crimp. The biggest problem will be selling enough to at least break even. Doing a couple hundred hours of work, and then losing money at the end of it all, isn't good for a business.

-Hans
 
Yep, and mostly due to the 55516 CVSD chips being expensive and hard to get.

-Hans

Bah! Roll your own CVSD circuit the old fashioned way (discrete components) and you'll never need to worry about obsolete IC's again (at least for that piece).
I remember doing this for school a few trillion years ago. Everything sounded like Mickey Mouse...but it worked.

Ed
 
I'd say screw the edge connectors anyway. The damn things were a constant source of headache on Time 2000 and pretty much every instance of the machine acting up could be solved by cleaning and re-seating all the connectors on the MPU.
 
i would like to see system 80 a/b gottlieb replacement boards made.though i havnt got to play many of them games.
 
I'd say screw the edge connectors anyway. The damn things were a constant source of headache on Time 2000 and pretty much every instance of the machine acting up could be solved by cleaning and re-seating all the connectors on the MPU.

Totally agree, but what a pain to convert over to something like .156" headers. I wish someone would actually build something like that for Atari. I would be one of the 5 customers :)
 
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