Wms printer option kit

Zitt

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As seen here:
Have your local distributor order a "PRINTER OPTION KIT", part number 63110 from WMS Part Sales. This kit comes omplete with cables and instructions.
-- Ask Uncle Willy

And pictured here:
- img courtesy of edcheung.com

I'm looking for information / schematics on this printer option kit. I'd like to figure out how to add this capability to my STNG on the serial port.

Anyone have any details on it? I'm sure I have a snowballs chance of finding one forsale.
 
My "goal" is to try and "simplify" the and create a serial board which I can add to my STNG to extract HSTD and other details.

I've already hooked my RFM up to a laptop and can use it's serial port to get these values; so a script to display it's stats should be doable. I've hacked my ST:Voyager Arcade to display a web page with this info.

My goal in the future is to have all of my arcade machines's stats/high scores displayed on an internal website. A long order; considering I have a DE:ST and a Bally ST - all of which have zero serial options.
 
Hrm...depending on the pinouts and everything, if it's just supposed to connect to a serial printer, maybe there is some kind of "emulator" software on the PC that could take the input from a serial port and print to a virtual device, output to text file and get your data that way.

Might have to crimp your own custom cable to do it, but that's a thought...

That small board just looks like it's a direct interconnect that you don't actually need if you crimp your own cable end to end....

Dunno what the big board is for.. :|
 
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The big board is a register board in the "memory space" of the 6509 cpu used on the wpc systems. Someone on the interwebs sent me the schematic.

Basically; it's a address decode to intel 8251A UART.
I'm currently looking at my options... IE if I'm going to design a FPGA implementation; or if I'm just going to try and source all the older parts. Leaning toward the former.

The printer kits are very rare apparently... only used on proto machines out in the field to collect "Data" for tweaking designs.
 
I own a Williams serial printer kit. I just need to find it in my part storage boxes. Many years ago I bought a pin and the kit was in the cabinet.
 
I've been looking into this heavily the last few nights after work.

I'm confident I can simply the design to just a serial output... but not keen on doing so given the i8251 USART is old/rare...as is the baud rate generator also used on the board.

I've entered the front decode logic into the xilinx Webpack schematic capture for implementation in FPGA. The problem I'm now face with is learning VHDL... which I have a near-zero experience at.

My idea is to take OpenCore's 16550 UART and front end load it to look like a intel 8251.
Why? Well.. no opensource i8251 IP seems to exist. One company claims to have it for sale; but I don't want to even ask.

The problem is doing so will require quite a bit of heavy lifting to create a "translate component" to do the work.

Don't suppose we have some VHDL experts running around in the forums? much less anyone that would like to help code the VHDL?

The other peice of news I got today via PM was:
understand your idea -- dump HSTD via serial port to a leaderboard. I had looked into that before. The problem is that the machine doesn't dump anything uncommanded. It basically only dumps stuff to the printer when you go through the self-test menus and tell it to print something. The point of the feature was that the tech doing collections/repairs was supposed to print a report onsite and turn it in (or get his ass kicked/fired).
I was kinda hoping it'd dump the audits periodically during attract mode; but it appears that it won't.
I may still do this as a educational excersize.

It *might* be possible to hack the Pin's Firmware to do periodic dumps... but have no experience customizing WPC firmware. IT's also possible I could create a microcontroller to auto cue the audits some how. Ideally; I'd like to find a way to cause the cpu to jump to some program code on the new "printer board"; but not sure if the architecture would allow it.
 
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Instead could you monitor the DMD output and OCR the high scores? look for a key frame and then grab initials and scores? Just a crazy thought.
 
WAY too complex.
It'd be easier to hack the WPC firmware.

Today I got the schematic entry done in the Xilinx Webpack. I went to generate the RTL and got some errors about events in the verilog i8251A componet.

I'll look at it again tomorrow.
 
I've been working on a redesign of willams printer kit</a> for my Star Trek: The Next Generation pinball. Much of the work as been in the Complex Programmable Logic Device (CPLD) which is in 256BGA form. Why a CPLD? Long term I intend to replace the Intel 8251A USART (which is becoming increasingly difficult to find and expensive) with a "soft IP" core. The only pseudo-free 8251A core I could find was by ALTERA. They allow free use of that IP; but only as long as you put it in an Altera device. I'm ok with that; but to be honest, I really do not like the company. My first tech-support request was "refused" because I wouldn't provide them with a company or university name. I'm a hobbyist for crying out loud; support your damn products or bite me. If I had any other choice I'd go with another CPLD/FPGA company for this reason alone. But I digress...

The FabA schematics and FPGA high level schematic is posted in PDF form at my blog:
http://pinball-mods.com/blogs/?p=278
I retain all rights to the implementation and schematics.

The top layer board will look something like this:


I got to be honest; the bga on the board is very scary. $20 a piece... and BGAs aren't really known for their ease in the DIY PCB workshop. But; it'll be fun to see how pcb assembly goes.

Next step after ordering boards and BOM for assembly; is to get back to the visual pinmame source code in order to begin "simulating" the printer kit from a software prospective. Long term; I want to test the ROM hacks to dump the high scores via serial port and the Serial kit. Once I've tested the roms in pinmame; then I can commit them to the real machine.
 
put a price and PM me :)

Work stalled on this due to my complete custom Pinball work:
http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=256447

I got a failure from BatchPCB's DRC bot and at the time they were undergoing a new DRC solution which didn't highlight the problem area(s)... so I couldn't actually tell what was wrong (if anything) with the PCB design.
I hope to get back to this after I make some progress on the Star Trek : Mirror Universe project.
 
Hello Zitt

Is there any possibility to get the schematic diagram of this PRINTER OPTION KIT, part number 63110? I've got a Twilight Zone pinball and I would like to connect a printer to it.

I could make a PCB out of the schematics as I am an electronics professional!
 
Not from me.
I was ransomware attacked several years ago and the original schematics were one of many files crypto-corrupted. I refused to pay their ransom.

If it helps:
16-9464_Printer_Kit_Manual_Rev_Jan_1993.pdf
was the original file name I had.

Scott has a board which might interest you:
 
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