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Next Hardware Project - System 80B Sound Board

myPinballs

myPinballs

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So i'm looking at creating another new board for system 80B games. This time i'm looking at creating a new sound board which will work across the 80B games. It will be compatible with MA-766 and MA-866 series boards and variations thereof.

Currently drawing up some schematics before getting some protos made to mess/test with.

As before with the cpu board i will be looking at improving the design and adding similar updates, such as:

  • Decent ground anchors
  • Test point pads
  • Leds for common signals and voltages
  • Reduced component count
  • Plate through design, socketed ics
 
Reckon I could be your first customer/guinea pig. An almost new set of boards in the Arena backbox would be sweet. :)
 
How about making it backwards compatible with other system 80 games (eg have a dip switch or jump selection for which system 80 you wish to install it in) ?
 
Moonraker said:
How about making it backwards compatible with other system 80 games (eg have a dip switch or jump selection for which system 80 you wish to install it in) ?
Click to expand...

I think older games are entirely different sound hardware? but MA-766 and MA-866 seem to be very similar, but with a different synth setup?
 
Update: Looked over loads of schematics from various games this week and i've completed the first run of my schematic which will allow the board to work in games meant for the 766 and all revs of the 866 board. There are dip switches to enabled/disable certain sections which are specific to the different board revisions. The main difference is to do with the speech generation circuit. The speech generation for games using the first rev of the 866 board like robo-war and tx sector certainly is an interesting design and some of the games using the 766 board where there was a dedicated speech chip, didn't even use it! Robo-war managed to create that transformers like voice with lots of low pass filtering.

Also, after looking at a good few system 3 manuals i believe this board will work here to so the full range of games able to benefit will be much higher than originally thought. Again it looks like gottlieb carried on using the 866 board for effects and updated the aux sound driver to improve the speech generation circuit again. Music gen was split across the 2 just like in later 80b games.

Attached some pics of an early autoroute and layout of the board so far.
 

Attachments

  • Gottlieb System 80b Sound bottomlayout.png
    Gottlieb System 80b Sound bottomlayout.png
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  • Gottlieb System 80b Sound component layout.png
    Gottlieb System 80b Sound component layout.png
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  • Gottlieb System 80b Sound top layout.png
    Gottlieb System 80b Sound top layout.png
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Update:

So its been awhile since i updated on this project, but i have just sent the files off to get the first set of prototypes made. Hoping to get these back and into my gold wings before christmas all being well. Gottlieb games deserve new and better sound boards. :)
 
myPinballs said:
Update:

So its been awhile since i updated on this project, but i have just sent the files off to get the first set of prototypes made. Hoping to get these back and into my gold wings before christmas all being well. Gottlieb games deserve new and better sound boards. :)
Click to expand...


nice chrsitmas pressie for me as off before Christmas for a wek-testing new sys 80b stuff :clap:
 
Some updated pics of the latest revision with added ground planes for analogue gnd and digital gnd
Gottlieb System 80b Sound bottom layout v0.1.pngGottlieb System 80b Sound top layout v0.1.png
Gottlieb System 80b Sound component layout v0.1.png

Also, i am creating another sound board for another era of game as a sister project to this. 'Can you tell what it is yet'? I will start a new thread for it. 'Gordon's Alive'

bally s&t sound board bottom layout.png bally s&t sound board component layout.png bally s&t sound board top layout.png
 
Last edited:
and I have a Centaur so can do the other board too.Poibug test labs at yor disposal,SIR!!:p
 
80B sound board (all generations, and sys 3 compatible) protos are going to the board manufacture tomorrow. Working though my backlog of projects :)

Gottlieb System 80b Sound top layout v0.2.png
 
After some more head scratching and rework making adjustments to be able to get a single board to work with all 80b generations and system 3, i have another board to send off for prototyping on monday. Interestingly, (for tech heads) the early 80b sound board has no speech but still uses a speech gen chip for music processing and 'bigging up' the tones. The music sounds real flat without it!
 
First protos arrived today :) Looking forward to getting these going. Taken awhile, was tricky to fit this development in amongst all the other stuff i'm doing and i've had to return to 'the drawing board' more than once, but we have something physical now to test. :) Come on flashing led!

IMG_5092.JPG IMG_5094.JPG
 
Progress on the assembly and testing. Main microcomputer, clock and reset circuits built. Working to get the main micro computer up and running and flashing the status lamp.

IMG_5126.JPG
 
More progress. Video showing a little more. Sound idinputs and data comms to the music chips checking. plus some naration from me!

 
Another video, showing the first piece of music coming out of the board


There is some noise on the audio line, as there are no power filter caps installed and its just a quick hookup to an amp and speakers, but should give you an idea of progress
 
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