As i have produced 2 sound board remakes now i decided to write a test software program for my 2 bally compatible boards. The idea being that you can specify the board type in the program and it will then play the full set of sounds for you. I also thought of having an input where you can specify the sound id directly. I like this idea also for the purpose of using with some of my other projects such as my custom pinball controller and also for recording high quality samples of all bally sounds.

Whilst developing the software I came across something that was interesting whilst working out how to access sounds from later games like gold ball and xenon which are 7 segment games and use a larger 2732 rom. It also provides supplemental information on the tech information written regarding how the later sound boards (namely the Squawk & Talk) receives information.

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Before the 7 segment on Bally games was introduced the control line was using a sound address line 5 to allow upto 32 sounds to be played. When the 7 segments came out this line was then used to drive the 7th segment and so if the sound access program remained the same then only 16 sounds would have been possible. At this point I believe that the double 4 bit nibble process was introduced (yet to confirm this through tests though) to allow upto 256 sounds to be played. This would mean that this system was in place as soon as 7 segment games came out (Skateball onwards?) rather than from the introduction of the Squawk & Talk Sound board.

Also, as mentioned in the technical documentation by Clive Jones

"Strangely, the schematics that I'm checking against show a *fifth* solenoid select line wired to PA4 (if the "EE" jumpers are installed, which, we'll come to shortly) or IO4 of the PSG. Maybe Bally kept their options open by keeping this fifth solenoid select line available on S+T?"

The 5th select line is still connected on a S&T board, but on closer inspection of the manual schematics and wiring diagrams, this line is tied to ground through a looped connector so the signal is purely used on the display front here. Also on games such as Xenon the manual states sound address line 5 as Not Used. This rules out some sort of possible multiplexing for both signals, and i'm not sure how that would have even been possible with the current design.

I will update here with more information as i find it

Cool pic. So how did the keypad work? Were you inputing the decimal number for the sound in?

I'm still trying to assertain if the change of control for sound ids happened after the introduction of the 7 segment display instead of with the introduction of the s&t board. I have expanded my arduino based test library to include a 2 nibble approach as specced in the bally tech manuals, but it doesn't seem to want to play ball (yet!) I also wanted to test the library on one of my new s&t boards to confirm correct coding, but the 6vac input for the speech chip's -5v needs is tricky to get on a regular bench test setup. Been trying to see whether -12v can be inputted at a pin instead.

There is of course the possibility that something else was used in-between 7 segment introduction and the s&t introduction, but i don't see any more info in any of the ball tech manuals about it???

Glad it came in useful. I haven't thought about this test program for awhile as i've been busy on other projects, but the plan was always to support all bally sound boards. I have a new design for the sounds deluxe board to (the one with a 68000 processor) that i want to get finished up some time.

Regarding control, i think they all use the same format after games went to 7 digit. Not sure if there are some timing differences etc that i will have to figure out, but the 2 byte approach does seem to be the standard after that point in time.

Thanks for the message. Appreciate the info. Do you happen to know if the s&t board was the first bally sound board to have a boot up check led sequence? I have often wondered if the earlier computer sound board had one somewhere?

Yeah this is what i'm talking about. I've always thought there was a specific boot up sequence for this era of board, but was yet to fully fathom it. My go to test rom is the future spa one, so maybe that is in the earlier section of code startup, or self checks. Interesting

I'll check my files and see what I have

Update on my testing software framework for bally sound boards. Been doing some more work on the library and have updated to support 5 different bally sound boards now inc:

AS-2518-51 Computer (6 digit Display)
AS-2518-51 Computer (7 digit Display)
AS-2518-61 Squawk & Talk
A080-91603-B000 Cheap Squeak
A080-91855-E000 Turbo Cheap Squeak
A080-91864-C000 Sounds Deluxe

Plus i have been fine tuning the control timings. I believe the 2 byte nibble should work ok from boards used in games from 7 segments displays onwards. There are some timing differences though as i have been working out. The earlier boards up to at least s&t seem to need a different spec for timings than is reported in the bally tech manuals (such as FO 560-3). So i would be interested to hear from anyone with info on this. I will be updating my GitHub library in due course - https://github.com/mypinballs/ballysoundtester

Also i am looking to see if there are any bally produced tech manuals for the later sound board like the 68000 sounds deluxe and turbo cheap squeak boards used int he 6803 system. Were any tech manuals made for this era of bally games?

This control code is also being used in my own controller board for hook up to original sound board hardware.

Cheers