How do those work? Just don't install batteries and pop that in the U8?

PM Sent. Just need to check my machines to see which use 6424s.

cool

I could potentially use about 50 of these guys. Anyone have a list of compatible games rather than me opening up ever single game?

Since they would be your product could you also work on a compatible game list?

I think the price point is correct thus the reason for the response. I need 20 of them.

My thoughts and questions:
How does WPC deal with the clock dying without the RAM dying? I figure it just whines about the time not being set.
(come to think of it, CMOS ram keeps contents down to about 1.7v, and I'd be pretty surprised if the RTC still works that low)

Ferroram... <Datasheet> I'd always thought that was a bit crazy, and at $8 bucks a pop (singles). The nice thing is that it needs no extra support components.

That layout, you should be careful with those vias, the drill hits are off center, and if they were any more off, they could render a trace open?

(looks more at layout)

Is that an off-the-shelf adapter?, seeing as it seems to be designed to accommodate the IC being mounted on either side?

I've got a design I may post for comparison, that uses a STK22C48 and associated capacitors as a replacement for a 2Kx8 ram, like William's system 11 uses.

That would be awesome. thanks

This should work with anything that uses an 8Kx8 ram.
However, if a machine has a Real Time Clock [RTC], this may complicate things.

Williams:
WPC and friends use a 8Kx8 [has RTC]
System 11 uses a 2Kx8

DE/SEGA/Stern/Whatever it is this week:
Whitestar(1&2) uses a 8Kx8 [has RTC]
Pre-Whitestar uses an 8Kx8
EXCEPT
Laser War uses a 2Kx8

Capcom:
Pinball Magic: Uses 32Kx8 (Ram much? Or just practice a lot?) [not sure about RTC]

Not all WPCs use 6264. They can be jumpered for 62256. Late WPC-89 CPUs come jumpered for 62256.

They can easily be rejumpered to 6264.

Sys11B and newer can be converted to 6264 by installing a socket and moving a jumper.

So I guess it becomes a question of what roms use that extra space...

None do. You can run a 6264 in any WPC MPU with zero compatibility issues.

I'm interested in a few.

Looks like you have a hit product on your hands!

Put me on your list Andrew. Need one Sega viper night driving. Great price.

I'm in for a couple (3). Put me on the list.

I'll take 5. Please add me to the list.

Paul

I'm in for lucky number 27.
(edited: need more than first predicted)

I am interested in buying 3 of them. But you don't have to assemble mine if it makes it easier for you. I'm very handy with the iron.

Nice to see someone assembling these. The parts are all off the shelf, but a lot of people won't be able to do the assembly work themselves and the price is really good, given the time involved in assembling and testing.

Regarding the compatibility of these adapters, they'll be compatible with everything using 6264 but Gottlieb System 3.

I'm out. Found one elsewhere. Sorry. Thanks

Hey Andrew,
Will these work in a DE Simpsons?

Do you ship to Europe?

Yes it will. Pop out the old RAM and install the new NVRAM.

Just some advice from someone who has been selling these for many years. I wouldn't assemble more than about 50-100 at a time. The market is already pretty saturated with cheap options and I wouldn't be surprised to see someone come along and undercut even more at some point. I might even have to do that over the short term to get rid of existing stock and let everyone else run with it once that's gone. 1000x would be a gross overestimation of the market demand.

Sounds cool. It definitely doesn't hurt to have the RAMs. I don't really see the prices going down on those. Once you assemble 100+ pieces you probably won't want to have more than that built at any given time anyway. Haha!

I would be concerned about two things with what you are doing. First off I hope you have liability insurance - if not you are asking for trouble. All it takes is one thing bad happening and you could be paying for the rest of your life.

Second is using generic parts and making these things a couple dollars cheaper that the other guys that have done it in the past. Have you given any thought to the half a dozen or more guys who have already made these and only offer them with good parts? There is a reason for that! Generic parts have a higher failure rate and depending on how something fails it can cause a ton of damage on circuit boards. I know I would never take that risk in my machines to save a couple bucks!

As with anything that seems to good to be true - it likely is!

A ton of people over the years have come up with a good many good ideas to modify machines making things better. But if you do your homework there is a ton of risk from the liability standpoint so personally I would never take that chance to make a few dollars.

I don't have a dog in this race - just saying be careful and think about potential issues you might be setting yourself up for before you get too carried away with this.

$10.00 by Christmas. Oh, wait, that's another thread.

Huh? Wha? That could be postured for ANY add-on and or modification. People sue becuase they trip on their own shoelaces, but that don't mean it holds water. Now will generic parts destroy a machine. Fail premature? Yes. Not work? Yes. Ton of damage to a machine? Really? Cite an instance.

images.jpg

$14 is the obvious next step.

I monitored stocks of Ramtron parts at their resellers fairly closely for 5+ years or so before they sold out to Cypress. Obviously, because I was building these adapters, but also because they were never really available in massive quantities and then FM1608 went end of life with no replacement announced (before FM16W08). Then the FM16W08 came out and then eventually Cypress bought Ramtron and they weren't going to make them, then they were going to make them, and then we have the parts which are available today at twice the price or more of the originals.

That's basically the history of these chips as I remember it. Most likely not a perfect chronology, but the point is that I've kept an eye on these for years and bought out large quantities of them at most of these steps when there were scares that they may not be available, or may go up drastically in price. The whole reason I mention that is because I look at the quantities that are available from sellers on alibaba.com and otherwise and it just doesn't add up. Tens of thousands of pieces are available and I never saw even close to that available at one time from resellers in the past. Someone is going to get burned on them at some point. I really hope it's not someone in pinball.

Regardless of whether nvram parts pass a RAM tester or boot in a machine, if they weren't bought from distributors on the "Authorized Distributor" list at RAMTRON/CYPRESS then they are "unknown" parts. That's all there is to it. Even if they pass initial tests, that doesn't say anything about their authenticity. They are still unknown. No guarantee they weren't factory rejects or they aren't using a different internal die and faking the real thing. Unless you're sending lot numbers to Cypress & having the internal dies analyzed, you have no idea what you bought. They could internally be an eeprom die that works like the nvram, but will fail after a certain number of writes. I've cautioned about this many times and posted this link to RAMTRON's counterfeit page that details an occurrence of an nvram being faked -- it's quite interesting: http://www.ramtron-china.com.cn/support/CounterfeitF-RAM

Bottom line is something bad happens - like a MPU dies after someone installs one of these they can (and might) hold you liable. Or say something worse - pinball machine catches fire and burns house down 3 weeks after someone installs one of these and the homeowners decide to name you in the lawsuit - is it your fault - I really doubt it - but people are crazy these days and sue over just about anything.

Sure seems like a lot of risk to me for anyone selling any aftermarket parts for machines. I even worry about selling used machines out of my collection and I carry a Million Dollar Liability Policy. Since I am in the "Antiques Business" and don't specifically state I sell some used pinball machines from time to time I don't know how my insurance would handle it if I had a claim against me.

Just something to think about and research for anyone considering selling pinball modes, machines, or parts. it is a shame the world is the way it is these days but it is better to do your homework than be sorry later.

In any event - best of luck to you. I know others have tried selling these with little success but maybe you will be the lucky one. I hope it works out for you but be sure to talk things over with a lawyer and get you ducks in order before you sell too many of these things.

noneedtobeupset.gif

It would be interesting to see if something like a 28C64 would function as an SRAM in a pinball machine. Or a flash EEPROM. The clock speeds in pinball tend to be quite slow, but are they slow enough? Would have to look at the bus timing in the EEPROM data sheet to see if it should be possible. If that were the case with some of these FRAMs, the difference would be in how many writes the part can do before failing. Could take a while to show up in pinball. We may have to wait a couple years to find out

Someone should really put together a decent page on how to build these yourself, if one doesn't exist already. You could build them in 10 piece lots for around $5 each, if you're willing to roll the dice on "questionably sourced" FRAMs. I'm sure these will be the same RAMs used in some adapters available for sale. Not trying to accuse anyone specifically so please don't take offence.

I think a lot of people still don't realize that the 6264 adapter can be made from "off the shelf" parts.

These ones claim to be genuine. No way to say for sure:
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Free-shipping-FM16W08-SG-FM16W08-RAMTRON-SOP-28-10pcs-lot-100-New-Genuine-Large-spot-price/1194790375.html

Here's some PCBs:
ebay.com link: 10PCS SOP28 SSOP28 TSSOP28 SOIC28 to DIP28 PCB Converter Adapter 0 65 1 27mm

Here's some well priced machine pin headers:
ebay.com link: 40x Machined Pin Header male 40 round gold machine pins

Should be interesting to see what happens next in the world of pinball NVRAM. I doubt we've seen the end of new developments.

I don't really know if that's true. I've sold lots of them without even trying too hard. I didn't even get off my ass and add the combined enable for the 5101 for years. Of course, I've been doing it for quite a few years, but I was basically the only one selling them for a few years too. Before the genie was let out of the bottle, so to speak. I'm sure Rob is selling a bunch and there are at least 3 other people selling them so there is a market. I don't think the market is as great as this thread would make it out to be, and that in itself will probably drive more people to make them, but there is a market.

You're not going to make mint, but you can make SOME money selling these kinds of boards. Especially easy ones like this which can be made from off the shelf parts with the real world testing already having been done by others and info readily available on how to do it. It's already an established and field tested "product". In that scenario, the risk is pretty low.

Lindsey,

I think you were away a while back when this same subject was discuses under one of the more expensive product threads. There, I posted the same exact thing albeit a link to an ebay ad for the fram. That, I believe, is we're the $15 product was spawned.

I don't know if the old 28c64 would respond to a normal write cycle, but I do have some on the shelf to try in place of an SRAM. Don't parallel flash devices have unique protocol for write cycles? I question whether any of them would be plug and play in place of SRAM.

Basically any of you guys building any of this stuff are taking a huge risk without having good insurances in place. All it takes is one major incident and you are in way deeper than you might expect. It isn't my problem and I don't even know why I posted on this thread last night other than I was killing a little time and though to myself - "here we go again with someone else thinking they have come up with the next big idea to make some money building something that has already been done countless times before".

Getting batteries off the boards - great idea - but building and selling something to modify an existing product without liability insurance is a bad idea. Again - no dog in this race so I really don't care but I just wanted to remind people to consider the risk when doing something like this.

Years ago I was in the garage business and I did a brake job on a customers car. A few days later a wheel failed and I ended up getting sued. I did nothing wrong - a steel wheel broke at the lug nuts - but my legal fees were unbelievable and shortly after that I decided it just wasn't worth it and closed my shop. Thankfully my insurance covered everything but once it was all behind us my rates went through the roof. I didn't build the car, I didn't design the wheel, I just put it back on the car after finishing the brake job. But it didn't matter - I was the one that got sued. Lug nuts were torqued properly and were still on the hub with part of the rim - how was it my fault? But that didn't matter to the customer or his insurance company.

It is easy to overlook what can happen. That is why I have always carried great insurance but sometimes even that isn't the entire answer. One of my accountants one day said "you always have to weigh the risks and rewards" and if you do that you will quickly discover the few dollars that can be made with something like this just are not worth the risk involved. That is why I don't get involved with mods or anything else upgrading machines.

I think the one that would concern me the most is the guy with that mod for the 5 volt reset issue. Picking up voltage somewhere else in a machine and feeding it where it wasn't designed to go sounds very risky to me. Again - not my problem but just saying - lots of risk if you think about it for a few dollars.

Agreed. I don't see an obvious EEPROM drop in solution, and it wouldn't be the right part for the job in any case, but it would be interesting to test just to see what the possibilities are. The 28C64 EEPROM data sheet specifies that "The AT28C64B is accessed like a Static RAM for the read or write cycle without the need for external components." So, it responds to a normal write cycle, it just does it way slower than an SRAM. I'm guessing the 28C stuff will be way too slow. Flash EEPROMs would have Software Data Protection which would require multiple byte writes to store a single byte to the EEPROM, but there may be some which do single byte writes and allow the data protection to be turned off. The 28C64 would have data protection too, but it appears to be turned off by default.

Good luck proving anything even if these do burn down. There is no freakin way that with all the other components in a pinball machine that they will even attempt to blame a simple ram. How about the coils which get so hot they burn the paper right off or the transistors that actually catch Fire. Once that pin goes up in flames all evidence is gone and at the very best the inspector will determine that the pinball caught on fire. That's it.

That's exactly it though. If you ask any China/HK importer everything is "genuine". Why would they tell you any different.. they wouldn't sell anything. Who is going to come after them? They refund orders for whoever has a problem (or are forced to by a site like Aliexpress) and are still allowed to sell on eBay or Aliexpress for a while. It probably takes a huge amount bad orders for them to get kicked off.

Why produce a non-working counterfeit these days? Counterfeiters are making enough money and upgrading their counterfeiting equipment -- they can afford the same machines the big guys are using after a while and produce chips that look and function like the real thing -- for a while anyway. All they'd need to care about is that they pass initial testing. I doubt there are many counterfeiters selling non-working junk at all these days -- there's enough protection for the buyers on eBay or websites like Aliexpress they wouldn't be in business long. Produce working clones, either with copies of original dies or completely different internals.. maybe they work just as well, maybe they fail after a few years.. maybe they're the same die but quality-assurance is horrible since they're just pumping them out of the factory for profit.

Someone tell me this. How on earth are there all these new Philips 5101 RAMs available now? They were obsolete.. unavailable 5 years ago. I was on eBay looking for some and they were $5+ each for used pulls and that was *cheap*. Anyone that did still have some genuine NOS parts had very limited supply & they were priced $6-8 or more. Then, in the last 2 years.. all the sudden there are tons of "genuine" Philips PCD5101P RAMs available.. from pinball parts suppliers, from eBay, from Aliexpress for $2 or less in some cases. That doesn't add up at all.

Way back when I was prototyping some things, I bought some SIMTEK RAM that was pictured as a 600-mil DIP part and arrived a 300-mil part. That wouldn't be bad, except the 300-mil part had the wrong markings (it was marked as a 600-mil part). There is absolutely no way that is a genuine product that leaves the manufacturer like that. I still have those parts.. I'd love to have the dies analyzed some day just to see what's inside. If I could do it myself [safely] I would, I just don't need to spend the money sending it off for a part I already know is junk.

simtek_bad.jpg

And for kicks, and since I posted this before.. here is a picture from a die analysis on a RAMTRON part. I have a detailed report with magnified pictures of what's in the red blocks (which is the RAMTRON die markings). This is what you have to do if you buy "unknown" parts -- send them off to be decapped and dies analyzed under a high-power microscope .. or ran through an x-ray machine to verify authenticity. Really it's best if you send the whole lot off.. if they came 100 or 500 or 1000x on a reel.. they run them through x-ray equipment and look for differences that are out of tolerance for production for that manufacturer. Because of all the counterfeiting going on & bad parts being used in military equipment because they buy from US companies that say they have genuine parts (but ultimately the parts trace back to counterfeiters).. there are companies that specialize in parts verification & helping you source genuine parts if you aren't able to find the part from an authorized distributor.

ramtron-die.jpg

@lindsey,

If I knew how to do this, i.e. there were specific pins that had to go to different locations than the FRAM pinout to be used, what cap or resistor to add, I would build them myself for sure, not for sale, just for my machines, 5101s included. It's the lack of assured knowledge of the wiring. If you put an nvram on the soic/dip adapter straightup, is that all it takes? Seems like you'd have to do some rerouting, etc.

For a 6264 NVRAM all that is needed is an 28-pin SOIC to DIP adapter board like Lindsey posted the eBay link for. The RAMTRON fm16w08 IC is pin-compatible with a 6264 RAM. No additional caps or resistors are needed. The adapter boards just map pins 1-to-1 from the smaller smd footprint to the larger DIP footprint. So as long as you can solder the surface mount fm16w08 part without bridging the solder between the pins you can easily make these 6264 adapters for $4-5 (maybe less) in parts if using "unknown" nvram. And really, what's their to lose if it's on your own pins? If you can't solder the part.. try a few times and you're out maybe $15-20 until you get a working one and then can start creating your own parts cheap for your other pins. Great if it's for your own pins and you don't mind "rolling the dice" there. These off-the-shelf methods have been documented on several threads over the years.. at least since 2012 when I offered similar off-the-shelf boards.

The 6116 would require modification of the generic SOIC board. It's doable.. but if you want to do it right and tie unused address lines to a logic state and not have it look hacked, have cut traces, wire jumpers, etc.. then a custom board is really the better option. The 5101 requires a custom board simply because of the 400-mil DIP footprint for the 5101. You could of course use a 6264 to 5101 adapter board along with the generic 28-pin SOIC adapter for non-Gottlieb machines. There's at least one person selling 6264 to 5101 adapter boards (myself lol). That's a way to get around creating a custom board for a 5101 and being able to use DIY parts. Or there's always a not-as-pretty DIY method: http://www.retrogames.cl/adaptador5101.html

Sorry didn't meant to jump on a question meant for Lindsey but don't see where he'd mind

Yeah, that pretty much covers it.

The main thing with pinball is that none of it is really THAT complicated. Just keep that in mind, don't get discouraged, and you can do anything that anyone else is doing with it.