Hey, 1n4004 diodes cost money! They saved at least 1¢ by not putting them on, and probably 10¢ in labor costs.

...and they're not consistent as to which terminal the bands go to.... I double check before I solder but even so I make mistakes sometimes. I haven't bought a new coil in years though as I usually have enough in my used stash.

On my list of many classic stern related things to do is to retypeset all the manuals and add color photos on the front as well. (And all related paperwork, for the modified roms)

I'm about 30% done with flight 2000 and its modified ruleset paperwork. I need to retake the front picture with the better cameras of today as when I did it way back when it's just not clear enough.

The goal of that project is to get the manuals 100% corrected.

As for seawitch I've never felt the need to do anything at all to the software as I think it's just about perfect the way it plays now. MAYBE add an option to carry over the spinner lamps? One of the best early solid state rulesets... simple of course and not deep, but really fun nonetheless. (I pretty much ignore the spinner and go for the complete 2/3 or 3/4 drops after one drop to get the bonus ladder collect)

I know you're using MSpaint but consider getting GIMP and putting the info on layers that way you can custom create final pics with different types of information on it.

OK I see ONE thing that I'd change about seawitch'es software.... the attract mode is a little 'busy'

I used to file the sockets a bit but I've found radioshack 'clear flux' solder gets the solder to stick great.... at least on new sockets.

Not sure what the flux etc. actually is but paste flux would work too (a little messy).

I'm experimenting with the little tabs and just screwing them down right now on my latest swap (which I need to get back to....)

Pins 11 and 12 get connected together to interchange Bally/stern 7 digit displays.

I was looking forward to having pacman standup faces on the seawitch....

One of my many projects as well. Stuck in the redrawing the mpu200 stage.

I did retypeset most of the flight 2000 manual though to reflect the new ruleset.

If you reset the hstd it will show 00. Until you play a game the players scores may or may not show anything if the memory was cleared to$ff it will be blank

Some earlier weebly boards do not bring the door clear button to the mpu.

I know because I reported it to Andrew a while ago and he confirmed it

The issue with the bottom mounted switches is when they get dead spots on them, or how much bounce they have when they reset. As long as they are clean and adjusted properly they're fine.

Because of the bottom mount and the way some people lift/move the playfields up and down though it can be easy to mangle the switches if you're not careful.

The upper left bank is supposed to be like this because of where it's mounted - the backmount switches would likely hit the side of the cab.

I hope Mirco gets that PF out soon too, I really want a new PF for mine because like many, the face is messed up (along with my bad touchup).

The stock under pf fuse is only for non flipper solenoids and should be 1 to 1.5 slow blow. If you have your flippers wired on the load side of that fuse yeah you'll need a larger one but any pf solenoid locked on might not pop it.

The first thing I do with Andrew's board is put a ZIF in U1.... even when I'm done modifying the code in that game I leave it.

Not the Aries ones, they have nice round pins that pop right into the regular sockets.

https://www.mouser.com/datasheet/2/35/10001-universal-dip-zif-test-socket-337360.pdf

They don't work on every socket though, on my bally 6803 board the sockets must be too far recessed as the Aries ones just didn't make contact.

I have some of the other type you're describing and the leads are kind of flattened.

The scope can make a complicated problem involving a couple of signals and timing a lot simpler, and sometimes really obvious, that you will tear your hair out for days trying to diagnose via other means. If you get good at using it for everything it might help you with regular stuff as well, but it's a lot of kit to move around. Best for bench setup where you're going to power up boards on the bench.

Most of the time it's not even needed to look at the scale of what you're measuring you can tell from a bad waveform shape or timing phase shift (or lack thereof) what component has the issue. But all the modern scopes will put the measurement right on the screen too.

I have an old analog one from the 80's as well somewhere.... probably way in the back of my bench area.

I upgraded to the Rigol consumer one that's about $350 nice to be able to screen shot to a usb stick.

Stargazer has slings. They're above the scoopy-things by the flippers. They suck too, toss the ball in the outlane a lot of the time.

I'd agree with that. Bally multiball troughs always seemed like they tacked on stuff to get it to work although I don't remember Fathom having issues when I had one about 25 years ago. (Of course I had 2 of them way back before they exploded in popularity....)

Just looked at the code really quick, the switches when activated are ignored (they point to an RTS) - so that means there's a periodic routine running in the background that polls closed switches to make decisions on ball end/launch, etc. - the way it should be since you don't want a quick reaction on a switch that might have a ball rolling by it on the way somewhere else.

Flash Gordon > Centaur > Fathom

Best part of Fathom is the BG artwork. I'd probably like the game layout better if it didn't have those reversed outlanes. I almost universally despise games that have reversed outlanes.

It has some OK stuff. I'd even muddy it further by putting this in there:

Eight Ball Deluxe > Flash Gordon > Medusa > Centaur > Fathom