Enjoyed the show. Have a particular interest in game software reverse engineering and modding. Cheers, Scott.

A few comments.

With FreeWPC, Brian Dominy already had created a complete pinball operating system before teaming up with Heighway. Not counting the modernised display, of course.

PinballPCB have discontinued MPU boards. Too bad.

Gold Wings is tons of fun. The real problem with it is the imbalanced and randomly lit and tough carom 500K shots.

The Whirlwind ramp problem. I have a another possible root of the problem from experience with that issue. The switch was connencted incorrectly - meaning on the normally-closed terminals. Reversing the interpretation of the ramp state. So, the ramp was actually working to some extend. But you could hear that the game was pulsing the coils an additional two times. That caught my attention.

It is tricky business, when the switch test is responding to a switch. Seemingly working. And when it is not obvious what mechanical state should actually have the switch active.

ALWAYS power up a game with nothing connected to the power board downstream and check voltages. After work on the power circuitry.

And generally after major work or reassembly, have power to coils disconnected until all other matters checks out. Bally/Sterns need coil power on the MPU board to boot though.

So, what is David Hasselhoff up to these days? Well, amongst other things (I hope) he is the face of a Danish mobil phone operator!!! Very slick as well.

TheHoff (resized).jpg

This is an international company. But a quick search did not show any other national legs of this operation having - him.

Browse their website. He is all over the place.

https://www.3.dk/

Dr Dude, lads. Dr Dude.

Next thing. I am super curious to the Flash Gordon issue that was brought up. A suggestion to redo all the connectors is outrageous. What a ton of work.

The guy needs to be specific as to what bonus inserts was following the backbox lights. And if it happens when the bonus inserts are ment to be on. Of off.

And above all. He has to clear, if leds are used or not. Leds have different behaviour. Both when it comes to strobing off (when on) and ghosting (when off).

Weak power supply may explain it all. If the guys has already tested several board swaps. Why not try the power supply too.

Also try to unconnect one, the other and both connectors on the aux lamp board. See if the behaviour follows specific backbox lamps in operation. Maybe even disconnect individual bulbs.

The problem of the original Stargazer ROM set, I think, is that either the CPU board or the (a) ROM chip(s) are worn to the point where they just do not work reliably. Where on the alternative board it does. Go by the easiest thing first, a new CPU chip. After this, new noise caps on ROM/RAM/CPU chips.

The problem of the Weebly board is more cute. Is it a picky voltage alert, because the display load is zero? CPU lamps timing (power bus zero cross) input comes to mind too. But lamps are off during boot up anyway. So it would not make any difference.

Ron, write the guy. We want to know.

Thanks for another entertaining, informative and occationally loony episde of Slamtilt Podcast.

Coincidentally, I recently discovered a Mark Silk easter egg on Star Wars. Out of the blue one of the call outs played back with Mark Silk being out of charrecter. In his own voice basially. I do not remember which one it was, but it was one of the common ones like "Hoth is lit". There might be several. Could be a one in 100 or something like that.

You guys were misinterpretning Mr. Gomez unfortunently. And maybe he was too vague in the interview. As he was refering to BOTH making a playfield entirely out of alternative materials as one thing. And the playfield protector addon thingy we have seen in recent years as another thing.

He was talking about the friction of the surface and how that will affect how the game plays. Which applies to both scenarios.

And he was talking about how playfield protector lifts the ball up relative to the playfield mechs, shots and stuff. And the negative effects that has to how the game plays. How they adjust and align these things to prefection and then people go out and mess it up right away.

I agree on the latter. Playfield protector sucks!

Surprised the Rudy head was not mentioned in the worse-mech-to-work-on segment. Oh dear, you need three hands to fix him up.

What is "rebel rebel" (in a pinball context)? What an awesome song by the way. They do sing "Worse game - rebel rebel", dont they.

And a hugh congrats on making it the episode 200. You guys have to be the longest running show of them all now.

Give me the oppertunity, and I will explain the story of the Gottlieb fuses.