(Topic ID: 92794)

Votrax - SC-01 chip needed

By Hjbondar

9 years ago


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Topic Stats

  • 15 posts
  • 9 Pinsiders participating
  • Latest reply 4 years ago by ForceFlow
  • Topic is favorited by 1 Pinsider

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    #1 9 years ago

    Mine turns out to be bad. I know these are hard to find so I am not looking for 100 unobtanium responses!! If you have a spare or know where to get one I would really appreciate a PM. thanks - HJBondar

    3 months later
    #2 9 years ago

    Did you find one?

    Tim

    3 years later
    #4 6 years ago

    I am troubleshooting a sound/speech board with garbled sound. How do you "test" the SC-01 chip?

    Mine speaks, but its pretty impossible to understand what its saying Not sure if its the chip or another IC gone bad.

    #5 6 years ago

    Stick it in a working game that also uses one. Gottlieb Pinballs. Midway Gorf, Wizard of Wor. Qbert.

    To save on buying a really expensive chip that might not be bad, you may need to send yours to a trusted friend for testing.

    Otherwise, you might have to shotgun every other chip related to sending the SC-01 the speech data (assumes every other sound related thing functions properly.)

    8 months later
    #6 5 years ago

    Found a NOS SC-01A chip, replaced it, and sound is perfect now!

    1 year later
    #7 4 years ago

    Resurrecting old thread... Googled around, but not sure of answer:

    Are "SC-01" and "SC-01-A" chips interchangeable?

    I've got several of each, but untested. Once I get my Black Hole running, I was going to use that as a test-bed for my stash. (about 4 project-machines away from starting)

    #8 4 years ago
    Quoted from Timerider:

    Resurrecting old thread... Googled around, but not sure of answer:
    Are "SC-01" and "SC-01-A" chips interchangeable?
    I've got several of each, but untested. Once I get my Black Hole running, I was going to use that as a test-bed for my stash. (about 4 project-machines away from starting)

    Yes

    #9 4 years ago
    Quoted from Timerider:

    Are "SC-01" and "SC-01-A" chips interchangeable?

    The -A is reportedly an improvement to the sound quality of the speech synthesis of a few phonemes, but functionally, the inputs and outputs of the chip are the same.

    #10 4 years ago

    Excellent... thanks both for the quick feedback.
    (More incentive to get BH up & running.)

    #11 4 years ago

    they are the same. I have had a nice stock of these for many years since they are used in many classic video games as well.
    its a shame no replacement has been figured out. Same goes for the large chip used on GORF boards at U15 with the heat sink on it.

    #12 4 years ago

    In a way I'm surprised no one has come up with a simple replacement board with all sounds stored on an SD card in MP3 or WAV format.

    If I recall correct when helping someone troubleshoot a Black Hole, all Gottlieb does is trigger 5 or 6 lines by grounding them in various combinations.

    Sound one would be 000001, Sound two 000010 and so on. Sound seven would be 000011.

    #13 4 years ago
    Quoted from gdonovan:

    In a way I'm surprised no one has come up with a simple replacement board with all sounds stored on an SD card in MP3 or WAV format.
    If I recall correct when helping someone troubleshoot a Black Hole, all Gottlieb does is trigger 5 or 6 lines by grounding them in various combinations.
    Sound one would be 000001, Sound two 000010 and so on. Sound seven would be 000011.

    Well, most people would probably want some sort of drop-in replacement for the chip that would be functionally equivalent to the original chip, and not necessarily to replace the entire sound board. With recorded sounds, I don't think that kind of solution would be able to work with the original board.

    #14 4 years ago
    Quoted from ForceFlow:

    Well, most people would probably want some sort of drop-in replacement for the chip that would be functionally equivalent to the original chip, and not necessarily to replace the entire sound board. With recorded sounds, I don't think that kind of solution would be able to work with the original board.

    Correct but I doubt there will be any viable "drop in" chip. The tech was pretty much dead/dying when Gottlieb adopted it for use. There is a great history page on the 'net that covers the history and use of the Votrax SC-01 if you have an hour to burn.

    If the majority of pins just fire off sounds based on various grounding combo's from the MPU I can't think off the top of my head why a generic sound board can't be fabricated with adapters for use with a number of machines. The biggest hurdle I think would be voltage regulation for the varied voltage inputs on different platforms. Even that isn't a big hurdle, plenty of voltage regulators that operate over a far range.

    Even the actual sounds not a huge deal, they can be extracted from the rom files depending on format. Voice for games like Black Hole are produced phonically so you would have to come up with a wav/mp3 file with a suitable replacement.

    Until the OEM boards dry up in wild I doubt we will see anything like this though.

    #15 4 years ago
    Quoted from gdonovan:

    Correct but I doubt there will be any viable "drop in" chip. The tech was pretty much dead/dying when Gottlieb adopted it for use.

    Pretty much every generation of synth chip was only used for a relatively short period of time, before something new was developed. Most CPU, logic, and RAM chips were manufactured and available for decades, but sound chips (and proprietary chips, like rockwell spider chips, and certain capcom arcade chips) were not.

    Even looking at sound technology between each boardset, there were a few instances where it sometimes changed 2 or 3 times while the rest of the boardset stayed pretty much the same.

    Quoted from gdonovan:

    Until the OEM boards dry up in wild I doubt we will see anything like this though

    Well, both the OEM and current aftermarket boards (pascal and swemmer) are reliant on the SC-01.

    Quoted from gdonovan:

    If the majority of pins just fire off sounds based on various grounding combo's from the MPU I can't think off the top of my head why a generic sound board can't be fabricated with adapters for use with a number of machines. The biggest hurdle I think would be voltage regulation for the varied voltage inputs on different platforms. Even that isn't a big hurdle, plenty of voltage regulators that operate over a far range.

    Beyond the typical 5v and 12v, I think the other voltage(s) were mainly for the amplifier circuit. Yes, the input signaling was fairly limited/simple.

    Well, we do have pinsound, which is pretty much the closest universal replacement so far, but doesn't quite cover everything. And it's $300. Most people with an original board that merely has a chip failure won't want to spend that kind of money on a full replacement. If there's a $25-$100 drop-in chip replacement, that would be much more attractive.

    I read somewhere that for pinmame emulation of the SC-01, they had detailed photos of the chip die to help recreate the chip's logic. It probably wouldn't be practical to re-manufacture the chip (unless you have a college student or professor or someone with access to a chip fab lab, like at RIT), but maybe emulate it in some way.

    Anyway, I started a discussion about the SC-01 over here, in case this WTB ad was ended:

    https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/sc-01-speech-synthesizer-replacement

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