Yes, having a Gottleib manual is a nice selling point. Not as critical for the other manufacturers since you can download most of those.

i haven't found gottlieb hard to work with. i have a lot of manual page scans on my repair web page, and they seem fine with it. i mean you can't post entire manuals, but in most cases you just don't need that.

Thats the great thing about these system 1 games .Easy to take the heads off and i can move by myself with ease .

My general musing is that the requirement to buy both the machine specific manual, and the Solid State Repair Manual, when you can download them for any other manufacturer's machine out there, does cause some change in the balance of what machine you'd want to buy. Like for right now, just the fact that information for machines well out of production is hard to impossible to find without an in-depth search, or forking out money above and beyond the cost of the machine, means I'd be more likely to either pass up a potentially killer machine by Gottlieb in favor of one by another manufacturer, even for a machine in the DMD era that might be just as easy to repair. And I would be shocked if it isn't a factor in the sale price of a System 1 or System 80 machine that isn't Haunted House or Black Hole.

And yeah, any machine in the 35 year old range is going to require repair. Availability of information is going to be a BIG factor in a purchase decision.

Oh, and Clay? Your pages were very helpful in terms of doing repairs and maintenance on our Solar Ride, so consider it one machine saved from a potentially bad end.

Hey now! I find it charming for some reason, and I'm not usually a fan of such simple layouts and I'm not crazy about EMs. I'm attracted to designs by Oursler. There is something about the balance of it that I like. But a valid point regardless, WMS weren't exactly the innovators of early SS, that's for sure.

yea the early Williams soldstates like Hot tip, Lucky7, World Cup, disco fever, they were stinkers. Bally's early solidstates like 8 Ball, power play, harlem globe, lost world, strikes and spares, mata hari, playboy, etc were *great* games. Way better in game play and artwork than any of similar era Williams games. And they were a lot easier to repair and keep running. But the bally game play was miles ahead of anything williams was doing.

on the gottlieb side, joker poker is a great game. also sinbad. a few of the other system1 games are good too. not all of them. buck rodgers and hulk are pretty lack luster, as is close encounters and dragon. totem seems good but haven't spent much time on that one.

I'll have to disagree on Hulk and Close Encounters. I've got a Sinbad now and do like it (gotta get the solo drop or you can have every other drop and get no bonus - cool rule!). However, a CE or Hulk set up right play very well. I prefer Hulk to CE, but do this (even if it is 'sacrilege') and replace the crappy plastic spinner targets Gottlieb started using in this era (why?) with a metal spinner and rip it! Hulk has the nice 1-2-3 A-b-c challenge. CE, well I just like it. Cleopatra is a good bit of fun as well.

Cleopatra is a good one. On the spinners you can drill through the side of them and put some lead filling in. And then seal the hole. This gives it a little more weight and they spin a little nicer.

I really don't understand this particular diss from Clay, who seems to love the Gottlieb System 1s. Gorgar is a pretty fun game with a GREAT gimmick, the speech. Not to mention it's got the magnet snake pit too which wasn't anything anybody had ever seen before.

"Look! A non-talking EM!" sums up the Gottlieb System 1 era pretty well. Non-anything beyond digital chimes really. Meanwhile you have Williams games like Flash, Firepower, Gorgar...and even TRI-ZONE or time warp with much better sound. This makes a difference, and it's one of the many reasons Gottlieb went from #1 to #3 in a hurry. Bally stepped it up too with interesting sound in games like Rolling Stones.

And the rules?! Forget it. Gottlieb's big "innovation" in the early digital era? "Wow, we can do 5X bonus instead of 3!!! Holy shit!!!"

That's it. meanwhile, Bally's Kiss has a very cool bonus memory system, and 8-ball early on showed the advantage of memory. Flash has roving target lights and the deep Flash and left drop target bank scoring rules. This stuff went far beyond what players had ever seen only a year before.

Our contemporary opinions on these games is never going to change what actually happened. Bally and Williams quickly adapted to the digital era, with more interesting sound, gimmicks, playfields, and software, and Gottlieb didn't. You can focus on crap like Hot Tip if you want, but the proof was in the sales numbers. In 1978-1980 it simply wasn't good enough to keep churning out Ed Krynski playfields and rulesets. It wasn't enough to add a Bonus X and digital displays and think you were going to keep players interested when everybody else was pushing the envelope and doing innovative things (I include what Stern was doing at the time as well). Everyone else figured this out pretty quickly, but Gottlieb was either unwilling or unable to do so.

Countdown or Pinball Pool are great games and a nice asset to your private game room in 2016 if you like that style of pinball machine. But in an arcade in 1979 next to a Flash or Kiss they would have looked and sounded old and crappy, just like the Class of 1812 that I never played looked in my college arcade next to Addams Family and Creature.

My friend, you are confusing personal opinions with facts.... Clay has his preferences and you have which is a good thing. It is not about who is right and who is wrong. I disagree also with Clay sometimes (Groundupdates, remember Clay?) but this can and may be, and I am sure Clay doesn't care. Differences make the world more interesting and the same counts for pinball. I like to play Gorgar but I think the art is ugly and I prefer to see the Gordon Morrison art from the system 1's. My opinion

I think Gottlieb quickly realised their system 1 platform had too much limitations; and started the development of a totally different platform with a different architecture, system 80. This must have been started somewhere in 1978 already... The limited memory capacity of system prevents the use of a large ruleset. But for me, a "simple" game doesn't have to be less interesting.

Williams on the other hand must have realised their system also had weaknesses and quickly updated system 3 to 4, 6 and 7. Unfortunately, it took them a few more years to realize they should get rid of the 40 pin interconnect. After system 9, Williams games were pretty realiable. Okay, the 27 Ohm base resistors spreading their heat were still there and the GI connectors kept burning....and worse, someone forgot to add a few fuses to prevent some fireworks when rectifiers are failing..... You still recognize "mother system 3" when looking at a system 11 board, so I think in the basis, it was a good design (with some shortcomings). So, I also disagree with Clay a little bit

Marco

My one experience I had with 6803 was pleasant on the Escape from the Lost World I briefly owned. The flash lamp design was weird though and seemed like an after-thought. The MPU was indeed nice and made a lot of sense. Not crazy about the Sounds Deluxe board though. The sound quality was rough, but it was a form of ROMpler so that is expected. The small sample size available with wavetable synthesis makes for rough sounding instruments. I personally hate ROMplers/wavetable for music tracks though. I know I'm not the only one.

The membrane control pad also sucked on these games too (luckily, EftLW didn't have one).. Stupid 80's and membrane panels... Are any still functional today? I've lost many a piece of music gear to these.

I had a Strange Science that I pulled from a relatives home and it worked great. Really rock solid, even the membrane panel. That's my only experience with that oddball system.

Well *I* know that of course, but I'm entitled to my opinion as well. This isn't a fight or an argument, just a discussion. I think it is interesting to look at it from a point of view of back-in-the-day as well as a modern gameroom type situation.

If only Williams had Gottlieb's art department. The gameplay of System 1 games is diametrically opposed to how good they look.

Counterforce
Countdown
Genie
Pinball Pool

I think Gottlieb benefited from having Gordon Morrision from the late 70s through the early 80s a lot more than they did from having Ed Krynski and his cronies hanging around designing EM-style pinball machines.

I am 100% convinced that if Williams had Morrision or his ilk on staff that stinkers like Hot Tip or Time Warp would be worth 2x-3x as much.

Imagine how awesome Flash would be?

There was never a better pinball artist than Morrison.

Countdown is actually a pretty awesome game. so is pinball pool. I forgot about countdown. I would much prefer playing Countdown to Flash. Williams Flash or Gorgar are total stinkers in my mind. Countdown is drop target city, as is pinball pool. Those are much better than any Williams before say Firepower, in my opinion.

On the baking 27 ohm resistors, that problem went away when they got rid of the 40 pin interconnect. The 27 ohm resistors work find as long as the CPU is running. But as soon as it locks up, then the 18 volts is no longer duty cycled, and the resistors cook themselves off the board. This doesn't really happen on system 9 to 11 because the CPU just doesn't crash like it does on system3-7 games (largely due to the inter-connector.)

There was a point some time in the past where we (in another thread) even discussed a "Conversion art kit" for Flash since many agreed that the game layout was pretty good, but the art, not so much, and most Flashes have flaking backglasses and worn playfields.

if someone does come up with a Flash art package, BGresto can do the glass.

I'm not fan on Mitchell's artwork at all. Didn't he end up back at Gottlieb in the late 1980s?

Finally.....

largcce_(resized).jpg

Well, for *me* you just keep repeating your rigid statements. But if I misunderstand, my apologies for that.

Bally 2518 and Williams System 3 had obviously more potential than Gottlieb's system 1. History prooves Gottlieb abandoned the system 1 platform quickly but probably not as quick as they wanted those days. Engineering a new (system 80) platform with new posibilties takes time. And I work at an engineering department.... It should be nice to hear the engineers who worked on those platforms those days...... At PApinball.com are some nice interviews listed.

Atari Generation 1 had the same problem, you probably saw more than once the cooked 2N5883 PNP transistors which charcoaled the aux circuitboards. At least Williams tried to avoid this with a blanking signal. Atari Gen 1 didn't have a "watchdog" like this.

The data sheets are out there. Who has the money to prototype the first runs and then pay for the first run of ICs. NRE *starts* at $50K to make a custom run of ICs? This $50K gets you masks, etc for ICs. Then you still have to pay for the actual ICs. The mfr will make you buy thousands at high prices because they need at least 10K unit sales just to break even.

Electronically - The System 1s were using technology from mid-70s. All the electronic components were off-the-shelf type components, no custom components. The fact that Rockwell used their own components - who could blame them. I only have two faults with them -- bad grounding techniques and *edge* connectors.
As far as their CPUs not becoming popular - they were very popular in point-of-sale terminals for quite awhile. But, when MOS Tech came out with the affordable 6502 series processors, that killed off their old 4-bit processors. Rockwell switched over to 6502s and later became the leading manufacturer of that series. For comparison, in the mid 1970s while the early Ballys were being designed - 6800 CPUs (JUST the CPU) were going for $300. Yes, $300 (in 1970s dollars) for one Motorola MC6800P. The 6502 was introduced at about 1/6th the price of a 6800 and that's when the CPU price wars started. The 6502s series CPUs are the only CPU hat is still made today. If enough of us would contact WDC, I'm sure they would do another run of 6532s. Nobody makes the CPUs from an early Bally/stern today. They're pretty much available from left over old stock and ... the Chinese wonder parts. But WDC does make an alternate for 6821s.

I came across this Gottlieb Pinball patent it was filed in 1978 so not sure if it is referring to SYS1 or SYS80 (though I suspect SYS1). Very interesting reading and gives an insight into the programming language

http://www.ic.gc.ca/opic-cipo/cpd/eng/patent/1141861/summary.html?type=number_search&tabs1Index=tabs1_1

Click on the image below for a pdf I created by combining all the files.

Gottlieb_Canadian_Pinball_Patent_CA1141861.pdf

Some good night time reading for all System 1 lovers

Interesting article about the Rockwell PPS-4/2 CPU used in SYS1

http://www.cpushack.com/2013/05/06/cpu-of-the-day-rockwell-pps-41-the-other-4-bit-processor/

PPS-4/2 Data Sheet
http://en.wikichip.org/w/images/c/c8/rockwell_PPS-4-2_datasheet.pdf

PPS-4/2 Manual
http://en.wikichip.org/w/images/2/25/rockwell_pps-4-2_manual.pdf

Do you recall what the M68Ks were going for in the mid to late 80s? I can only imagine what they started at.

Pretty amazing CPU when you consider a game like Street Fighter 2 released in 91 using a system with a CPU initially released in 79. Talk about a good run. Almost as good as the Z80.

Speaking of the 68K, one of those membrane panel musical instruments I mentioned before that became useless on me used one I think, the Rhodes Chroma Polaris. Used a CLCC package one. It may have been a 68020 though.

The reference to a 1024 X 4 Prom in figure 2 tends to indicate it was about system 1 architecture.

Not a clue, I never designed a Motorola CPU into anything. In the mid to late 80s - we were strictly Intel. While designing boards - if it needed any smarts then it got an 8751. Variations of this product line are still available for automotive use but are slowly fading away.
First board I designed with a CPU used an RCA CDP1802 processor in roughly 1979 (yeah, I am that old). Very simple to use processor with lots of debug features. Another one of those now obscure CPUs.

Thierry et Francois Davroux wrote a few interesting articles about Gottliebs' system 1

http://www.flipprojets.fr/Pgol_EN.php

http://www.flipprojets.fr/PgolASM_EN.php

http://www.flipprojets.fr/Tgol_EN.php (system 80)

Marco

Gonna disagree with ya here, whoever was doing the art for Atari pins is the best! Morrison was/is great but Ataris pins were the best looking.

Careful bashing Krynski, king of geometry that guy.

Biggest differences b/w EM and current games are rules, ramps and style of play. Rules - give or take, really depends on game. Not everyone likes an epic story to go along with their game of keep the ball from draining. Ramps - again, they are a way of increasing the surface area of play and also often of speeding up the ball. Style of play, they are all different but also all challenging in unique ways. Not gonna say I think every Krynski design is great cause I don't but he designed a lot of unique layouts and great games.

George Opperman (who died way too early ). Correct me if I am wrong.

RCA CDP1802.....Cosmac was it called or something? I read somewhere NASA applied this one and a few Playmatic CPU boards were also 1802 based.

SoC has pretty much put the nails in the coffin lid for repurposing any old CPUs. I doubt what old stock is remaining is going to get much use now. It would probably be a good time to stock up on whatever legacy stuff you want to support before it gets tossed.

Preach it, Vid.

Space doesn't allow me to have all the machines that I'd love to own simply for Gordon's art, but I am a Morrison back glass collecting fool. In my varied lineup, people always gravitate to the Gottliebs and unanimously believe that they are the prettiest.

Asteroid Annie, Gemini, Joker Poker, Centigrade 37, Genie...the list goes on and on. That guy was the MASTER.

All the Atari games were amazing, including the vids. They were doing screenprinted, vibrant colours when Williams was still spraypainting stencils.

Another case of beautiful art, mediocre game. Imagine if they'd stuck to it a bit longer...

The Art Stenholm era was a little underwhelming but thankfully brief.

George Molentin, who did all of that great art for Williams woodrails, is a bit underrated.

Sorry, but it was used before by Williams as far back as 1970:

http://www.ipdb.org/search.pl?gtype=EM&ft=magnet&sortby=name&searchtype=advanced#928

But yes, Comparing a Gor Gar to an E.M. Gottlieb is lame.

Jesus I knew somebody would dig this up. Just goes to show you can't pull anything over on an EM fan!

I can't imagine anybody played Zodiac as it sucked. I think probably in 1979 speech and magnets were new for almost all pinball players, as were flashers. Gorgar had all of them.

Meanwhile System 1 games had drop targets. Just like every other Gottlieb for past 10 years.

The Gottlieb System 1 CPU was originally a cash register board. Steve Young would have more fun describing this than I do. I used to enjoy his stories of the design spec.s etc. and the doc.s he'd forward on for the chips... a 4-bit processor - well holey cow. Anyway Rockwell already had the I/O needed to do much of what a pinball machine needed to do, all Gottlieb had to do was come up with the driver board to interface to it.

I think that the *only* achilles heel was the battery that corroded the contacts. But you guys are right... you gotta love these simple games - you know all the rules, now you just have to make the shot, and the logic can make that same show worth a lot more than any random shot on a complex game can when you can't memorize what mode you are in, or what that flashing light is and when it goes away...

-Ace

So, while most of this discussion has been focusing on the MPU (and driver board, to a limited degree), how about the design of the System 1 power supply?

I love taking off the transistor just to work on it

I've come across this on music gear from around this time where you have to desolder a voltage regulator or something just to take a board out. I think they never wanted anyone to repair them.

Well it did have over-voltage protection, I'm not sure off hand if any if Bally/WMS did.

Nope you're correct. He also did a lot of the artwork for the Atari VCS/2600 packages as well.

Designer of that PC board should have been shot.
Electronically speaking, it was a sound design for it's day. The physical layout was the most horrible one I have ever seen.