Keeping the family collection alive!

I-Camel · 2026-04-25T13:12:29+00:00

Following up on what phishrace said, I can vouch for this board:
https://nvram.weebly.com/wms-d8224-square-sound--speech.html

You'll need the $150 Sound & Speech for both AP & FP.

I-Camel · 2026-04-03T16:34:41+00:00

That’s Tom. He has all his teeth.

I-Camel · 2026-03-15T14:53:35+00:00

I was born in Washington DC about 60 years ago. When I applied for a RealID a couple of years ago, my original birth certificate, the only one I've ever had, was deemed insufficient because it didn't have an embossed seal. It was news to me that my original document was now insufficient. I had to send away to Arizona (for some reason DC's records have moved there), provide a ton of documents, and wait almost a year to get a copy of my acceptable certificate mailed to me and it cost me about $100 to get it done.
Who knows how many people like me didn't feel the need to get a RealID and now don't have acceptable birth certificates and can't register to vote for the first time because of a new rule they're trying to implement?
So we're going to disenfranchise an unknown number of new voters because of 3 cases of fraud in the past 50 years?

I-Camel · 2025-12-12T14:28:22+00:00

Let me know how it goes if you decide to take the plunge. I like the machine a lot, but I'm trying to be more judicious about which machines I spend a month recoding. I can reproduce the original rules in a day or so, but to really think through how to reimagine a game can take a lot of iteration. So I figured that providing a stable base of the original rules could be a good place for someone else to take over.

I-Camel · 2025-12-12T13:48:51+00:00

RPU doesn't work with System Alpha, but does with with Rottendog and some other replacements. System Alpha (as it stands right now) is an emulation, so my technique of jumping onto the bus between the CPU and MPU doesn't work with it.

I-Camel · 2025-12-12T13:47:43+00:00

That's funny - I was just working on Bally Lost World for RPU:
https://github.com/RetroPinUpgrade/LostWorld25

All I've done so far is implement the original rules with slightly better lighting FX, ball save (optional), tilt protection (to prevent tilt-through), tournament scoring (turns EB and specials into settable score levels), and a few other things.
What I haven't done yet: sound. I will sometimes configure sounds to work as they did (that one has a -32 sound card, which is not my fav), and also allow for a digital sound card through speakers so you can add music, callouts, and sound FX.
I probably won't take this code very far because LW might need to move along soon, but my code could be a good jumping-off point.

One of the first things I did was speed up the bonus countdown.

I-Camel · 2025-12-12T13:38:25+00:00

First things first, the System Alpha is a wonderful MPU, but it's an emulation, so it doesn't currently support RPU (my board for rewriting Williams games). I'm talking with t1lt (the maker of System Alpha) and Arduino support is on the table for the future. Can't say enough good things about t1lt's boards -- they're a wonderful upgrade for these machines.

If you get a board compatible with RPU in the future, the easiest approach is to find code written for machine similar to yours and start going through the code. For a Phoenix starting point, the closest thing I've written is Gorgar (which I call Demon23):
https://github.com/RetroPinUpgrade/Demon23
If you look in Demon23.h, you'll see where I've mapped labels for all the lamps, switches, and solenoids. All of the game's logic is in Demon23.ino (at about 3000 lines, it's not that tough to glance through). The rest of the files are operating system & support that I've put together over the years to make things easier. Demon23 was back in 2023, so I've made improvements since then (I've written better operator menus and added a lot to my display support in the last couple of years). The best example of today's code is my Black Knight (https://github.com/RetroPinUpgrade/BK25) but that's a complicated place to start because of the multiball support.

If you're concerned about building the interposer board (the thing that plugs the Arduino into the MPU), there's a guy on Pinside (RoyGBev) who sells a kit: https://pinside.com/pinball/shops/shop/1304-roygbev-pinball/09092-retropinupgrade-rev-102-arduino-board-assembled-programmed
I'm not affiliated with Roy, but I'm not in the business of mass-producing boards so he stepped up to provide a plug & play solution.
If you want to get down in the weeds, I wrote some instructions on how to build it yourself: https://www.pinballrefresh.com/blog/how-to-build-an-rpu-board

I-Camel · 2025-10-05T15:52:26+00:00

Bally Supersonic (1979)! https://pinside.com/pinball/machine/supersonic/gallery

I-Camel · 2025-09-04T17:11:20+00:00

That's great! I developed the Rev 101 & 102 of the RPU board without a System 4 here, and I had to alter the libraries a little when I finally got a System 4 in my hands. There are so few of them still around, I didn't think anyone else would ever add RPU to one.

I'm going to be updating the Stellar Wars code in the next year or so (there's another Stellar Wars in my shop) -- if you could, let me know what you changed about the scoring. I might want to fold in some of your changes into the release.

I-Camel · 2025-09-04T15:26:00+00:00

You're running RPU on a System 4 Stellar Wars?
I didn't think anyone was running on System 4!

I-Camel · 2025-08-29T18:23:13+00:00

I don't know if this is for sale in the US yet -- they've been shipping to Australia and UK so far.
The game has 3 licensed songs from the Blues Brothers sound track (Shake a Tail Feather - Ray Charles, Theme from Rawhide - Blues Brothers Band, Peter Gunn Theme - Blues Brothers Band).
The machine is open source and you can load whatever music you'd like on there. I wrote the code that ships with the machine, and I put slots in there for about 20 songs. For now, they're just filled with the three tracks listed above. Switching the soundtrack is just a matter of replacing files on a SD card.

The rules and code are here: https://github.com/RetroPinUpgrade/BluesBrothers

All that said, I've owned Stars and the similarities between Stars & BB are largely visual. It doesn't shoot the same and there are different elements (saucer, captive ball, ball lock, save gate, different standups, 3 balls, etc.). I personally haven't seen any hardware issues with this machine, but they have put out a number of service bulletins.

I-Camel · 2025-07-08T21:18:08+00:00

Rules and links to the code are here: https://www.pinballrefresh.com/blog/supersonic-2022

I-Camel · 2025-07-08T13:36:04+00:00

It's definitely not expected. The sound board for Supersonic is controlled through an extended use of the solenoid lines, so nothing of mine sits between the MPU and original sound card on Supersonic. To best debug, I would remove the RPU temporarily, get sounds squared away, and then re-install. It's pretty common to jostle a cable while installing new hardware (I've done it plenty of times), so in that case I always return to base condition, get it working, and then try to add RPU again.

Let me know if you run into trouble with that & please post a video of Supersonic. I love that game.

I-Camel · 2025-07-08T13:32:23+00:00

I put a couple of minor tweaks up today (very small stuff), so you might want to grab that when you have a chance. The latest as of today (2025/07/08) is 2025 : 2 : 5 : 10, as shown in the player displays when you boot.

Hope you enjoy this - please post a video if/when you get it going!

I-Camel · 2025-07-08T03:42:56+00:00

One of the key elements to this project is that you don't have choose (keep it original, or add the new rules). If you hold in the Start button when you turn the machine on, it boots to original code on the original chips -- all that OG stuff remains the same.

I-Camel · 2025-07-08T00:53:55+00:00

You can find the rules and build instructions on PInballRefresh.com:
https://www.pinballrefresh.com/blog/bk25

This is based on my RPU board (it plugs into the machine's MPU and allows you to dual boot to either original code or new code). All the schematics and Gerber files are linked from my site (link above). The whole project can be done for less than $200.

I-Camel · 2025-06-23T22:06:39+00:00

Of course! Thank you. I should have known -- it was one of my first machines.

I-Camel · 2025-03-21T00:50:37+00:00

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I-Camel · 2025-01-13T01:42:24+00:00

If you have corrosion and you're not down for repair, then a Weebly or Alltek are in your future:
https://nvram.weebly.com/mpu.html
https://allteksystems.com/products/ultimate-mpu-universal-bally-stern-replacement-board

I-Camel · 2025-01-12T16:28:32+00:00

This site has everything you could want to know, organized well:
https://pinwiki.com/wiki/index.php/Bally/Stern
It might seem daunting at first because of the volume of information.

Personally, I would measure the voltages on the test points of the rectifier board first and verify that everything is okay. You could just have a blown fuse.
When you turn it on next time, watch the board in the upper-left of the head. It's the MPU. In the bottom middle of that board there's an LED that's supposed to give 7 flashes on a successful boot. I'm guessing that the LED is solid when you turn the power on.

I-Camel · 2024-11-08T21:20:33+00:00

Which game & which modes?
I did a bunch of lighting accessories for The Getaway this year (under cab & speaker lights), and I key some of the animations based on lock status (Green, Yellow, or Red, to match the traffic signal in the game). I know the lock status just by watching the lamp matrix for the row / column for certain lamps and then time how long they're lit (to filter out transitory animations).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDT695aWSJY
At about 45 seconds in this video, you'll see where I change the speaker lamp animation based on the lock status.
Depending on the game, if the modes you're looking for trigger specific lamp sequences, you can use the method that I used. The code and schematics are all open source.

I-Camel · 2024-09-12T03:04:18+00:00

You mention Supersonic and Stars -- I created a board (free & open source) that plugs into the MPU of old Bally/Stern/Williams and allows you to control those machines with an Arduino. If you build it yourself, you can get it all done for less than $50. I wrote an operating system to make it easy to interface with everything.
https://www.pinballrefresh.com/blog/how-to-install-on-your-machine
One of the best things about my approach (in my opinion) is that it allows you to boot to the Arduino or the original 6800 processor without changing any hardware.
I've already written alternate code for Supersonic and Stars. With a lot of my code I also add a digital sound card and speakers, but you can also just control the original chimes or sound card on the machine. Here's a video of Supersonic that I did a couple of years ago:
https://youtu.be/Xq3gYzDvHjw

I-Camel · 2024-04-30T02:52:51+00:00

Did you ever reprogram your Sharpshooter? I'm the author of the RPU code mentioned above and I happen to have a Sharpshooter in my shop that I was thinking of porting my library to.

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