Playmatic Pinball Games

[Jan Ernst Voß]

Hello Group,
I am looking for someone with experience in Playmatic pinball machines,
not electromechanical devices, but electronic ones that use the CPU 1802
from Intersil. If anyone here has good knowledge, please let me know.
Best regards,
Jan

[Tony]

Post by Jan Ernst Voß
Hello Group,
I am looking for someone with experience in Playmatic pinball machines,
not electromechanical devices, but electronic ones that use the CPU 1802
from Intersil. If anyone here has good knowledge, please let me know.
Best regards,
Jan

Since you're new to this newsgroup this is really Tommy Tutalidge the
man who still rules the world of pinball and has busted more pinball
machines and sets of flippers than anyone else alive. I still sign
autographs.

Remember I don't fix them I just bust them.

[Kerry Imming]

Post by Jan Ernst Voß
Hello Group,
I am looking for someone with experience in Playmatic pinball machines,
not electromechanical devices, but electronic ones that use the CPU 1802
from Intersil. If anyone here has good knowledge, please let me know.
Best regards,
Jan

There are people here with general electronic (SS) pinball knowledge
that may be able to help. It looks like the game schematics are
included in the manuals (which are available on ipdb).

Since google search turns up this page, I assume you have looked here
for information: https://www.flippers.be/playmatic/

Another option is to post on pinside.com. There are quite a few topics
there related to Playmatic games.

- Kerry

[Jan Ernst Voß]

Thanks for your replies!

To say the truth, i am not really new to this group, but that's been
more than 30 years ago.

Over the time, i owned 67 pinball games, all of them but the first one,
a Gottlieb's "Super Soccer" had failures. I've searched the "Super
Soccer" about a zillion to find the bad zero switch at the drum units. I
was 15 at this time, now i'm 62 years old.

I repaired more than 100 machines, EM and SS as well.

But games build by Playmatic are special: they use CMOS instead of TTL
logic.

I bought a Big Town in 1987. The price was cheap, 70 DM (around 35$).
Both RAMs, both ROMs, and the CPU were dead.

And other chips on the MPU were dead. I was able to get another machine
month later. It had good ROMs. This game was cheaper, 50 DM (around
25$). I build a small circuit, using just 8 IS to do the job of the 1834
ROMs.

The ROMs were replaced by an EPROM 2716. The game went in attract mode
at once. Both games had a bad 74C42 on the decoder.

Due to my job, i know most assembly languages of former machines. The
knowledge about these, i've made a "diagnostic board" for the
Playmatics, which was very helpful to find errors in the MPU of the games.

Now I have 2 bad "Big Town". Both are faulty.

1) Does not recognize contacts other than the coins, the credit, the
ball resting, reset, and the test buttons.

2) Shows irretating scores. "20" is the high score to date, new games
start with 200.020 points.

That's it.

Kind regards,
Jan

[Jan Ernst Voß]

Post by Jan Ernst Voß
Thanks for your replies!
To say the truth, i am not really new to this group, but that's been
more than 30 years ago.
Over the time, i owned 67 pinball games, all of them but the first one,
a Gottlieb's "Super Soccer" had failures. I've searched the "Super
Soccer" about a zillion to find the bad zero switch at the drum units. I
was 15 at this time, now i'm 62 years old.
I repaired more than 100 machines, EM and SS as well.
But games build by Playmatic are special: they use CMOS instead of TTL
logic.
I bought a Big Town in 1987. The price was cheap, 70 DM (around 35$).
Both RAMs, both ROMs, and the CPU were dead.
And other chips on the MPU were dead. I was able to get another machine
month later. It had good ROMs. This game was cheaper, 50 DM (around
25$). I build a small circuit, using just 8 IS to do the job of the 1834
ROMs.
The ROMs were replaced by an EPROM 2716. The game went in attract mode
at once. Both games had a bad 74C42 on the decoder.
Due to my job, i know most assembly languages of former machines. The
knowledge about these, i've made a "diagnostic board" for the
Playmatics, which was very helpful to find errors in the MPU of the games.
Now I have 2 bad "Big Town". Both are faulty.
1) Does not recognize contacts other than the coins, the credit, the
ball resting, reset, and the test buttons.
2) Shows irretating scores. "20" is the high score to date, new games
start with 200.020 points.
That's it.
Kind regards,
Jan

Just to correct an error: the year was 1997, not 1987.

[Kerry Imming]

Post by Jan Ernst Voß
But games build by Playmatic are special: they use CMOS instead of TTL
logic.
...
Now I have 2 bad "Big Town". Both are faulty.
1) Does not recognize contacts other than the coins, the credit, the
ball resting, reset, and the test buttons.
2) Shows irretating scores. "20" is the high score to date, new games
start with 200.020 points.

Debugging isn't much different with CMOS vs. TTL. CMOS drives logic
high at ~4.4V vs. ~2.4V for TTL. And older CMOS is more static
sensitive than TTL.

The switches that are working (coin, credit) are ones that are usually
on dedicated switch inputs. The other game switches will be in a switch
matrix. You should be able to measure logic voltage levels (a logic
probe would be helpful) to see the switch matrix respond to switch
closures. Look at the input and output pins of the receiving CMOS chip
to verify switch activity.

- Kerry

[John Robertson]

Post by Jan Ernst Voß
Thanks for your replies!
To say the truth, i am not really new to this group, but that's been
more than 30 years ago.
Over the time, i owned 67 pinball games, all of them but the first one,
a Gottlieb's "Super Soccer" had failures. I've searched the "Super
Soccer" about a zillion to find the bad zero switch at the drum units. I
was 15 at this time, now i'm 62 years old.
I repaired more than 100 machines, EM and SS as well.
But games build by Playmatic are special: they use CMOS instead of TTL
logic.
I bought a Big Town in 1987. The price was cheap, 70 DM (around 35$).
Both RAMs, both ROMs, and the CPU were dead.
And other chips on the MPU were dead. I was able to get another machine
month later. It had good ROMs. This game was cheaper, 50 DM (around
25$). I build a small circuit, using just 8 IS to do the job of the 1834
ROMs.
The ROMs were replaced by an EPROM 2716. The game went in attract mode
at once. Both games had a bad 74C42 on the decoder.
Due to my job, i know most assembly languages of former machines. The
knowledge about these, i've made a "diagnostic board" for the
Playmatics, which was very helpful to find errors in the MPU of the games.
Now I have 2 bad "Big Town". Both are faulty.
1) Does not recognize contacts other than the coins, the credit, the
ball resting, reset, and the test buttons.
2) Shows irretating scores. "20" is the high score to date, new games
start with 200.020 points.
That's it.
Kind regards,
Jan

Hi Jan,

Wow, that is an unusual MPU and wiring diagram for we North Americans!
I'm going by manuals and schematics I downloaded from ipdb.org -
specifically Antar for the theory and schematics and Chance for the
overall MPU diagram.

The Antar schematic shows that the switches that are working share a
common return line (page 24 of 35 in download Antar manual PDF) - so I
suspect that you have an issue with other returns - and a logic probe
that is happy with CMOS should help here.

And as for the '20' on your display, I assume you have tried clearing
the 5101 CMOS RAM (disconnect battery overnight - worst case clear), so
it may be time to find a replacement RAM that is known-to-be-good.

John :-#)#

--
(Please post followups or tech inquiries to the USENET newsgroup)
John's Jukes Ltd.
#7 - 3979 Marine Way, Burnaby, BC, Canada V5J 5E3
[phone] (Pinballs, Jukes, Video Games)
www.flippers.com
"Old pinballers never die, they

[Kerry Imming]

Post by John Robertson

Post by Jan Ernst Voß
Thanks for your replies!
To say the truth, i am not really new to this group, but that's been
more than 30 years ago.
Over the time, i owned 67 pinball games, all of them but the first
one, a Gottlieb's "Super Soccer" had failures. I've searched the
"Super Soccer" about a zillion to find the bad zero switch at the drum
units. I was 15 at this time, now i'm 62 years old.
I repaired more than 100 machines, EM and SS as well.
But games build by Playmatic are special: they use CMOS instead of TTL
logic.
I bought a Big Town in 1987. The price was cheap, 70 DM (around 35$).
Both RAMs, both ROMs, and the CPU were dead.
And other chips on the MPU were dead. I was able to get another
machine month later. It had good ROMs. This game was cheaper, 50 DM
(around 25$). I build a small circuit, using just 8 IS to do the job
of the 1834 ROMs.
The ROMs were replaced by an EPROM 2716. The game went in attract mode
at once. Both games had a bad 74C42 on the decoder.
Due to my job, i know most assembly languages of former machines. The
knowledge about these, i've made a "diagnostic board" for the
Playmatics, which was very helpful to find errors in the MPU of the games.
Now I have 2 bad "Big Town". Both are faulty.
1) Does not recognize contacts other than the coins, the credit, the
ball resting, reset, and the test buttons.
2) Shows irretating scores. "20" is the high score to date, new games
start with 200.020 points.
That's it.
Kind regards,
Jan

Hi Jan,
Wow, that is an unusual MPU and wiring diagram for we North Americans!
I'm going by manuals and schematics I downloaded from ipdb.org -
specifically Antar for the theory and schematics and Chance for the
overall MPU diagram.
The Antar schematic shows that the switches that are working share a
common return line (page 24 of 35 in download Antar manual PDF) - so I
suspect that you have an issue with other returns - and a logic probe
that is happy with CMOS should help here.
And as for the '20' on your display, I assume you have tried clearing
the 5101 CMOS RAM (disconnect battery overnight - worst case clear), so
it may be time to find a replacement RAM that is known-to-be-good.
John :-#)#

Thanks for the schematic pointer John. I was wrong in assuming the
logic would look like the Bally boards.

It's really hard to figure out all the connections from that schematic,
but it looks like the switch matrix is on page 30 of the PDF.

The best I can tell, that CD4021 shift register is used to cycle through
the four switch returns. That's where I would start checking.

- Kerry

[John Robertson]

Post by Jan Ernst Voß
Thanks for your replies!
To say the truth, i am not really new to this group, but that's been
more than 30 years ago.
Over the time, i owned 67 pinball games, all of them but the first one,
a Gottlieb's "Super Soccer" had failures. I've searched the "Super
Soccer" about a zillion to find the bad zero switch at the drum units. I
was 15 at this time, now i'm 62 years old.
I repaired more than 100 machines, EM and SS as well.
But games build by Playmatic are special: they use CMOS instead of TTL
logic.
I bought a Big Town in 1987. The price was cheap, 70 DM (around 35$).
Both RAMs, both ROMs, and the CPU were dead.
And other chips on the MPU were dead. I was able to get another machine
month later. It had good ROMs. This game was cheaper, 50 DM (around
25$). I build a small circuit, using just 8 IS to do the job of the 1834
ROMs.
The ROMs were replaced by an EPROM 2716. The game went in attract mode
at once. Both games had a bad 74C42 on the decoder.
Due to my job, i know most assembly languages of former machines. The
knowledge about these, i've made a "diagnostic board" for the
Playmatics, which was very helpful to find errors in the MPU of the games.
Now I have 2 bad "Big Town". Both are faulty.
1) Does not recognize contacts other than the coins, the credit, the
ball resting, reset, and the test buttons.
2) Shows irretating scores. "20" is the high score to date, new games
start with 200.020 points.
That's it.
Kind regards,
Jan

If you have a clearer schematics for the game - the ipdb.org schematic
is terrible - for Big Town that would help! Post them somewhere and send
a copy to IPDB to upgrade their schematic!

John :-#)#

--
(Please post followups or tech inquiries to the USENET newsgroup)
John's Jukes Ltd.
#7 - 3979 Marine Way, Burnaby, BC, Canada V5J 5E3
[phone] (Pinballs, Jukes, Video Games)
www.flippers.com
"Old pinballers neve