The Pinball Pal GSound sound card 
will be plug-and-play compatible with:

System 1 Pinball Machines

   Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind
   Dragon
   Charlie's Angels
   Solar Ride
   Count-Down
   Pinball Pool
   Incredible Hulk
   Totem
   Genie
   Buck Rogers
   Roller Disco
   Torch
   Asteroid Annie and the Aliens

System 80 Pinball Machines

   Amazing Spiderman
   Circus
   Panthera
   Counterforce
   James Bond 007
   Star Race
   Time Line
   Force II
   Mars, God of War
   Pink Panther
   Black Hole
   Eclipse
   Haunted House

System 80A Pinball Machines

   Devil's Dare
   Caveman
   Caveman
   Rocky
   Spirit
   Striker
   Punk!
   Goin' Nuts
   Krull
   Q*Bert's Quest
   Super Orbit
   Royal Flush Deluxe

Note: The following pinball machines were originally configured with electromechanical chimes rather than electronic sounds.  A future application note will describe the procedure for adapting the GSound board for use in these games:

   Cleopatra
   Sinbad
   Joker Poker

Click for larger view

Early solid-state Gottlieb® pinball machines had a variety of different sound systems installed, and may of those have become problematic over the years.  The first solid-state pinball machines from Gottlieb came with electromechanical chimes, and those operate fine and hark back to the EM lineage of pinball machines.  The GSound board from Pinball Pal is designed mainly to replace the original electronic sound systems, although the GSound board could also be retrofitted into any pinball machine with chimes.  Whether you consider this an improvement or an abomination is of course "in the eye of the beholder", but the primary purpose of the GSound board is to replace the missing, broken or antiquated electronic sound boards with a modern replacement that can exactly reproduce the original factory sounds, while offering a number of improvements and unlimited custom-sound capabilities.

Background

Pinball machine sounds evolved rapidly during the early solid-state period.  The first generation of Gottlieb solid-state pinball machines had no less than three different sound systems:

• The first games had the same electromechanical chimes as the older EM games.
   

• The first electronic sound card was a very primitive affair.  It was composed of three oscillators (based on 555 timer chips) that could just "beep" three different notes.  The pitch of the notes is imprecise (based on the R-C values attached to the 555's) so the notes do not even make a musical chord as did the older chime systems.  Back in the '70's, some people may have been impressed, but today it's one of the weak points of these classic games.  This sound card was called the "Tones" card.  Because of their simplicity, these sound boards are very easy to repair, but because they are small and easy to remove, they are often missing from many games.  The Tones sound board is installed on the right side of the cabinet in exactly the same place as a chime unit would be installed.  It connects to the system wiring with a single 9-pin edge connector.
   

• The electronic Tones card was quickly replaced with a more sophisticated CPU-based board.  This board supported more complex sounds, more musical notes, the ability to play brief sound sequences, and a personality PROM different for each game.  This board is based on a 6503 microprocessor, but it also uses a 6530 peripheral chip that included a mask-programmed ROM.  These chips are known to fail and they are unavailable as replacement parts except those salvaged from other sound boards.  The similar 6532 part will not work as a replacement because it lacks the built-in ROM.  The sound PROM must match the game in which it is used (e.g. Incredible Hulk must use a sound PROM labeled "K" or the sounds it produces will be wrong.  Gottlieb simply referred to this as the "Electronic Sound" board.  While this was a vast improvement over the original Tones card, the sounds were still primitive.  The Electronic Sound card is also installed in the cabinet in the same place a chime unit would be installed.  It connects to the system wiring via a single 12-pin edge connector.

The Electronic Sound card was reworked slightly for the next generation of Gottlieb® solid-state pinball machines: System 80.  Spiderman was the first of the System 80's, which after a number of games, evolved into the System 80a and System 80b variants.  Changes in the sound boards did not always follow the changes in the rest of the system, so there are sound board changes within a series as well as carryovers between series.  It started out like this:

• The first System 80 sound boards were little changed from the System 1 Electronic Sound board.  They were physically the same size, and used the same 12-pin edge connector.  However, the signals and power connections were changed, so plugging a System 1 sound card into a System 80 machine (or vice-versa) may prove fatal to the card.  One easy way to tell the cards apart is that the System 1 cards had captive nylon stand-offs attached to the card, while the stand-offs for the System 80 sound cards are attached to the pinball machine instead.
    

• Later sound cards replaced the small personality PROM with a permanently-attached daughter card with an EPROM socket.  The sound quality didn't improve much, however.
    

• Gottlieb® game number 666 was Mars, God of War, and it was the first pinball machine from Gottlieb® that included speech capabilities.  It also introduced a new sound board that was much larger and more complex than before.  This board is based on the 6502 microprocessor and mercifully it replaces the almost-impossible-to-get 6530 with a simply hard-to-get 6532.  For speech, it uses the Votrax SC-01 speech chip, made famous in such games as Gottleib's Q*bert video arcade game.  While the SC-01 can produce intelligible speech, the voice is robotic and unnatural - no way around that.  The SC-01 chip is also prone to failure, and is pretty hard (and/or expensive) to replace.  We'll refer to this board as the "Speech Board", although they did not always populate the board with the speech chip.  Speech is not present in Haunted House, presumably as a cost-cutting measure.  Also, the export versions of Black Hole did not have speech capabilities.  The Speech Board was larger than the earlier boards, but it used the same mounting hole pattern as the earlier board as well as the same electrical connection - a 12-pin edge connector.

All of these variations made it hard to come up with a universal replacement board to handle all of the different configurations in a cost-effective way, but the GSound board is up to the task.  That, and more.

GSound Design Philosophy

When we started this project, we had the following goals in mind:

• Cost-effective replacement for missing or broken sound boards

• Plug-and-play installation in all configurations

• Bulletproof electrical interface

• No configuration jumpers or switches

• No on-board batteries or other "time bomb" components

• Sockets on all DIP integrated circuits

• Minimal use of surface-mount components

• Exact reproduction of the factory sounds

• Capability to incorporate user-defined sounds

• Future compatibility with new CPU technologies (i.e. Ni-Wumpf)

These goals have been met, and new features have been incorporated, as well.  Here is a chart of the main features, some of which will be described in more detail below.

GSound Features

To make the GSound board compatible with all System 1 and System 80 games, the board includes edge connectors for the three main systems - Early System 1, Late System 1, and System 80.  All you do is plug in the proper connector and that is it.  There are no configuration jumpers or alternate versions of the board to deal with.

The GSound board uses a Compact Flash memory card to store all of the sound files that it uses.  You load up the Compact Flash with the sound files for a particular game, plug it into the GSound card, and you are done.  No EPROM programming, no serial cable connections, no memory limitations.  Because of the popularity of digital photography, Compact Flash cards are both ubiquitous and inexpensive.  And what may be considered a small Compact Flash card for a camera is huge when it comes to sound file memory.  Consider that the most advanced sound system on a commercial pinball machine held a maximum of six 1 Mbyte EPROMs - just six Megabytes.  The GSound card is supplied with a 16 Mbyte card that can be re-programmed many thousands of times by any PC with a cheap and commonly-available Compact Flash card reader.  And if 16 Mbytes isn't enough for your custom sounds, just check the current low prices on 64, 128 or 256 Mbyte Flash Cards (there are, as of this writing, 2259 auctions on eBay for Compact Flash cards).  And since the Compact Flash cards are so inexpensive and easy to change, you can keep alternate sets of sounds on additional Compact Flash cards ready to go, inside the game, and swap them whenever you are in the mood for a change - no tools required, no chip programming, no muss, no fuss.

The GSound board can play back sound files in a number of formats, and we provide the tools and instructions needed for you or anyone with a PC to make up their own pinball machine sounds.  We will provide sets of sounds which emulate the factory sounds, so you can always revert to the standard sounds that an original sound card would make.  The sound hardware can play back 8 or 16 bit PCM wave files at up to 48 kHz sample rate, as well as MP3-encoded sound files from 16 kbps to 256 kbps, including VBR formats.  We are also working on a proprietary compression format that is better suited to real-time, multi-channel sound effects which will add even more capabilities to the system.

The GSound board is constructed on a single double-sided printed circuit board that is designed to be easily serviced.  All passive components are through-hole type and are commonly available.  All semiconductor DIPs are socketed, and there is just one surface-mount component on the entire board.  The low-power design consumes less power than the board that it replaces, even though it can do much more.  All digital inputs are provided with current limiters, noise filters and Schottky diode overvoltage/undervoltage protection.  The main power is fused and LED indicators show power supply and self-test status.

All board configuration is performed through voice-prompt menus and the settings are stored in the board's nonvolatile memory.  There are no configuration switches or jumpers on the board.  The volume is controlled digitally via a pair of pushbuttons on the board.  System 80 games with the original volume control wired into the cabinet can continue to use that method of controlling the sound volume.  For private listening, a mini-phone jack is provided for driving headphones.  Although sound quality would improve by installing an upgraded speaker in the pinball machine, the GSound board will get the most from the existing speaker.  The output power is well-matched to the factory speaker, and for the extremists out there, the headphone output could conceivably be used to drive external amplifiers and speakers to incredible levels, if that's what you're looking for...

In the course of developing a product to supplement the ever-dwindling supply of working System 1 and System 80 sound boards, the GSound board can not only emulate the factory-original sounds, but it can add new sound capabilities to these games.  Here's some of what we're working on:

• Add speech to Haunted House.  Maybe the greatest of all Gottlieb pinball machines, Haunted House was loaded with three playfields, eight flippers, a great music package and fantastic art and gameplay.  But for some reason, it lacked speech, which was probably removed for budgetary reasons.  Now you can add speech, and it can be the speech of anyone - you're not limited by the capabilities of the old SC-01 speech chip.

• Lose those primitive beeps forever.  And you can move either into the past or the future.  We will provide sound files of expertly-recorded real chimes, which can be played back by the GSound board in high-fidelity sound.  Or, move into the future and substitute any sound effect or synth blast for the original lo-fi beeps.

• It took a while before Gottlieb incorporated background music into its pinball machines, but now you can add any music or sound effects as background sounds for your game.

• In conjunction with the new CPU boards that are currently in development, you will be able to create a completely new sound package for your game to go along with new game rules that you can develop.  Have your kids tell you off when you tilt.  Or your favorite celeb can tell you how well you've done.  Or make up your own "swear ROMs".  Or your favorite music can play in the background.  The possibilities are truly limitless.

GSound FAQ

Future Capabilities

Although the GSound platform is still under development, we are still making plans for its enhancement in the future.  As stated in the FAQ above, the GSound board's firmware can be automatically updated simply by inserting a Compact Flash card with the new firmware file included.  Obviously, we will provide these upgrades and improvements free, downloadable from the Pinball Pal website.

We want to encourage the development and sharing of enhanced sound setups among users of the GSound board.  We will do what we can to assist this process, including hosting the files (as long as there are no copyright issues that could get us into trouble). 

Wireless

We have built in provisions for a wireless daughtercard option that we may make available in the future.  We can support 802.11a/b/g and  Bluetooth wireless protocols, but we're really excited about the new ZigBee wireless protocol.  It's ideal for low-cost devices and it's great for remote control and remote configuration of small networks of devices.  Think game stats automatically transferred to your PDA.  Controlling and configuring your pinball machine with a wireless hand-held controller.  Automatic tournament management.  Head-to-head pinball games with everyone playing on their own machines simultaneously, and the game telling them how they are doing versus the competition - in real time.  The creative possibilities are endless.

Ni-Wumpf Ltd's UBQ Support

The GSound board will work particularly well with the Ni-Wumpf Ltd. UBQ CPU board.  We are working closely with the people at Ni-Wumpf so that our boards will automatically sense when the other is installed and then they can both operate in an enhanced mode.  For example, the UBQ CPU board can now tell the GSound board when to start and stop background music, or play additional sounds on certain game events (ball lock, extra ball lit, etc).  Using the advanced features of the UBQ board to create your own game rules coupled with the virtually unlimited sound-generating capabilities of the GSound board make for a very powerful combination.  There will be a lot more to say on this subject as development continues.

More news coming soon! 

Top of page

View Cart/Checkout     |    Terms of Use    |    Privacy Policy    |    Webmaster
Copyright © 2008 Pinball Pal. All rights reserved.
All copyrighted and trademarked Gottlieb® material licensed from Gottlieb Development LLC