Uploaded August 2013 | Updated September 2026, 5 minutes ago
A rare find! Bally pinball produced a series of professional home use only machines. This one uses the series II system. Series two uses a version 2 "game brain" board which is simplified for home use. (Version II boards are designed to mount horizontally instead of vertically.) It uses the the Mostek 3870 integrated CPU, ROM, RAM & PIO into one chip and and uses its own pins as input/output as a peripheral interface adapter (PIA). It also uses a combination switch, lamp and solenoid matrix into one unlike the commercial machines using a dedicated switch matrix and light matrix.
This machine was given to me from a good friend of mine. It did not work when I picked it up. One component destroyed a bunch of components on the power supply board including exploded capacitor, burned up resistor and a shorted MOSFET. After refurbishing/repairing and testing for shorts in the game, I hooked up and thought it still didn't work even though a few extra lights came on. BUT, I was unaware that it does this when I turn it on. So, I moved the switch from play to test mode and it started cycling lights, display digits and firing solenoids. Then I moved it back to play mode and hit the start button. WHOA!
The flippers and switched lights are weak, so the next thing I need to do is replace the two big blue capacitors and that will complete the power supply refurbishment. Phew! For a moment, I thought the CPU chip was damaged and then I would've gone to the next step as to reverse-engineer and put either a Raspberry PI or P-ROC into it.
The video is intentionally rotated to show all the features of the machine due to confined space and lack of equipment (I'm upgrading as I speak). If you want me to post it sideways, let me know.
Enjoy!
A rare find! Bally pinball produced a series of professional home use only machines. This one uses the series II system. Series two uses a version 2 "game brain" board which is simplified for home use. (Version II boards are designed to mount horizontally instead of vertically.) It uses the the Mostek 3870 integrated CPU, ROM, RAM & PIO into one chip and and uses its own pins as input/output as a peripheral interface adapter (PIA). It also uses a combination switch, lamp and solenoid matrix into one unlike the commercial machines using a dedicated switch matrix and light matrix.
This machine was given to me from a good friend of mine. It did not work when I picked it up. One component destroyed a bunch of components on the power supply board including exploded capacitor, burned up resistor and a shorted MOSFET. After refurbishing/repairing and testing for shorts in the game, I hooked up and thought it still didn't work even though a few extra lights came on. BUT, I was unaware that it does this when I turn it on. So, I moved the switch from play to test mode and it started cycling lights, display digits and firing solenoids. Then I moved it back to play mode and hit the start button. WHOA!
The flippers and switched lights are weak, so the next thing I need to do is replace the two big blue capacitors and that will complete the power supply refurbishment. Phew! For a moment, I thought the CPU chip was damaged and then I would've gone to the next step as to reverse-engineer and put either a Raspberry PI or P-ROC into it.
The video is intentionally rotated to show all the features of the machine due to confined space and lack of equipment (I'm upgrading as I speak). If you want me to post it sideways, let me know.
Enjoy!
