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Another Insane Hardware Project - Bally S & T Sound Board - Gordon's Alive!

myPinballs

myPinballs

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Nov 19, 2011
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5,444
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Pudsey UK
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Jim
So i've been working on some other sound board recreations alongside the gottlieb sound board that i've been talking about in my other thread.

This is project is to recreate the well known and loved Bally S&T Sound board found in many of Bally's greatest hits from the 80s. The idea is similar to my other hardware projects and is to redesign the board using modern components,and improve and simplify where possible

Here is my first pass at the redesign. I am hoping to get some protos made up and test over christmas. Register your interest with me now :)

I'm not sure on pricing structures yet as I need to identify the likely costs of all the chips and parts, but am aiming for around the £140 mark.

bally s&t sound board bottom layout.png bally s&t sound board component layout.png bally s&t sound board top layout.png
 
Nice one Jim :thumbs:

I'm definitely interested in this. Got a Flash Gordon and Fathom if you want any help with the testing.
 
Made a few more adjustments to design including rom setting dip switches for all different game/rom combinations. Some nice simplifications on there to. I have some nice ideas on the amp side to, but will get the boards working correctly first. There'll be an option to wire in your own external amp to instead of using the onboard setup to if you fancy more speakers or more volume! Stay tuned.

bally s&t sound board component layout.png bally s&t sound board top layout.png bally s&t sound board bottom layout.png
 
What a great project!. I always wondered why the board makers hadn't reproduced this board. I always thought Altek would do an all in 1 Bally/ Stern sound board but they never have. Great idea about the external amp/speaker option too!
 
First proto boards turned up today. pinside.com_img_smilies_icon_smile.gif Something to get assembled over the christmas holidays i think

IMG_3229.jpg IMG_3232.jpg IMG_3234.jpg
 
Jim will this board just replace the squawk & talk or could it be used as well for turbo cheap squeak and sounds deluxe.
Is a three into one possible?
 
Mooseman said:
Jim will this board just replace the squawk & talk or could it be used as well for turbo cheap squeak and sounds deluxe.
Is a three into one possible?
Click to expand...

Thanks for the message. It's just for squawk & talk games at the moment. It could work with earlier games back to space invaders etc but the later boards like the turbo board and sounds deluxe were a different architecture. Shame Bally didn't just stick with the squawk and talk design and not populate the speech section if they wanted to save costs. In terms of sound boards for the era it really is a true masterpiece :)
 
it's Alive!

First part of the board is assembled and tested. I am assembling the digital section in stages, following the diagnostic led sets of parts to check everything is working ok. I have assembled upto both pia chips so far and have a flicker and 3 flashes pinside.com_img_smilies_icon_smile.gif It was great to see that led start blinking!

Below is a quick video showing the status led blinking as the board boots and also me testing the reset switch. Note that the first flicker is now more like a flash as i am using a reset chip ic.

Next i will be assembling the ay sound generator section, then the speech section and then the op amp, filtering and power amp sections

 
It's like Frankenstein coming to life.
It's ALIVE..............
Nice one Jim.
 
Update on development. All five flashes are now working with the speech chip section installed. Moved on to the amp side and populated the main amp and speech pre-amp/filtering section. Also added my Elektra roms, tested the jumper dipswitch configs and all working from the test button. Video below:


After christmas and holiday break i will be moving onto the final population of the dac and sound amp section and the data input section.
 
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Back on with assembling the remaining parts on the s&t sound board now christmas is over.

A question for interested people: A friend of mine mentioned the idea of adding into the board the centaur reverb circuitry as an optional extra. The idea here would be to use the holtek guitar effects chip replacement circuit that can be bought separately and add it into the design as an optional population section. The circuitry would be enabled or disabled with dipswitches. This would mean any game could have the echoey sounds :)

Please let me know what you think
 
kevlar said:
How much would the reverb add to the cost?
Click to expand...

Would be an optional extra on the board. If taken would add about £25 i think, though it does depend on the holtek ic & associated ram pricing and availability. Could be sold as kit to add on later to
 
myPinballs said:
Would be an optional extra on the board. If taken would add about £25 i think, though it does depend on the holtek ic & associated ram pricing and availability. Could be sold as kit to add on later to
Click to expand...
Sounds like a good option to have, especially if its a simple plug in module.
 
Update: New video. All sections are now tested and working (sound amp & filtering, dac and data input). The first proto board is now fully assembled and it all went rather well :) A few things to alter for the next revision, but its time now to try it in a few different games. Very happy with the sound quality so far and am looking at the reverb/echo addition to. I think it's the best i've ever heard these games sound :)

New video of the board running in my partially complete Elektra restoration here:


The self test now includes the sound effect as well as all the speech calls. I also tried out the mpu to sound board data flow from in game. There are some great 80s sounds that this board can generate :)
 
myPinballs said:
Would be an optional extra on the board. If taken would add about £25 i think, though it does depend on the holtek ic & associated ram pricing and availability. Could be sold as kit to add on later to
Click to expand...


If not much extra work I would say yes.Extra incentive for some to buy it
 
Update: New video. I created a test echo/reverb circuit and connected upto to my proto board. All tested very nicely. Video here of my Elektra with echo! Very cool to hear this! I set the reverb pretty high for testing.


I'm now finalising the changes for the production board and building another proto board to test in a few other games/locations. I'm thinking of creating the echo board as a separate plug on daughter card option for the J2 connector (rhs) instead of additional parts on the main board. This means it can be easily plugged onto boards in the future, require no additional wiring and will keep costs down for the main board. I will be looking to create this daughter board as an optional extra after the first run of standard boards is under way.
 
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