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Complete Tecnoplay Space Team Restoration - Final(?) Update

I had a few games at pinfest. I spotted it and it jogged my memory about this post.
Really nice machine. I was telling my wife about all the work you've done. Glad I spotted it and had the chance to play it. Well done. 👍
 
Hadnt realised you had made those wireforms from scratch incredible work, really should have a better look at the restore thread when I have time.
 
Zaccaria Keith said:
Front of cabinet after applying newly printed graphics and refitting cleaned up hardware (apologies for the reflections from the high gloss black finish):
View attachment 249515
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How are the Start and Credit buttons on the left supposed to work?

On mine "credit" starts the game and "start" does nothing

You even have more buttons on the coin door, are those something you added for coining?
 
lukewells said:
How are the Start and Credit buttons on the left supposed to work?

On mine "credit" starts the game and "start" does nothing

You even have more buttons on the coin door, are those something you added for coining?
Click to expand...
You use the Credit button to set up a multiplayer game, although the display doesn't show very well how many players you have added. The Start button starts a single player game. I haven't been able to find out what the two buttons on the coin door are for, although I can confirm they are wired up. My guess is that they are used on the "Bingo" version of the game as mine originally had instructions on the right of the apron in Italian for the Bingo version even though it doesn't have the Bingo backglass or the extra board - but it does have a connector for it in the backbox.

There are a number of things like the multiplayer setup that don't seem to be well thought out in the firmware and if I get time I plan to try and decompile it and see if I can make any worthwhile changes.
 
Mine works like a regular pin, if you imagine the Credit button is the Start button (i.e. you press it 3 times to start a 3 player game)

I have no idea about the bingo version, I am going to have a look what info is out there (probably not much - like for everything technoplay 🤣)
 
lukewells said:
Mine works like a regular pin, if you imagine the Credit button is the Start button (i.e. you press it 3 times to start a 3 player game)

I have no idea about the bingo version, I am going to have a look what info is out there (probably not much - like for everything technoplay 🤣)
Click to expand...
Sounds like you might have some later/better ROMs in yours as that makes more sense. How are your switches wired? The switch matrix for mine is in the schematics that are attached. The Credit button is #9 and the Start button is #11 in the switch test. Let me know if you find anything more as I have trawled the web fairly extensively and also contacted Tecnoplay but they have nothing!
 

Attachments

Update on the credit button situation. So on mine, the start button has been deliberately shorted on, which does in fact make the Credit button behave like a normal start button.


BTW do you know what the bulbs are called that would be under the small pink domes on the Space Journey bowl? I have no idea what they are to order some (if they even exist)

1724768018588.webp
 
lukewells said:
Update on the credit button situation. So on mine, the start button has been deliberately shorted on, which does in fact make the Credit button behave like a normal start button.


BTW do you know what the bulbs are called that would be under the small pink domes on the Space Journey bowl? I have no idea what they are to order some (if they even exist)
Click to expand...
Interesting regarding the Start button, I'll have to try that on mine.

The bulbs round the bowl are 6V wire ended ones with small plastic bases. Several of the red plastic domes were missing on mine and unobtainable so I replaced all of them with Arcotronic T0063AOFAA lampholders which fit in the same holes and take more readily available midget flange lamps so I never had to look for a source of the wire ended bulbs. However I think some of the bulbs in my old lampholders will still be working so I would be happy to send you some of those if that helps.
 
lukewells said:
Update on the credit button situation. So on mine, the start button has been deliberately shorted on, which does in fact make the Credit button behave like a normal start button.
Click to expand...
@lukewells
I finally got around to trying this on my Space Team. Shorting out the Start button does make the Credit button behave like a normal Start button as you said. The downsides seem to be that on power up it immediately launches a single player game. Also at the end of a game when the message "You can continue the game if you press start button within 10 seconds" comes up, if you press the credit button (since the Start button no longer works) it clears the scores and launches a new game.

Separately from the above, on a multiplayer game it only displays the individual player scores once, or sometimes twice before going back into attract mode at which point no matter what you press you can't retrieve the scores, which is a pain when using the game in competitions.

Does yours exhibit the same behaviour as I'm wondering if there are different versions of firmware around. The checksums on mine are 2d92 and 7e59.
 
Zaccaria Keith said:
@lukewells
I finally got around to trying this on my Space Team. Shorting out the Start button does make the Credit button behave like a normal Start button as you said. The downsides seem to be that on power up it immediately launches a single player game. Also at the end of a game when the message "You can continue the game if you press start button within 10 seconds" comes up, if you press the credit button (since the Start button no longer works) it clears the scores and launches a new game.

Separately from the above, on a multiplayer game it only displays the individual player scores once, or sometimes twice before going back into attract mode at which point no matter what you press you can't retrieve the scores, which is a pain when using the game in competitions.

Does yours exhibit the same behaviour as I'm wondering if there are different versions of firmware around. The checksums on mine are 2d92 and 7e59.
Click to expand...
Hi Keith,

1) Mine does not appear to start as game on power up

2) If you press credit during the "You can continue" message, it starts a game with zero score, but the locked balls remain locked. If you wait until after the 10 seconds, the locked balls are released.

3) Yes I found out about the multiplayer scores thing recently when we had a 4 player game in a mini-competition.


As mine has always been like this, I was not aware that things could be different.

For point 2, I don't want the ability to continue a game with a non-zero score, but point 3 is making me want to restore the button functions to normal as I did not know this was causing the final scores to only show for a couple of seconds.


Can't remember if I dumped the ROM's or not, but given the rarity of the game, I will dump them the next time I work on it just in case I do have a different version
 
lukewells said:
For point 2, I don't want the ability to continue a game with a non-zero score, but point 3 is making me want to restore the button functions to normal as I did not know this was causing the final scores to only show for a couple of seconds.


Can't remember if I dumped the ROM's or not, but given the rarity of the game, I will dump them the next time I work on it just in case I do have a different version
Click to expand...
Regarding point 2 - Having removed the short on the Start button I now realise that pressing it within 10 secs to continue a game has always zeroed the score and just leaves the captured balls in place! I've never used this feature anyway so didn't realise.

I wasn't clear enough in my post, but unfortunately point 3 is an issue regardless of whether the Start button is shorted or not. Currently the only work around is to take a photo of the scores before they disappear.

So the only effect on my game of shorting the start button is the issue of it starting a game at power up, which yours doesn't do.

If I ever get enough free time I intend to try and disassemble the code to be able to fix some of these issues, including the missing letters in the high score entry. It's not a skill I currently have so there will be a steep learning curve! My original ROMs had the same code as the ones on David Gersic's site.
 
Oh my word. The first time I ever saw this pin was at this year's Swavesey (having missed '24 and then too busy at Pinfest).

I certainly recognised it looked beautiful and very well looked after. I had no idea those wireform ramps weren't original (having only now seen this thread).

Incredible work Keith. Stunning.
 
Wizcat said:
Oh my word. The first time I ever saw this pin was at this year's Swavesey (having missed '24 and then too busy at Pinfest).

I certainly recognised it looked beautiful and very well looked after. I had no idea those wireform ramps weren't original (having only now seen this thread).

Incredible work Keith. Stunning.
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Thanks Paul. It will appear again in the Classic comp at Pinfest after which it will disappear into my home for a few years.
 
steve brum said:
quick clip of machine when brand new with bingo backglass version

drowned out by Bride and Simpsons!

@ 14.20

Click to expand...
Oh wow, I wish we had more info on it.

I also wonder if any of the surround sound stools were sold for it, obviously getting binned years ago as no one would know what they were for 🤣
 
After pinball show 88 l borrowed the x force with seat for a week. Quite sad when associated leisure took it away
 
lukewells said:
I also wonder if any of the surround sound stools were sold for it, obviously getting binned years ago as no one would know what they were for 🤣
Click to expand...
It shouldn't be too difficult to make one. I thought I had a photo of one, but can't find it atm. It isn't truly surround sound as it just replicates the backbox speakers via a balance control, but I guess it would give a much better impression of the stereo sound.
 
Zaccaria Keith said:
Thanks Paul. It will appear again in the Classic comp at Pinfest after which it will disappear into my home for a few years.
Click to expand...

Hi Keith, excited to play this in the classics comp. Was just reading about the issue of the scores disappearing after a few seconds at the end of the game. Is that still going to be the case for Pinfest? Just thinking ahead for @Arv and team and how it might cause some issues from a score keeping point of view? The games get a lot of play during qualifying, I remember certain Data East games etc are a nightmare for scorekeepers as they take for ever to scroll through before displaying the scores. But the scores disappearing all together sounds like a bit of a nightmare, hopefully it can be sorted 🤞
 
roadshow16 said:
Hi Keith, excited to play this in the classics comp. Was just reading about the issue of the scores disappearing after a few seconds at the end of the game. Is that still going to be the case for Pinfest? Just thinking ahead for @Arv and team and how it might cause some issues from a score keeping point of view? The games get a lot of play during qualifying, I remember certain Data East games etc are a nightmare for scorekeepers as they take for ever to scroll through before displaying the scores. But the scores disappearing all together sounds like a bit of a nightmare, hopefully it can be sorted 🤞
Click to expand...
We got around it in the competition at Swavesey just by the players taking photos of the scores at the end of the game, although obviously this isn't ideal. @Arv was at Swavesey and is aware of the issue and if he thinks it isn't workable then we can swap it out for Devil Rider or Earth Wind Fire.
 
The solution in our game are Swavesey was to put it on 5 players, then you can see all the players scores when it gets to ball 5 player 5.
That doesn't work for single player, but I remember you saying it doesn't have the same issue with single player?
 
David_Vi said:
The solution in our game are Swavesey was to put it on 5 players, then you can see all the players scores when it gets to ball 5 player 5.
That doesn't work for single player, but I remember you saying it doesn't do it on single player?
Click to expand...
That's a neat workaround that hadn't occurred to me. It still happens on single player but as there is only one score to display you effectively have more time to record it.
 
Zaccaria Keith said:
It shouldn't be too difficult to make one. I thought I had a photo of one, but can't find it atm. It isn't truly surround sound as it just replicates the backbox speakers via a balance control, but I guess it would give a much better impression of the stereo sound.
Click to expand...
I found the pic of the stool, it comes from the flyer for X-Force, just need to work out the dimensions now!:

Stool Design.webp1754329229245.webp
 
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