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Complete Williams Blackout (1980)

Spandangler

Spandangler

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FINALLY, after collecting this from Andy about 6 months ago, I managed to get it back in the den. I've been excited about getting this bad boy home for ages, having never actually played it properly.

So as it's relatively straight forward compared to newer games, i decided to strip the top side for a reet good clean. It was in desperate need of a re rubber. The playfield is in very good condition, covered with Mylar it has no bubbling and little if no lifting at all. Bit of a crack in the paint horizontally across the middle but nothing to worry about. No cracked plastics and a relatively good back glass. I was also fortunate to pick up a spare glass at the ukpp this year which is always nice to have, just in case!!

So I have a rubber kit, new leg bolt plates ( all 4 are stripped) and drop target decals in stock and ready to go. It should look nice when complete.

This brings me on to my next dilemma. The cab itself is pretty tatty. Kind of let's the whole thing down. So I'm toying with the idea of coming up with some custom decals and actually Decalling the cab!!! What you reckon? Bad idea? I dunno. We'll see.

Anyway, here some pics. Sorry, they're ****ty iphone pics and a bit blurry but you get the idea.

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A few bags of bits to clean!! Hate this part!!

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Until next time folks......
 
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Hi Chris
There are so many holes , nicks and scuffs that a fair amount if filling and sanding would be required before I could repaint. Not sure if the stencil kits are available .
Hence my thinking of sanding the whole thing back. Filling it and applying decals. I'm not a huge fan of that firepoweresque cab art.
 
That is a thing of beauty! Way cool retro space art. LOVE IT. The first thought I had was "Very FIREPOWER" and checking on IPDB this came immediately after. Or maybe just before? By date BLACKOUT was 4 months afer FIREPOWER but preceeds it my model number. Who knows?

Custom decals would be an interesting thing to do. It's funny, I had the same thought regarding my newly acquired GOLD BALL project! Sacrilege some will cry. Dunno. Cutting your own stencils is a bitch.

Interested to see the progress on this one. Thread watched :D
 
Cheers Pete. Don't expect anything near the detail and quality of your paragon!! I don't have the patience for that!!
 
PARAGON is a one-off. I doubt GOLD BALL will get the same treatment. I just love the look of BLACKOUT - naff retro sci-fi space theme. Just love it! I really can't stand modern pins with photos of ageing rock stars. Give me asteroids and meteors and spaceships and hot babes in spacesuits any day ;)
 
Blackout is a great game (great backglass too!) Got mine located at the private arcade in Haslingden.

Once is cleaned up and well waxed they play super fast!

Your playfield looks in great condition! Looks like you might have a few concave inserts though
 
Yes Luke , a few inserts are indeed concaved. To correct that is a huge undertaking. Doesn't affect play as far as I've noticed so concaved they shall remain!!

I must admit I'm leaning towards custom decals. It's not an expensive machine to start with so I'd hardly be devaluing it. And I think it could look pretty cool.
 
At some point I need to work out if a 7 digit scoring hack is feasible. 6 digits is not enough. I've rolled mine over a few times, which results in the score starting from zero.

Andy Foster managed to score 999970, to make sure that no one could ever beat him (as if you are on a good game, the bonus can add up to 200K+ on a ball) so it must have took him some planning to stop it exactly on that score.

Alternatively, if you set it steep then no one will ever roll the scores over as the ball develops a mind of its own
 
Like your thinking there Luke. There's probably no danger of me rolling it over though. I'm
Poo.
 
Did you ask Andy if that was the actual game used in IFPA6 ?

It's a cracking game and I was very tempted when he offered it for sale. :D
 
Hi Peter. I do believe it's one and the same. He did mention it used to do the circuit!
 
lukewells said:
At some point I need to work out if a 7 digit scoring hack is feasible. 6 digits is not enough. I've rolled mine over a few times, which results in the score starting from zero.

Andy Foster managed to score 999970, to make sure that no one could ever beat him (as if you are on a good game, the bonus can add up to 200K+ on a ball) so it must have took him some planning to stop it exactly on that score.
Click to expand...

Apparently it's possible to adapt FirePower to 7-digit scoring, luke, so it's quite likely to be feasible on Blackout, too. I saw the details on a site dedicated to FP, which was linked to Ipdb.

There were a few games at that time which could be 'rolled', or 'clocked' - Williams games like FP and Blackout, Stern's Meteor and Ali, and Gottlieb's Haunted House. Not so much Bally games, though Bally were the only manufacturer to provide for it in the software. Their games with a U6 utility Rom of '-35' and later make the High Score award as the score rolls over.

Gottlieb had thought about 'unbeatable' scores, btw. The HH I used to play would re-set the Highest Score to a back-up value once the recorded score exceeded 970,000.
 
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Jay Walker said:
Their games with a U6 utility Rom of '-35' and later make the High Score award as the score rolls over.
Click to expand...
Could you go into a bit more detail about this please? I've got 3 Bally games with U6 ROMS. Is the id on the ROM? I would assume the "-35" refers to the MPU model number: AS-2518-35. Sounds interesting... I'm all ears!
 
Certainly. Bally adopted a system of having the 'everyday' part of the program in a 'utility' Rom at U6, with the 'special' part for each different game in a 'personality' Rom (or Roms) at U1 and/or 2. The U6 chip would remain the same for a series of games, until it was necessary to add something new to the 'house-keeping', so to speak, such as more bookeeping entries or the service credit facility (also new with -35) . The U6 chip retained the part number E-720-##, with the final digits changing for each revision. Your Paragon, f'r instance, has a '-30' U6 (the last game to use it), while Vector is probably a -52 or 53. Gold Ball might be an exception, seeing as it's labelled '896' - is 896 its Bally game number? (the 720 in the part number of chips dates back to one of Bally's earliest solid-state games).
 
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Thanks @Jay Walker, very informative! That was my understanding that U6 houses the core code and U1 and/or U2 hold the game specific code. You're right, PARAGON has part number "E-720-30-U6" with U1 and U2 stamped "E-748-17 U1" and "E-748-15 U2" respectively. I've found some good resources for Bally ROM numbers but none has the chip numbers for GOLD BALL or GRAND SLAM. These two machines are unusual in that they share the same combo HV / SOLENOID / LAMP DRIVER board only used by these two games (Baby Pac-Man has something similar but without the HV section). Also, I couldn't find any correlation between the chip numbers and the model numbers. Just another random numbering scheme!

This page though has loads of top technical info for anyone trying to debug the old Bally -35 MPU board:

https://www.flippers.com/bally-tips.html
 
Got my new parts in the post today. Pinballmania were fantastic. Less than 24 hours. The blokes a bloody legend I tell ya.
This should be back together by the weekend.
 
RudeDogg1 said:
if your after any parts that are shared by firepower gimme a shout not got a lot of spares but got a few
Click to expand...
Cheers Rudi. I'll let ya know. Only thing I'm sure wasn't working was the lane change but I'm sure it'll be a switch gap or something
 
Think I have a spare brand new lane change leaf switch at the time of ordering I didn't realise only 1 was needed because there seemed to be 2 dumped in mine
 
Cheers Rudi . I'll investigate this weekend. Although the lane change for blackout is on the eos switch on the right flipper, not a leaf switch.
 
Thanks for posting the vid Andy. It's cool that Bowen Kerrins played my actual machine.

I've cleaned my bags of bits, run a rag over the pf and now it's time to treasure cove.

I always prep my pf the same way. As I'm too lazy to remove pops and drop all the targets and switches through.

I mask them up to stop the pads getting snarled up. Then I push pieces of cardboard into the switch cut outs to keep them below the pf level.

I've quickly wiped the pf over with novus to get rid of the dirt. Now it's time to try and buff up the Mylar.

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Treasure cove done and ready for reassembly. ( only did it the once as I was being lazy ) the pics really don't do it justice. It gleams. Definitely motivated to sort the cab out now.


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