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    WPC display driver board integrated circuit replacement

    Circuit Board Repair
    Up until recently I had been putting up with some strange display issues on my Doctor Who (Bally, 1992) and Judge Dredd (Bally, 1993). Each game worked well enough but there were artifacts on the display that should not normally be present. Since I was about to sell the Doctor Who, I decided to finally figure out the issues with both display driver boards. I also figured it would be a good opportunity to write a general instructional post about integrated circuit replacement on a circuit board.
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    The WPC dot matrix display driver board.

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    Trident

    1979 Stern Trident
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    Trident (Stern Electronics, 1979) was my first foray into classic solid state (SS) game repair for a customer. I had bought Stars (Stern Electronics, 1978) a little while ago and while I hadn't restored it yet, I had done a lot of reading about common problems, the boardset, and playfield mechanisms. While I initially wanted to work on Stars as my first classic SS restoration, a customer approached me about fixing his Trident so I decided to bring this one back to life first. He had actually asked about selling the machine to me, but instead decided that he wanted to have the game repaired so he could play it again. As this wasn't a full game restoration, this blog entry will be shorter and will cover only the more interesting aspects of the repairs.
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    A Tale of Two Fish (Fish Tales)

    1992 Fish Tales Williams
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    I have to admit, Fish Tales (Williams, 1992) is never a game I had thought seriously about owning. I had seen it a few times but the theme threw me totally off. I hate fishing. So it stood to reason that I'd never like a pinball machine based on fishing, and I never paid Fish Tales much attention. It just happened to be that there were two Fish Tales machines in the lot I purchased during our pinball road trip. I figured I would restore them both and sell them on.

    This restoration post is a little different from the others. Both of the Fish Tales games were very similar in appearance and condition, but each had their own issues to troubleshoot. I restored these games at the same time, swapping parts between the cabinets as necessary and they were both finished at around the same time. So I didn't take many pictures of the individual machines. Instead, I'll deal with both of the machines in this single post. The pictures are a mix of photos from both machines, but as they were both so similar, it doesn't really matter.
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    Johnny Mnemonic

    1995 Johnny Mnemonic Williams
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    Johnny Mnemonic (Williams, 1995) was another machine from our pinball road trip. Fiona and I had tackled all of our previous restorations at a leisurely pace. We'd generally start tearing a machine down for cleaning, clean and repair the parts as necessary, and then put them all back together whenever we had a chunk of spare time. As of late, we had not had that much spare time to devote to pinball. Our last restoration of Doctor Who (Bally, 1992) took us several months because we were so busy with other things going on. It's a little frustrating to have a machine sitting in pieces for so long, not being played. With this restoration, we decided to try something different. We both freed up our Easter long weekend and devoted it entirely to restoring Johnny Mnemonic from start to finish. So come Friday afternoon, we turned our phones off and got to work. Just like the restored machine, our work this time around was fast and furious.
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    Doctor Who

    1992 Bally Doctor Who
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    After my World Cup Soccer restoration, I was rearing to go for another. Doctor Who (Bally, 1992), was another machine I had bought at the same time as World Cup Soccer. I had a lot of mixed feelings about Doctor Who as a pinball machine. While I wasn't much of a fan of the TV show or other Doctor Who media, I hadn't played the pinball machine much before and many pinheads insist that it is a really cool game. The mini playfield is the main feature on Doctor Who. It's a section of playfield that rises and sinks to reveal objectives to hit; it is very similar in style to the ball lock area on Jack-Bot (Williams, 1995). Doctor Who definitely looked like more of a technical challenge so I decided to sink my teeth into it and see how far I could get.
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    World Cup Soccer

    1994 Bally World Cup Soccer
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    World Cup Soccer (Bally, 1994) was the first machine I chose to restore from the eight machines I purchased during our recent pinball adventure. World Cup Soccer is a game that is approachable and a fun theme to play, especially for novices and non-pinball people.  Looking at the playfield, you can understand why. It's got a giant soccer ball in the middle of the playfield and a goal with a goalkeeper guarding it. Way cool! You can instantly understand one of the key parts of the game: scoring goals.

    Out of my eight new machines, I decided to start restoring World Cup Soccer first simply because it appeared to have the fewest things wrong with it. After the relatively relaxed and enjoyable experiences of getting The Getaway and Demolition Man up and running, I had some serious work ahead of me if I wanted to get all eight machines up and running. Getting a relatively easy machine fixed and out the door was my main goal (pun intended).