The machine is a Bally Midway Gold Ball (#0371 - copyright dates 1983). It was bought as a dud, and restored to life with the help of the rec.games.pinball newsgroup. The problem was a leaking nicad battery which had dissolved the contacts out of over half a dozen IC sockets. Once found, this was straight forward, but time consuming (and neck breaking) to repair.
Three important tips:
1) Wash the board with white vinegar, or other weak acid to neutralise the alkaline gunge which leaks out of nicads. (Then rinse it well.)
2) Use turned pin sockets (or socket strips) for the replacements, so that you can solder the top layer of tracks to the pins too. (Some will lift, and need to be repaired, but even so, the plated through holes can't be relied upon.
3) Take proper static precautions when handling the chips (remember they may be from the original CMOS era, when 'static sensitive' really meant it.
Tip #3 I found out the hard way. If you do the same, you may want to know how to replace a 5101 with something more readily available.
The diagnostic LED flashes twice if this chip is U/S. (It came on and stayed on with the original problem).
The game is quite simple to play, with its nice, open playfield. The annoying thing is the 'Gold ball' feature, whereby your scores suddenly treble when the machine throws out a gold coloured ball at random, overriding any skill element (this certainly isn't sour grapes because Caroline has held the high score for over a year). It's always a hit at parties....
Depending on the way you're wired up, you may want to look at the back glass, or inside the back glass.
High score to-date is , held by Caroline. (Drop me a line if you want to know how the options are set.)
Copyright Andy Gray, 1997 / Revised 6th October 1999 / andy@misterg.fsnet.co.uk
