Bally Arcade (Montgomery-Ward edition) full restore

A small update on this restoration.

I found plans online for creating a substitute PSU for the Bally Arcade, using two transformers from Jameco. It requires replacement of caps to higher voltage ratings, but I was planning on replacing all the caps anyway, and I ALWAYS use larger rated voltage caps than required just in case, "over engineering" so there is much less chance of capacitor failure in the future, so that's not an issue at all for me. But this is easier than my attempts to find alternate transformers with identical voltage and above minimum amperage requirements, which I did find, but they would have cost me over $50 for both and these Jameco transformers are only $6.95 each. Of course I will also need some other components to complete the PSU, but all in all, I'll still be spending far less and probably have at least some of the needed components on-hand.

But, due to budget constraints, I have to wait another week (this coming Friday) to order the parts, so it will still be a couple of weeks before this restoration is continued and completed.

 

Good luck with that Matt, more retro goodness to enjoy..

 

@M.D.Baker , first, thanks for inviting me to these new (to me) Atari forums. This is a nice thread about restoring your Astrocade going here. I've skimmed it all and read some of it completely. It's really great to see someone investigate the Bally Arcade and use some of the information from my BallyAlley.com website.

In case you're not aware, you can download the entire Bally Arcade/Astrocade archives that are made up of the BallyAlley.com website (23.34 GB) and everything else that has been scanned (26.8 GB) from Archive.org as just a few very large zipped files. Here is a link to the description which includes links to the specific archives on Archive.org:

https://ballyalley.com/documentation/Archives/Archives.html

There is so much information about the Astrocade on both my site and archive.org that it's very likely you'll have trouble finding what you're looking for unless you already know where it is on either site (which, of course, would mean that you don't need to find it if you already know where it is located already).

I also upload many Astrocade-related videos to YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/user/ballyalley/videos

The videos are easier to watch on YouTube, but I also almost always add the original file to Archive.org so that you can download the original mp4 that I upload to YouTube.

A few quick notes on some information I've skimmed in this thread:

- All of the Astrocade controllers are identical internally; you do not need to use hand controller 4 only in port #4. The numbers on the top of the knob are just to help you organize which controllers is plugged into which port.

- You mentioned that you played GORF on the Astrocade, and then you realized that this game wasn't released for the system. And yet... you still seem to have memories of playing it. Maybe you played a game from tape?

You mentioned that you want to program the Astrocade in BASIC. I'd love to see what you can create! If you decide to do a little machine language hacking with the system, then I compiled an article about modifying the Astrocade's version of "Space Invaders" (called "Astro Battle") just yesterday:

https://ballyalley.com/ml/ml_docs/ml_docs.html#HackingAstroBattle

Oh, and I think that the Astrocade had the first official version of "Space Invaders," as the cartridge was called that in 1979/80 when it was released by Bally. I think it was when the game was re-released by Astrocade, Inc. (after the system was sold) that the game was renamed to "Astro Battle." I'm a little confused about the name change... but I think this is right.

I hope you get your Astrocade up and running! If not (or in addition?), the Astrocade emulation in MAME works pretty good, although it doesn't support all the ways that a real Astrocade can run software.

The majority of those who run across this thread won't have an Astrocade-- they're hard to get-- but that doesn't mean that people outside the U.S. and Canada can't investigate the Bally Arcade. I made a video about setting up Astrocade emulation in MAME here:



If you have the time, then give the Astrocade podcast a try (I'm one of the hosts on it):

http://ballyalleyastrocast.libsyn.com/podcast

Have fun messing about with the Astrocade: it's a weird and unique system that sort of defying fitting into any one neat category. That why I still wonder: is it a console or is it a computer?

Adam

 

Thanks for the info @BallyAlley , I don't know where I read about the controllers needing the correct ports as per number, but I already realized myself that this isn't true when I disassembled the controllers. And I had a sneaking suspicion that you would comment on that!

As to Gorf and remembering playing it on the Astrocade, all my friend had was the basic system and cartridges so I don't know why I remember playing it, it's just one of those weird memories that is clearly wrong. I have another memory that must be wrong too, and that was in a thread on an Atari Jaguar forum when GORF was released for the Jaguar CD unit, that another participant said they'd rather just play the great version they have on their Bally Astrocade. That was back when it was released about 10-15 years ago. So maybe I found a temporary worm hole into an alternate universe or I came from one and it's almost identical except that in that universe GORF was released on the Bally!

At this point I only plan on doing some programming on it if I can do machine language then that is the way I will probably do it, instead, instead of BASIC, on second thought, but I'm not going to bother any programming on it until I can find or build myself memory expansion and a keyboard. I have absolutely no wish to attempt any programming with just the keypad and a mere 4K. But first things first, and that's getting the old gal up and running. I just hope I don't have to do any further trouble shooting after building a PSU and replacing the caps in the unit.

 

@M.D.Baker , your posts are very informative.

You're certainly not the first person to think that each controller on the astrocade is made for one particular port. It is kind of a natural deduction based on numbers on the top of each hand controller. Also, keep in mind that controller ports, looking at them from the front of the unit, are numbered like this:

1 2 4 3

Now that decision is a head-scratcher!

If GORF came up in conversation when discussing the Atari Jaguar release of the game, then it's possible that the programmer of that game, Steve Scavone, brought the title up for the astrocade himself. He is (obviously!) a big fan of the game and he has proposed porting it to the astrocade.

You can see Steve's proposed pictures of what an astrocade version of GORF would look like, here:

https://ballyalley.com/pics/screenshots/Unfinished_Games/Unfinished_Games.html

GORF uses the same custom chips that the astrocade uses, and thus there are some similarities between the two machines. If you enjoy playing the arcade game GORF, then you might like my video overview of the game:



Also, there is a partial disassembly of the arcade game GORF on ballyalley.com, here:

https://ballyalley.com/ml/ml_source/ml_source.html#GorfArcadeDisassembly

If you're gonna skip Bally BASIC and "AstroBASIC" and go straight to Z80 coding, then you might get a kick out of these four videos that I made that explain how to program in Z80 machine code using the Astrocade itself. There is a cartridge called "Machine Language Manager" released in 1981 by Bit Fiddlers that can be used. Check these videos out:









Keep in mind that if you are programming in assembly language for the astrocade using a cross-assembler, then you are not limited to the 4K of RAM. You would be limited by the 8K of directly-accessible ROM on a cartridge.

If you want to see a great hardware-pushing, Euro-style demo running on Astrocade hardware, then check out this August 2019 program called "Astrocademo" by Genesis Project (code by Shadow, music by MCH, graphics by Illmidus). There are a couple of videos of the demo running on real hardware:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksY7Fm8kS68

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TzskKR0Zrg

There is a discussion group dedicated to only the Bally Arcade/Astrocade on Groups.io, here:

https://groups.io/g/ballyalley

Good luck getting your Astrocade up and running with your home-built power supply. Once it's running, then it's time to play some of The Incredible Wizard!

Adam

 

I had to wait for approval before posting so apologies if Adam beat me to some of these

Glad to see someone working so hard to restore a Bally Professional Arcade system.

I've collected them all for the past 20 years (Bally Home Library Computer, Bally Professional Arcade, Bally Computer System & Astrocade), not counting when I owned one when I was a teen.

If you haven't already, I highly recommend using info from ballyalley.com and consider joining the ballyalley group on groups.io (we used to be a yahoo group until they shut down). You will find no shortage of geniuses there who would be happy to field questions and assist in any way.

A few things to update you on if you weren't aware:

The consoles were not sold only via computer stores and Montgomery Ward, they could be found most anywhere that Bally and then Astrovision/Astrocade could get them carried.

The original model, the Bally Home Library Computer, was sold through JS&A, but later models like the Bally Computer System and final model the Astrocade could be picked up at places like Playworld and Crazy Eddie.

The computer add-on Bally had originally planned was never released, in any of its configurations, so the Bally consoles and Astrocade was always only released as a console. There were keyboard and expanded memory add-ons created but those were third party devices.

No need to search out a controller model 3 & 4 to use as player 3 & 4 - those are just labels. The knobs on top just pop off, if you haven't already figured out. The controllers are not keyed to any port. The original Home Library Computer model and some Professional Arcade models came with 4 controllers, later that was dropped to 2 with the ability to buy controllers 3 & 4 separately.

The type of gold paint pen you picked up has also been used to repaint the gold trim on the console, should you ever decide to remove the gold trim you used.

Sadly, Gorf was never released on the system, you might be thinking of Galaxian later renamed Galactic Invasion.

Best of luck on your endeavor.

 

@BallyAlley and @128Kgames , thank you both for your corrections and additional knowledge. I certainly am not one who likes to spread false information, I want to know the facts correctly and make sure it's just the true facts if I've heard/read wrong. I still am behooved at all the disinformation that is still regularly spread as fact around one of my favorite consoles of all time, the Atari Jaguar.

I appreciate the links and info about groups and other stuff regarding the console.

As to Gorf, the info about Steve Scavone makes sense, I'm probably miss remembering someone talking about playing Gorf figuratively on the Astrocade in regards to Steve mentioning porting it to the system or something like that, and this might have triggered a memory of playing Galaxian(s) on the Astrocade, and I started miss remembering that I'd played Gorf. I thought for sure I remembered coming up against the boss ship behind the shield though.

Machine language is sounding good to me when it comes to programming for the Bally system. I will track down the cartridge, and if I can't find the third party keyboard, memory and other upgrades, if the resources are there, I'll make whatever upgrades I can and find some good keyboard to hack to work with it. I'll do programs for 4K and 8K, but I do insist on a keyboard, and I think it would be fun to see what the Bally could do with 32K or more at it's disposal. I've seen great things from the Atari 8-bit in the last two decades from programmers with access to extended ram and high-speed flash drives and hard drives.

But right now I'm ankle deep (and getting deeper) in re-learning BASIC; BASIC XE on my upgraded 1200XL as soon to be upgraded with Incognito 800. Which, by the way, I have threads on Atari Sector covering upgrades and mods and restorations of Atari computers and peripherals, both original peripherals and DIY home-brew peripherals. You'd have to join to see those sub-forums though, I believe. One of my blogs here is a list of my 800 and 1200XL and their upgrades, etc. Anyway, so I'm also ankle deep in learning to program in assembly on the Atari 8-bit too. I'm learning the 6502 right now, and then I'll learn the Atari's custom chips. Once I do that and get some experience, then I was already planning on learning the Z80 chip too. I'm a fan of it as well, I owned a Timex/Sinclair 1000 before I bought an Atari. Though I only ever programmed in BASIC back then.

I'm sure I'll become an active member of the Bally Astrocade community once I get her restored. I've no intention of ever selling her. I already have the Bally Professional Arcade front and center in a glass display case I rebuilt recently also. Pictures of my entire "man-cave" alcove I made for my Atari's and consoles can be seen in a thread on Atari Sector I did showing the steps as I built it all from an empty room and added the display case (though I did not show my rebuilding the case, just the "man cave.") The thread is in a sub forum called 'You and Computers' under the title 'Baker's Atari XL Command Center,' IIRC. The case will be the Astrocade's home when it is not being used.

Once I get a keyboard for it, I'll make room for the Bally next to the Atari 8-bits. I don't know if I'll get another Sinclair machine or not, there's the Spectrum emulator out for the Atari, I think it needs the Rapidus 65816 accelerator board for the Atari XL/XE though to function well. But I'll be upgrading my 1200XL with a Rapidus one day soon too. So I will be able to code Z80 on my Atari that way, but I also have a California Access CA-2001 drive that is a clone of the Indus GT, with a Z80 too, and CPM built-in already, and plan on upgrading one of my Indus GT drives for CP/M as well, so I'll have plenty of ways with just the Bally Z80 and CP/M and these others to code Z80's. My Atari's will be joined with a C64 and BBC Micro in 6502 land eventually too. I'll have another man-cave by then.

Well, I've "chewed your ears off" so to speak, and probably put you to sleep with my rantings, so I'll leave it there for now.

-Matt

 

Gorf was never released for the Bally home console but the arcade machine uses the same chip set as the home console. There was a version on the drawing board at Astrovision but it never actually happened. I think Astrovision most likely scrapped the idea since Atari was suing anyone using any Galaxian port as they had exclusive home console rights at the time. This is why Muncher was never release officially as well.

The home console and arcade counterparts share the same memory map for the most part. The differences are:
A ) Arcade versions had all four banks of video memory to achieve the high res mode.
B ) Arcade versions also had extra RAM memory for data and did not require using the screen banks
C ) Some of the arcade version games used an extra I/O chip for more input and sound
D ) Some of the arcade version games used star circuits for background stars
E ) Some of the arcade version games used a sparkle circuit to add sparkle to some of the color channels.
F ) Some of the arcade version games used a Votrax voice chip for added voice.

The Incredible Wizard and Gorf for the home console was originally planned to have added Votrax chips
on cart but neither happened that way and Gorf never happened at all.

I was looking at porting Gorf to the Astrocade one day. Perhaps that may still happen if and when time allows.
I would want to make it as close to the arcade as possible as we did with Gorf on the Atari Jaguar.

Steve

 

Thanks, that would be cool. I do have all the .ATR disk images of CP/M for the Indus GT, which should work fine with my CA-2001, but I haven't tried it yet. I also have some other CP/M stuff I downloaded a couple years back when I got the California Access drive, but I think it's all apps and utilities, so games will be welcome.

 

Thanks for the info on GORF, @Gorf . I knew the arcade machines of Wizard of Wor and Gorf and the Bally system had close similarities, but I didn't know about the differences. It's one of the reasons I was so sure GORF already existed on the console and along with mis-remembered experiences and conversations about it is why I thought it already did exist, along with the idea that Bally would never NOT make a game they owned the rights/Midway division too on their console. I'm still stunned. And thanks for making the Jaguar version.

 

I've ordered the transformers and capacitor kit. I ended up ordering the transformers, which I found identical alternatives for at Digi-key, from them, which are twice the price as Jameco, but because shipping is 1/3 the cost and Digi-key didn't add in a $6.10 processing fee, which I find utterly ridiculous, the total came out to be $5 less! No wonder I always get my parts from Digi-key instead of Jameco!

I did end up ordering just a 564 piece radial capacitor set, because the only places I found full sets of axial capacitors were with 1/3 the pieces for 3-4 times the price of radial sets. I just couldn't justify the cost. Radial's always look funny stretched across a spot meant for axial, but they work just as good. Except for the two large axial capacitors on the board, I got the axial replacements for those. I had to order separately for $7 for one and $11 for the other, but I got those off of Amazon with free shipping.

I think this BPA restore will cost me about $65 dollars total, not including the capacitor set for $15, which I'll only be using 5 capacitors out of it. Assuming that with the new PSU and capacitors the console works. It's an earlier model, so who knows if there's an IC issue or not, especially with the heat-prone one(s).

 

And less than 24 hours later, my capacitor set arrives. It probably has to do with the new regional distribution center about 20 miles away from me. Delivered by an Amazon truck, which is how many have been coming over the last 6 months. I bet it won't be long before Amazon is offering their own shipping services (Us shipping through them as a carrier) to compete with Fedex and UPS, instead of using them.

The transformers are shipping USPS from inside the U.S. and my orders from Digi-key generally arrive in just 3-4 days or less. The large capacitors I bought off Amazon, but they are shipping from the seller, not Amazon.

 

Capacitor replacement is underway, I'll have pics soon.

But while I was downloading some more Bally arcade materials and printing out the instructions and schematics for the substitute transformers PSU, on @BallyAlley 's site, ballyalley.com I did finally run across the instructions for an RGB out circuit, which I won't bother with, but that's because the Bally Arcade does have B-Y, R-Y, Y(Luma/mono out), and I already have an Ambery RGB-to-VGA converter/upscaler that also accepts various component RGB.

So all I have to do is run a VGA cable out the back where the RF cable used to go, which, of course, will be made slightly larger to accomidate the cable. That will run to a DIY break-out-box that sits outside the BPA, via VGA input, and mount a component output 3xRCA, 1x chroma RCA out and it in combination with 1x Luma (shared with component outs) RCA out for monitors like the CBM 1084P I have. I'll do a dual-mono RCA audio out also. All of this will only take 5 RCA outs. I also already have DIY cables for component to the RGB2VGA converter, C/L-to-S-video, and C/L-to-composite cables to go from the B.O.B to monitors and adapters/converters for the ability to plug it in via 3 different video outs.

I also stumbled across directions for a 64K upgrade and connecting a keyboard, so I may even end up doing that stuff too, before finishing with this Bally!

 

Many thanks once more for the extensive "tear down" pics and discussion going on here with your thorough revamp and full restore, Matt.

Big thumbs up and credit once more for what looks like a great restoration job making great strides forward.

Wonderful to see this grand old rare bird taking super shape once more.

 

The transformers for my DIY Bally PSU arrived today, so I can start building it. I'm still waiting on the two large capacitors for the Bally mobo. I've started replacing capacitors, but haven't finished yet with what I have. I've been busy ramping my business up for the spring season and getting all my equipment running properly as well as my truck. So the project has to wait a few days anyway.

 

The large caps arrived Saturday, so I think I have everything I need, for the moment to get this show on the road again. Hoping none of the custom IC's are bad. I will start on the project again today, as we've got nothing but rainy days this past few days and the next couple. I had intended on starting this weekend, but I pretty much spent it all napping, worn out from working last week

 

So, here I am, ready to replace caps and build transformers. I did notice one error in the list of capacitors I got on-line. They say the C8 capacitor is normally a 15uF, but in fact it's a 6.8uF on my motherboard. On the capacitor list they say they substituted 22uF for the 15uF's, but in the case of C8 I have gone with a 10uF as that is the closest to 6.8uF I have on hand. My replacements are all 35V and 50V rated, except for C6 which I upgraded from 10V to 16V as per the suggestion in the substitute PSU instructions. In any case, all the new capacitors should be able to handle any higher voltage levels from the new transformers.

 

OK, all motherboard main capacitors have been replaced. I'm ready to start on the new PSU.

 

The way I've always looked at it is that every console is a computer, because, well, they are! They are only missing a keyboard and other I/O that personal computers use, but they are all true computers and I personally treat them all as computers. There is no console or computer as far as I'm concerned, they are one and the same thing, only implemented differently. So yes, the Bally Arcade is a computer-console. That's your answer, as far as I'm concerned.

 

@Timothy Kline I completely forgot that we once had to text on the numeric keypad of our phones! But that just brings to the forefront the main reason why, if I do any programming on the Bally Arcade, I'm damn sure going to build a keyboard interface for it! I will NEVER program it from the keypad, so if I don't get a keyboard working with it, I guarantee I will never program on it! I remember trying that with the old 2600 and 'The programmer' package that came with two numeric keypads. Needless to say, after one day of trying to program something on the 2600 that way, I never touched it again! My ZX81 (T/S 1000) was a HUGE leap forward from that, for me, with it's membrane keyboard!

I remember being better off back in the 90's when cell phones were still out of my reach economically and I used a pager for business; at least with the pager I called up a person at a service and told them what I wanted to say in a text and they texted the other person's pager for me! The cell phone was a step backwards in that respect, for me.

 

I was just re-reading some of the comments from other Bally owners that jumped in here, and I hadn't noticed this suggestion before.

Though I'm not sure why I should ever want to remove the true chrome trim and down-grade to paint that isn't real chrome. I've found the better way as far as I'm concerned, and it will last a lot longer than paint! Personally, I think anyone who has painted the trim in their restorations should take my lead and re-do their trim the way I have, and have a more proper restoration! In my opinion I've improved the restoration process with this choice.