The Williams Pinball Controller (WPC) is an arcade system board used for several pinball games designed by Williams and Midway (under the Bally name) between 1990 and early 1999. It is the successor to their earlier System 11 hardware (High Speed, Pin*Bot, Black Knight 2000). It was succeeded by Williams/Midway's Pinball 2000 platform, before Williams left the pinball business in October 1999.
FunHouse (designed by Pat Lawlor) was the first production game to use WPC, although there are prototype Dr. Dude machines that use WPC.
Video Williams Pinball Controller
Hardware info
- Main CPU: Motorola 6809 at 2 MHz, 8KB of RAM, and between 128KB and 1MB of EPROM for the game program.
- Sound CPU: Motorola 6809 (Pre-DCS), Analog Devices ADSP2105 (DCS)
- Sound chips (Pre-DCS): Yamaha YM2151, DAC, Harris HC55536 CVSD
- Operating system: APPLE OS (created by Williams, not related to the company Apple, but "Advanced Pinball Programming Logic Executive")
Maps Williams Pinball Controller
Variations
There are six variations of the WPC hardware. The original version is sometimes referred to as WPC-89. The WPC MPU remained the same through all generation up to the addition of the security chip in WPC-S, and then the subsequent WPC-95 board. The variations are as follows:
WPC (Alphanumeric)
- FunHouse - September 1990
- Harley-Davidson - February 1991
- The Machine: Bride of Pin·Bot - February 1991
Some Dr. Dude machines were also made using this WPC generation, although most were made using the later System 11 board.
WPC (Dot Matrix)
- Gilligan's Island - May 1991
- Terminator 2: Judgment Day - July 1991
- Hurricane - August 1991
- The Party Zone - August 1991
Terminator 2: Judgment Day was the first to be designed with a dot matrix display, but was released after Gilligan's Island, due to Terminator 2 having a longer development time than Gilligan's Island. This generation WPC hardware was also used in some of Williams / Midway's redemption games (SlugFest!, Hot Shot Basketball) as well as in the first Shuffle Alley Game Strike Master Shuffle Alley - 1991.
WPC (Fliptronics)
- The Getaway: High Speed II - February 1992
- The Addams Family - March 1992
- Black Rose - July 1992
- Fish Tales - October 1992
- Doctor Who - October 1992
- Creature from the Black Lagoon - December 1992
- White Water - January 1993
- Bram Stoker's Dracula - March 1993
- Twilight Zone - March 1993
- The Addams Family Special Collectors Edition - October 1994
The Addams Family was the only game produced with the Fliptronics I board, which is compatible with Fliptronics II boards, which added a bridge rectifier for the flipper voltage.
WPC (DCS)
- Indiana Jones: The Pinball Adventure - August 1993
- Judge Dredd - September 1993
- Star Trek: The Next Generation - November 1993
- Popeye Saves the Earth - February 1994
- Demolition Man - February 1994
Twilight Zone was designed to be the first pinball machine to use the new DCS system, but due to delays of the new hardware design it was decided to release it on the old hardware (using downsampled sound effects) instead. The redemption game Addams Family Values also used the DCS Sound System.
WPC-S (Security)
Starting with World Cup Soccer, a security programmable integrated circuit (PIC) chip was added to the CPU board in all WPC-S games at location U22. This PIC chip was game specific making it so CPU boards could not be swapped between different models without changing the security PIC chip.
- World Cup Soccer - February 1994
- The Flintstones - July 1994
- Corvette - August 1994
- Red & Ted's Road Show - October 1994
- The Shadow - November 1994
- Dirty Harry - March 1995
- Theatre of Magic - March 1995
- No Fear: Dangerous Sports - May 1995
- Indianapolis 500 - June 1995
- Johnny Mnemonic - August 1995
- Jack·Bot - October 1995
- WHO Dunnit - September 1995
WPC-95
In this final revision of the WPC hardware, the dot matrix controller and the DCS sound boards are combined into a single A/V board, while the Power/Driver and the Fliptronics boards are combined into a single Power/Driver board, bringing the board count down to three boards. It also includes the same game-specific security PIC introduced in the WPC-Security system.
- Congo - November 1995
- Attack from Mars - December 1995
- Safecracker - March 1996
- Tales of the Arabian Nights - May 1996
- Scared Stiff - September 1996
- Junk Yard - December 1996
- NBA Fastbreak - March 1997
- Medieval Madness - June 1997
- Cirqus Voltaire - October 1997
- No Good Gofers - December 1997
- The Champion Pub - April 1998
- Monster Bash - July 1998
- Cactus Canyon - October 1998
This generation WPC hardware was also used in the Midway redemption game Ticket Tac Toe, March 1996 and the Shuffle Alley game League Champ Shuffle Alley, 1996.
External links
- Repairing Williams/Bally WPC Pinball Games from 1990 to 1999
- Maddes.net: How To Examine Or Debug A WPC ROM
- WPC LED's explained technical information
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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