Ask Uncle Willy #9: January 16, 1996


Here's another installment of the Ask Uncle Willy question/answer feature.

Please keep in mind that some of the questions take a bit of research, so
that answers to some questions may not show up right away.  Also, with all
the questions in his mailbox, Uncle Willy gets a bit overwhelmed sometimes.
He does his best to answer all questions of general interest to the group
on rec.games.pinball.

Send all questions and comments to:

         uncle_willy@wms.com

Question:       On Black Knight 2000, why was the artwork changed on some of
                the playfield plastics?

Answer:         Uncle Willy supposes that you were expecting some grand
                conspiracy disclosure or an upper-management declaration as
                explanation for the change.  He is sorry to disappoint you.
                The simple answer is "Just because."  The design team
                decided to change the artwork to better emphasize a
                castle/medieval theme.  (The original plastics sported a
                futuristic high-tech look.)


Question:       What is the exact spelling of the pinball WHO dunnit?  There
                doesn't seem to be a consensus of how to refer to it in
                print.

Answer:         WHO dunnit.  Note that this is how it is spelled on the logo.
                The question-mark/finger print embedded in the logo is not
                considered part of the name.


Question:       I enjoyed the Ask Uncle Willy installment on the DCS sound
                system.  Could you tell me a bit about the earlier sound
                systems used in Williams pinballs?

Answer:         Williams pinballs started using electronically produced
                sound effects in World Cup in 1978.  At that time, the sounds
                were mainly just emulations of those produced by the chimes
                present in previous games.

                The electronic sound board contained a 6808 microprocessor
                (MPU), a digital-to-analog converter (DAC) and an amplifier.
                Due to the limited amount of program storage all the sounds
                were produced algorithmically, rather than being sampled.
                (The sound ROMs for the first few electronic sound games were
                only 512 bytes big.)

                Use of a larger ROM (2K bytes) allowed more varied and "space
                age" sound effects.  However, an option switch enabled the
                selection of the chime emulation sounds.  This option was
                provided because it was feared that the new "space age"
                sounds would not be well-received by the pinball-playing
                public -- they would demand the traditional chime sounds.
                As it turns out, the only thing that the chime functionality
                provided was a small segment of confused customers who
                accidently flipped the option switch and couldn't figure out
                what happened to the cool futuristic sounds.

                With the introduction of the first talking game, Gorgar, a
                speech reproduction circuit was added to the basic sound
                system.  This speech circuit used a CVSD chip.  (CVSD stands
                for Continuously Variable Slope Delta-modulation, a term that
                means something only to a very few techie types.)  The CVSD
                chip allowed for efficient compression of speech data.
                Due to limited ROM space and slow bits rates presented to
                the CVSD chip, however, the speech from those early games is
                fairly low quality.

                The sound system on Williams pinballs remained pretty much
                unchanged, with the exception of allowing more data storage
                in ROM, for many years.  It was this same system that was
                used in the early Williams video games as well.

                Note that, up until the Space Shuttle pinball game, there was
                no "sound designer" on a Williams pinball team.  The sound
                effects, speech and background sounds were all programmed and
                converted by the game programmer.

                The High Speed pinball had a second MPU with a DAC and
                amplifier added to do background music.  Through some tricky
                programming, notes and percussion were produced efficiently
                enough to fit into limited ROM storage space.

                Starting with the Road Kings pinball, an FM synthesis chip
                was added to the electronic sound system.  This allowed the
                design teams to include music and more sound effects in
                their games.  This chip was controlled by a second CPU.

                It is beyond the scope of this brief history to enumerate the
                various sound system configurations used over the years, but
                the Williams sound system remained conceptually the same
                until the introduction of DCS for the Indiana Jones pinball
                game.  The system included those components outlined above:
                one or two MPUs, ROM, DAC, CVSD chip, FM chip, and an
                amplifier.

                The CVSD chip was basically used for speech and a few sound
                effects (it is pretty good at reproducing explosions
                efficiently).  The FM chip was used for tunes, fanfares and
                most of the sound effects.  The DAC was used for a few sound
                effects, some speech (The "Welcome, race fans, to Banzai 
                Run" quote was produced by the DAC, for example.), and for
                drums that accompany the music.  Note that the DAC was used
                to reproduce straight sampled sounds in most cases, and its
                use had to be limited since those samples consumed a fair
                amount of storage.  (No compression was used, as is now done
                with the DCS system.)

                Note that the Twilight Zone pinball makes extensive use of
                digitally sampled sounds reproduced by the DAC, probably more
                so than any other Williams/Bally pinball.  This is because
                the DCS system was originally planned for use with Twilight
                Zone.  Late in the development of that game the sound system
                had to be switched to the older system because the DCS
                system would not be ready in time for production.  Since many
                of the sound effects had already been finalized and inserted
                into the game, they were simply sampled again for the older
                system.  (The music had to be rearranged to be played by
                the FM chip.)


Question:       In sound test on Star Trek: The Next Generation, there is a
                quote from Troi saying "I believe they have evil intentions."
                Is this quote used anywhere in the game?

Answer:         No.  Marina Sirtis, who plays Troi, asked that the quote
                not be used.  However, the sound ROMs and the sound test
                script were finalized early on in the design.  While the
                sound call was removed from use during game play, it was
                overlooked in the sound test script.


Question:       In the Indiana Jones pinball, how are the SPECIALS lit?
                Also, my game has a lamp labeled "Lite Jackpot" above the
                left ramp.  I have never seen this lamp light.  When is it
                used?

Answer:         During Quick Two Ball (started from the captive ball), hit
                the captive ball to collect different jackpot awards.  The
                seven award (after "Fish of Tales") lights the specials.

                The "Lite Jackpot" lamp is used during regular 3-ball
                multiball.  Note that the lamp is actually a flasher.  It
                may be burned out on your game.
                

Question:       Could you tell me the design credits for John Trudeau?

Answer:         John Trudeau, who is also known as "Doctor Flash", started
                working in the pinball industry for Game Plan in 1979.  While
                there, he designed Attila the Hun, although it wasn't
                actually produced until after he left to work for Gottlieb
                in 1981.

                While at Gottlieb (which, due to several reorganizations,
                shutdowns, buyouts, etc., also did business as Mylstar and,
                most recently, Premier Technologies) Mr. Trudeau designed the
                following games:

                Rocky, Spirit, Striker, Q*bert's Quest, Krull, The Games,
                Alien Star, Touchdown, Ice Fever, Chicago Cubs Triple Play,
                Tag-Team Pinball, Rock, Raven, Hollywood Heat, Genesis,
                Gold Wings, Monte Carlo, Spring Break, Victory, TX-Sector,
                Robo-War, Excalibur, Night Moves (a cocktail pinball licensed
                to International Concepts), Silver Slugger, Deadly Weapon,
                Caribbean Cruise (another cocktail pinball licensed to
                International Concepts).

                In 1990, Mr. Trudeau joined the Williams/Bally pinball group.
                Since then he has designed the following games:

                Bugs Bunny's Birthday Ball, The Machine: Bride of Pinbot
                (co-designed with Python Anghelo), Black Rose, Creature from
                the Black Lagoon, Judge Dredd, Flintstones, Congo.


Question:       I have heard some rumors about some classic Williams video
                games being available for the PC.  Is this true?  Where can
                I buy it?

Answer:         Yes.  Williams Entertainment, through GT Interactive
                Software, has released an Arcade Classics CD-ROM for the PC.
                The arcade games included in this collection are:  Defender,
                Joust, Robotron 2084, Bubbles, Defender II (formerly known as
                Stargate), and Sinistar.

                These versions for the PC contain the program code from the
                original arcade games.  The PC is actually used to emulate
                the old video game hardware to ensure a "true to life"
                implementation of those classic games.  The sounds are
                digitally sampled from the original material, also, so they
                sound just like the originals.

                Uncle Willy is not sure of all the outlets selling this
                title, but he did see it on sale at Best Buy several weeks
                ago.


All text and images © 1996 Williams Electronics Games, Inc.

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