The Williams Pinball Controller (WPC) is an arcade system board platform used for several

pinball Pinball games are a family of games in which a ball is propelled into a specially designed table where it bounces off various obstacles, scoring points either en route or when it comes to rest. Historically the board was studded with nails call ...

games designed by Williams and Midway (under the ''

Bally Bally may refer to: Places *Bally, a historical spelling of Bali *Bally (from the Irish ''baile'') or townland, a traditional division of land, as well as a common prefix in the names of settlements throughout Ireland *Bally, Bally-Jagachha, a c ...

'' name) between 1990 and early 1999. It is the successor to their earlier System 11 hardware ('' High Speed'', ''

Pin*Bot ''Pin-Bot'' (styled ''PIN•BOT'') is a pinball machine released by Williams in October 1986. It was designed by Python Anghelo and Barry Oursler. Rules The main objective of ''Pin-Bot'' is to advance through the planets of the Solar System, ...

'', ''

Black Knight 2000 ''Black Knight 2000'' is a 1989 pinball game designed by Steve Ritchie (who also provides the Knight's voice) and released by Williams Electronics. The game is the sequel to the 1980 pinball machine ''Black Knight''. It was advertised with the ...

''). It was succeeded by Williams/Midway's

Pinball 2000 Pinball 2000 was the last pinball hardware and software platform developed by major pinball manufacturer Williams, and was used in the machines '' Revenge From Mars'' (under the brand name Bally) and '' Star Wars Episode I'' (under the brand nam ...

platform, before Williams left the pinball business in October 1999. ''

FunHouse A funhouse or fun house is an amusement facility found on amusement park and funfair midways and is where patrons encounter and interact with various devices designed to surprise, challenge, and amuse them. Unlike thrill rides or dark rides, f ...

'' (designed by

Pat Lawlor Patrick M. Lawlor (born November 30, 1951) is a video game and pinball machine designer. Pat Lawlor had originally been a video game designer and had entered the coin-operated game design industry in 1980, working for Dave Nutting Associates. ...

) was the first production game to use WPC, although there are prototype Dr. Dude machines that use WPC.

Hardware info

WPC systems contain several separate printed circuit boards that are characterized by: *Main CPU:

Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American Multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company split into two independent p ...

6809 The Motorola 6809 ("''sixty-eight-oh-nine''") is an 8-bit microprocessor with some 16-bit features. It was designed by Motorola's Terry Ritter and Joel Boney and introduced in 1978. Although source compatible with the earlier Motorola 6800, the ...

at 2 MHz, 8KB of RAM, and between 128KB and 1MB of EPROM for the game program *WPC ASIC: Williams-proprietary 68-pin PLCC custom chip that implements functions like address decoding, real time clock, and watchdog *Sound CPU:

(''Pre-DCS''), Analog Devices ADSP2105 (''DCS'') *Sound chips (''Pre-DCS''):

Yamaha YM2151 The Yamaha YM2151, also known as OPM (FM Operator Type-M) is an eight-channel, four-operator sound chip. It was Yamaha's first single-chip FM synthesis implementation, being created originally for some of the Yamaha DX series of keyboards (DX21, ...

, MP7524JN 8-bit- DAC, Harris HC55536

CVSD Continuously variable slope delta modulation (CVSD or CVSDM) is a voice coding method. It is a delta modulation with variable step size (i.e., special case of adaptive delta modulation), first proposed by Greefkes and Riemens in 1970. CVSD encode ...

*Operating system: APPLE OS (created by Williams, not related to the company Apple, but "Advanced Pinball Programming Logic Executive")

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)

*''

'' - September 1990 *''

Harley-Davidson Harley-Davidson, Inc. (H-D, or simply Harley) is an American motorcycle manufacturer headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States. Founded in 1903, it is one of two major American motorcycle manufacturers to survive the Great Depressi ...

'' - February 1991 *'' The Machine: Bride of Pin·Bot'' - February 1991 Some '' Dr. Dude'' machines were also made using this WPC generation, although most were still made using the System 11 board.

WPC (Dot Matrix)

*''

Gilligan's Island ''Gilligan's Island'' is an American sitcom created and produced by Sherwood Schwartz. The show's ensemble cast features Bob Denver, Alan Hale Jr., Jim Backus, Natalie Schafer, Tina Louise, Russell Johnson and Dawn Wells. It aired for thr ...

'' - May 1991 *'' Terminator 2: Judgment Day'' - July 1991 *''

Hurricane A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system characterized by a low-pressure center, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain and squalls. Depend ...

'' - August 1991 *''

The Party Zone ''The Party Zone'' is a crossover solid-state pinball machine released in 1991 by Midway (under Bally) designed by Dennis Nordman and programmed by Jim Strompolis. It is in a single playfield format and collaborates characters from previous pi ...

'' - 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 the ''SlugFest'' 1991 baseball card dispenser game, in the ''Hot Shot'' basketball game (designed 1991, produced 1994), as well as in the first shuffle alley game ''Strike Master'', 1991.

WPC (Fliptronics)

*'' The Getaway: High Speed II'' - February 1992 *''

The Addams Family ''The Addams Family'' is a fictional family created by American cartoonist Charles Addams. They originally appeared in a series of 150 unrelated single-panel cartoons, about half of which were originally published in ''The New Yorker'' over ...

'' - March 1992 *''

Black Rose Black Rose or Black Roses may refer to: Books * Black Rose (.hack), a fictional character from the .hack media franchise * Black Rose (magazine), ''Black Rose'' (magazine), an anarchist magazine published in Boston during the 1970s and 1980s * Bla ...

'' - July 1992 *''

Doctor Who ''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series depicts the adventures of a Time Lord called the Doctor, an extraterrestrial being who appears to be human. The Doctor explores the u ...

'' - September 1992 *'' Fish Tales'' - October 1992 *''

Creature from the Black Lagoon ''Creature from the Black Lagoon'' is a 1954 American black-and-white 3D monster horror film produced by William Alland and directed by Jack Arnold, from a screenplay by Harry Essex and Arthur Ross and a story by Maurice Zimm. It stars ...

'' - December 1992 *''

White Water Whitewater forms in a rapid context, in particular, when a river's gradient changes enough to generate so much turbulence that air is trapped within the water. This forms an unstable current that froths, making the water appear opaque and w ...

'' - January 1993 *'' Bram Stoker's Dracula'' - March 1993 *'' Twilight Zone'' - March 1993 *'' The Addams Family Special Collectors Edition'' - October 1994 ''

'' 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 Judge Joseph Dredd is a fictional character created by writer John Wagner and artist Carlos Ezquerra. He first appeared in the second issue of ''2000 AD (comics), 2000 AD'' (1977), which is a British weekly anthology Comic book, comic. He is the ...

'' - September 1993 *'' Star Trek: The Next Generation'' - November 1993 *''

Popeye Saves the Earth ''Popeye Saves The Earth'' is a 1994 widebody pinball game designed by Python Anghelo and Barry Oursler and released by WMS Industries under the '' Bally'' label. It is based on the ''Popeye'' comic/cartoon characters licensed from King Features ...

'' - 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 The FIFA World Cup, often simply called the World Cup, is an international association football competition between the senior men's national teams of the members of the ' ( FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The tournament has been ...

'', 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. *''

'' - February 1994 *''

The Flintstones ''The Flintstones'' is an American animated sitcom produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions. The series takes place in a romanticized Stone Age setting and follows the activities of the titular family, the Flintstones, and their next-door neighb ...

'' - July 1994 *''

Corvette A corvette is a small warship. It is traditionally the smallest class of vessel considered to be a proper (or " rated") warship. The warship class above the corvette is that of the frigate, while the class below was historically that of the slo ...

'' - August 1994 *''

Red & Ted's Road Show ''Red & Ted's Road Show'' (also known as ''Road Show'') is a 1994 widebody pinball game designed by Pat Lawlor and released by Williams. It is part of WMS' ''SuperPin'' line of widebody games. Country singer Carlene Carter provided the voice of ...

'' - October 1994 *''

The Shadow The Shadow is a fictional character created by magazine publishers Street & Smith and writer Walter B. Gibson. Originally created to be a mysterious radio show narrator, and developed into a distinct literary character in 1931 by writer Walter ...

'' - November 1994 *''

Dirty Harry ''Dirty Harry'' is a 1971 American neo-noir action thriller film produced and directed by Don Siegel, the first in the ''Dirty Harry'' series. Clint Eastwood plays the title role, in his first outing as San Francisco Police Department (SFP ...

'' - March 1995 *'' Theatre of Magic'' - March 1995 *'' No Fear: Dangerous Sports'' - May 1995 *''

Indianapolis 500 The Indianapolis 500, formally known as the Indianapolis 500-Mile Race, and commonly called the Indy 500, is an annual automobile race held at Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS) in Speedway, Indiana, United States, an enclave suburb of Indi ...

'' - June 1995 *''

Johnny Mnemonic "Johnny Mnemonic" is a science fiction short story by American-Canadian writer William Gibson. It first appeared in '' Omni'' magazine in May 1981, and was subsequently included in ''Burning Chrome'', a 1986 collection of Gibson's short fiction. ...

'' - August 1995 *'' Jack·Bot'' - October 1995 *''

WHO Dunnit ''Who Dunnit'' is a Midway pinball machine with a 1940s style and a murder mystery theme. The playfield features up to five different murder mysteries by revealing clues by sending the ball to an elevator, phone, or slot machine. The machine a ...

'' - 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 Safe-cracking is the process of opening a safe without either the combination or the key. Physical methods Different procedures may be used to crack a safe, depending on its construction. Different procedures are required to open different safes ...

'' - March 1996 *'' Tales of the Arabian Nights'' - May 1996 *'' Scared Stiff'' - September 1996 *''

Junk Yard Junk may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Junk'' (film), a 2000 Japanese horror film * '' J-U-N-K'', a 1920 American film * ''Junk'' (novel), by Melvin Burgess, 1996 * ''Junk'', a novel by Christopher Largen Music Groups * Junk (band), a ...

'' - December 1996 *''

NBA Fastbreak ''NBA Tonight'' is a National Basketball Association studio program that airs on ESPN. The program used to air as part of ESPN's ''The Trifecta''. Formerly known as ''NBA 2Night'' and NBA Fastbreak, the program, hosted by various ESPN personalities ...

'' - March 1997 *''

Medieval Madness ''Medieval Madness'' is a Williams pinball machine released in June 1997. Designed by Brian Eddy and programmed by Lyman Sheats, it had a production run of 4,016 units. As of April 3, 2022, the Pinside pinball community lists it as the #2 hi ...

'' - June 1997 *''

Cirqus Voltaire ''Cirqus Voltaire'' is a 1997 pinball game, designed by John Popadiuk and released by Williams Electronics Games (under the ''Bally Manufacturing, Bally'' label). The theme involves the player performing many different marvels in order to join th ...

'' - October 1997 *'' No Good Gofers'' - December 1997 *''

The Champion Pub ''The Champion Pub'' is a pinball game released by Williams Electronics Games (under the Bally label) in 1998. The theme of the game revolves around boxing in a 1920s pub. Description The playfield of ''The Champion Pub'' features several toys ...

'' - April 1998 *'' Monster Bash'' - July 1998 *''

Cactus Canyon Bally Manufacturing, later renamed Bally Entertainment, was an American company that began as a pinball and slot machine manufacturer, and later expanded into casinos, video games, health clubs, and theme parks. It was acquired by Hilton Hotel ...

'' - October 1998 This generation WPC hardware was also used in the ticket redemption game '' Ticket Tac Toe'', March 1996, the token payout game ''Phantom Haus'', 1996, and the shuffle alley game ''League Champ,'' 1996.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Repairing Williams/Bally WPC Pinball Games from 1990 to 1999
Arcade system boards WMS Industries Pinball platforms