A little over a year ago I bought two of Pascal Janin's Gottlieb System 1 replacement boards. For one game I got the stand alone CPU as I had scored a NIB power supply and driver board. For the other game I got the all in one board - this has the CPU, power supply and driver board combined into a single board.
Last night I went over to my mates place for a party. He's got my Joker Poker with the CPU only version. I haven't been there since I dropped the game off (we see each other each week for footy so don't tend to visit much otherwise).
It dawned on me just how good that system is - the game was still in perfect working condition (I'll need to get over with some novus and some rubbers though) and has not missed a single beat. It got played the whole night by adults and kids (it was never not being played) and it just performed flawlessly. Of course I did re-pin every connector which adds to the reliability, but it reminded me just how good the Pascal boards are. I have one in my Asteroid Annie (alas, packed away at the moment) and that was flawless too until she was packed away.
The boards allow the user to play under identical rules to the original, or a big selection off improvements, and a "wizard" setting which enables all of the relevant extra things in one setting - vastly improved light show, a skill shot, free play and every bug or issue with the original code fixed. The displays are even used as a basic alpha numeric (some of the letters are a stretch, but it works really well). A whole bunch of diagnostics not found in these old games is of course provided.
And you don't need the original ROM - Pascal has written every code for every system 1 game onto the unit, so you simply select which game using the credit switch when you first install it, and it stays that game unless changed.
So if you ever come across a system 1 with a faulty or missing CPU (and it's basically impossible to repair the CPU if the spider chip is fried) then never hesitate if you like the game - these boards are fantastic!
