Firepower

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Manufacturer	System	Year	Model	Produced
Williams	System 6	Feb 1980	497	17,410

IPDB.org page for Firepower

Notable Features: Sound (Type 2) and Speech / First game to feature 'Lane Change' activated by pressing the flipper button / First SS multiball game / First animated displays / CPU controlled lighted pop bumpers.

Firepower Playing Tips and Rule Sheet

Check out FirePowerPinball.com Rules Sheet

Firepower Sounds recorded from Sound Self Test

Firepower Sounds all possible sounds triggered manually from the Sound and Speech boards.

Firepower Shop Guide

1 System 3-7 Specific Issues

See Williams_System_3_-_7#Problems_and_Fixes

2 Game-Specific Issues

See FirePowerPinball.com for Firepower history and related information.

Click on the links to learn about the more complex problems that this era of games faces.

3 Modifying a System 6 or 6A to Use The Firepower 2732 Combo ROM at IC14

Cuts made, jumper run, and 4.7Kohm resistor added

2 1N4148 diodes added where jumpers J3 & J4 previously were

The factory ROMs for Firepower use all 6 ROM socket positions on a System 6 or 6A board. To minimize the amount of chips / sockets used, some modifications have to be performed to the MPU board. In doing these modifications, the board will then be able to use to "standard" green flipper ROM chips at IC20 & IC17, and a single 2732 combo ROM at position IC14. Below are instructions pulled from the readme.txt file, which is included with the Firepower L2 ROM code found on www.ipdb.org. Some of it has been slightly modified for clarification purposes only.

There are other similar methods which may or may not work besides this method. Note that the jumper wire can be run from IC14 pin 21 to either IC30 pin 14 or pin 37 of the header interconnect. If at all possible, please make certain that the board being modified boots / works with other game code, such as Gorgar,Flash, or Firepower, before attempting to make any modifications for the Firepower combo ROM.

1. Remove any Game ROMs (IC14, IC21, IC22, IC26) from their sockets.
2. Remove any jumpers at J3 or J4 (to the right of IC15, a 74LS139).
3. On the back of the board, at IC14 pin 21, cut a notch in the heavy circuit trace on both sides of the pin. Removing some of the existing solder on the trace may help. The idea is to get rid of the +5V connection to the pin, while still leaving an intact solder pad at the pin itself.
4. On the back of the board, run a small jumper wire from IC14 pin 21 to IC30 pin 14. IC30 is generally not installed; it is the 16-pin chip outline just to the right of IC14 and just above the interboard connector. Solder the wire through the hole at pin 14 of the empty IC30 location, and to pin 21 of IC14, making sure not to short it to the other side of the trace you cut at IC14. This brings A11 to IC14.
5. On the back of the board, install a 4.7K ohm, 1/4 Watt resistor between pins 20 and 24 of IC14. With the resistor leads bent at 90 degrees at a comfortable distance from the body of the resistor,they should line up at just the right spacing to solder one lead to each of those pins. Again, make sure not to short the pin 20 connection to the jumper wire at pin 21, or the cut trace edges around pin 21. This provides a pullup for the active-low chip select.
6. Install two small-signal diodes (example part numbers are 1N914 and 1N4148; the same sort of diode used in the switch matrix) at locations J3 and J4. The cathode (banded) end should be towards the TOP of the board for both diodes. This allows either of the two Game ROM address ranges to drive the active-low chip select at IC14.
7. Program a 2732 with the "FPCOMBO" ROM data and install at IC14. If the game doesn't already have working Green-label ROMs at IC17 and IC20 you should of course install those too.

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