Hyperball

Manufacturer	System	Year	Model	Produced
Williams	System 7	Dec 1981	509	4,500

IPDB.org page for Hyperball

Notable Features: Sound (Type 2) / Fires up to 4 balls per second, and uses 3/4" 'pinballs' (uses 55 total) / No Flippers / Playfield is made of Acrylic Plastic. Some playfields are flat. Later production playfields are bowed so that balls that miss roll back at the edges of the playfields, allowing more clear shots from the hyper cannon.

• Designer is Steve Ritchie
• Normal System 7 MPU Board with special jumper settings
• Custom Driver Board which is not compatible with other games

1 Hyperball Playing Tips and Rule Sheet

Playing Hyperball on factory settings can be a very quick game and really, not much fun. But, change the game to these improved settings, originally suggested by Mark Schneider and the game is much, much more fun.

For convenience, the "improved settings" table has been replicated below.

Function	Description	Recommended	Factory
29	Number of Plum Bob Tilts	06	03
30	Energy Center (standard play)	03	02
31	Additional Energy centers (extended play)	05	03
32	Reflex Wave Difficulty (00 = Easy, 09 = Hard)	00	05
33	Extra Energy Center Award Level (02 = 200,000 etc)	03	04
34	Initial Bolt Speed (How Fast Bolts Attack, 00 = Hard, 40 = Easy)	28	12
35	Bolt Feed Rate (How many bolts attack at once, 00 = Easy, 09 = Hard)	00	05
36	Flashing Bolt Initial Difficulty (How Often the Flashing Bolts "The Baiter" Appears, 00=Easy, 09=Hard)	00	05

Note: the Hyperball documentation incorrectly states the setting values for functions 32 and 35. Easy and Hard are reversed in the documentation. Also, functions 37 through 41 are not used.

1.1 Hyperball Shop Guide

Ed Cheung has an excellent Hyperball "improvement guide" located here.

1.2 Ball Collection System Images

• Various images of a <b
• 

  Auger assembly
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1.3 Hypercannon and Ball Auger Power Board

The Hypercannon Shooter power supply and Auger Motor control board.

The board pictured at left rectifies AC power to produce the 120VDC that drives the Hypercannon coil via a beefy MJ10000 darlington transistor. An MJ10001 can be substituted and works perfectly fine.

Also on the board, a simple opto-isolator circuit controls power to the ball lift auger motor.

1.4 Miscellaneous Notes and Improvements

The Hyperball shooter coil, normally 11 ohms of resistance.

The image at left shows the proper configuration for the shooter coil. Note that a washer has been added to the top "post" on the shooter coil. This helps raise the actuation arm up slightly to prevent binding on the screw heads.

Shimming either/both sides of the ball collection tray helps return balls to the auger.

Over time, the ball collection tray wears into the cabinet supports. Shimming them with the material of your choice can encourage the balls to return to the auger better.

The ball collection board must be BEHIND the black fascia board.

Playfield reinsertion is nearly impossible unless the ball collection tray is positioned properly. As shown at left, it must be behind the fascia board.

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