I have some arcade boards made by the bankrupt Bally/Midway company. There
are a number of custom chips that say MIDWAY on them. I am wondering if
these were completely made from the ground up specificly for these games or
if they are somewhat generic chips with the Midway printed on them. I would
think it would be easier to just buy someone elses chips but maybe someone
could shed some light on the process that goes into building these boards.
I know some of it is because of security but that is what the PAL chips are
for? Do they make their own chips so people won't be able to copy the whole
boards? because they don't have those MIDWAY chips? I don't think to many
people copy the whole boards, do they? I am hoping they are somewhat
generic so I can track down some place that has the same chip under a
different name.
Thanks for the thoughts

I also have some!! I think some are common chips as in z80's with the
numbers scratched off and some are unique to the game. Which chips are you
looking for?
"russ lavergne" wrote in message
news:HMojf.5301$3x2.4138@trnddc07...
I have some arcade boards made by the bankrupt Bally/Midway company. There
are a number of custom chips that say MIDWAY on them. I am wondering if
these were completely made from the ground up specificly for these games or
if they are somewhat generic chips with the Midway printed on them. I
would think it would be easier to just buy someone elses chips but maybe
someone could shed some light on the process that goes into building these
boards. I know some of it is because of security but that is what the PAL
chips are for? Do they make their own chips so people won't be able to
copy the whole boards? because they don't have those MIDWAY chips? I don't
think to many people copy the whole boards, do they? I am hoping they are
somewhat generic so I can track down some place that has the same chip
under a different name.
Thanks for the thoughts

Midway did use alot of CUSTOM chips. For example GALAGA, it uses about 8
CUSTOMS which are marked with 4 digit #s eg... 05xx, 60xx... These are not
crossed over. They are true customs.
There is a guy that has bee reverse engineering the custom chips and has a
few for sale on his web site. Somewhere around $25 each.
There are the smaller BiPolar PROMS. These are just standard programmed
BiProms. The only problem is that those PROM types are no longer
manufactured.
Some guys do have some old stock though.

"russ lavergne" wrote in message
news:HMojf.5301$3x2.4138@trnddc07...
I have some arcade boards made by the bankrupt Bally/Midway company. There
are a number of custom chips that say MIDWAY on them. I am wondering if
these were completely made from the ground up specificly for these games or
if they are somewhat generic chips with the Midway printed on them. I
would think it would be easier to just buy someone elses chips but maybe
someone could shed some light on the process that goes into building these
boards. I know some of it is because of security but that is what the PAL
chips are for? Do they make their own chips so people won't be able to
copy the whole boards? because they don't have those MIDWAY chips? I don't
think to many people copy the whole boards, do they? I am hoping they are
somewhat generic so I can track down some place that has the same chip
under a different name.
Thanks for the thoughts

try contacting Rick Schieve who does a lot of video game repair at:

Try the Arcade game newsgroup.. There is all sorts of people who know how to
fix arcade boards there.

rec.games.video.arcade.collecting

russ lavergne wrote:
I have some arcade boards made by the bankrupt Bally/Midway company. There
are a number of custom chips that say MIDWAY on them. I am wondering if
these were completely made from the ground up specificly for these games or
if they are somewhat generic chips with the Midway printed on them. I would
think it would be easier to just buy someone elses chips but maybe someone
could shed some light on the process that goes into building these boards.
I know some of it is because of security but that is what the PAL chips are
for? Do they make their own chips so people won't be able to copy the whole
boards? because they don't have those MIDWAY chips? I don't think to many
people copy the whole boards, do they? I am hoping they are somewhat
generic so I can track down some place that has the same chip under a
different name.
Thanks for the thoughts




They're custom designed chips, you can get replacements here
http://www.arcadeshop.com/parts.htm#HSS

I don't know offhand if these are used pulls, or new replicas using
FPGA's but both are available.