Hardware Identification
Welcome to the main hardware identification repository, here you will find a collection of images and technical data for PCBs collected into sets for a particular game variant. Each PCB will also have notes on compatibility with other games or variants of the same game and links to schematics, SLICE projects and technical articles where available.
If you have any relevant PCBs that I do not have here I would be grateful if you would be able to take good quality photographs of both sides of them or loan them to me so that I can add them here.
The Defender early series boardset is limited to upright games only, the CPU and Interface boards cannot be used in a Cocktail game as they lack the hardware for screen rotation and player 2 controls.
The ROM, Sound and Power Supply boards can be used in upright or cocktail games and with the exception of the cocktail game restriction they can all be mixed freely with later series boards.
Defender boards cannot be used in any other game.
The Defender later series boardset imporves on the early series boards and adds the capability to play defender in a cocktail cabinet. All boards can be used in upright or cocktail games and can all be mixed freely with early series boards.
Defender boards cannot be used in any other game.
The Stargate boardset builds on the Defender boardset but has a different memory map so is not compatible with Defender boards. The ROM board is unique to Stargate but the other boards can all be used with later generation games.
The Robotron boardset is identical to that used in Joust and Splat! Additionally Stargate will run on this boardset with or without the Special Chips fitted to the ROM board.
Note that Joust/Robotron use Special Chip 1 and Splat! uses Special Chip 2 on the ROM board.
