Thursday, May 17, 2018

GI AY-3-8605
Ball and Paddle games

AY-3-8605
GI 8246 SAA

(C) 1979 G.I. CORP.
80-30382



2 comments:

  1. I'm currently in the process of highlighting this one. Transistors, vias, and about half of the diffusion layer have been marked so far. I've also identified a few of the "blocks" in it.

    Just above the text in the lower-left is the clock circuitry and the horizontal counter, which is beneath it's vertical counterpart. In the upper-left corner are the score counters, and below that is the score display circuitry. These circuits have almost identical counterparts AY-3-8606 (score=lower-left,clock+counters=upper-right)

    To the right of the upper score counter is the game select/rules PLA, and to the right of that *may* be a clock divider for the sound circuitry. I can't figure out what else is part of the sound system, other than the 12-bit LFSR in the upper-right of the die.

    The lower right quadrant is interesting, it contains 7 shift registers setup as counters. Two of them are 9-bit, the rest are 7-bit. The 7-bit ones track the horizontal position of the 5 game objects (destroyer, cargo ship, sub, depth charge, torpedo), which means the 9-bit counters track vertical position. Wait, why are there only two VRT counters but 5 objects? Because the 3 boats are locked into a single VRT position, only able to move left/right but not up/down so they don't need VRT counters.

    The pads have been labeled here (https://gitlab.com/TheProgrammerIncarnate/chip-processing/blob/master/GIgames/pinouts.jpg) Interestingly, the explosion sound and sonar sound have MUCH bigger driver transistors than all the other sounds for some reason (audible volume maybe?)

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    1. Simulated it! https://nerdstuffbycole.blogspot.com/2019/10/shooter-game-in-silicon-inside-ay-3.html

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