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Part 18: 1985 Pinstar Gamatron Project. Speech successfully installed!

Pinball Shenanigans·video·28m 43s·analyzed·Dec 8, 2025
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.021

TL;DR

Gamatron speech board successfully installed and tested after repair service.

Summary

Mike Dus successfully installs a repaired speech board into his 1985 Pinstar Gamatron pinball machine after sending it to board repair specialist Brent Butler. The speech functionality now works, allowing the machine to make callouts like 'Prepare for ignition,' 'Blast off,' and other themed phrases. The episode documents the wiring installation process, testing, and final hardwiring of a connector terminal.

Key Claims

  • Brent Butler, a board repair specialist in Ontario/Canada, is retiring in a couple of weeks

    high confidence · Mike Dus announces this news directly in the video, noting Butler was a go-to source for fast, efficient, reasonably-priced board repair work with manageable shipping costs

  • The speech board repair cost $65 plus shipping

    high confidence · Mike states this directly while reviewing the board after installation, then mentions Corey covered the shipping cost

  • The repaired speech board included replacement of U8 and U9 sockets, U9 2716 programmed chip, and capacitors C25, C3C, C6C9, and C11

    high confidence · Mike reads Brent Butler's repair notes on camera

  • Dave Brennan provided detailed wiring instructions for installing the speech board

    high confidence · Mike gives a shout-out to Dave Brennan for sending information on how to wire the speech board

  • A visitor named Dave from Tennessee came to buy Mike's Viper machine and was considering purchasing the Gamatron but ultimately did not

    high confidence · Mike describes Dave driving from Tennessee across multiple states, spending 10 hours to reach London, Ontario, and being close to buying the Gamatron but ultimately deciding against it

Notable Quotes

  • “Brent is retiring uh like in a couple weeks. So, that is our go-to source for board repair work in Canada that is fast, efficient, reasonably priced, and uh shipping ain't so bad. And uh this is going to be uh traumatic for everybody in Ontario and Canada that was using Brent.”

    Mike Dus @ Early in video — Highlights impact of losing a key community resource for board repair services in Canada

  • “That is awesome. All right, let's uh see if I can get some other speech call outs by hitting like the drop target.”

    Mike Dus @ During testing after boot-up — First successful test of the speech board functionality

  • “That is amazing. I am so glad I didn't sell this before getting to experience that. That just completes the game.”

    Mike Dus @ After successful speech functionality test — Expresses satisfaction with the completed restoration and speech board addition

  • “I don't know how many talking Game Gamatrons are out there, but I am definitely glad that I have one.”

    Mike Dus @ At conclusion of video — Reflects on rarity of a speech-equipped Gamatron in the pinball community

Entities

Mike DuspersonBrent ButlerpersonDave BrennanpersonCoreypersonDave (Tennessee)personKevinpersonBarrypersonPinstar GamatrongameStern VSSU-100productFlight 2000game

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Community members like Corey provide board repair and parts services with flexible payment terms

    high · Mike notes that Corey offered to charge shipping costs but then waived them when Mike asked to pay, demonstrating informal support network within pinball community

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Brent Butler, a key board repair specialist in Canada, is retiring in a couple of weeks

    high · Direct announcement by Mike Dus describing Butler as 'our go-to source for board repair work in Canada that is fast, efficient, reasonably priced' and noting his retirement will be 'traumatic for everybody in Ontario and Canada that was using Brent'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Speech functionality successfully added to Pinstar Gamatron through board repair and installation

    high · Mike successfully tests multiple speech callouts including 'Prepare for ignition,' 'Blast off,' 'Second stage go,' and 'Commence count' after board installation

Transcript

youtube_auto_sub · $0.000

0:02
Instars Gamatron now with speech. Prepare for ignition. off. I'm Mike Dus [music] and this is Pinball Shenanigans.
0:39
Well, I thought I was done with my Gamatron series and machine until I decided that I would try and add speech to it. So, I did a bonus episode where I attempted to do that, but I ran into uh an issue with the speech board. It was just not working properly. So, I sent out the board to our board repair guy, Brent Butler. And just on a quick side note, got some bad news. Brent is retiring uh like in a couple weeks. So, that is our go-to source for board repair work in Canada that is fast, efficient, reasonably priced, and uh shipping ain't so bad. And uh this is going to be uh traumatic for everybody in Ontario and Canada that was using Brent. So I don't know what to do. But anyway, Brent may be done forever. Very sad. But I did send my speech board to him. I've got it back and I'm going to try and install it and see what happens. And uh say hello to Barry. He's been hanging out here for a few days till we find you your new home. Right, buddy? We've been doing a bunch of videos together lately. So, people like Barry, they've been saying hi to you and uh giving you shout outs. So, when you want to play on the stairs, Barry has like sharpest claws in the universe. And I if he pokes me with one of them, I'll just be red and itchy. And uh so I I got to stay away from that. You're cleaning off the dust out of the corners of my stairs there, buddy. Thank you. All right, I'm going to get back to Gamatron. Oh, yeah. Check this out. I'm always adding cool stuff. Look at these cool gotly pop bumper caps. And I found a good spot for them on the lamp shade here so that you can uh the light shines through them. How cool are these? I don't know what game that's from, but always adding stuff. Anyway, I'm gonna show you the speech board. Okay, I've got it here. Um, first, let's have a look at the notes that Brent sent. Let's put on some glasses so we can read said notes. Okay, Stern VSSU-100 vocalizer. So he replaced the U8 socket, U9 socket, replaced U9 2716 programmed chip, replaced C25 capacitor, replace C3C 6C9 C11, and that was basically it. So let's open this up and see what it looks like. Another quick shout out to Dave Brennan who kindly sent me all of the information on how to wire up the speech board. Got the wiring basically done. You can I can hear Barry in the background. I don't know if you can, but he wants to be a part of the action. All right, so here we go. New caps here. This guy. These guys. this guy. New chip here. And uh I guess this new socket and this new socket. So I've got all the wiring sort of temporarily in place. There's just one wire I'm going to have to uh do if this actually works. So thanks again, Brent, for all your services over the years. Maybe in in very serious desperate scenarios, we can call upon you. All right, I'll let you uh watch me struggle fight with this cuz uh it's in a very awkward tight spot. I did bring the speech board over out of the bag and set it down on the glass and remembered these are very static sensitive and um setting it on the side rail is probably not a good idea. So, who knows? [clears throat] Maybe I blew it up before I even installed it. Got to be careful with that. So, when uh Dave from Tennessee came here uh a couple weeks ago to buy my Viper, yes, he drove from Tennessee. He was picking up a bunch of other stuff in like three other states, too. Um so, he didn't just come all the way from Tennessee to London, Ontario, which I think on paper is a solid 10-hour drive. Anyway, he was kind of contemplating buying this gamutron. So, I kind of like zip tied up the sound connector that I made just so that it wasn't confusing, right? And have all this extra wires hanging there. So, he is he didn't take Gamatron home with him. It was close though. And I was a little bit sad cuz I had the board sent out to Brent and I wanted to see if I get the speech, not the sound, but the speech. And I wouldn't have been able to do that if he did take Gamatron, but who knows? Dave may be back. We shall see. So, the other unknown quantity is this cable that I'm going to use. I don't even know for sure if it's good, but I have more. Worse comes to worse. Let's zoom out a little bit here. Okay. So, how do I do this again?
Pinball Shenanigans
organization
Grazley Garageorganization
6:49
Does this one go on the top or the bottom? Can't remember now. I think it was the top. I'm going to have to go back to Dave Brennan's notes here. Yeah. Before I screw that up, let me just go double check. This cable goes either here or here. So, I don't want to screw that up. One moment. Okay. This ribbon cable, it does go to the top connector.
7:25
Was it one pin too long? Yeah, it was one pin too long. Okay. Just got to remember where pin one is. So, this here needs to go on pin one.
7:48
which is the bottom. So, like so. I really should nestle this into position like that. And then the rightmost pin. You know what? Let's get this right out of the way. Then put this connector on [clears throat] first. So this was like this. So pin one is
8:22
the white red wire. So that's got to go like this there. And then this has got to go like this.
8:41
All right. Am I blocking your view? Or can you see all this nonsense?
8:48
And then this other connector I made here. It's got to go right here. Well, I put in a key in it. Good job, me. Because now I can't put it on upside down.
9:08
And then this is the one wire that I need to um install into this connector here if things work. But I was having a hard time removing the uh or did I even try? I I just have a hard time with those round terminals. But I got a tool now. So, if the sound works or speech works, then I might actually be able to put this wire where it needs to go. So, I think I had this clipped on the back box somewhere around here.
9:58
I think it is just basically um general illumination power. So
10:08
that's basically it. Now I can't have the soundboard really resting on the metal plate here. So I'm just going to go double check that this wire goes here. Make sure that's not grounding out on anything and then we'll give it a test. Barry, you're doing a great job watching over things. Keep up the good work. Hi, Paw. [crying] I love how this machine turned out, by the way. It is just beautiful. All right. So, are you ready to prepare for mission if all goes according to plan? Hopefully, that will be the first thing we hear once this thing boots up. So, fingers crossed. Volume should be good. All right. Three. Wait, no. Five. Four. Three, two, one, blast off.
11:20
Oh, please. It looks like it's going to boot up. That's good cuz it wasn't booting up last time. Speechboard was causing the MPU to fail. I believe I don't even think we got past like three flashes. We're in attract mode.
11:43
All right, Barry, what do you think? I hear you. Where'd you go? Did you go up there again? I just hit my head. Oh, yeah. There he is. Barry, you're supposed to be watching over things. Okay, let's see what happens.
12:14
We have speech, boys and girls. That is awesome. All right, let's uh see if I can get some other speech call outs by hitting like the drop target. It's onehanded. Oh no. What about tilting?
12:37
Oh, I think no. Is it going to say let's say blast and off separately or is that just the prototype gamutron speech? Okay, let's just try and hit that five. Whoa.
12:57
No. Okay, maybe I got to What I'm going to do is let's take off the glass. Unless Imagine I can spell Gamatron one-handed. Oh, sweet. Second stage. Go. I just need two more letters. Maybe I can get the A here. O. Oh my god, I totally did it.
13:29
It does say blast and off separately, but I hit them so sequentially that it sounded like all one call out. Okay, let's try and uh um shots. Uh-oh. If I can get multiball one-handed, then that would be pretty impressive. Oh, I missed the flipper button. Okay, I'm setting this on the tripod. We're going two-handed for this last ball.
14:05
See if we can blast off. Okay, I need uh two more shots to the left orbit. Sorry about the glare. Okay, that's early. Go later. Just a tiny bit later. stage go down. Systems go down. That is amazing. I am so glad I didn't That is amazing. I am so glad I didn't sell this before getting to experience that. That just completes the game. So [snorts] cool.
14:50
I mean, you know, when you first Wait, I I should just concentrate here. Okay, we need to hit the three. This is deadly. Yes. This makes the game so much better. Uh-oh. Oh, please. Oh, yes. I got the free spot from the in lane. I forgot about that. We're ready. We are ready for blastoff here. Oh, no. No. My god. This is bad. This is bad. Bounce. No. Uh-oh.
15:30
Oh, later. Oh, come on, Michael. Never wanted something so bad in my life. Oh, no.
15:46
Oh, so late. Okay, here it is. This is it. This is it. Yes. He's
15:55
blasting off, boys and girls, on Gameron. Did you see the price, by the way, for the board service? $65.
16:17
plus shipping. But I uh hijacked Cory's order and I told him to like charge me for shipping and he said don't worry about it. So thanks Corey cook.
16:31
Oh no. Oh look at that cute little tap pass. And that's the end. Oh surviving. Oh let's get the special right in the middle. No.
16:44
That is amazing. Okay. So, two more things I got to do is um one, I got to hard wire in that wire on the back box into this connector. And uh I'm going to show you if I can succeed or fail at that. And then I need to um make a mount for this board. Uh and I think I'm going to have to pop over to Kevin's for that to happen. He has, I think, a couple spare balley brackets and we may have to modify them. But now that I know for sure that this works, I will uh work on the brackets. Okay, so the idea is to um basically remove [snorts] this red wire. Now, I thought it was going to be on this side, the male side, which I have a little more luck with the male terminals, but unfortunately, I have to put it on the female side. So, I have to try and remove this terminal, and I don't know if I'm going to be able to even with my new tools. These are not the actual Molex brand which is probably ideal but this is uh the 93 I think is the measurement and 62 the two main terminals used in pinball. So maybe just maybe no that's the wrong one. Now that I have the proper tool and I did a whole video on these can check it out. just I was testing them out, seeing if I could have good results using them, and I had mixed results. So, I had a lot of success with male terminals and not so much with female.
18:43
just out of curiosity, is this going to even fit? Obviously, one-handed is a whole different ball game here, but uh I don't know. Don't know if that doesn't work. I'm not sure what I'm going to do. But let's see if I can remove that terminal. The reason it has to go on this side is cuz if you ever want to remove the head, then it has to go on this side. If you put on this side, then your wire's going to be stuck to the head and you're going to have to cut it basically. So, unfortunately, I have to go to the female side. All right. Hopefully uh I don't block the view, but let's see if I have any success here.
19:33
Oh, does fit. Is that blocking? This is probably some horrible, horrible footage.
19:53
Okay, there we go. Get it on there, kid. Oh my god. I cannot believe it. I actually removed it. Thank you, Tool. I would have never been able to do this without you. Okay,
20:17
got my 0062 female terminal. Now I'm going to install it. I hesitate to even record this because my arm's probably going to be in the way, but oh well. This is pinball shenanigans after all. Right. All right. Here goes nothing. Oh, the machine's on wheels. Don't lean into it.
21:05
Now I need to um twist these two wires together. Get a little extra here. Well, the thick wire ain't going to really do much twisting. So,
21:23
I'll just wrap the smaller wire around like so. Okay, now I got to pause so I can get No, I don't need to pause. Got my side cutters right here. It's too long.
21:52
That is what she said, by the way. I know you were thinking it. Okay, please stay. Please stay. Now that I cut off the excess, it's not going to hold together very well.
22:08
All right. See if I can get this terminal on there. It's very awkward in so many ways. Reaching over the machine. The wires are ever so gently holding together. And the camera is kind of in my way, too. Okay, here it goes. Nothing.
22:40
Not loving things. Not loving them. I have an idea. Okay, I added some tape just to try and stabilize these wires together while I attempt to crimp. Don't know if that's going to do anything or not, but we'll find out shortly.
23:20
I think that is a good crimp. Let's have a closer look here.
23:49
a little far back. Do have some wire exposed there. So, I'm going to take needlense and just kind of squeeze these guys together a little bit more. Not the best crimping job in town, but as long as it works, then I'm happy. Okay, I squeezed a little, but I feel like it's on there pretty good. So, let's uh reconnect everything now. See if that actually works.
24:20
Imagine I accidentally put out a mail there and just realized it now. Well, I've done stupid like that before.
24:32
Okay, come on. Fit, please. Let's listen for the click. This is awkward.
25:00
Didn't hear it click, but it might have latched. All right, let's plug this in.
25:37
Initially, I was going to take the um speech board over to Kevin's if I could um if I was successful, but I don't want to disconnect it all and uh it's just too awkward. So, I'm just going to measure the holes on the board and then see if we can uh muster up a couple board brackets. So, that is done. I can safely close the back box. Actually, no. I got to measure some stuff first. But let me make some measurements and then um we will uh make sure things are still working. What'd you find there, Barry? You find some garbage for me? What you got? Hand it over. Oh, it's your little toy. Well, used to be Ellie's, but uh he's kind of taken over. And this was upstairs in the bathroom, and then I found little trails of thread like so all the way down to Barry's bed. He's the guilty party. Okay, everything's reassembled. Those holes on the board are 3 in apart. So, I just got to remember that. Let's power this on. Whoa. Gamatron is a little grumpy. And see if everything is still good. Don't see why it wouldn't be, but you never know. Okay, ready for a mission.
27:25
So cool. Okay, let's spell blast. B L A S G A M A T.
27:39
That's not blessed. Oh, so it isn't two separate call outs. All right. O F. Oh, there was blast. Oh, I just spelled it wrong. And then here we'll be off. Nice. stage. Did you say second stage go there? Just Did you say second stage go there? Just going to say it again.
28:07
Commence count. So cool. Well, that was a success. I'm so glad I put in the uh effort to make this happen. I don't know how many talking Game Gamatrons are out there, but I am definitely glad that I have one. Barry, were you trapped in