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Part 6: 1985 Bally Cybernaut Pinball Project is finished! Gameplay time!

Pinball Shenanigans·video·34m 55s·analyzed·Dec 5, 2025
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.019

TL;DR

Cybernaut RAM repair complete; machine fully playable with adjusted settings.

Summary

Mike Dus completes restoration of a 1985 Bally Cybernaut pinball machine, addressing corrupted RAM by replacing the original 6116 chip with an NV RAM module. After successful boot and memory clearing, he configures game settings via DIP switches and plays extended gameplay, discovering the machine has interesting risk-reward mechanics with ion generator targets and bonus multipliers. The machine is now fully functional and ready for extended play.

Key Claims

  • Only 900 Cybernaut machines were made

    medium confidence · Speaker states 'Remember, only 900 of these were made' while discussing the machine's rarity

  • Approximately 50 Cybernaut owners are registered on Pinside

    medium confidence · Speaker checked Pinside registration and estimated about 50 registered owners

  • NV RAM replacement successfully resolved the corrupted RAM issue

    high confidence · After installing NV RAM and clearing memory via DIP switches, the machine retained credits and functioned properly

  • The 6116 RAM chip with the Altec board may have compatibility issues

    medium confidence · Speaker found notes indicating 'The RAM may not work in all tech' but the replacement NV RAM worked successfully

Notable Quotes

  • “Hey, Barry. What are you still doing here? Barry's going to be going to his new home tomorrow.”

    Mike Dus @ 00:00-00:05 — Opening line referring to the machine itself (nicknamed 'Barry'); indicates the machine is being sold/transferred after restoration

  • “So this here is the RAM chip, this 6116. And in order for it to work properly, it does need batteries.”

    Mike Dus @ 01:30 — Identifies the root cause of corruption; original RAM design required battery backup

  • “I think that one has been good to me. Works perfectly fine. I figure once the sale ends, I'll just list this on Marketplace for 40 bucks and get a free upgrade because uh that's still half price.”

    Mike Dus @ 00:35-00:50 — Shows opportunistic acquisition and resale strategy for replacement parts

  • “This game is just getting cooler and cooler. I honestly thought this game was going to be a complete dud.”

    Mike Dus @ 08:45 — Sentiment shift from skepticism to genuine appreciation as gameplay mechanics become clear

  • “I think we never drained with the shoot again light on, have we? So, we don't know if it's going to award extra ball yet or not.”

    Mike Dus @ 10:20 — Shows methodical testing approach to understand game mechanics

Entities

Mike DuspersonCybernautgameBallycompanyAndrew SpitlerpersonVinnie DvichipersonAltec/AltexproductDavis Stil/pinballrom.comperson/organizationPinsideorganizationBarryproduct

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Community members (Andrew Spitler, Davis Stil) providing technical support and parts availability for vintage machine repair

    high · Spitler provides RAM replacement advice via forum post; Davis Stil listed as component supplier; shows active aftermarket support ecosystem

  • ?

    design_philosophy: 1985 Bally Cybernaut exhibits interesting risk-reward gameplay design with ion generator target sequences and bonus multiplier mechanics

    high · Extended gameplay demonstrates complex shot sequences, bonus multiplier building, and special collection mechanics that create engaging strategic play

  • ?

    product_concern: Original 6116 RAM chip corrupted despite standard memory-clear procedures, requiring NV RAM replacement

    high · Speaker states 'I cannot clear out the data' despite trying standard clear procedures, eventually requiring NV RAM replacement; this is a known wear/degradation issue with vintage pinball RAM

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Host's perception of Cybernaut shifts from skepticism to genuine enthusiasm after successful repair and gameplay familiarity

    high · Opens video expecting possible dud; by mid-gameplay states 'This game is just getting cooler and cooler' and 'I really liking this game'; concludes with positive assessment

  • ?

    technology_signal: Use of aftermarket NV RAM as drop-in replacement for original battery-backed RAM in vintage machines

    high · Speaker successfully replaces 6116 with NV RAM module to resolve corruption; shows common upgrade path in collector/restorer community

Transcript

youtube_auto_sub · $0.000

0:03
Hey, Barry. What are you still doing here? Barry's going to be going to his new home tomorrow. So, we're having another sleepover tonight, aren't we? Going to hang out for one more night and make sure I don't screw anything up. All right, let's get back to some Cybernot. I'm Mike Dus [music] and this is Pinball Shenanigans.
0:34
Look what I got today. Check this out. It was on sale. Normally 75 bucks on for 40. So look a little familiar. Yeah, this one has been good to me. Works perfectly fine. I figure once the sale ends, I'll just list this on Marketplace for 40 bucks and get a free upgrade because uh that's still half price. Okay, the goal for tonight is to uh sort out this RAM issue. I've got some corrupted RAM. There should never be a three as part of a high score on this game. You cannot score individual points. And I have tried to clear the memory. the good oldfashioned way, scrolling through the audits and then hitting the clear button on the MPU. And then I also tried the dip switch strategy. What you do is keep the first dip switch down and move all these up. This is the game select dip switch bank. Turn off the machine, turn it on. That should clear the memory. But that did not work. So this here is the RAM chip, this 6116. And in order for it to work properly, it does need batteries. So I don't know if that the fact that there are no batteries help lead to the corrupted data, but nonetheless, I cannot clear out the data. So, I made a post and uh Andrew Spitler said that I can just drop in a proper NV RAM into that socket and hopefully all will be well. So, hopefully I have one in stock. I think I do. So, that's going to be uh the next thing I do is go hunting for an NV RAM. Before I go any further, I would like to give a shout out to Vinnie Dvichi. Wait, Vinnie Vidichi who uh donated 5 super thanks to the channel and he says great content. I'm going to give you a little thumbs up and a little heart and I'll comment as well. Hey, you know what? Just for fun, let's go use the AI generated response. Thanks so much, Vinnie. Much appreciated. And uh if you want to send in a super thanks, then hey, I'll give you a super shout out as well. Okay, I found my NV RAM stash. Let's see what I got. All right, that looks like Ooh, 6264. I don't know if that's going to work. It's from Davis Still at pinballrom.com.
3:38
What is this? More of the same. 6264. H. I think I have one of those green guys here. I do, but can't seem to get it out of the bag.
3:57
Is this Ooh, 6116. But I think there was an issue with this. Let's I feel like I had this in an Alttech before and it didn't work. [snorts] Let's [clears throat] see what my notes say. And the RAM may not work in all tech. Damn. I really hope that's not the case. This is years old. I surprised I remembered that. But well, there's only one thing to do is pop it in and see what happens.
4:37
Hopefully this works. Let's power the machine on and see if it boots up for one.
4:53
What do we got? We got some cleared audits. So, that's good. We might be in business here. You know what? Let's go through this um memory clear function. So, I need my glasses. I believe I need dip switches 2, four, and six in the down position for CyberNot. Yep, that's true. So, in order to clear the memory, is it everything down? Hold on. I got to check the manual. One moment. Okay. So, it is the first one down and everything else up. Okay. So, basically just put two, four, and six up.
5:44
Number one down. Okay. Now turn the machine off and on. Let that do its thing. I think in the newer Altex after a few seconds this light will start to flash indicating the memory is cleared but not sure it does that on this version cuz didn't happen. It didn't happen when I tried it before with the original 6116 and it's not happening here either. So now I'll power off the machine and turn two, four, and six. Back down. Power it on. And now we're back to CyberNaut. So, I'll um what I'll do is I'll play a game.
6:51
Why is it not showing credits? Just cuz there aren't any. There we go. Okay, so this should be an easy test. Let's just uh not even bother playing a game. See if it saves the 11 credits that I just added. I think I can put Altech under free play. Is that true? Or is Altech the one board that you can't set it to free play? Does it show here? [singing]
7:27
Free play settings. Ballet only. Okay. So, to place any of the Valley games in free play mode, just place the leftmost switch in the on position. Okay, that's what we're going to do. Well, look at that. Our credits are saved. So, I think our problem is solved. So, that is exciting. In a previous video, I noticed that it seemed like when the game was supposed to end, just kept firing out more balls. I'm like, why is this like not registering the out hole or something? Is there some sort of software glitch? What is going on? So, I don't know if it's going to happen again now that we've got new RAM in, but let me just uh get like 10,000 points here.
8:27
Okay, so what was happening before is that I didn't notice this at the time. So, when you score a very nominal amount of points, like 10,000, it would give you an extra ball. So that's why there was confusion as to, you know, why sometimes you'd have a three ball game and well actually most of the time it was a four ball game, maybe a five ball game. So it was just awarding extra balls super easily and we just did not notice that. So that seems to have remedied itself. So that's another step in the right direction. I think the next thing I'm going to do is um just go through some settings and uh see what adjustments I want to make. All right, I set the game to free play and installed a brand new shiny [snorts] ball. Okay, I read over the settings and I made a couple adjustments. I may readjust once I kind of figure out how this thing scores. But uh so number six here something FDS something dip switch number six controls the rollover button special. So I made it that you can get one special per ball cuz I'm turning all specials and extra balls to points. And then I made the saucer controls the bonus multipliers collected. So the saucer collects with bonus multipliers or without. I think I made it with I want this to be a nice fun highcoring game. So dip switch number 24 controls the rollover button special. Oh the top special in the little plunge zone there. I made it so that the special feature was active. And I made special turn on at 270,000 points versus 180. Make that a little more difficult. I made the guardian drop target feature. So the gu the drop targets will reset after the second row of ramp lights are complete. So you complete two rows of ion generator progress and then your drop targets pop back up to guard you. So I made that a little easier cuz I could make it after the first row. And the tube shot I made the special the most challenging number most highest number 120,000 uh dip switch 14 controls the bonus multipliers. Oh yeah, I made the bonus multipliers light every third time going into the tube rather than every second time. Made that a little more difficult. Blast special feature I made at 200,000 points and out hole special I made at 395,000 points. I don't know what half of this means but here we go. So special and replay special replay extra ball novelty modes. So you can set it to all these different options here are where you can get free plays and specials. A lot of different ways to earn that. So you can go award replay extra ball award replay. So a bunch of free games or you can go a bunch of extra balls. I went all points 50,000s 25,000s. So, should be uh interesting to see how that works. Um, like I said, I may readjust things once I kind of get a feel for how this thing scores. And if something is outweighing something else and needs to be uh calibrated, then I'll do that. So, I think uh let's just go ahead and play a game now. All right. Busted out the other tripod here for a different and possibly better angle.
12:51
Okay, let's give her a shot. Hopefully the volume is good.
13:01
Oh, okay. So, see that red special flashing at the top? I think if I hit all four rollover buttons in one plunge, then that's going to give me special, which we think is 50,000 points, right? So, see if we can pull that off. Do a full plunge. fail.
13:24
Do got a little bit of ball hop on the right flipper at least, but uh may or may not deal with that. Let's go for some ion generators. Wait, I dropped down all the drop targets. So, my gate is open. I can plunge back into the shooter lane, but I'll do that if I'm on the right flipper. Let's uh see that I nailed that target hard.
13:55
And they are now registering with the new caps that I installed. So, let's try the tube.
14:09
Ah, now our gate is open. So, that's how that works. No special opportunity that has gone in the plunge here. But, let's see if we can get any of these rollover buttons. Wow. Okay. So, you can't just hit any of you can't just hit any one of those targets and it'll spot you. You actually have to hit the corresponding target. Uh, did you notice I nailed that target and it registered? And, uh, did you hear my tilt sound effect? Because, uh, that also happened. Okay, let's try a softer punch. There we go. That's the ticket. Two of them. Oh my good. I should have really tilted there. Can't believe I didn't.
15:05
Forget what happens. Blast opens right gate, but right gate's already open. I want that ion, the white ion. But let's go to the tube.
15:23
Try and get some more rollovers up there. Uh, okay. So, I got a 2x bonus multiplier, 55,000 in bonus. Oh, so maybe blast will spot me 50,000 and if I spell it again 100 then 50 200 and then special and then same with tube shot 10 20 30 40 50 special. Let's try and get these other two. No, I plunged too hard. Okay, white ion. Wrong one.
16:02
Wrong one again. There we go. Moving on to the yellow ions. Oo, it looks like if I hit three yellows, I might get an extra bomb. Starting to dig this game. Oh, give me that B. Oh, you bastard. B for bastard. Uh-oh,
16:26
man. Man, that spot is ginormous. And I keep hitting the left post.
16:39
Very sad. Now my guardians are back up. Come on. One more. Oh, snuck by those guys. I like that idea. A little less deadly. Give me a B. Let's try and bank it into the ion generator.
17:04
got a slight opening now. Here we go. Nice. Don't you dare. So, one more ion. Might be an extra ball. Oh, I thought that was going to be my B for sure. Come on, Ion. A little late. Whoa. Whoa.
17:26
This would be a deadly but possibly good tournament game for that reason. Oh my god.
17:39
Special is lit. No, this is ball three. So going out like that.
17:51
Come on. Settle. Nope. Not going out like that either. Okay. So, how is this special lit already? And why? Let's go. Uh, tube. Whoa.
18:09
Missed late that time. H. I'm thought the whole ion generator thing was going to be a little easier, but maybe for someone with better aim.
18:29
Okay, I need a S for a special, I think. But I want that effing yellow ion. There we go. Drop targets are back up. Ooh, got cool new sound effects. I like that. That is awesome. We're getting close to destroying this thing. Three more shots. Let's go back up top.
18:57
Get that last green light if we can. This game is just getting cooler and cooler. We're so close. Just missed it.
19:11
I feel like getting those three red ions is like basically the wizard mode of this game.
19:22
So, we think Oh, it got a got extra ball. It says it's lit, but I don't know if it'll actually give me the extra ball cuz it's supposed to be set for points. Um, I'm still at 2x. Let's try another tube shot.
19:45
I think it's supposed to be every three tube shots you get a multiplier, right? Advanced bonus multiplier when lit. So, what lights that? Let's go. Ions.
20:03
Uh-oh. Huh. No, I'm not quitting until I destroy the ion generator. I'm not going to quit cheating. That is
20:19
don't unless I drain so quick that I can't recuperate fast enough. Okay, two more ions.
20:32
That guardian is right in my way. Yeah, right in the face. Take that, Guardian. What? Didn't I hit that tank shot? Oh, I almost tilted there. Okay, special is available. Oh, no. Don't you dare. Got it. I have 89. Yep. I just saw my score jump up. I had 890 something. Now I have 948. So, I got 50,000 for destroying the ion generator. Now, we're back to our normal background sound effect. And see if I can get this multiplier up. Can you a tap pass on this? Ooh, beautiful butter. Look, advanced multiplier light is on now. Oh, I got to hit that damn thing. Okay, nail it. Yeah. Got our 3x.
21:43
Beautiful. Okay, so 250. So 750,000 bonus in the bank. I'd like to go back up top. How do I do that again? Drop down the drop targets or spell blast. Yeah, let's go blast. Sorry. No.
22:02
Oh, almost tickled that a That's good use for the uh upper flipper. Perfect. Look at that. Open the gate. Back up top. Haven't been really keeping track. We never drained with the shoot again light on, have we? So, we don't know if it it's going to award extra ball yet or not. Probably not. But here it is. That last green rollover soft punch. And bank. Nice. Collect bonus. Oh, that is huge. This game is awesome. This would be a great tournament game. I've never seen it that I can think of in the wild. Definitely never played it in a tournament. This is pretty awesome. Okay, so bonus collect is lit still. All right, we need uh dispel blast or go guardians to open shooter lane gate. Let's risk our luck here. This is such a cool riskreward game. Let's try shots.
23:21
And then you can use your taps. You can use your chats, maybe even post pass, bounce pass. Okay, here we go. So, free bonus collect here. Another 700 800,000 points. I'm at 2.5 million. And that's going to bring us to
23:58
This game is grow. Oh, that is awesome. I love the extra sound effects for the ion generator bonus meltdown. Now I'm at 3.7 million.
24:12
I honestly thought this game was going to be a complete dud. When I was practicing a little bit yesterday off camera, I was getting frustrated with the game. I'm like, "This game is stupid." Partly cuz I wasn't cheating and I was draining every two seconds. But now that I got a bit of a idea of what's going on here and the settings are better probably,
24:43
you know, I was getting an extra ball just by freaking plunging. So that was dumb. I'm really liking this game. I have expectations were very low. Okay, let's generate ions.
25:00
There is a pop bumper here. It's kind of hidden. I don't think that really comes into play too much. Uh, what else is there? Am I missing anything? Fairly
25:15
straightforward. I thought it would take me a while to figure all the all these rules, but I think we're pretty close to grasping everything here. Uh-oh.
25:29
There is some good digging going on there. Love the fact that the background sound effects change. Oh. Oh, there it is. No, I just tilted off so many points.
25:49
Oh, no. Bonus melt. Hey, wait a minute. Wait a minute. That did give me the extra ball. Yes, it did. It says shoot again on the back box. Okay.
26:07
Well, I'm not exactly too sad about that. I do like that specials award points. I don't mind one extra ball. But if I have like three bananked, then I don't love that. Oh, I punched too hard. Oh, wait. Got a couple. And you know, I have been cheating a lot, too. So, it's going to be pretty hard to earn multiple extra balls, I'm sure. I just need two more um two more yellows, though, and that will probably be an extra ball.
26:45
But functionwise, everything's working great. flippers, all my newly tapped switches. There we go. Extra ball. And then the new sound effect. That is so cool.
27:09
Remember, only 900 of these were made. And I checked Pinside today and I think there were about I don't think it was that many like 50 owners registered on Pinite. That doesn't really mean a whole lot but this is a slight indicator.
27:28
Who Okay, I'm going to not cheat anymore. Oh,
27:36
try for one more destruction of the ion generator. Oh, that was cute.
27:54
Those shots are uh tighter and trickier than one would think. The big giant red rectangular targets. There we go.
28:07
There it is. Special collected. I'm at 4.1 million. Oh, it already collected. Oh, now I'm at 4.4 million. So, no, it didn't.
28:22
I should probably turn off the game so it doesn't save this high score since it's totally illegitimate. But I can always clear that in the settings. All right, I've got a big bonus here. We'll do What we'll do is uh let's just cheat and uh jack up
28:48
the bonus multiplier. Oh, what? Just so we can hear the giant bonus meltdown.
29:01
Why aren't you giving me my bonus multiplier? Oh, does this roll over here?
29:14
Is that going to do it? Yeah. All right. Okay. Let's check out this meltdown.
29:50
Okay, that might be one of the coolest bonus meltdown sound effect series that I've ever heard. That was awesome. And I got an extra bell. So, I'm just going to drain that. But that's it for now. I don't know that there's anything else I need to do. I will wrap up this video shortly, but uh yeah, I'll be back. Okay, I think I see what I did wrong here. Um I was just reading position 17. Whoa. And then set to 01. So I did that, but I completely overlooked that you need to change self- test position 16 also to 01. So I scrolled through. I'm at 16. Now I just got to hit the start button.
30:57
Come on. Got to hold it down sometimes just a bit. Hello. There we go. 16 is now set to one. 17 is set to one. And now I'll reboot the game and give it another try. Okay. Let's see if that worked. All right. Well, let's plunge the ball and hit all four of these targets and see what happens. Yeah, look at that. 1,000 for each switch and then 50,000 for the special. That's great. Now, what about this whole extra ball thing? Um, oh no, we just need ions.
31:49
Get back here. Okay. Says extra ball here. Let's hit it. Sweet. That gave points and not extra ball. Okay. So, all extra balls and specials are now points. Hey Barry, we're getting real close to finishing up this Cyber Knot. Do you want to come check out the action? No, you're just going to chill. All right, you do that. Okay, I made a little adjustment to the lane guide. I pushed it forward a bit so that the ball hop is better. It's not perfect, but it's better. Okay, I just noticed my coin return button was pushed all the way in, and that is because I am missing a spring.
32:43
like so. So, I found one here. Got my little spring bin. And let's see. Oh, got to lift that up, I guess, first. It's going to be really tight.
33:04
Look at that. Yay. Much better. All right, boys and girls. I think that is an official wrap. I don't even know what episode this is, but I think it's like seven or eight or something. So, I forget what the overunder is or was, but under 10 episodes. I didn't think this one was going to be uh that big of a project since it came to me in nice shape. Just had to give it some some love. And um yeah, was a fun project. And now it's just time to play the crap out of this thing. And eventually I will do a gameplay video on this and share it with you all. Uh as you can see, I kind of have the score jacked up to the point where I'm about to roll it. And I'm going to leave you with a max bonus meltdown, which I have determined is 395,000*
34:10
4, whatever that math equates to. But on that note, thanks for watching and uh we'll see you on the next series.