Devil's Dare (Gottlieb, 1982): faults and replacement boards System 80A

Is your Gottlieb Devil's Dare refusing to start, resetting as soon as a game begins, running with no sound at all, playing only some of its speech callouts, or sitting there with a coil locked on and the sleeve starting to smell? None of that means your machine is finished. These are the standard symptoms of Gottlieb System 80A electronics that are now over forty years old, and on this game in particular there are a couple of faults that catch almost everyone out. Below: what the machine is, what actually goes wrong with it, and what you can put in it.

About Devil's Dare (Gottlieb, 1982)

See it: full photo gallery for Devil's Dare on IPDB — backglass, playfield, cabinet and flyer scans. There is also a Pinside playfield gallery worth a look if you are checking your own playfield against a clean example.

Devil's Dare shipped in August 1982 and it matters more than its modest reputation suggests: it was the first game to run on Gottlieb's new System 80A boardset. Production is recorded at 3,832 units, which two independent references round to roughly 3,800. It is a widebody, four-player machine with alphanumeric displays — the wide cabinet is the first thing you notice when one turns up next to a standard body.

The game was designed by Tom Szafransky, with sound by Craig Beierwaltes. The artwork has a story attached to it. Devil's Dare was the first Gottlieb game in a decade not illustrated by Gordon Morison, their in-house artist; the job went to Doug Watson, whose original backglass — green, bat-winged devils — management judged too strong for the arcade floor. David Moore produced the toned-down version that actually shipped, printed with Ad Posters' then-new four-colour process on glass. If you have ever wondered why the backglass looks slightly more restrained than the theme promises, that is why.

On the playfield you get thirteen drop targets (two five-banks and a three-bank), two spinners, three flippers and manual kickbacks. Clear the drop target banks to open the Capture Cave and the Capture Pit, lock two balls, and you are into three-ball multiball — genuinely early for a Gottlieb — with a Multi-mode bonus round on top. The speech callouts announcing the challenges are part of the character of the game, which is exactly why a silent one is so disappointing to own.

Devil's Dare specifications

• Manufacturer: D. Gottlieb & Co.
• Released: August 1982
• Electronic system: Gottlieb System 80A (its first title)
• Production run: 3,832 units (recorded; some sources round to ~3,800)
• Design: Tom Szafransky
• Art: Doug Watson, revised backglass by David Moore
• Sound: Craig Beierwaltes
• Cabinet: widebody, 4 players, alphanumeric displays
• Playfield: 13 drop targets, 2 spinners, 3 flippers, 3-ball multiball
• Theme: devil / fantasy
• Known variants: most European machines shipped without speech — check yours before buying a sound board

Is a Devil's Dare rare, and what is it worth?

Rare-ish rather than rare. The Museum of the Game ownership census scores it 4 out of 100 for how often it is seen, so you will not trip over one, but 3,832 machines is a real production run. On price, the honest answer is that public data has gone stale: PinballPrice's eBay figures average about $1,058 for 2017, with the last individual sale it logged at $1,050 in December 2017. Owners on Pinside were already saying at the time that a working player-condition example under $1,000 was hard to find. Treat those numbers as a floor from several years ago, not today's market — and remember that on a System 80A game, whether the boards are original-and-corroded or already sorted moves the price more than the cabinet does.

Common faults on Gottlieb System 80A

Before the game-specific problems, the family ones. Every System 80 and 80A machine is fighting the same short list:

• The NiCd battery on the CPU board. Fitted to keep settings and scores alive, it leaks, and the electrolyte eats traces, sockets and nearby legs. It is the single most common reason a System 80A board is dead. If it is still there, remove it — today, not next weekend.
• Grounding. Gottlieb's original grounding between boards is inadequate, and forty years of oxidation makes it worse. The "ground mods" — extra ground wires tying the CPU, driver, power supply and sound boards together properly — are not optional on these games. Half the weird, unrepeatable faults on a System 80A are a grounding problem wearing a disguise.
• Connectors. The edge connectors and Molex headers are fragile and the pins oxidise. Re-pinning the bad ones is routine maintenance here.
• Tired logic. RIOT 6532 chips and the board's electrolytic capacitors are common failures, and a dead RIOT will stop the game booting.
• Displays. Missing digits or segments are often nothing more than a dirty J2/J3 connector. Never plug or unplug a display with the power on.
• Power supply. Voltages drift, the capacitors go after long storage, and a sagging 5 V line produces resets that look like a CPU fault.

Devil's Dare-specific issues owners report

This is where a Devil's Dare differs from every other System 80A game, and it is worth reading before you order parts. The threads behind these are linked in Sources at the foot of the page.

Some speech works, most of it does not — the S16 fault

This is the Devil's Dare fault. The symptom is very particular: one or two callouts still play — "Ball Save" is the one people report surviving — while every other voice message comes out as a sound or a musical note instead. Owners chase it in the wrong place for weeks.

It is not usually the speech chip. On System 80/80A the sound commands reach the sound board as sixteen lines, S1 to S16, and the diagnosis owners worked out on Pinside is that every missing callout has the bit for S16 set, while the one that still works does not. So S16 is not arriving. There are three places to look for it: the Q10 transistor (MPS-A13) on the driver board, the connectors along the signal path, and the LM193 at U24 on the sound board. The quirk that makes this so confusing is that on these games the S16 sound line is driven through the L9 lamp circuit — so a lamp-driver transistor kills your speech. Owners in that thread had already replaced the SC-01 speech chip and a 7404 on the driver board, both for nothing, before the S16 line was identified.

The same fault turns up on sibling machines. On a Rocky, a failing Z32 on the driver board was almost grounding S16 and killed the speech completely; on a Volcano, an intermittent groan on power-up came back to "Sound 16" and Q10 again. If you have partial speech on a System 80A, S16 is where to start.

No speech at all

Different symptom, different cause. Use test 17 in the manual's self-test to exercise the speech, then — the fastest diagnostic available — swap the SC-01 speech chip from another System 80 or 80A game (a Black Hole is the one owners commonly borrow from) and see if the fault moves with the chip. Be warned before you go shopping: buyers on Pinside flag a bad speech chip on this game as "a pain — hard to find and expensive." It is the single most important thing to test before you hand over money for a Devil's Dare.

No sound and dead pop bumpers at the same time

When those two arrive together, suspect grounding before anything else. An owner who lost all three pop bumpers — lamps still lit, coils silent — plus the sound at the same moment traced the one thing the three bumpers shared: the ground bus, with the ground mods never properly finished. The specific check offered was the A1J6 connector on the MPU: supply on pin 5, ground on pin 6, and reseat it before suspecting anything expensive. A dedicated pop bumper driver board (the MA-922) also sits behind these three coils, which is worth knowing when the lamps work and the coils do not.

A coil locked on

Switch off first — a coil left energised cooks its sleeve and can burn the coil and scorch the playfield within minutes. Then the classic test: unplug that coil's connector. If the coil stops being driven, a driver transistor is shorted on the driver board, which is the usual answer. Owners have reported this alongside a dead sound board on the same machine, so do not assume one fault.

Self-test coil numbers that do not match the manual

A reported oddity on this game worth knowing so you do not chase a ghost: the self-test flagged coils 1, 4, 7 and 9 as faulty while those same coils fired perfectly during the test. The numbering the self-test uses does not necessarily line up with the numbering in the manual. Confirm a coil by watching and listening to it, not only by what the test reports.

Power supply left standing

If the machine has been idle for years, the power supply capacitors will have given up quietly. Reconditioning the supply — or replacing it — before hunting logic faults saves a lot of wasted time, because a drooping 5 V rail mimics almost every other fault on the list.

Replacement boards compatible with Devil's Dare

Every board below is battery-free, which removes the corrosion problem permanently, and installs Plug & Play. We test each board before it ships and support it afterwards — if you are not sure which you need, send us the references printed on your boards and we will tell you.

• GottFA80_Plus (Light) — all-in-one CPU + Driver + power supply, no sound.
• GottFA80_Plus (Full) — the same board with the sound section integrated.
• Gosof — replacement sound board, available with or without voice.
• Godri80 — replacement Driver board. This is the board carrying Q10 and the lamp drivers behind the S16 fault above.
• Lisy80 — CPU board with web-based diagnostics.
• GoPOP80 — pop bumper driver board, replacing the MA-922 / A-19741.

One variant warning before you order sound. Most European Devil's Dare machines left the factory without speech, which makes US examples the sought-after ones. Check whether your game ever had a speech board before you buy a voice-capable replacement — the Gosof is offered with or without voice precisely because of this split. Everything else on the list fits either version.

The Lisy80 is built on LISY, a free DIY project by an independent developer; full credit to them for it.

Step-by-step diagnosis

1. Power off, look before you probe. Open the backbox and inspect the CPU board for battery residue or green corrosion. If the NiCd battery is still fitted, remove it now.
2. Power supply. Measure the 5 V and confirm it actually arrives at the CPU board, not just at the supply. A drooping rail causes resets that look like logic faults.
3. Grounds. Do the ground mods properly across CPU, driver, power supply and sound boards. On this game that step alone fixes a surprising number of "dead bumpers and no sound" complaints.
4. Connectors. Re-pin the oxidised Molex and edge connectors, starting with the CPU-to-driver link and A1J6.
5. Coils. Any coil locked on: power off, unplug its connector, and test the driver transistor for a short before powering back up.
6. Displays. Clean J2/J3 and test against a known-good display. Never hot-plug a display.
7. Sound and speech. Run the sound self-test and test 17. With partial speech, follow the S16 line: Q10 (MPS-A13) on the driver board, then U24 (LM193) on the sound board.
8. Final check. Start-up, credits, all coils, all displays, a full game. Stuck anywhere, ask us — support is free.

FAQ — Devil's Dare (Gottlieb, 1982)

Why won't my Devil's Dare start?
Battery corrosion on the CPU board first — it is the number-one killer of System 80A boards — then the 5 V supply reaching the board, then the grounds and connectors. A tired RIOT 6532 will also stop it booting.

My Devil's Dare has sound but most of the speech is missing.
Classic S16 fault. If one callout still plays and the rest come out as sounds, the S16 command line is not arriving: check Q10 (MPS-A13) on the driver board, the connectors in that path, and U24 (LM193) on the sound board. On these games S16 is driven through the L9 lamp circuit, so do not rule out a lamp driver.

My Devil's Dare has no speech at all.
Run test 17, then swap the SC-01 speech chip from another System 80 or 80A game to see whether the fault follows the chip. Good SC-01 chips are scarce and expensive, so test before you buy.

A coil stays locked on my Devil's Dare.
Switch off immediately, then unplug that coil's connector: if it stops being driven, a driver transistor is shorted. The Godri80 replaces the driver stage, or the GottFA80_Plus replaces the whole set.

No sound and no pop bumpers at the same time — what is that?
Almost always grounding. Reseat A1J6 on the MPU (supply pin 5, ground pin 6) and finish the ground mods before suspecting a board.

How rare is a Devil's Dare, and what is it worth?
3,832 were built, and the Museum of the Game census rates it 4/100 for how often it is seen. The most recent public price data is old: PinballPrice's eBay average was about $1,058 in 2017. Condition of the boards moves the price more than anything else.

Does my European Devil's Dare have speech?
Probably not — most European machines shipped without it, which is why US examples are the ones collectors chase. Check before ordering a sound board; the Gosof comes with or without voice.

Does a battery-free board keep the settings and high scores?
Yes. These boards use non-volatile memory, so settings and scores survive a power-off with no battery in the machine and no corrosion to come.

See also

• Rocky (Gottlieb, 1982) — same year, same system, same S16 speech trap
• Spirit (Gottlieb, 1982)
• Punk! (Gottlieb, 1982)
• Striker (Gottlieb, 1982)
• Krull (Gottlieb, 1983)
• Goin' Nuts (Gottlieb, 1983)

Sources & further reading

• IPDB — Devil's Dare (#673)
• OPDB — Devil's Dare
• Pinpedia — Devil's Dare (production, credits, backglass history)
• Museum of the Game — Devil's Dare (rarity census)
• TV Tropes — Devil's Dare (European no-speech versions, Morison note)
• Pinside — Devil's Dare missing some speech (the S16 diagnosis)
• Pinside — System 80A Devil's Dare, no speech (test 17, chip swap)
• Pinside — Devil's Dare pop bumper issues (A1J6, ground bus)
• Pinside — No sound and locked-on coil, Devil's Dare
• Pinside — Devil's Dare, I've got issues (self-test coil numbering)
• Pinside — Devil's Dare, what to look out for (speech chip scarcity)
• Pinside — System 80 sound and speech, Sound 16 and Q10
• Devil's Dare rulesheet
• PinballPrice — Devil's Dare sale data (to 2017)

Own a Devil's Dare? Send us a photo and we'll add it here with credit — get in touch.