Rocky (Gottlieb, 1982): faults and replacement boards System 80A

Has your Gottlieb Rocky lost its music, gone silent on speech while the rest of the sound still plays, started dropping digits on the displays, or begun resetting when a game starts? All of that is normal for Gottlieb System 80A electronics that are past forty, and on Rocky there is one fault in particular that sends owners down the wrong path for weeks. Here is what the machine is, what genuinely goes wrong with it, and what you can fit.

About Rocky (Gottlieb, 1982)

See it: full photo gallery for Rocky on IPDB — backglass, playfield, cabinet and flyer scans. The Pinside game archive page for Rocky carries owner photos too, useful if you are checking your own playfield against a clean example.

Rocky is Gottlieb model 672, released in September 1982 on the licence for the Sylvester Stallone boxing films. Only 1,504 machines were built — a figure two independent references agree on, with the Museum of the Game noting that even fewer are believed to have been fully completed. That makes it one of the genuinely scarce System 80A titles: the same census scores it 1 out of 100 for how often it is seen, the bottom of the scale.

There is a better reason than rarity for collectors to want one. Rocky was John Trudeau's first designed pinball machine. Trudeau went on to design The Machine: Bride of Pin*Bot, The Flintstones, Congo and Ghostbusters — so the boxing game in your backbox is where one of the more celebrated design careers in pinball starts. The artwork is by David Moore, the same artist Gottlieb brought in to redraw the backglass for Devil's Dare a month earlier.

The layout is refreshingly direct. Ten drop targets numbered 1 to 10 have to be knocked down in sequence against the clock, with an eleventh target awarding an extra ball once the set is cleared — miss your round and you lose it as the sequence runs on. Underneath it, the boards are standard System 80A: a 6502 main CPU running at around 850 kHz, a second 6502 on the sound board at roughly 895 kHz, and a DAC for the audio.

Rocky specifications

• Manufacturer: D. Gottlieb & Co.
• Model number: 672
• Released: September 1982
• Electronic system: Gottlieb System 80A
• Production run: 1,504 units — possibly fewer fully completed
• Design: John Trudeau (his first designed game)
• Art: David Moore
• Processors: 6502 CPU (~850 kHz); 6502 sound CPU (~895 kHz) with DAC
• Players: up to 4
• Playfield: 10 numbered drop targets in timed sequence, 11th target for extra ball
• Theme: boxing / cinema (Rocky)
• Known variants: foreign-language speech ROMs exist — French sets are documented in owners' machines, so the voice may not be in the language you expect

Rocky in the films — and what it is worth

Here the sources disagree, and it is worth saying so plainly rather than picking one. Arcade History records that a prop backglass was made purely for filming Rocky III, reportedly because the real backglass caused problems on camera; three props were made, one was destroyed on set when a bottle was thrown through it, and the surviving two are in private hands. The Museum of the Game instead says the machine is often claimed to appear in Rocky II — where it was a non-functional prop — and that the game does appear in an arcade scene in Rocky III. Both agree the game reached the screen; they differ on which film and which glass.

Separately, and verifiably: a Rocky owned by Sylvester Stallone was sold by Heritage Auctions in March 2024 as part of the Treasures from Planet Hollywood auction, catalogued with Trudeau and Moore as designer and artist and listed with its electronics untested.

On ordinary money, public data is thin because so few change hands. A Pinside price-check discussion put a Rocky at $3,000-$6,000 and called it "a hard game to get" — but that thread dates from November 2012, so treat it as historical context rather than a current valuation. As with any System 80A game, whether the boards have been sorted out or are still original and corroding affects the price more than the cabinet does.

Common faults on Gottlieb System 80A

Before the Rocky-specific problems, the family ones. Every System 80 and 80A machine fights the same short list:

• The NiCd battery on the CPU board. Fitted to hold settings and scores, it leaks, and the electrolyte eats traces, sockets and component legs. It is the single most common reason one of these boards is dead. If it is still fitted, remove it now.
• Grounding. Gottlieb's original board-to-board grounding was never good enough, and four decades of oxidation makes it worse. The "ground mods" — extra ground wires tying CPU, driver, power supply and sound boards together properly — are effectively compulsory. A great many unrepeatable faults on these games are a grounding problem in disguise.
• Connectors and harnesses. Edge connectors and Molex pins oxidise, and the loom in the head suffers. Re-pinning the bad ones is routine here, not a last resort.
• Tired logic. RIOT 6532 chips and the board's electrolytic capacitors fail with age, and a dead RIOT will stop the game booting at all.
• Displays. Missing digits or segments are frequently no more than a dirty J2/J3 connector. Never plug or unplug a display with the power on.
• Power supply. Voltages drift and capacitors give up after long storage; a sagging 5 V rail produces resets that look exactly like a CPU fault.

Rocky-specific issues owners report

Sound and speech dominate the Rocky threads, and two of the causes below are worth knowing before you spend anything. The threads are linked in Sources at the foot of the page.

No music and no speech — check the interconnect harness first

The most useful fix reported on a Rocky is also the cheapest. An owner with no background music and no voice reseated every connector, checked continuity with a meter, went through the fuses and pulled and reseated the sound ROMs — and got nowhere. What he eventually found was the interconnect harness between the power supply and the driver board inside the head: wiggling the wires there, particularly the first few, made the sound and music cut in and out. He replaced the harness. Other owners identified it as a known System 80 weakness rather than bad luck.

If your Rocky is quiet, put your hand on that loom before you order a sound board. It costs nothing to test.

Sound plays but speech is completely dead — the S16 line

This is the one that catches people. On System 80/80A the sound commands travel to the sound board as sixteen lines, S1 to S16, and the S16 line is the one that trips up speech. On a Rocky, a failing Z32 on the driver board was almost grounding S16, and that alone stopped the speech working entirely while the rest of the sound carried on normally.

The same line is behind the partial-speech fault on Devil's Dare, where owners traced it to Q10 (an MPS-A13) on the driver board and an LM193 at U24 on the sound board, and it turned up again on a Volcano as an intermittent groan at power-up. The quirk that makes it so confusing is that S16 is driven through the lamp circuit — so a lamp-driver component takes out your voice. If your Rocky has sound but no speech, work the S16 line before you buy an SC-01 speech chip.

Your Rocky's speech might simply be in French

Worth ruling out before you diagnose anything. Foreign-language sound ROMs were made for this game, and at least one owner, having fixed his S16 fault, discovered the restored speech was in French and then had to go looking for an English set. If the voice works but sounds wrong, check which ROMs are in the sockets rather than the boards.

Missing digits on the System 80A displays

A recurring Rocky complaint is a display losing a couple of digits — the numeral 1 is specifically reported. Start at the J2/J3 connectors: clean them, reseat them, and test the suspect display against a known-good one. Only after that is it worth suspecting the display drivers. And to repeat the warning, because it is how these displays die: never hot-plug one.

Resets and connector oxidation

The resets people report on a Rocky are the System 80A pattern, not a Rocky pattern: floating grounds and oxidised connectors, with a drifting 5 V rail behind the worst of it. Do the ground mods and re-pin the connectors properly and a surprising number of intermittent faults disappear with them.

Parts, not electronics

One practical warning for owners of a 1,504-unit game: the forum traffic on Rocky is as much about sourcing parts as repairing boards. Backglasses, drop targets and playfield plastics all come up repeatedly as hard to find. Electronics you can replace with modern boards; original glass you cannot. If you are buying, weigh the cosmetic condition more heavily than you would on a common title — and if the boards are the only problem, that is the good news, not the bad.

Replacement boards compatible with Rocky

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 unsure 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 the components behind the S16 speech fault above.
• Lisy80 — CPU board with web-based diagnostics.
• GoPOP80 — pop bumper driver board, replacing the MA-922 / A-19741.

Rocky is a speech game, so if you are replacing the sound board choose the voice-capable configuration. Worth knowing: because foreign-language ROM sets were produced, a machine that has been through several owners may not have the language you expect — tell us what you have and we will make sure the sound option matches it.

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 there, remove it now.
2. Power supply. Measure the 5 V and confirm it arrives at the CPU board, not just at the supply. A sagging rail causes resets that look like logic faults.
3. The head harness. With no sound or music, flex the interconnect between the power supply and the driver board — first few wires especially — and listen for the sound cutting in and out.
4. Grounds. Do the ground mods properly across CPU, driver, power supply and sound boards.
5. Connectors. Re-pin the oxidised Molex and edge connectors, starting with the CPU-to-driver link.
6. Displays. Clean J2/J3 and test against a known-good display. Never hot-plug one.
7. Speech. Sound but no voice: follow the S16 line on the driver board before replacing the speech chip. Voice present but wrong language: check the ROMs.
8. Final check. Start-up, credits, all ten drop targets, all coils, all displays, a full game. Stuck anywhere, ask us — support is free.

FAQ — Rocky (Gottlieb, 1982)

My Rocky has no music and no sound at all.
Before buying anything, flex the interconnect harness between the power supply and the driver board in the head — particularly the first few wires. An owner chased this through connectors, fuses and sound ROMs before finding the harness was the cause. It is a known System 80 weak point.

My Rocky has sound but the speech is dead.
Work the S16 command line on the driver board. On one Rocky a failing Z32 was almost grounding S16 and killed the speech completely while everything else played. Because S16 runs through the lamp circuit, a lamp-driver component can take out your voice — check that before buying an SC-01 speech chip.

Why is my Rocky's voice in French?
Because foreign-language sound ROMs were made for this game. If the speech works but the language is wrong, the ROMs in the sockets are what to check, not the boards.

Two digits are missing on my Rocky's display.
Clean and reseat the J2/J3 connectors first — that is the usual cause — then test the display against a known-good one before suspecting the drivers. Never plug or unplug a display with the power on.

Why does my Rocky reset?
Floating grounds, oxidised connectors and a drooping 5 V rail, in that order of likelihood. Do the ground mods, re-pin the connectors and check the supply at the CPU board rather than at the supply itself.

How rare is a Rocky pinball, and what is it worth?
Rare: 1,504 were built, possibly fewer completed, and the Museum of the Game census rates it 1/100 for how often it is seen. Current sale data is genuinely thin. A Pinside price check put it at $3,000-$6,000, but that was November 2012 — useful as context, not as a valuation.

Which replacement board do I need for a Rocky?
It depends which board has failed. The GottFA80_Plus covers CPU, Driver and power supply in one; the Gosof handles sound and voice; the Godri80 is the Driver alone. Send us the references printed on your boards and we will confirm the right one.

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

• Devil's Dare (Gottlieb, 1982) — the first System 80A game, and the same S16 speech trap
• Spirit (Gottlieb, 1982)
• Punk! (Gottlieb, 1982)
• Striker (Gottlieb, 1982)
• Krull (Gottlieb, 1983)
• Q*Bert's Quest (Gottlieb, 1983)

Sources & further reading

• IPDB — Rocky (#1993)
• Arcade History — Rocky, model 672 (production, credits, processors, film prop)
• Museum of the Game — Rocky (rarity census, rules, film note)
• TV Tropes — John Trudeau (Rocky as his first design)
• Heritage Auctions — Rocky owned by Sylvester Stallone, March 2024
• Pinside — '82 Gottlieb Rocky, no music (the interconnect harness)
• Pinside — Rocky sound ROMs wanted (Z32 grounding S16, French ROMs)
• Pinside — Rocky game forum (no-speech and missing-digit threads, parts sourcing)
• Pinside — Price check: Gottlieb Rocky (November 2012)
• Pinside — Devil's Dare missing some speech (the S16 diagnosis in detail)
• Pinside — System 80 sound and speech, Sound 16 and Q10

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