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

Is your Gottlieb Striker refusing to start, resetting mid-game, dropping the flippers as soon as the ball is served, showing incomplete scores or playing sounds in test but nothing during a game? These symptoms are typical of Gottlieb System 80A pinballs, whose original boards (CPU, Driver, power supply, sound) are now over forty years old. The good news: modern replacement boards, Plug & Play and battery-free, give the machine a second life.

About the Striker (Gottlieb, 1982)

See it: full photo gallery for Striker on IPDB (#2405) · owner photo gallery on Pinside

Striker reached the field in November 1982 as Gottlieb model 675, and it arrived in one of the worst years the American pinball industry ever had. The video-game boom had pulled operators away from flippers, and it shows in the numbers: Pinside and the IPSND serial register both put the production run at 910 units — a modest figure for a Gottlieb of that era, and one reason parts are thin on the ground today.

The theme is association football, timed for the 1982 World Cup. Behind it sits a design team worth knowing about. The game was laid out by John Trudeau, then early in a career that would later produce Bride of Pin-Bot, Creature from the Black Lagoon and Judge Dredd for Williams and Bally. The artwork is credited to David Moore and the sound to Craig Beierwaltes.

Striker is a wide-body, four-player machine, and the playfield is genuinely unusual. Instead of one pair of flippers it has six — two sets at the bottom and a third pair mid-playfield — plus fourteen drop targets, four slingshots and two spinners. It also talks: Striker is one of a small group of System 80/80A games fitted with a speech-capable sound board, and it backs the speech with crowd noise, which was a large part of its appeal on location.

One piece of corporate context matters for the story, and it comes up again below. In 1982 Gottlieb was not independent — Columbia Pictures had bought it in 1976 for $47 million, and the machine's own badge reads "D. Gottlieb & Co., a Columbia Pictures Industries Company". Coca-Cola acquired Columbia in 1983, Gottlieb was renamed Mylstar Electronics that same year, and pinball production passed to Premier Technology in October 1984.

• Manufacturer: D. Gottlieb & Co. (a Columbia Pictures Industries Company)
• Released: November 1982 — model 675
• Production run: 910 units
• Electronic system: Gottlieb System 80A
• Sound: MA-216 sound and speech board (Votrax SC-01 speech chip)
• Design: John Trudeau · Art: David Moore · Sound: Craig Beierwaltes
• Cabinet: wide body, 4 players
• Playfield: 6 flippers, 14 drop targets, 4 slingshots, 2 spinners, speech and crowd effects
• Theme: football / soccer

On the collector market Striker sits in the mid range for a System 80A. Pinside's marketplace data covers seven listings over three years, with asking prices clustered around $4,750 (roughly $4,440–$5,160). Thirteen Pinsiders list one in their collection and twenty-one have it on a wishlist, which tells you it is uncommon without being unobtainable.

Common faults across System 80A

Before the Striker-specific problems, the family faults. Every System 80 and 80A machine suffers from the same short list, and on most machines you will find two or three of them at once.

The NiCd battery on the CPU board is the first thing to look at, every time. It was soldered directly to the board, it leaks as it ages, and the electrolyte creeps along the traces and up into the nearby IC sockets. Left alone it eats through the copper and the repair goes from "remove the battery" to "rebuild the board". If your Striker still has its original battery fitted, take it off before you do anything else, whether or not the machine currently works.

Next come the 6532 RIOT chips — the input/output and RAM devices that let the CPU read switches and drive lamps. They fail with age, and a dead RIOT typically shows up as a game that boots but ignores part of the switch matrix, or will not boot at all.

Then the connectors. Gottlieb used edge connectors for the displays, and the resulting missing segments and missing digits are so common that collectors call it the "Gottlieb curse". Nine times out of ten it is the connector rather than the display or the CPU: cleaning and reseating fixes it, and re-pinning fixes it permanently. Related to this, random resets almost always trace back to poor grounding between boards and oxidised Molex pins, not to a bad CPU. The well-known System 80 "ground mods" — running proper ground straps between the CPU, Driver, power supply and sound boards — solve more resets than any chip swap.

Finally the power supply, whose voltages drift as the capacitors dry out, and spurious slam tilts, which are usually a dirty slam switch or a floating ground rather than a fault in the logic.

Striker-specific issues reported by owners

Striker has around thirty-five discussion threads on Pinside, and a handful of faults come up often enough to be worth naming. Several of them are specific to this machine's layout and its speech hardware, and at least one will save you a wasted afternoon on the boards.

Q relay will not stay energised — check the trough before the boards

This is the most useful Striker report on the forums, because the obvious diagnosis is the wrong one. Owners describe a machine where the Q relay — the relay that switches power to the solenoids — clicks briefly when the game starts and then drops out, leaving the flippers dead until it is pushed in by hand. Because the relay responds correctly in the solenoid test, the natural conclusion is a failing driver transistor or a tired relay.

In the Striker case documented on Pinside it was neither. The cause was a bent ball-present switch in the ball trough. The game was waiting for a valid ball-present signal before committing to the game and energising Q, and the bent switch never closed. Straightening the switch blade restored normal operation and the flippers came back. If your Q relay behaves this way and tests fine, inspect and adjust the trough switches before you take a single board out of the backbox.

Sound works in the test but not during a game

Another recurring Striker thread. Sound test runs through the effects correctly, then the game itself is silent or nearly so. This pattern points away from the amplifier and the speaker — both of which are clearly working in test — and towards the link between the CPU board and the sound board: the sound-select lines and their connector. Re-pin that connector, check continuity on the select lines, and confirm the sound board's own power. Owners have also reported hunting for replacement sound PROMs for this game, so a corrupted or socket-oxidised sound PROM is worth checking while you are in there.

Speech gone, effects still present

Striker is a speech game, and speech is produced by a Votrax SC-01 chip on the sound board. When the SC-01 fails you get a machine that still makes its bleeps and crowd noise but has lost every spoken call. This is a well-documented System 80 failure across all the speech titles, and the SC-01 is long out of production — which is why modern replacement sound boards and SC-01 emulators exist. If the effects are fine and only the voice is missing, suspect the speech chip rather than the board as a whole.

Pop bumper fuse blowing repeatedly

Also reported on Striker, and a System 80 classic. The pop bumpers are driven by a small dedicated driver board — our own listing and the Gottlieb part number call it MA-922 / A-19741, while some parts catalogues and forum threads list the same board as MA-992, so check the number silkscreened on your own board. When its driver transistor fails short, the fuse blows every time the bumper fires. The standard diagnosis on the forums is to swap the pop bumper boards between positions and see whether the fault follows the board or stays with the bumper — if it follows the board, the board is at fault; if it stays, look at the coil and the bumper switch. The original boards are repairable, and a modern replacement removes the recurring failure altogether.

Fourteen drop targets, and what that means for you

Nothing on the forums here — this one is simple arithmetic. A playfield with fourteen drop targets, four slingshots and six flippers has far more moving metal than a typical single-level game of the period, and that is where wear turns up first: drop target springs and links, reset coils, worn EOS contacts and crushed coil stops on the flippers. If your Striker plays weakly rather than failing electrically, start with the mechanics.

Parts are genuinely scarce

With 910 machines built, playfields, backglasses and specific plastics are hard to find, and the Pinside classifieds show people looking for all three. Factor that into any purchase: a Striker with a good playfield and an intact backglass is worth noticeably more than one without, because those parts cannot simply be ordered.

Replacement boards compatible with the Striker

Striker is a standard System 80A machine on the CPU and Driver side, so the usual System 80/80A replacements apply. The one detail specific to this game is the sound: Striker uses the MA-216 sound and speech board and is one of the eight System 80/80A titles with speech (alongside Mars, Volcano, Black Hole, Devil's Dare, Rocky, Q*Bert's Quest and Caveman). If you are replacing the sound board, you need the speech-capable configuration, not the plain effects version.

• GottFA80_Plus (Light) — all-in-one CPU + Driver + power supply board, without sound.
• GottFA80_Plus (Full) — the same board with integrated sound.
• Gosof — replacement sound board. For Striker, order the version with speech.
• Godri80 — replacement Driver board.
• Lisy80 — CPU board with web-based diagnostics.
• GoPOP80 — pop bumper driver board, replacing the original MA-922 / A-19741. Directly relevant if you are chasing the blown-fuse fault above.

A note on export versions: on speech games the speech ROM content is tied to the MPU ROM, so an export Striker may need its MPU ROM changed when a modern sound board is set to its speech configuration. Tell us which version you have and we will confirm before you order.

The Lisy80 and Gosof designs come from LISY, an independent developer's free DIY project — credit where it is due. We test the boards we ship, and we support them afterwards; installation is Plug & Play, battery-free, with tutorials and free help if you get stuck. Contact us with the references on your boards and we will tell you which combination fits your machine.

Step-by-step diagnosis

1. Powered off, visual inspection: look for the NiCd battery and any corrosion on your Striker's CPU board. Remove the battery if it is still fitted, before testing anything.
2. Power supply: measure the 5 V and confirm it actually reaches the CPU board; check the bridge rectifier and resolder the regulator if the voltage sags under load.
3. Grounds: apply the System 80 ground mods between the CPU, Driver, power supply and sound boards. Do this before chasing resets.
4. Connectors: re-pin oxidised Molex connectors, especially the CPU↔Driver link and the CPU↔sound link.
5. Displays: clean and reseat the edge connectors. Never plug or unplug a display with the machine powered on, and test with a known-good display.
6. Trough and Q relay: if the flippers die as the ball is served, inspect and adjust the ball-present switches before suspecting the boards.
7. Sound: if sound runs in test but not in a game, look at the CPU↔sound connector and the sound PROM, not the amplifier.
8. Final test: start-up, credits, coils, drop target resets, displays, effects and speech. If anything remains, contact our free support.

FAQ — Gottlieb Striker (1982)

How many Gottlieb Strikers were made?
910 units, built from November 1982 as model 675. Both Pinside and the IPSND serial register give the same figure, which makes Striker uncommon but not rare.

My Striker won't start.
Check the CPU board for the NiCd battery and its corrosion first — it is the number-one cause of dead System 80A boards. If the board is beyond saving, a GottFA80_Plus or Lisy80 replacement makes starting reliable and runs battery-free.

My Striker's flippers go dead as soon as the ball is served, and the Q relay drops out.
Check the ball-present switches in the trough before touching the boards. A bent trough switch is the documented cause on Striker: the game never sees a valid ball and so never holds the Q relay in, even though the relay tests perfectly.

The sound works in test but not during a game.
That points at the link between the CPU board and the sound board rather than the amplifier. Re-pin that connector, check the sound-select lines, and inspect the sound PROM and its socket.

My Striker has effects but no speech.
Striker is a speech game and the voice comes from a Votrax SC-01 chip on the sound board. If the effects are fine and only the speech is gone, the SC-01 is the usual culprit. A speech-capable replacement sound board resolves it.

Why does my Striker keep blowing the pop bumper fuse?
Almost always a shorted driver transistor on the pop bumper driver board (MA-922 / A-19741, listed as MA-992 by some suppliers). Swap the boards between bumper positions: if the fault follows the board, replace or repair the board; if it stays put, check the coil and the bumper switch.

What is a Gottlieb Striker worth?
Pinside's marketplace data covers seven listings over three years, with asking prices around $4,750 and a range of roughly $4,440–$5,160. Condition of the playfield and backglass moves the figure a long way, because those parts are hard to replace on a 910-unit run.

Does a battery-free board keep the settings and high scores?
Yes. Modern replacement boards use non-volatile memory: no battery, no corrosion, and settings and scores survive being switched off.

See also

• Rocky (Gottlieb, 1982) — also designed by John Trudeau, also a speech game.
• Punk! (Gottlieb, 1982)
• Devil's Dare (Gottlieb, 1982) — another MA-216 speech title.
• Q*Bert's Quest (Gottlieb, 1983) — same sound board family, with speech.
• Krull (Gottlieb, 1983) — Trudeau's next design, and one of the rarest pinballs ever built.
• Super Orbit (Gottlieb, 1983)

Sources & further reading

• IPDB — Striker (#2405)
• IPSND serial register — Striker (model 675, 910 units)
• Pinside — Striker: credits, features and marketplace data
• Pinside forum — Striker (all topics)
• Pinside — "Gottlieb Striker (System 80A) Q Relay not staying on"
• Pinside — "Gottlieb System 80 pop bumper blowing fuse"
• Pinside — SC-01 speech synthesizer replacement
• LISY — GOSOF80 user manual (sound board types and the list of speech games)
• Pinside — John Trudeau's design credits
• Wikipedia — Gottlieb (Columbia Pictures, Mylstar, Premier Technology timeline)
• OPDB — Open Pinball Database

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