Super Orbit (Gottlieb, 1983): no boot, faults and System 80A boards

Is your Gottlieb Super Orbit showing a stubborn "1" in the tens digit and refusing to boot, throwing garbage onto the displays, resetting mid-game — or giving you a tingle through the leg levellers? All four are well-documented on Gottlieb System 80A, where the original CPU, Driver and power supply boards are now over forty years old. Most of it is fixable, and modern battery-free replacement boards remove the worst of it permanently.

About Super Orbit (Gottlieb, 1983)

See it: full photo gallery for Super Orbit on IPDB (#2437) · Pinside machine page and owner photos

Super Orbit shipped in May 1983 as model 680, with 2,100 built — far more common than most of its 1983 stablemates, which is good news for parts and donor boards.

It was designed by Ed Krynski, the man behind a long run of Gottlieb's best electromechanical games, with artwork by David Moore and sound by Craig Beierwaltes. The name is no coincidence: Super Orbit is a solid-state reworking of Gottlieb's 1971 electromechanical Orbit, carrying over the shot geometry and adding an extra scoring digit.

The rules are compact and old-school, and worth knowing because they tell you which mechanisms must work before the game feels right:

• The spinner on the right scores 1,000 a spin and advances the Orbit lamps one step per spin — the low-risk shot, and the main way bonus climbs.
• The vari-target on the left scores 1,000 to 5,000 depending on how deep you drive it, advances bonus, and at the sixth level lights Double Bonus and pays a Special when lit. It is also the shot most likely to drain you.
• Bonus is ten 1,000-point Orbit lamps; a complete revolution lights a 10,000-point Bonus lamp. Maximum base bonus is 190,000, doubled on the last ball.
• The left inlane opens the right outlane return gate — the game's one bit of ball-save generosity.
• Three pop bumpers at the top score 1,000 to 10,000.
• Rollover targets top and sides score 5,000 each.
• There is no multiball and no extra ball; the Special is the only free play on offer.

So if your Super Orbit plays flat, check the spinner and the vari-target before suspecting the electronics: with the bonus riding entirely on those two shots, a sticky spinner or a worn vari-target reads as a broken game even when every board is fine.

• Manufacturer: D. Gottlieb & Co. (a Columbia Pictures Industries company)
• Release: May 1983 — model 680
• Production run: 2,100 units
• Design: Ed Krynski — Art: David Moore — Sound: Craig Beierwaltes
• Electronic system: Gottlieb System 80A, alphanumeric displays
• Players: 4
• Type: solid-state; solid-state reworking of Gottlieb's EM Orbit (1971)
• Theme: space / science fiction (original theme, not licensed)
• Variants: owners report both purple and blue cabinet decoration

On the cabinet colours: a poll in the Pinside owners' club turned up two distinct schemes, purple and blue, so do not assume a repaint if yours does not match the photo in your head.

A point of history: Coca-Cola bought Columbia Pictures in June 1982 and Gottlieb was restructured as Mylstar Electronics in November 1983 — months after Super Orbit shipped, so this game's cabinet still reads D. Gottlieb & Co.

Money, for context: Pinside puts Super Orbit in the $1,760–$2,040 range, with a 2025 asking price around $1,850, and lists 34 owners. It is an affordable way into a System 80A, which is part of the appeal.

Common faults on System 80A

The whole System 80 and 80A family ages the same way, in a predictable order.

The NiCd battery on the CPU board comes first. It leaks, the electrolyte wicks along the traces and under the IC sockets, and it keeps eating copper long after the battery is flat. Deal with this before anything else — if there is still a battery on the board, take it off.

Then the logic: tired 6532 RIOT chips, dried capacitors, and a board that will not boot. Early System 80 CPU boards also carry a built-in timing error on access to the 5101 CMOS RAM that prevents the last memory location being written; the accepted fix is a modification at Z36 (a 4069) plus a 3K3 pull-up. The famous start-up thunk comes from SN74175N "clear" chips whose pin 1 was wired straight to +5 V instead of through a proper reset circuit.

Then grounds and connectors, where most "mystery" faults live. System 80A returns grounds through board edges, and forty years of oxide turns that into random resets, phantom switch closures and wandering displays. The ground mods are essential: a jumper from the CPU board's ground hole (3 o'clock position) to cabinet ground, a jumper from the power supply ground line to the supply frame, C1's negative lead bonded to the regulator frame, and the regulator frame taken to cabinet ground through the headboard lock wire.

And finally the impostors — faults that look like dead boards and are not. A slam switch tripping on its own gives rolling displays and no game start, and can be bypassed at the MPU for testing. A coin door lockout loop jammed into a coin blade switch locks the game solid. The orange capacitor in the bottom of the cabinet is worth replacing before you troubleshoot anything. And displays with missing segments are very often just the J2/J3 connectors.

Faults specific to Super Orbit

These are the ones Super Orbit owners keep running into, drawn from the machine's own Pinside threads.

No boot, with a "1" stuck in the tens position

The most-reported Super Orbit fault, and an instructive one. At power-up the game puts a "1" in the tens digit on displays 1 and 3 and goes no further. The owner who documented it worked through the obvious suspects first: new MPU and Driver connectors, switch-matrix continuity, supply voltages confirmed good, the 74-series switch-matrix logic tested for shorts, and diode readings between the matrix strobes and returns. The displays proved fine — all zeros flashed briefly on power-down, which shows the display driving works.

The useful clue was elsewhere: the tilt relay never pulled in. That points at the reset and initialisation circuit rather than the displays or the switch matrix. Check the reset circuit, the slam switch and the grounds before you order display parts. The thread ends without a confirmed fix, so treat it as a direction rather than a recipe — but the "it is not the displays" conclusion saves real money.

Garbage displays, missing last digit on players 1 and 3

Separate from the no-boot fault, and far more common: scrambled characters, a last digit that disappears, and segments dropping out. On System 80A this is edge connectors nearly every time. Clean the board edges properly, reseat J2 and J3, and re-pin anything oxidised. Only if the fault persists across a known-good display is the CPU board actually suspect.

Pop bumpers that blow a 2 A fuse

Super Orbit's three pop bumpers are central to the game, and they are the subject of more than one owner thread. The pattern: fit a new 2 A fuse, get a handful of hits, blow it again. The cause is normally the driver transistor on the pop bumper driver board, not the coil, not the switch. The free diagnostic is to swap two pop bumper boards over and see whether the fault follows the board or stays with the bumper. If it follows the board, that board is your problem — and the GoPOP80 is a direct replacement for MA-922 / A-19741.

Electric shocks from the leg levellers — read this one properly

A genuine safety issue, not a quirk, and the detail matters. An owner reported a tingle from the bare chrome leg levellers while standing on a concrete floor, with the machine plugged in but switched off: roughly 2 V AC from leg to concrete with the legs down, about 5 V AC with the front legs lifted. Reversing the plug made no difference, nor did a different extension lead.

The decisive finding was the outlet: a socket tester showed an open ground, in a house with ungrounded 1960s wiring. A leaky mains line filter was suspected on top — a fair second suspect, but with no earth at the wall that leakage has nowhere to go except through you.

Order of work: get the machine onto a verified earthed socket, then check the earth bonding inside the cabinet, then test the line filter by substitution. Note that adding a ground wire to a board bracket achieves nothing unless that bracket is itself bonded to cabinet earth. If you are not confident with mains wiring, call an electrician.

Inserts and lamps not working

Another recurring 80A complaint on this machine. Work the fuses and the lamp sockets first, then the grounds, then the Driver board outputs. A dead lamp circuit with intact fuses and no short points at the drive stage, which is what the Godri80 or an all-in-one GottFA80_Plus replaces.

Power supply and volume pot

Two smaller items from Super Orbit's threads. The original power supply is a common rebuild on these games, and drifting voltages are a frequent cause of the resets people blame on the CPU. The volume pot is a known wear item: a scratchy or dead volume control is usually the pot, not the sound board.

Replacement boards compatible with Super Orbit

Super Orbit is a standard System 80A game, so the System 80/80A/80B range applies with no special cases. We test every board before it ships and support it afterwards, and none needs a battery.

• GottFA80_Plus (Light) — all-in-one CPU + Driver + power supply board, without sound. The modern on-board supply is what makes it a good answer to resets.
• GottFA80_Plus (Full) — the same with integrated sound.
• Gosof — replacement sound board, with or without speech. Check which sound configuration your game has before choosing.
• Godri80 — replacement Driver board; the one for dead lamp or coil outputs.
• Lisy80 — CPU board with web diagnostics, which makes testing the switch matrix and the Orbit lamp chain much faster. Lisy is an independent developer's free DIY project: lisy.dev.
• GoPOP80 — pop bumper driver board (replaces MA-922 / A-19741).

Plug & Play installation, battery-free, free tutorials and support. Not sure what is in your backbox? Send us the board references and we will tell you.

Step-by-step diagnosis

1. Safety first. If you feel anything through the legs or coin door, stop and sort the earth out: a tested earthed socket, then cabinet bonding, then the line filter.
2. Power off, look. Inspect the CPU board for battery residue and green corrosion, particularly around the IC sockets. Remove the NiCd battery if it is still there.
3. Power supply. Measure the 5 V and confirm it reaches the CPU board. Reflow the regulator and Q1 joints if it sags under load. Drifting voltages cause resets.
4. Grounds. Do the ground mods between CPU, Driver, power supply and sound. On a System 80A this is the best hour you will spend.
5. Connectors and board edges. Clean the edge connectors, reseat J2 and J3, re-pin oxidised Molex — the CPU-to-Driver link above all.
6. Displays. Never plug or unplug a display with the power on. If zeros flash on power-down, your display driving is working and the fault is upstream.
7. No boot with a "1" in the tens digit? Check whether the tilt relay pulls in. If it does not, look at the reset and initialisation circuit and the slam switch rather than the displays.
8. Pop bumpers. If a 2 A fuse keeps blowing, swap two pop bumper boards and see whether the fault moves.
9. Mechanisms. Free off the spinner and check the vari-target — the bonus depends on both.
10. Final test. Start-up, credits, coils, lamps, displays, Orbit lamp chain. Still stuck? Our support is free.

FAQ — Super Orbit (Gottlieb, 1983)

My Super Orbit shows a "1" in the tens position and will not boot. What is it?
The most-reported fault on this game. Check whether the tilt relay pulls in — if it does not, the reset and initialisation circuit is the place to look, not the displays. If zeros flash across the displays on power-down, the display driving is fine. Verify 5 V at the CPU board and do the ground mods before buying parts.

My displays show garbage and a digit is missing on players 1 and 3.
Edge connectors, almost always. Clean the board edges, reseat J2 and J3, and re-pin anything oxidised. If a known-good display behaves the same way, then look at the CPU board — a GottFA80_Plus or Lisy80 makes the display stage reliable.

I get a shock from the machine's legs. Is that normal?
No, and it should be dealt with before you play the machine again. In the documented case the wall socket tested as open ground on old ungrounded wiring, with a leaky line filter suspected on top. Get the game onto a verified earthed socket, check the cabinet earth bonding, then test the filter. Adding a ground wire to a board bracket does nothing unless that bracket is bonded to cabinet earth.

My pop bumper keeps blowing a 2 A fuse.
Usually the driver transistor on the pop bumper driver board rather than the coil or the switch. Swap two pop bumper boards over: if the fault follows the board, replace or rebuild it. The GoPOP80 is a direct fit for MA-922 / A-19741.

My Super Orbit resets during a game.
Grounds and power supply, in that order. Do the ground mods, then measure the 5 V under load — a tired original power supply is a classic cause. An all-in-one GottFA80_Plus brings a modern supply with it.

How many Super Orbit machines were made?
2,100, in May 1983, as model 680. That is a healthy production run for a 1983 Gottlieb, which is why parts and donor boards are still findable.

What is a Super Orbit worth?
Pinside currently estimates $1,760–$2,040, with a 2025 asking price around $1,850. Condition decides a lot and the market moves, so treat it as a guide rather than a valuation.

Should the original battery be removed?
Yes, and the sooner the better. Our boards run without one, which eliminates the number-one cause of corrosion on System 80A.

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

Useful guides

• Gottlieb crashing or resetting? A full System 80 diagnosis
• GottFA80_Plus: the all-in-one board for Gottlieb System 80/80A/80B
• GoPOP80: plug-and-play pop bumper driver board (replaces MA-922 / A-19741)
• Troubleshooting a System 80/A/B target with the Lisy80
• Repair or replace a pinball circuit board: which should you choose?
• How much is my pinball machine worth? Values and estimates by model

See also

• Krull (Gottlieb, 1983)
• Q*Bert's Quest (Gottlieb, 1983)
• Royal Flush Deluxe (Gottlieb, 1983)
• Goin' Nuts (Gottlieb, 1983)
• Amazon Hunt (Gottlieb, 1983)
• Striker (Gottlieb, 1982)
• Alien Star (Gottlieb, 1984)

Sources & further reading

• IPDB — Super Orbit (#2437)
• Pinside — Super Orbit: credits, production, market value
• Pinside thread — "Gottlieb 80A no boot, displays 1 in 10's position"
• Pinside thread — "Gottlieb Super Orbit shocking me (System 80a)"
• Pinside thread — Gottlieb System 80 pop bumper blowing a fuse
• Pinside — Gottlieb Super Orbit Club (cabinet colour variants)
• Pinside — Super Orbit forum index (pop bumpers, inserts, power supply, volume pot)
• Flippers.com — tips for the Gottlieb System 80 series (ground mods, 5101 RAM, SN74175N)
• Pinball.org — Super Orbit rule sheet
• Kineticist — Super Orbit: production, model number, credits
• Kineticist — Mylstar Electronics: Gottlieb's forgotten year
• OPDB — Super Orbit

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