Top 5 Replacement CPU Boards for Your Pinball Machine

Your machine will not boot. The displays are dark, the flippers are dead, and the fault has been traced to the board at the top of the backbox — the one that runs the game.

The original is out of production, and a used one carries the same leaking battery that killed yours. So you need a replacement CPU board. Here are the five we would actually put in a machine, starting with our own, and what each one is best at.

What a replacement CPU board does

The MPU — Micro Processor Unit — is the brain of a solid-state pinball machine. It reads the playfield switches, runs the game rules, keeps score, and tells the driver board which coils and lamps to fire. Gottlieb badged it the CPU board; Bally and Williams called it the MPU. Same job, different name.

It is also the board most likely to be dead, for a boring reason: it carried the battery pack that kept high scores alive with the machine unplugged. Alkaline cells leak, the leak creeps along the traces, and thirty years later the board is lace. Every board on this page removes that battery entirely.

1. Pinballs Store — the widest classic-era coverage in one place

Gottlieb System 80/80A/80B · Bally and Stern 1977–1985 · Williams System 3 to 7. Ships from the EU.

We have put ourselves first, and the reason is narrow and checkable: we are the only shop here covering all three classic manufacturers across CPU, driver, power and sound. If your backbox needs more than one board, it is one order rather than three.

• Gottlieb System 80, 80A and 80B — the Lisy80 diagnostic CPU board from €199, or the GottFA80_Plus all-in-one from €349, which replaces CPU, driver and power supply on a single board. Add the Godri80 driver board and the Gosof FPGA sound board with speech if the damage spread.
• Bally and Stern, 1977–1985 — the BallyFA MPU at €299, with the BallyDri power and driver board alongside it.
• Williams System 3 to 7 — the WillFA7 at €349, a 2-in-1 replacing both the MPU and the driver board, and one of very few current options that covers System 7.

What they do well. The FPGA boards run your original game ROMs in hardware, so the game plays as the factory intended rather than as an approximation. No battery. Plug and play into the original standoffs and connectors, no soldering. The components most likely to fail sit in sockets, so a repair is a two-minute swap rather than a desoldering job. Freeplay is built in, and the original coin mechanism still works. Every board is tested before it ships, technical support is free and unlimited, and there is a 30-day money-back guarantee with a 6-month warranty.

What they ask of you. Know your exact game — most boards are configured per title, and a similar model will not do. And be honest that a board fixes electronics, not mechanics: if your playfield is worn and your coils are cooked, this is one part of a bigger job.

Where we are weaker. We do not sell score displays, and our Gottlieb System 1 range is not on the shelf yet. For either, see numbers three and four, or the shops at the end.

2. Alltek Systems Ultimate MPU — the Bally and Stern standard

Bally and Stern, 1977–1985. United States.

The long-standing American answer for classic Bally and Stern games, and the board most owners on that side of the Atlantic reach for first. One board replaces the Bally AS-2518-17, AS-2518-35 and AS-2518-133 and the Stern MPU-100 and MPU-200, and it ships with over 90 Bally and Stern game programs already on board, selected by switch.

The feature list reads like a catalogue of everything that goes wrong with the original: no battery, an on-board self-test button, over-voltage protection, an auto-resettable fuse, static protection on the ICs, LED voltage indicators, and reset and memory-clear switches you can reach without a screwdriver. Freeplay on the Bally titles. It carries a lifetime warranty.

Best for: a Bally or Stern owner who wants one board, ordered direct, with a warranty that outlives the machine — and anyone whose machines come and go, since ninety-odd games sit on the one board.

Worth knowing: the game code runs from Alltek's reprogrammed memory rather than your original ROM chips. Most owners never notice; a few purists mind.

Site: allteksystems.com

3. Flippp! — four Gottlieb boards collapsed into one

Gottlieb System 1, 80 and 80A. Designed, built and supported in France by Pascal Janin, trading since 2001. Sells direct, and its boards are also carried by distributors including Marco Specialties.

Pascal Janin's Flippp! takes the most integrated approach of anyone on this page. The PI-1/X4 is a single board that stands in for four originals in a Gottlieb System 1 backbox at once: the A1 CPU, the A2 power supply, the A3 driver and the A6 sound board. The PI-80 line does the equivalent for System 80 and 80A, and the range extends to display drivers.

The boards run without a backup battery, use modern components with integral overcurrent protection, and install with no soldering. Janin's stated design goal is repairability from commonly available parts rather than a sealed box, and technical support is open-ended.

Best for: a Gottlieb System 1 backbox that has been comprehensively destroyed — corroded CPU, cooked driver, dead power supply. Nothing else consolidates that much into one purchase, and for a European buyer it ships from inside the EU.

Worth knowing: it runs a rewritten implementation of the game rather than your original ROMs. Flippp! states the games play as they did on the original board.

Site: flippp.fr

4. Ni-Wumpf — the longest track record in the business

Gottlieb System 1 and System 80. Honeoye Falls, New York. Sold through distributors.

Ni-Wumpf describes itself as the first developer of pinball replacement PCBs, making them since 1995 and adding driver boards in 2007. That longevity is the point: these boards have been sitting in machines for three decades, and their failure modes are known quantities.

The System 1 Mark II CPU holds every System 1 game on one board with no ROM swapping. The Super 80 CPU covers eleven System 80 titles — Black Hole, Circus, Counterforce, Haunted House, James Bond 007, Mars God of War, Panthera, Pink Panther, Spiderman, Time Line and Volcano — and can be re-pointed at another of them from a PC over a serial cable. Both are built around diagnostics driven from the front door buttons.

Best for: a Gottlieb owner who wants a board with a thirty-year history behind it and a US distributor who answers the phone.

Worth knowing: check that eleven-title list before ordering the System 80 board. If yours is a Black Hole you are fine; plenty of System 80 titles are not on it.

Maker: ni-wumpf.com

5. PinSound RocketCPU — the answer for 1990s machines

Williams and Bally WPC-89, WPC-S and WPC-95. Made by PinSound, sold direct and through a worldwide dealer network.

Everything above is 1977 to 1989. If your machine is a 1990s DMD game — a Twilight Zone, an Addams Family, a Monster Bash — none of it fits, and the RocketCPU is where you go instead.

It is a drop-in replacement for the original WPC CPU board built to the same schematics as the original, with useful additions on top. Its Multipass technology detects the machine and works across WPC-89, WPC-S and WPC-95 without needing the game-specific security chip — which is the single most annoying obstacle to repairing a WPC-S or WPC-95 machine. There is integrated reset protection, a smart status LED that reports machine health, battery level and errors at a glance, and a high-precision clock oscillator. Two-year warranty.

PinSound, run by brothers Nicolas and Timothée, is better known for sound boards, and their audio range is worth a look if your machine sounds tired rather than dead. They sell direct and also supply dealers worldwide, so there is usually a stockist on your continent.

Best for: any WPC-era Williams or Bally machine, and especially one where the security chip has failed.

Site: pinsound.org

Which board for which machine

Your machine	Board	Runs original ROMs
Gottlieb System 80 / 80A / 80B	Lisy80 or GottFA80_Plus (us), Flippp! PI-80, Ni-Wumpf Super 80	Yes (FPGA) / rewritten / rewritten
Gottlieb System 1	Flippp! PI-1/X4, Ni-Wumpf Mark II	Rewritten
Bally & Stern 1977–1985	BallyFA (us), Alltek Ultimate MPU	Yes (FPGA) / reprogrammed
Williams System 3 to 7	WillFA7 (us)	Yes (FPGA)
Williams / Bally WPC (1990s)	PinSound RocketCPU	Yes

Where to buy, and who stocks what

Several of these you buy direct: Alltek, Flippp! and PinSound all sell from their own sites, and Flippp! and PinSound also supply a dealer network, so there is often a stockist closer to you. Ni-Wumpf sells only through distributors. Two shops are worth knowing in their own right.

XPR Pinball Solutions (United States) is the one to know when the fault is not the brain. They make their own displays, power supplies and driver boards — solenoid, lamp and auxiliary lamp — across Bally, Stern, Gottlieb, Williams, Premier, Midway and Data East, and they also stock Alltek, so a Bally owner can take an MPU and a rectifier board from the same basket. Displays are the category almost nobody else covers properly, and a dim or dead score display is one of the most common complaints on a 1980s machine.

Marco Specialties is the general parts house: it carries Alltek, Ni-Wumpf and Flippp! boards alongside the unglamorous everything-else of a restoration — playfield glass, flipper rebuild kits, rubber, balls, levellers. If your order is one board and forty small parts, this is the shop with all forty-one.

Before you order

1. Identify the system, not the title. Gottlieb System 1 or System 80/80A/80B, Bally or Stern 1977–1985, Williams System 3–7, or WPC. That one fact eliminates most of this page.
2. Make sure the CPU is really the fault. A machine that will not boot is very often the power supply or a ground problem instead. Work through our step-by-step diagnostic for a machine that won't turn on first, and on a Gottlieb check whether the ground mods have been done. Replacing a good board fixes nothing.
3. See how far the battery got. Leaked alkaline travels. If it took the driver board with it, price the pair.
4. Watch shipping and customs. A cheaper board from another continent stops being cheaper at the border. Buy on your own side of it where you can.
5. Ask about support before you buy. A board is a ten-year relationship. Who answers the email in year three?

Still weighing up whether to replace at all? Our guide on repairing versus replacing a pinball circuit board makes both cases honestly.

FAQ

What is the best replacement CPU board for a classic pinball machine?

It depends entirely on the system. For Gottlieb System 80 our Lisy80 and GottFA80_Plus cover it; for Bally and Stern 1977–1985, our BallyFA or Alltek's Ultimate MPU; for Gottlieb System 1, Flippp! or Ni-Wumpf; for Williams System 3–7, the WillFA7; and for 1990s WPC machines, PinSound's RocketCPU.

Do replacement pinball CPU boards need a battery?

No. Every board on this page stores settings and high scores in non-volatile memory, so there is nothing left to leak and corrode the board. Removing the battery is much of the point of fitting one.

Can I fit a replacement CPU board without soldering?

Yes. Assembled boards mount on the machine's original standoffs and plug into its original connectors. Soldering only enters the picture if you build a board yourself from a published DIY design.

Will a replacement board change how my machine plays?

It depends on the design. Boards that run your original ROM code — including our FPGA boards and the RocketCPU — play as the factory intended. Boards with reprogrammed or rewritten code aim for the same feel and get very close. Most owners cannot tell the difference.

Who sells replacement displays for classic pinball machines?

Displays are their own category. XPR Pinball Solutions covers Bally, Stern, Gottlieb, Williams, Premier, Midway and Data East displays, and Flippp! makes display drivers for Gottlieb. We do not sell displays.

Which board covers Williams System 7?

The WillFA7 covers System 3 through 7, System 7 included — Black Knight, Firepower II, Jungle Lord. Several other 2-in-1 boards stop at System 6, so check the compatibility list carefully.

Sources & further reading

• Alltek Systems — Ultimate MPU, universal Bally/Stern replacement board
• Flippp! — PI-1/X4 all-in-one board for Gottlieb System 1
• Ni-Wumpf — Gottlieb System 1 and System 80 boards
• PinSound — RocketCPU for WPC-89, WPC-S and WPC-95
• XPR Pinball Solutions — displays, power supplies and driver boards
• Marco Specialties — general pinball parts and boards
• PinWiki — Gottlieb System 80 technical reference