Pascal Janin / Gottlieb Replacment Electronics

PASCAL JANIN - Replacement Gottlieb PCBs
Pascal, eldest son Quentin...and another Volcano		When I first started to look around for technical help for my first System 80 game I was fortunate enough to contact Pascal Janin in France. In the 5 years since making his acquaintance, I have come to realise just how fortunate this was. Pascal is a close friend now and he has helped me enormously with his advice and knowledge. Fortunately for us all, Pascal is not only my friend but a friend of anyone who appreciates Gottlieb System 1 and 80 pinball games. By profession he is an electronics engineer for a leading global semi-conductor manufacturer but he is also a great fan and collector of Gottlieb electronic pinballs. If you visit Clay Hassell's System 80 pinball repair website you will see that Pascal is credited for several "tricks", such as the driver board logic ground modification, display unit brightening and an easy replacement for the CPU reset circuitry so often destroyed by battery corrosion. These alone are proof of Pascal's understanding and ability, but what really elevates him to the level of genius is his self-designed replacement PCBs, the cream of which is undoubtedly his CPU board for all Gottlieb System 1 games: the Pi1 and the Pi1-X4: that combines a System 1 CPU, power supply, driver and tone board into one, although to see it you'd never guess!

One of the problems with both System 1 and System 80 Gottlieb pinballs is that some of the components used on the original PCBs are either impossible or increasingly difficult (and therefore expensive) to replace. Another factor of this ancient technolgy is that the components consume much more power than modern ones, and this strains PCB components and the game's power supply alike. Modern replacements such as Pascal's therefore offer a solution to these problems, and with prices for used original and probably not-working PCBs climbing ever higher, modern replacements are also an increasingly attractive proposition.
I'm happy to promote Pascal's work here, because I believe in them and use most of them myself. I've even helped to develop and test them for him. I'm not Pascal's manager or saleman but I can give my guarantee of satisfaction and I know that you won't be disappointed either. Pascal has another project currently in progress: the Pi80-X4 combo board for System 80/8oA games. You can e-mail Pascal directly for information at PascalPi1(AT)aol.com and flyers for Pascal's boards are available here in PDF format:

PASCAL JANIN - Replacement Gottlieb PCBs