Laser War

Identity and controller

Laser War is Data East's first pinball machine. Pinned PinMAME defines its three-driver clone tree with lwar_a83 as root and assigns GEN_DE (0x1000), de_dispAlpha1, FLIP4746, SNDBRD_DE1S, no custom solenoids, and Left/Right mux solenoid 10. It runs through the shared MACHINE_INIT(s11) emulator path, but the physical controller is Data East CPU Rev 1, not Williams System 11. The definition therefore uses the reviewed pinmame.dataeast profile and no longer carries a controller-platform blocker. The machine-level inversion_applied_by_emulator flag is true because consumers receive normalized public states and must not invert them again. Independently, INITGAMES11 leaves this game's per-game wpc.invSw mask all zeroes.

The display board is Laser War's 520-5004-00 topology: two seven-character 16-segment alphanumeric player rows, two seven-character numeric player rows, and a shared four-digit numeric credit/ball module. PinMAME exposes that last physical module as four one-digit layout entries, so the definition enumerates all eight controller layout entries. Displays are backbox devices and therefore use controlled not_applicable spatial records.

Address model

All 64 switch and 64 lamp matrix addresses are present in the definition, including every printed NOT USED switch position. With one-based chart rows and columns, the matrices are column-major: address (column - 1) * 8 + row. Solenoids are enumerated through public address 50 because custSol=0. Public 1-8 are the left side of eight shared transistor drives and public 25-32 are their relay-selected right side. The chart proves that special circuit 22 and right-bank branches 6R-8R have no fitted physical load, but PinMAME can publish their PIA or K1-multiplexed state at public addresses 22 and 30-32, so availability at those exact public addresses remains unknown until traced. Address 10 is the Left/Right power relay, address 23 is Game On, 33-44 are inert for this GameData, 45-48 are virtual lower-flipper power/hold states synthesized by PinMAME rather than extra physical drivers, 49 is the simulator shooter slot, and 50 is reserved.

Ball handling and causality

The retained known-working script, not printed label proximity, supplies runtime causality. It initializes trough switches 10-12 active, moves the front ball from switch 12 through coil 9 to the shooter lane, sends the outhole at switch 13 through coil 16 into the trough, and binds the red/yellow/blue eject saucers to switch/coil pairs 25/12, 33/13 and 38/14. Public output 15 energizes one 24 VDC relay that arms a separately powered 23-900 kickback coil; switch 17 then triggers the local kick, so the relay is not listed as the mechanism's actuator. The retained community technical chart numbers Coil No. 17-22 as Blue Pop/Q8, Yellow Pop/Q9, Left Sling/Q10, Red Pop/Q11, Right Sling/Q12, and an unfitted Q13 circuit. It does not print SP1-SP6 identities. The definition uses that game-specific sequence as a conflicted working mapping: Blue Pop/17, Yellow Pop/18, Left Sling/19, Red Pop/20, Right Sling/21 and unfitted/22. Interpreting pinned Data East setSSSol together with the shared SS handler comments produces a different physical-device order. All six bindings remain conflicted behind one trace gate. The known-working VPX script independently settles the five device sensors—blue/red/yellow pop switches 45/43/44 and left/right sling switches 15/14—but has no special-solenoid callbacks that can settle the public output order.

Spatial reconstruction

The retained table's asserted playfield bounds are left 0, top 0, right 964, bottom 2162. Coordinates use x=raw_x/964, y=raw_y/2162. Primary lN Light objects are bulb observations; lNa and related suffix objects are render helpers and are excluded. Lamp 41 has two primary bulbs and therefore two placements. The cannon tower groups are helper-only aggregates, so lamps 9-11 are not assigned their many visual helper coordinates. Insert-flasher helper-group centroids are marked candidate. The five resolved special-solenoid outputs are candidate projections to their exact bumper or slingshot assemblies, not hidden winding-center measurements. Synthetic flipper outputs 45-48 are virtual and deliberately have no physical quantity or coordinate. Cabinet relays, backbox flashers, service controls, displays, and internal nonvisual sensors receive controlled not_applicable dispositions.

Evidence limits and conflicts

The retained manual is a 42-page image-only archive reconstructed in page order from the complete ManualsLib _bg page-image set. It preserves the switch, lamp, and coil location drawings plus the playfield harness and CPU schematics, but the typeset chart text is absent; no committed matrix, coil-table, or flipper-circuit cell is attributed to that archive. Those cells instead come from a retained, visually reviewed one-page 2021 Inkochnito community technical chart. That secondary chart tabulates the complete matrices, Coil No. 1L-22, and both flipper circuits, including Q8-Q13, wire colors, and connector pins. Its game-specific 17-22 mapping conflicts with the order inferred from pinned setSSSol and shared PIA comments, so a LibPinMAME trace remains required. Flipper/EOS polarity and the precise electronic interface between output 15's relay and the local kickback coil also remain unresolved.

Nine disagreements are recorded as first-class conflicts. Eight remain unresolved: switch 17 is Laser Kick in the chart but Kickback in the runtime; switches 46/47 are printed as physical right/left flipper EOS switches while PinMAME and the script use those addresses for flipper-button state; printed lamp 8 is Return To Base while the retained script has no lamp-8 callback and reuses its l8 tower helpers for solenoid 5; the chart literally repeats Red Target (Right) at lamp 26 while the retained table's amber placement and switch 32 support the reconciled Yellow Target (Right) semantic label; the community special-solenoid table conflicts with the shared-source permutation; synthesized flipper states 45-48 have no settled winding-level physical mapping; and pinned s11.c's broad #89 output typing conflicts with the chart's additional left-bank flashers, right-bank knocker, and unfitted mux circuits. One has a documented resolution without rewriting the printed evidence: Mars Yellow remains semantically a flasher even though the chart prints type 23-800, because its red/blue partners are #89 lamps and pinned s11.c calls all three Mars colours flashers. Lamp 49 (Ion Cannon (Tip)) is printed but has no retained runtime binding; that is an unresolved placement/runtime omission, not silently converted into a different device.

What would complete the record

A LibPinMAME special-solenoid trace, a traced flipper/EOS and kickback relay circuit or synchronized bench capture, and a socket-level survey of the cannon tower, downstream GI circuit, and lamps 8/49 would remove the named blockers. Until then this definition remains partial.