AY-3-8500

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The AY-3-8500 is a chip playing several Pong variants on a domestic television receiver, released by General Instrument in 1976 and became available to any manufacturer. The circuit is intended to be battery powered and a minimum number of external components are required to complete the system.

Contents

[edit] Games

Six selectable games for one or two players are included:

Game Number of players
tennis 2
soccer 2
squash 2
practice 1
rifle game 1 1
rifle game 2 2

In addition, a seventh undocumented game can be played when none of the previous six is selected: Handicap, a soccer variant where the player on the right has a third paddle. On very few systems this game is implemented.

[edit] Usage

The AY-3-8500 is packaged in a 28 lead dual in line housing. The connection of the pins is as follows:

Nr. Name Purpose
1 NC Not connected
2 Vss Ground
3 Sound output
4 Vcc Positive supply voltage which must be between 6 and 7 V
5 Ball angles
6 Ball output
7 Ball speed
8 Manual serve
9 Right player output
10 Left player output
11 Right bat input
12 Left bat input
13 Bat size
14 NC Not connected
15 NC Not connected
16 Sync output
17 Clock input
18 Rifle game 1
19 Rifle game 2
20 Tennis
21 Soccer
22 Squash
23 Practice
24 Score and field output
25 Reset input
26 Shot input
27 Hit input
28 NC Not connected

[edit] Consoles

Consoles based on AY-3-8500 are:

[edit] Deratives

An equivalent to the AY-3-8500 is the TMS1965NLA manufactured by Texas Instruments.