The Ultimate Guide to Pinball • Hacker News Board

Re: The Ultimate Guide to Pinball

#21

Post by jgeorge » Wed, May 06, 2015, 4:11 PM UTC

joezydeco wrote: post #18

mmetzger wrote: post #9

The article isn't really covering the modern pinball scene. While Stern is definitely the major manufacturer in play, Jersey Jack is growing and there are several more boutique manufacturers including: Multimorphic - Offers the P3 pinball system integrating a full LCD panel with motion tracking into the playfield (as opposed to the backbox like JJ.) They also offer the P-ROC which allows replacing the CPU (a 6809/ASI…

I'm curious if Planetary ever resolved their licensing issues and how they did it. The prototypes they once showed were using MAME running on a Beaglebone Black to emulate the old Williams hardware.

Planetary's Medieval Madness remake does indeed use a BBB as a core CPU, connected to a driver board. I don't know exactly what it emulates, if it's emulating the original CPU or it's new code (I presume some emulation layer).

Re: The Ultimate Guide to Pinball

#22

Post by jgeorge » Wed, May 06, 2015, 4:13 PM UTC

circuitslave wrote: post #17

sparkzilla wrote: post #12

I highly recommend buying an old pinball machine and refurbishing it yourself. You'll learn a ton about how these great machines work. I got an old Creature From the Black Lagoon (1993) [1] and stripped down and rebuilt all of the playfield and the cabinet. There's lots of info on the web about how to fix them, and many companies sell spare parts. [1] http://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=588

I second this - and am happy to see an ipdb.org link - there is a ton of information there. I picked up an old Xenon - http://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?gid=2821 - worked it over with guides online and it still runs great 10 years later. If I had the room I'd have more!

Thirded. One of the most satisfying restorations we've ever done was a sand-it-down-to-the-wood repaint/restore of a Space Shuttle. There's an extra level of satisfaction to play a machine where every screw, bolt, wire, and switch is something that you personally put in place.

Re: The Ultimate Guide to Pinball

#23

Post by joezydeco » Wed, May 06, 2015, 4:27 PM UTC

jgeorge wrote: post #21

joezydeco wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious if Planetary ever resolved their licensing issues and how they did it. The prototypes they once showed were using MAME running on a Beaglebone Black to emulate the old Williams hardware.

Planetary's Medieval Madness remake does indeed use a BBB as a core CPU, connected to a driver board. I don't know exactly what it emulates, if it's emulating the original CPU or it's new code (I presume some emulation layer).

It's definitely an emulation layer. The original game was written in 6809 assembly language along with talking to custom hardware, some of it in an ASIC as well as an Analog Devices DSP for sound playback.

There's a branch of MAME called PinMAME that emulates this hardware, and that's what Planetary showed in their demonstrations.