Circuit Girl is making her own pin

Hope she put a patent on it, so know one steals this idea. Thanks for posting up the videos they were interesting.

I don't think she's planning on selling this or producing more than one.

I had a back and forth with her about her choice of theme before she settled on As Seen on TV. I think the idea is pretty cool, and I really like her mini TV set.
 
I don't think she's planning on selling this or producing more than one.

I had a back and forth with her about her choice of theme before she settled on As Seen on TV. I think the idea is pretty cool, and I really like her mini TV set.

She seems quite talented! Yes the T.V. is awesome as well.
 
Very cool. She has some really neat toys to implement on her pinball. I like the idea of the laser. The TV shot is pretty darn neat.

I think she needs to scrap the toilet though.
 
The great thing about this is that all of the tools and technology are available and within your budget. Most folks with a little ingenuity and tools could design and build a playfield and wire it up. The parts are readily available. The creativity part is the fun and challenge.

But I think the most marketable and sellable tools and hardware for homebrew pinball hobbyists would be a PC-based pinball control software package. You could design and simulate your playfield control then develop your game. It would have features to record sounds, develop rulesets, control the playfield and of course design your own DMD displays. Available for sale also would be generic driver and sensor boards and circuits that would interface to the PC via USB. You could add multiple driver boards or sensor boards via USB and also build your own driver / sensor circuits using the generic driver / sensor boards as the interface.

This would allow you to either start from scratch or interface to an existing playfield.

The software would be purchased (need to compensate the developer for their work and continuing support) and a forum created. Hobbyists could develop and share their "code" for playfield control and hardware designs and techniques much like circuit girl is doing now.

Bill
 
The great thing about this is that all of the tools and technology are available and within your budget. Most folks with a little ingenuity and tools could design and build a playfield and wire it up. The parts are readily available. The creativity part is the fun and challenge.

But I think the most marketable and sellable tools and hardware for homebrew pinball hobbyists would be a PC-based pinball control software package. You could design and simulate your playfield control then develop your game. It would have features to record sounds, develop rulesets, control the playfield and of course design your own DMD displays. Available for sale also would be generic driver and sensor boards and circuits that would interface to the PC via USB. You could add multiple driver boards or sensor boards via USB and also build your own driver / sensor circuits using the generic driver / sensor boards as the interface.

This would allow you to either start from scratch or interface to an existing playfield.

The software would be purchased (need to compensate the developer for their work and continuing support) and a forum created. Hobbyists could develop and share their "code" for playfield control and hardware designs and techniques much like circuit girl is doing now.

Bill

Great post.

I think the problem with something like this is that there are not enough people who would buy one to make it worthwhile to build. You would basically need to build and MPU and a driver board. Then write a PC interface and a crapload of software to make it "user friendly". Quite a large undertaking with a finished product that would easily be in the $500+ range. Then you would have assholes who have not contributed thing one to the hobby bitching about it ;)

I've put a lot of thought into this because I'm very interested in home-brew pinball. Currently I'm working on a design that will replace a Motorola 6800 series CPU with a modern microcontroller. It's not the one-shot solution you've suggested but it will allow me to write new rules for old games and interface a computer for sounds. Something like this could sell for well under $100. I'm hoping that eventually a community will develop around it to create new rules for existing games and even create new games. I'm about a year away from releasing anything unfortunately. I do have some boards being tested though :)

Interfacing with a computer is another can of worms. Computers don't like to operate at precise timings and there are processes that can come along and hog the resources you need when you want them (example: you hit a switch and the sound comes out 2 seconds later). That's why you need something like a microcontroller on the MPU. The computer then basically becomes a fancy sound board. Even in this scenario the computer can bite you in the ass. I'm experimenting with some real time operating systems right now. As "real time" as you can get on PC hardware anyway.
 
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This is the right idea, but again the software is the key. I would be looking for a turnkey package so I would only have to write pseudo-code or better yet, drag, drop, click.

Bill

Cool! Thanks for posting. I wasn't aware of that.

Looks like a great choice for homebrew on WPC or Stern machines. Still a pretty expensive platform but no one said it would be cheap ;)
 
This is the right idea, but again the software is the key. I would be looking for a turnkey package so I would only have to write pseudo-code or better yet, drag, drop, click.
Bill

Hi all. I happened across this thread while searching for P-ROC references, which I do every now and then. Not intending to steal the thread or take attention away from Circuit Girl's amazing work. Just wanted to quickly respond to Mr. Bill's desire for a turnkey solution. Achieving a full turnkey solution would be amazing, and while not there yet, the pyprocgame software that has been developed to work with the P-ROC is a great start. It is fully open source and includes both simple and complex example games. It wouldn't be hard for somebody to start with an example game and add their own custom functionality. Drop by the forums at www.pinballcontrollers.com if you want to discuss it more.

Thanks.
- Gerry
 
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