How farfetched is this? [regarding BYO pinball machine]

[arcadepcnut]

Am I crazy or would this work. I have yet to see a project doing this and may take it on after my sitdown driving cabinet.

the project im referring to is a pinmame cabinet. Imagine a cocktail style cabinet. Now imagine it with much larger/taller legs so that a person could stand at it. Now imagine there being a 27 inch tv or arcade monitor in there looking up at you with the cabinet framing being a little bigger than the tv. The monitor is mounted vertically. Mount one arcade button on the front right....or better yet a pull spring mechanism like a real pinball machine....to launch the ball. Two buttons...one on each side for the paddles. maybe one or two additional buttons for selecting games/inserting coins.....nother to eloborate or confusing.

This raises some questions.

Will the tv function properly looking straight up at you?
Would this be fun? Would you play on it?
How close could it be to a real pinball machine?

I've got alot of friends that like pinball. Im wondering if this would be THE solution to the desire for multiple tables without sacrifing alot. I know you can never beat real tables and being able to "bump" them etc. But alot of people like the pinmame. So a pinmame cabinet vs playing pinball on a computer with a keyboard should be at least a step up..if not a step or two below having a real pinball machine.

What do you think?

[Lilwolf]

Sure its fine.

troubles....

You have to have a video card that can rotate hardware wise... in the driver itself (nvidia only I believe)

And then you need to setup each table by hand.  since the layouts will be wrong and look weird..  

But it should be not only doable, but fun.

Then a control panel that can move would be sweet.  I had an idea for two buttons on each side... but the whole area that would move.  Then these would register the tilts.

I want to add this to my next cabinet (cocktail) but I haven't come up with a good solution for the controls yet...

[Mike]

Why couldn't you make a true BYO pinball machine. With a 48 input ipac it should be do able. If you picked up like an old pinball board at auction(which i've seen for under $100). Then wire all the bumpers and such into the ipac so switch presses are registered everytime you hit them. Then write a program that will read key input and assign a point value to certain keys then show that total on a monitor. I think it could be done.

[madk]

Sounds like an ambitious idea!  I'd say go for it.  We will never know until someone tries.

One ?...Does pinmame work with vertical monitors?  I mean does it have an option to resize the screen or would it just be stretched out?

[Mike]

Actually I may let you know fairly soon. I just scored 2 free pinball machines. If I can't get them working. That will be thier fate.

[madk]

Wow 2 free machines...that would make me a happy man.

[Ledbetter]

 You might want to rethink using a tv or a high dot pitch arcade monitor. With pinMame you want the best monitor resolution you can get and no scanlines.

[Lilwolf]

True on the high res!  

I'm doing 640x480 and 8x anti - alias.  Not bad.  But not as good as 1200x1024!

[Molloy]

I think the wonderful tactile feel of pinball is lost through emulation.

If could be just as cheap to hunt down a 2nd hand Twilight Zone (restoring and maintaning them is a big enough project for the most ambitious of handymen). The modern classics are pretty common and fantastically designed. There's so much depth in some of the new ones you could never get tired of playing them.

[arcadepcnut]

You might want to rethink using a tv or a high dot pitch arcade monitor. With pinMame you want the best monitor resolution you can get and no scanlines.

yeah your right. Scatch this idea cause even a 19" monitor is to small to do this. A 27" tv was pushing it.