Arcade Collecting > Pinball
A DIY Pinball Machine
johnmartin:
This whole endeavor, while I would like a nice working machine in the end, is more about taking something I did not think I could do and doing it. I do have a guy at work that may be able to help with the coding to make it all work. He designs circuits for a living.
I agree that I would love to have a nice NEW machine though but the cost is prohibitive at this point. I have a son starting college and another going into HS. Maybe in the next year I can save up. I did go by a local distributor yesterday and they had several new Sterns in there. I was particularly fond of the WPT and the Spiderman.
John
Mauzy:
I think it would be neat. Near everybody here has a scratch built MAME machine, but I doubt there are many (If any) that have a custom pinball machine. I cant really help with programming or hardware, but I look forward to watching this project if it takes off!
johnmartin:
I can guarantee it will take off, just whether or not it has enough airspeed to stay in the air is the big question ;D
I gave this some thought last night though. I am going to interface the machine with the PC via an I-Pac from Ultimarc. It will allow me to register keystrokes (or combinations thereof) to the PC without using a keyboard hack. Now how I translate the keystokes into point values and output them to a screen is the question.
I want to be able to have basic scoring in the early game, and using either a point value or timed series of targets activate 2x or higher scoring for a timed period, after which basic scoring is back in effect. Free games will work as they used to based on score or matching last two #s. I'd like the software to vary the free game score between a range of values so you never know what you need to get one. Obviously it will log high scores and display them. Still a lot to think about though
I plan on getting the playfield design started tonight so we'll see how that goes. I am using Autocad for the design and Adobe Illustrator for the artwork. I am looking at a theme that is based on the US Air Force since I was in it for 20+ years. I will set up different scoring scenarios tied to things the USAF has done in the past 25 years. Should be cool.
John
Chris:
Interfacing with the PC is really the least of your problems.
I highly suggest mocking things up in Visual Pinball first to get an idea of game flow.
johnmartin:
Chris,
Don't worry, I am. I just registered at VPForums this morning. I am going to get VP and mock up in that while at the same time designing the playfield in Autocad. it will allow me to make sure the Autocad file and the VP file remain the same throughout the design process.
I did just see something on VPF that I thought was really cool. The dude made a VP cabinet with a 42" monitor as the playfield and a 15" on the backglass. It was freaking awesome. Got me wondering on whether or not VP can accept an input from a real bumper and translate that into the same bumper in the VP table. I can however see an issue in that a ball could drain on the VP table but not in real life. I guess that is an issue I will have to tackle when I get to it. VP is going to be a big plus for me in the design phase.
John
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version