A tiny Pinball Fantasies table - Intro

Welcome

• Hardware stuff
  • CP/M on an AVR
  • Connecting an LCD to a non-video-capable Linux device
  • AVR-based FM-transmitter
  • En Garde, a classifying capacitive touch sensor
  • GameBoy Advance as a MIDI synthesizer
  • Quizshow buttons on the cheap
  • Wall-lighting with RGB-leds
  • Extreme Vectrex multicart
  • Dekatron as Internet speed indicator
  • Wav-playing doorbell
  • FT2232H NAND flash reader
  • Using a tiny HC32L110 ARM chip
  • Macintosh SE/arm
  • USB Minecraft portal
  • A tiny Pinball Fantasies table
  • Scanner CCD touchscreen conversion
  • Tiny PDP11
  • Linux-based clock radio
  • Raspberry Pi micro arcade machine
  • Virtual Wii Sensor-bar
  • Black Widow in an FPGA
  • A Christmas tree bauble that plays Doom
  • Wifi E-ink display
  • Miniature Macintosh Plus
  • E-ink digit clock
  • Standalone JTAG programmer
  • A WiFi color Eink picture frame
  • WS2812 LEDs controlled by an iMX233
  • Duplicating the SRI magnet micro-robots
  • Adding SATA and PCIE to a HP T5325 thin client
  • Thermochromic paint clock
  • 3d Jello printer
  • Solari ledboard controller
  • Restoring a VFD
  • Real HID for Xbox-controller
  • Electronic Stamp
  • Stealth DDR-mat
  • Mechanical webpage hitcounter
  • Run an uC from an AA-battery
  • Temperature led for Weller WTCPs
  • Automatic baudrate converter
  • NoveMini
  • Toilet terror alert
  • 96x48 LED-board
  • Controllable bristlebot
  • Knock to open
  • Electronic minimalism
  • RGB ledlamp
  • Online whiteboard
  • Clock using a fan and a LED
  • Electronic beer tallier
  • Rocket acceleration logger
  • Simple VFD-controller
  • CM: Yamaha Renewed
• Hacks
• Console hacking
• Security
• Software
• Nabaztag
• About Spritesmods

Intro

I'll show the result first:

For the background story: I've always had a fascination with pinball machines. Not that there were many around; in my neck of the woods, arcade machines already were hard to find, let alone proper pinball machines. However, we had a computer, and the Macintosh version of Pinball Construction Set was really cool to play with. Later, when we also had a PC around, Epic Pinball and to a lesser degree Silverball were played a lot: like a lot of DOS pinball simulators around that time, they had great music, graphics and gameplay.

Obviously, the few times I could play an actual pinball machine I was mesmerized by the plethora of lights, coils and other electronics making the silver ball do what it does best; the mechanics do add an extra dimension to the game, and simulation can't ever touch the intricacies of an actual steel ball rolling around on a real playfield. As I liked it so much, I actually acquired an actual Dr. Who table. Unfortunately, as it's quite hard and costly to take a pinball machine with you when you move continents, I had to leave it in Europe when I moved to Asia.

Fast forward a bit, and I find myself browsing the Historical Source Github repo; a repository with source codes to a bunch of historical games in it. It's always fun to leaf through the sources of games you might have played in the past, if only to learn a bunch of great new expletives. Browsing through the repos, I find a name I recognize: 'pinballfantasies'. Pinball Fantasies was one of those great pinball simulators of the '90s, and a competitor to Epic Pinball, developed on the Amiga by Digital Illusions (a game company which still is around, although they're better known by the initials DICE today.) After the Amiga release, it was ported to PC and a slew of other platforms. The Github repo actually contained the DOS x86 version, coded by Frontier Designs, which was the commercial disguise of the Swedish demogroup TSP or The Space Pigs.

Well, here I am. I am kinda missing my actual pinball machine, I have a history of making working, smaller versions of the things I like, so why not build a tiny pinball machine?

 1 Next »